#I think she wanted to move the infantilism she wanted to write about away from being a child. because she isn’t one

[hannieehaee]

HELLFIRE

18+ / mdi

summary: whenever he was at a crossroads, seokmin always knew he could turn to god. however, with the recent thoughts you've been putting in his head, he's not sure god will show him the answer this time around.

content: virgin!seokmin, catholic!seokmin, religious repression, old fashioned and exaggerated catholic beliefs, very brief mention of homophobia, very conservative beliefs, a lowkey cult-ish view of catolicism oops, seokmin is veryyy socially awkward and not used to socialization outside of religion, his parents are super overbearing, lots of family tensions, seokmin has an estranged brother (jeonghan), conflicting emotions about god, sexual repression, reader is an atheist, afab reader, smut, dry humping, oral (m and f receiving), handjob, penetrative sex, loss of virginity, etc.

wc: 13k

a/n: she's here!! i didnt write an outline for this and i kinda only focused on seokmin's pov for this which makes reader kinda look like she's trying to corrupt him for no reason lol but i promise its still fluffy and cute <3

masterlist | kofi/patreon

support me through a one time tip<3

Normalcy for Seokmin had always equated to the church. It was what he'd known since childhood and what he grew up surrounded by up until his current age.

His upbringing had been good by all accounts. Although he had an estranged brother who he didn't get to see too often, he had a father and a mother who cherished him like no one else. His financial means were also to be envied, as he was raised in a wealthy part of town and had always been surrounded by an upper class community – a heavily religious community.

This community was one that Seokmin always respected and cherished. Being brought up going from one private catholic school onto the next as he aged, Seokmin never knew anything other than the constant supervision of nuns and religious figures who would constantly guide him in the right direction (at least according to the bible). While others may think this lifestyle to be restricting, Seokmin knew it to be the proper path for a young man to follow. He never complained about the bi-weekly mass he had to attend with his parents, nor about the separation by gender that was mandated by his school. Seokmin knew all his prayers by heart and was sure of what his role in society must be. In short, Seokmin knew and did all things proper and by the letter.

As a young man (at the ripe age of 20), Seokmin finally found himself in a society that was not of catholic background. After transferring from a two year college in town (one centered around catholic studies, of course), Seokmin was now readying himself to move away from home in order to finalize his education in a fully co-ed institution for the following two years.

It wasn't like Seokmin had never interacted with people outside of the church (or with women in general). He was simply a bit on the shier side when it came to non-religious endeavors and usually only stuck by his religious community, which often abided by old-fashioned rules found in the bible. For instance, Seokmin had been so dedicated to the church that he would usually spend his free time volunteering at the church's food drive or performing with his church group at various family-friendly events around town. This meant that Seokmin's inner circle always consisted of people who had an almost identical ideology as that of his own.

Seokmin felt bad at admitting this (which was why he never vocalized these thoughts), but he could sometimes get a bit tired of the consistency of his life. It was a constant repetition of events surrounded by the same exact people time and time again. He never had any opportunity to be challenged or observe outside opinions, specially not with the constant supervision his community gave youth like him (something about wanting him to follow the right path unlike his older brother). Seokmin knew and trusted his beliefs, so he felt a bit infantilized whenever his own family would become overbearing while ensuring Seokmin didn't go off the rails like his brother had – his brother, who was still a quite a sore subject for him.

And now, Seokmin felt excitement. Knowing he would finally be able to explore the outside world and experience the last couple of years of his college life not under the watchful eye of his church. However, as a strong believer himself, Seokmin had still ensured he would have time to attend mass every week and maybe join a religious club on campus. Although he sometimes felt scrutinized by his family and community, Seokmin had never once faked his belief in God. I mean, it was all he had known thus far and all he felt he could really count on no matter what.

When the day to move into his dorms finally arrived, Seokmin had a difficult time hiding his excitement. His community had thrown him a goodbye party, allowing him to be the main focus of the night as one by one, every adult figure in his life bid their farewells accompanied by thinly veiled warnings to not fall into the bad habits sometimes found in non-religious communities. Seokmin was pure-minded at heart, so he took these warnings with a warm and heartfelt gratitude, knowing that despite his desire to expand his horizons, it was important he kept his beliefs safe.

Thanks to his parents, Seokmin had the fortune of being able to rent a room away from the dorms. His parents had insisted, claiming that dorm life could get quite rowdy and that a roommate who had not been pre-approved by them may give him a bad influence and lead him towards an unholy path. Seokmin, already slightly nervous about heading into the world on his own, agreed in order to give himself a safe space of solitude in case he needed it.

The apartment was pretty close to the dorms themselves, allowing Seokmin a calm commute in his bike every day for his classes. Thus far, he had been in the city for a week, still having a few days before school actually began. He had attended his church club already, meeting all the other members and scouting out who he may be able to befriend in the near future. Everyone seemed pretty much like the preppy rich kids he had grown up with all throughout his years of catholic school. There was a bit more of variety among the people in the club than back home, with the club allowing for co-ed inclusion of members (something which was quite common in church groups, though Seokmin had grown too accustomed by his non co-ed upbringing). They also seemed to come from different backgrounds, but ultimately Seokmin could tell that just like him, they were very likely brought up in a very coddled and comfortable way. This was how your presence in the club first stood out to him.

While everyone seemed very put together and happy to be there, you caught Seokmin's attention right away. Your visible discomfort was the first thing Seokmin noticed. Though you looked as nice and welcoming as anyone else, Seokmin could see that you seemed like a closed book. Your eyes did not light up the same as the rest of the members, nor did you actively participate in the icebreaker activities set up by the club. Seokmin also caught onto the fact that the other members already knew each other (likely from previous years at the college), while they treated you like a black sheep. And of course, Seokmin couldn't help but notice your appearance, which made it difficult for him to look away from you.

Of course, Seokmin had had female friends in the past. It's not like his church separated the pews by gender or anything like that. Seokmin was just slightly reserved. With his constant attendance at institutions that insisted upon gender separation at all times and very overbearing parents, Seokmin never really had the chance to form any type of relationship with any girl throughout his youth. He had teamed up with other female volunteers while working at charities and had even been in charge of showing new girls in the community around the church's premises. However, these were very isolated instances.

As of the past twenty years, Seokmin was yet to ever really think about women liberally. He was always taught that time for those things would come eventually, whatever that meant. It was something that had been repeated to him by both his parents, neighbors, the reverend, and even at some point by his brother (though his brother had said it in a sarcastic tone, which confused Seokmin even further).

And now here he was, sitting quietly across the room from you as he watched you in silence, barely paying attention to whichever new activity the group leaders were discussing for the first charity event they'd hold during the upcoming semester.

You were pretty. Seokmin could tell that much. His mind did not process anything other than your features for almost the entirety of the meeting, being far too occupied by analyzing every inch of your person as he unknowingly held his breath.

His eyes on you did not seem to catch your attention at any point, but they did catch the attention of a fellow member of the group who was sitting near him.

"You know her?", asked the nameless member.

"Oh, uh, what? No, I was just– "

"She's not really a member here, you know. Just kind of an honorary one, I guess."

"What do you mean?", he finally took his eyes off you due to his sudden interest in the conversation.

"Her parents pay for her tuition as long as she can prove she's an active member of the local catholic community. Apparently she just pretends for them, but her parents still somehow bought her way into the club", the guy lowered his voice to a whisper, "I heard she's an atheist, man. We just have to kinda ignore she's there."

Though Seokmin knew that his parents' immediate reaction to such gossip would be shock at the blatant disrespect you were showing towards your parents who clearly just wanted you to not stray away from the path of God, Seokmin was more annoyed at the guy who found it so easy to talk about you behind your back completely unprompted.

While Seokmin couldn't understand why someone would claim themselves atheist when it was so clear to him how life had been created, he still saw it wrong to judge someone for their beliefs. It was oftentimes that churchgoers back home would exhibit malicious intentions such as what he'd just witnessed from his fellow group member. You were clearly not bothering anyone and even looked pretty aware of the alienation the members were putting you through, so Seokmin couldn't help but feel sad for you.

He shyly shrugged off the guy who had made him privy to your information and went back to staring at you as you sat back and seemingly waited for the bi-weekly meeting to end.

Despite catching his curiosity that day, Seokmin did not end up having any contact with you, being way too shy to even hold eye contact with you as the meeting ended.

Days passed and Seokmin finally started school. He had to admit, he felt completely out of his league. Thanks to his parents, he was never properly socialized as a child. While most members of the church would have active social lives outside of their ministry (even going to public schools and participating in non-catholic leisure activities), Seokmin had always been confined into a box that only allowed him to interact with other heavily religious people. This was never a problem to Seokmin, who was happy to dedicate his life to the lord. Except now it was proving troublesome.

Since professors had a tendency to get liberal during discussions at times, he felt scandalized by many of the subjects spoken about during class. He also felt awkward interacting with other people his age, who would share very different beliefs from his own. Seokmin had even attempted to dabble into social media at some point now that he was not under his parent's' watchful eye, but even that had him feeling unseemly.

Overall, Seokmin felt embarrassed at how little life experience he had due to having dedicated his entire life thus far to serving both God and his parents. He was beginning to understand why his brother Jeonghan had left home as soon as he turned of age. He had always judged him for it, but his judgment was beginning to fade away.

Now that he no longer had his parents nor community around (much less his brother), the only comfort he could turn to was that of his nightly prayers.

His struggles continued for the following weeks, with Seokmin becoming a bit of an outcast in most social situations. He was quite outgoing in the church, but this was a completely different environment in which he felt ridiculous every time he tried to interact with people who had had far more social advantages and freedom than he did growing up.

Keeping a low profile had been easy to achieve for Seokmin. He decided after a few very awkward interactions that he would simply become an outcast and stick to himself, only ever interacting with his church club the few times a week they'd meet (though unfortunately never having the courage to interact with you). This seemed to work up until the second week of school, in which Seokmin's women's studies teacher informed the class they'd be doing a partner project for the entirety of the semester.

Seokmin had taken the class against his parents' wishes, feeding them with a white lie that it was part of the necessary curriculum in order to graduate. He argued to himself that this was a subject he would never be exposed to in his community, knowing his community to be slightly ... old-fashioned. This part of his life always made him embarrassed, – not really sharing many of the beliefs his community had tried to drill into him – so he wanted to atone for his lack of knowledge now that he was in a completely independent environment.

Teaming up with someone back home was always easy, as he was quite popular both in church and at school. Here, however, he had already given himself the reputation of awkward and overly dedicated to God – he had stated his devotion to God during the individual introductions they'd done on week 1, leading to low chuckles and uncomfortable looks from his classmates – which was something that the general population did not seem to like. He was avoided by his fellow women's studies classmates since then.

Sure, Seokmin did share a few old-fashioned catholic beliefs such as the necessity devotion to God and the importance of one's purity being kept until marriage, but he did not agree with any other bigoted beliefs shared by many catholic communities. He had genuinely taken this class with the hope to learn and expand his horizons, but most people in it had already decided that he must be a close-minded weirdo.

By some struck of luck, as Seokmin sat back, completely defeated while he watched other people stand up and enthusiastically find a partner, he suddenly heard someone clear their throat to call his attention.

It was you.

He hadn't realized you were taking this class too due to the high mass of students (about 100, give or take). And now he found himself looking up at you from his seat as you gave him what seemed to him like a confident grin.

"Hi, Seokmin," you sat next to him without so much as asking.

Your sitting position was troublesome for Seokmin, as he noticed the way in which your short skirt rid up as you crossed your legs and leaned towards him. You were wearing more revealing clothing today than any other time in which he'd seen you at the bi-weekly meetings. Your attire wasn't provocative by any means, it was just that you were always more covered up at the meetings. Seokmin assumed it might've been due to some scrutiny you may have faced by the members. This made him frown internally.

"Oh ... hi. Y-you know my name?", he sat up from his slouched position and faced his body towards yours, though he was too shy to meet your eyes for too long.

"Of course I do, Seokmin. We're in a church group together, remember?"

You carried a very confident and laid back air to you despite having only spoken to him for the first time just now. You also seemed much livelier than back at the confined room where his fellow church group members gathered. This was likely due to the lack of scrutiny you usually received completely unwarranted while at his church group's meetings.

"Ah, yeah, just, uh, didn't realize you noticed me."

"C'mon, Seokmin. You're the only person in there who doesn't look at me like I killed their dog. Of course I'd notice you."

He wasn't sure how to respond, but that at least answered the question as to whether or not you were aware of the gossip a few of the other members had let him in on.

"I'm sure that's not true ... I– "

"It's fine, really. Anyways, I just wanted to ask you if you'd like to partner up?", you suggested, completely unfazed by the mention of your judgmental group mates.

"O-oh. You want to? I mean, yeah! Of course," he couldn't help but feel relieved at the prospect of not having to meet with the professor after class to let her know he'd need her assistance finding a partner.

"Great. Here, put your number in my phone and I'll let you know when I can stop by your place so we can brainstorm," you handed him your phone as if nothing; as if you weren't suggesting going over alone to his apartment unsupervised.

He hesitated but gave you his number, flinching a bit when your hands accidentally touched.

"Thanks. I was thinking this Friday. Is that okay with you?"

"Oh, y-yeah. Sure," he mustered a toothy smile for you.

You giggled under your breath, "Okay, Seokmin. Looking forward to seeing you," there was a permanent smile in your eyes as you spoke to him, making him a bit giddy.

He bid his goodbyes back and finally let out a puff of air when you parted ways.

The rest of the class period was completely wasted to Seokmin. His mind was too giddy and preoccupied with thoughts of seeing you again, this time in a more intimate setting. The thought made him anxious, though he also felt some weird tingling he wasn't fully sure how to describe.

Did this mean you had noticed him too? Had he stood out to you in this huge hall? The thought made him shudder before regaining control of himself and starting to anxiously doodle on his notebook.

He snuck a glance over at the direction in which you left, now localizing your seat. You were talking to a few friends, which confused Seokmin greatly. This meant that you already had friends in this class, so why would you go out of your way to team up with him? Was his curiosity about you maybe mutual? This question would surely be all Seokmin thought about for the next two days until the two of you finally met up to discuss your project.

Seokmin saw you again the following day at second bi-weekly meeting of the week.

Once more, you sat back and said nothing, only bothering to sign your name on the attendance board at the start of the meeting and taking your usual seat away from everyone else.

Your attire was different from what you had been wearing in your women's studies class just a few hours ago. You had donned a long skirt and a long sleeve too instead of the tiny shorts he had seen you wearing previously. This change in attire made no difference to Seokmin, however, since he already knew what your bare legs looked like and could not prevent himself in picturing them as he stared.

Your presence had yet again proved to be incredibly distracting to Seokmin, who had already been thinking about you ever since you had suggested to meet at his place.

There was no one he could ask for advice about what to wear or what to do. His friends back home would frown at the thought of Seokmin even considering an unchaperoned gathering with a girl – especially an self-declared atheist who was simply pretending to be catholic for her parents.

His parents were also not a good option. Seokmin could just picture the gasp in surprise at the revelation that his women's studies class (one which his parents had called 'useless' and 'made up') had enticed him into bringing a girl home while no one else was around. He cringed at the mere thought of them attempting to intercept the situation by barging in and lecturing both you and him on proper relations between man and woman.

Seokmin knew he was overthinking all of this, but he had an internal conflict. On one side, he knew that this was just a regular meeting between classmates to discuss a project, but this was his first time alone with a girl (one he had a bit of a crush on, at that!) On the other side, Seokmin couldn't help but feel like he was breaking his parents' trust. They had explicitly forbid him from ever engaging in any type of relationship with any girl unless she was pre-approved by them (something which they'd already tried and failed at doing with Jeonghan). And on a secret third side of things, Seokmin felt like now that he was alone and untrained on what life was like in the real world, it'd be easy for him to fall susceptible to desire and betray God's word. He hadn't had any unbecoming feelings thus far, but his crush on you was enough for this fear to be instilled in him.

For now, Seokmin had the rest of his school day to worry about, so he pushed these thoughts aside and tried to draw his eyes away from your figure as he attempted to pay attention to whichever biblical lesson the group's assigned leader read from.

This was yet another biblical lesson Seokmin had heard time and time again. Despite his strong devotion to God, Seokmin always felt a little belittled at the constant repetition of teachings he had been hearing since childhood. Were his personal beliefs and devotion to God not enough? Why did he need other people to give him their own ideas of religion when he himself was an expert at all of God's teachings by now?

He related to your current situation in this aspect. Even if he felt comfortable in his religious stance, he had to join this club in order to prove to his parents that he was an active participant in the local religious community. He had to constantly deal with his parents' paranoia that he may stray away from God in the way his brother had. His constant assurance that his relationship with God was too strong for breaking was not enough for them; they simply couldn't help showing up in every corner of his life even as far away as he currently was.

Seokmin sighed at these thoughts and drew them away as much as he could. His mind was already preoccupied with thoughts of you coming over tomorrow evening.

That night he went home and prayed his anxieties away, turning to the only being he could possibly trust with his grievances.

"Hi", you smiled brightly at Seokmin, hands holding onto the handles of your backpack as you stood in front of his open apartment door.

"H-hey."

He stepped aside to let you in, wincing internally as he noticed the short length of the white dress you were wearing. He could tell by now that your personal style was more revealing than what you chose to wear at religious gatherings. He couldn't blame you, but he wished you'd cover up more for his poor sanity.

"Do you wanna do it here or did you wanna do it in your bedroom?", you broke him out of his train of thought.

"H-huh ? D-do what? Oh, oh! Yeah. I mean, here is fine. Unless you want to do it in my bedroom? I mean, do the work in my bed– yeah!"

He physically winced at his stupid thoughts; the dumb paranoia that this was more than a platonic study date had gotten to him despite having prayed to calm his nerves just minutes before your arrival.

Luckily for him, all you did was giggle under your breath and take a seat on his couch before taking off your backpack and settling your stuff on his table.

Dumbly, he stood there just watching you, catching sight of your dress riding up yet again in the same way it had two days ago in class.

You patted the space on the couch next to you, telling him to come sit, that you 'didn't bite.' The best response he could muster to that was an awkward chuckle and a follow-up on your instruction.

He made sure to leave ample space between the two of you, even making sure to avoid eye contact as he also pulled out a few notes of his own.

Without saying anything, you scoot closer to him, even turning to face him further, though still facing forward for the most part. Your knees were now bumping into his and your scent was near enough to invade his senses.

"Is this okay? Am I too close?", you asked when you noticed him stiffen.

"N-no. I'm sorry. I ... I'm being dumb. You're fine."

"Then how come you won't look this way?", you leaned even further towards him, making sure his eyes couldn't miss yours from his position.

He braved it and turned to face you, though his eyes were trained on your chin rather than your eyes. He now realized there was less distance between you than he thought.

"I'm sorry, I ..."

You interrupted him but grabbing his chin and gesturing him to look into your eyes.

"Do I make you nervous, Seokmin? You can look at me. You know that, right? It's not a sin to look into a girl's eyes", though your words sounded like mockery, your tone was as soft as your eyes.

He gulped and finally allowed himself to look at you. You were far too close now. Things had progressed too quickly, and in ways that Seokmin had thought were ridiculous to assume when he'd been going over the possibilities of your visit today. Yet here he was, eyes nervously staring into yours, trying their hardest to not lower to your lips or cleavage.

"You're exactly as I thought you would be," you started, hand moving from his chin to softly run your thumb on his cheek, "You're not like them. You're sweet ... But you're scared, aren't you?"

He didn't know where this was going, but your tone was soft and your words sweet so he nodded silently.

"It's okay to want things, Seokmin. Doesn't make you a bad person. You wanna please Him, though, don't you? Don't wanna disappoint Him?"

You were seeing right through him. It made him feel both understood but also like he was just as superficial as he thought the judgmental members of your church group to be.

"I just ..."

"It's okay, Seokmin. He'd want you to be happy. I ... I know it's meaningless hearing it from me, but He wouldn't want you to face this turmoil. You can give in. It's okay, I promise", your last words were said in the form of a whisper against his lips.

You were so close he could breathe you in, but his lips were unfortunately still not touching your own. This frustrated Seokmin, though it also relieved him. He felt way too heated to even engage in something as innocent as a kiss.

He knew that his first kiss would only lead to more. He had been so pent up all this years, shaming any desire away from his mind at every opportunity. He had never even pleasured himself, knowing it was frowned upon by God – at least that's the thought that was hammered into him since way too young an age.

He remembered the various conversations in which any thought of a relationship were verbally beaten out of him. He remembered the reaction of his parents when he had let it slip in kindergarten (his last year in a non-catholic institution) that he had a crush on the girl who'd been assigned as his new desk mate. He recalled the way his mom talked down on the four-year old girl, claiming her parents were not catholic and that she would be a bad influence on him. He remembered when his first phone was confiscated from him at fifteen when his father caught him watching the latest Twice music video at the time, claiming such things would lead him to impure thoughts. He remembered the last day he saw his brother two years ago right after a screaming match with his parents who had insulted and demeaned Jeonghan's partner, claiming he would burn in hell for his decisions against the lord's word.

With all these thoughts plaguing his mind, Seokmin let himself become numb to any spiritual consequences that would come from letting himself go. He found himself internally damning anything that wasn't your lips or the feeling of your hand on his cheek and sighed against you when you finally closed the gap.

Seokmin couldn't help himself in whining into your mouth when he felt your tongue tease his mouth open and begin intertwining with his own.

His arms were stiff against his sides and his lips far too shy and sloppy. It worried him that maybe he was not pleasing you in the way you did him, specially when you pulled away and spoke to him.

Your eyes were still on his lips and the distance between you remained small as you spoke up, "Follow my lead, okay Minnie? Let me show you .."

You kissed him again, this time slower and more sensual. It made his eyes roll back.

He took the hint and began moving his tongue in the same way yours did. He also shyly ran his hands up and down your back upon your wordless insistence that his arms wrap around your form. Following your instructions felt natural, though what you did next caught him completely off guard.

Your hands had snuck away from his cheek, with one now pulling at his hair (and making his eyes roll even further back in the process) and your other hand sneaking into his pants, touching him softly through his boxers.

He jumped back and accidentally disconnected your lips, gasping at the sudden intrusion.

"I ... I cant, I don't ..."

"It's okay if you don't want to, Minnie. I should've asked," you drew back a little, making Seokmin jump once again, but this time to make sure you stayed close.

"It's not that, I just ... I don't– "

"It's okay to want me. It's okay if you want this. We can stop if you want to, but ... you can want me ... You won't get in trouble, I promise."

Your lips were still close enough for him to reach, making him hesitantly grace them with his own. Thankfully you took the hint, giving him a wanton kiss that had him feeling dizzy.

He thoughtlessly kissed you back, whining any time you did something he particularly liked. You didn't attempt touching under his pants again, now simply sticking to running your hands up and down his clothed chest while his shyly caressed your back.

The kiss got heated pretty quickly, making him extremely light headed. He didn't know where this was going nor how he would feel afterwards, but he couldn't find it in himself to care.

His thoughts were interrupted when your lips left his own and trailed from his cheek to his ear, licking and nibbling at his lobe before whispering in it.

"Is this okay?"

"Y– yes. Please ..."

Your kisses against his neck had him throwing his head back. If he was mindless before, he was fully without a care now. Even if his community ever found out what he was up to during his first month away from home, he didn't care in this moment. His guilt may come later, but for now all he could do was enjoy your kiss.

"Can I play with you, Minnie?", you pulled away and gave him a sweet peck before asking.

"You ... It's wrong, I– He'll ..."

"He won't know, Minnie. It's okay. It'll feel so good."

You hesitantly snuck your hand under his trousers once more, slowly enough to allow him to deny you should he wish to. His sinful desire for you prevented him from moving, so you continued until your hand was wrapped around him.

"A– ah ... Y– you ... I've never ..." he sighed.

"Never touched yourself like this before?"

"'s not allowed, I ... I shouldn't ..."

"It's okay. I'm just taking care of you. Nothing wrong with taking care of your needs, right Minnie?"

He felt mocked by how ridiculous it sounded coming out of your mouth. But he still felt guilt. Guilt at every moan that left his mouth as you slowly rubbed up and down his length. Guilt at the way he wanted your lips back on his. Guilt at how difficult it was for him to drag his gaze away from your soft mounds peaking from your cleavage.

One thing was betraying everything his parents had always warned him about, but betraying God's word made him feel like he'd burn up until the day he faced his punishment.

Except he couldn't bring you to stop. He couldn't prevent himself in mindlessly nodding at you and asking you to please not stop.

Suddenly you grabbed his arm, directing it towards your chest. You must've noticed his heavy eyes eyeing your cleavage and realized what thoughts had been going through his perverted mind.

"Wanna touch them? It's okay, just ... just squeeze, yeah? That's it, fuck ... You're so pretty, Minnie," you sighed oh so prettily as soon as he followed your direction and experimentally squeezed at your clothed breasts.

He moaned and moaned at both your touch on him and his on yours. But he began to panic when he felt himself heating up more and more, feeling like he would soon reach a crescendo that he would never be able to fall back from.

"It's okay, Minnie. Let go. Let go for me, pretty. I'll take care of you," you must've sensed his panic and shut him up with your tongue in his mouth, swallowing his whines of pleasure as his end took over him.

He had never felt such pleasure before. Every touch you gave him was better than the last, making him wonder what other sinful acts with you would end up feeling like. He shuddered at the thought and went back to the blissful state his high was giving him.

You kept whispering soft praises to him, telling him that it was okay and that he could let go. He hadn't realized that he was crying until one of your hands softly wiped the tears from his cheeks and kissed softly at them. He felt more loved by your care than he ever had before. The seed of doubt was then planted into his head; why would such a loving an intimate act ever be seen as anything but holy?

He began to feel corrupted, but also conflicted on his thoughts on the matter. One thing he knew for sure, however; this would not be enough – he would seek you again and again.

After even more caring words from you, the two of you parted ways with no work done. You kissed him goodbye and told him you'd see him again soon. He responded shyly but you accepted it with yet another kiss and finally left his apartment.

That night Seokmin attempted to pray his conflicting thoughts away once more, but even then, Seokmin left mention of you out of his prayers, fearing that acknowledging your sudden and rapid effect on him would be the downfall of his purity and of the already strained relationship with his parents.

The following Monday, Seokmin saw you again at the first of the two bi-weekly meetings of your church group. As per usual, you sat alone on a corner while the rest of the club engaged in conversation with one another.

Seokmin chose to sit back once again, deciding to watch you from afar rather than participate in the conversation like he usually did, except this time you began to occasionally look back at him with a sweet smile. Your eye contact would cause him to look down with a blush, but after enough instances of catching your eye, he decided to shyly smile back at you. This proved to be fruitful, as you suddenly stood up and quietly walked your way over to him. Due to the conversation being led by the other group members, your new seat next to Seokmin went unnoticed, causing Seokmin's nerves to not flare up too much.

It was wordless but soft, the way in which you shared a seat with him and offered him yet another sweet smile. He felt giddy at having your attention in such a way. He was aware that he barely knew you, but having you become part of his life (in any way you may have wanted) made him feel a sense of pride he had never felt before.

The two of you spent the rest of the meeting giving each other shy smiles and playing tick tack toe on his notebook. When it was time to part ways, you finally spoke up and told Seokmin you needed to head back first, as your next class was far away. Seokmin wanted to offer to walk you, but was interrupted by another member of the group who called his attention – the same guy who had previously warned him about you. Due to the standoffish manner in which other group members behaved around you, you left awkwardly while Seokmin frowned and stayed back.

Slightly frustrated at not being able to bid you a proper goodbye (or walk with you as he had wished to offer), Seokmin's demeanor to his group mate was less polite than usual.

"What, are you two friends?", asked the member in a somewhat accusatory tone.

"I ... Yeah, maybe. Why?"

"I wouldn't advise that, Seokmin. She's a bad influence. I mean, you haven't been participating as much as when you first got here. It starts when you least expect it. Just don't want you to fall down a bad path."

"What bad path?"

"She was part of our faith at some point. Until she got corrupted, and now she just infiltrates our spaces like a nuance. She'll corrupt you in the same way if you're not careful. Take the advice, brother. Just don't get too close," and with that, he gave Seokmin a condescending nod and made his way out.

Since leaving home, Seokmin had forgotten how many churchgoers would cross boundaries without much care. How they would use the excuse of being 'sons and daughters' of God to be judgmental.

He saw no issue with your behavior. Maybe you had kissed Seokmin and maybe you had ... done other stuff to him. But you weren't a bad person for that. It wasn't like Seokmin stopped you (or even wanted to stop you). He wasn't sure why he felt so defensive over his groupmate's advice, but he couldn't help but be peeved off by this interaction for the rest of the day.

His mood stayed so sour towards his groupmate's harsh judgment of you that he had forgotten to do his nightly prayer before going to sleep, even forgetting to send a message with his blessings to his parents like he usually did.

The next morning he awoke to some overbearing messages from his parents inquiring why he had not messaged them the night prior. Seokmin was surprised at himself when his first reaction to their myriad of messages was to roll his eyes and lock his phone back up. He loved his parents, but his separation from them had quickly showed him how controlling they tended to be. But Seokmin realized it wasn't only them; it was the entirety of the puritanical and judgmental community he had grown up with.

Despite having only hung out with you once, you were already a breath of fresh air to Seokmin. You didn't judge him over his shy and socially awkward demeanor. He had a hunch that since you two belonged to the same church group and had likely had similar upbringings, you probably understood why he was the way that he was. Unlike everyone else he had met at this school so far (other than the other members of the church group), you weren't mean to him nor did you ever ignore him. You had seeked him out! The thought still gave him butterflies.

~

The two of you continued to casually hang out like this over the next week or so, though it usually tended to be only while on meetings with your church group or during your women's studies class.

Contrasting with your previous meeting, any time the two of you would hang out now mostly consisted of working on your project or getting to know each other. He had come to find out that you were here on a scholarship and that, as the nosy guy in your church group had stated, you were only attending the church group to appease your parents' belief that you should maintain some type of connection to God regardless of your beliefs in catholicism. You didn't get too much into it, but you also informed Seokmin that despite what the group members believed, you did not have a bad relationship with your parents due to your contrasting beliefs. This made Seokmin envious, pondering about how his parents would react should he ever find himself changing his faith.

Through the few times you saw each other in class, Seokmin grew to like you more and more. He knew now that he felt something for you that he had never before. He had a crush, for arguably one of the first times in his life. There were also more sinister feelings dwelling in his mind, however. Sometimes he would think back to that day alone in his apartment, when you took his innocence (though only partially). He wanted more, but he felt like he was simultaneously sinning and disrespecting you by even thinking about it. He still felt conflicted about last time, thinking himself a sinner and a bad son for disobeying both God and his parents, but he couldn't help himself in wanting more.

A few days later, Seokmin saw you yet again at your shared women's studies class.

Seokmin was completely unable to pay any attention to class today. Unfortunately for his sanity, you had recently begun to sit next to him every time the two of you shared this class. Seokmin had grown accustomed to sitting alone at the very back row of the auditorium in which your women's class was given. The first day he had sat next to a few people, but after mentioning his devotion to God during his personal introduction, he found people not only avoiding his eye and snickering at him but even going out of their way to sit away from him. You had been the sole exception, deciding to sit with him a few days after your meeting at his apartment, now smiling at him as you sat side by side.

Today, you have him more trouble than usual. You sent him flirtatious smiles during the entirety of class, even occasionally gracing your hand slowly on his leg. This had him shuddering and completely distracted, but he couldn't bring himself to stop you. You gave him a thrill he had never experienced before. While his mind before meeting you had always been dedicated to thinking of God and his duties as a member of the church, his mind was now fully occupied by you. As silly as it sounded, he had never felt the thrill of a crush before (specially not one that was reciprocated like this), and now he didn't know how to act.

"Hey, Minnie," you whispered to him as your professor lectured in the background.

"Y- yeah?"

"Wanna meet at my apartment after class today to study?", you now whispered right against his ear, finger drawing figures on his thigh.

"Oh, I– Of course," he coughed out.

You only giggled quietly in response and went back to paying attention to class (though still occasionally doodling cute hearts in Seokmin's notebook).

After class, the two of you walked together. Only a few minutes into your walk through campus, you slipped your hand into his. He was surprised by this, but allowed himself to squeeze yours back. His heart soared when you started swinging your intertwined hands back and forth.

Was this what romance felt like? The thought alone made Seokmin feel giddier than he had ever before. He relished in the simple act of holding your hand and felt pride any time you'd stop for a few seconds to say hi to some friends, never once letting go of his hand and even giving a quick introduction of his name.

You were quite literally heaven on Earth to Seokmin. He couldn't wait to get to know you even further.

~

Walking to your place took about half an hour, but it was worth it the moment the two of you stepped in and you immediately pushed Seokmin against the wall, stealing a kiss from him.

"Minnie ... Been thinking about you since last time ..." you kissed at his neck, pulling his collared neckline out of the way.

"Me too ..."

"Yeah? What'd you think about?", you paused to pull back and look at him, "You don't regret it, do you? Was I too much?", your tone was genuine, more genuine than he had ever heard anyone direct themselves to him.

"N-no, of course not. I've, uh, I wanted more ... Just .. was too shy to ask."

"Aw, Minnie. You don't have to be shy with me. We can do anything you're comfortable with," you shared a sweet smile with him before pulling him back in for a heated kiss.

This was only Seokmin's second instance in kissing you, – last time having been only over a week back – but he now found it easier to match your rhythm and play with your tongue in ways that had you humming against his lips. He wanted to give you pleasure in the way you'd given it to him. So far he felt like he'd been doing well with the kissing. You somehow walked him over to your bedroom without disconnecting your lips, making his heart speed up at the thought of what was coming up next.

He yelped against your lips when you pushed and straddled him on the bed, hands too shy to know where to touch. Fortunately, you didn't leave him hanging for long and positioned them on your waist for him.

"Minnie ... I don't wanna pressure you. So we're gonna do something similar to last time, yeah?"

He was of course in agreement, but ...

"I ... I wanna make you feel good too ... Please?", he almost winced at how pathetic he sounded. He also had absolutely no idea of how to please you. He had never even considered watching porn (being told he'd go to hell for even entertaining such thoughts), nor had he ever received any type of sexual education. As lame as it sounded, Seokmin was completely clueless as to what women did for pleasure. He had been clueless as to how male pleasure worked up until you had shown him.

"Do you want me to teach you how, Minnie?", you asked while unbuttoning his shirt.

"Please ..."

You kissed him again in response, wordlessly taking off both his and your clothes. When you finished, Seokmin couldn't help but feel exposed. However, the thought of his own nudity (sans his boxers) left his mind as soon as he realized you were also down to just your underwear.

With his mouth agape and his arms not knowing where to go, Seokmin simply sat under you and sweat bullets as he attempted not to stare anywhere below your chin.

Noticing his nervous demeanor, you giggled at him and put your hand on his cheek while the other remained on his shoulder.

"Oh, Minnie ... So pretty. Do you even know how pretty you are?", you ran your hands up and down his chest in a sweet manner, "And I'm the only one who gets to see it, hmm? All mine?",

"Y-your .... yes ... for you."

"Fuck. I'm gonna have so much fun with you. Gonna teach you everything."

Despite your words' effect on him, his main focus right now was your almost bare body and its proximity to him. He could feel the heat of your skin against his. His mind kept thinking about what you must look like beneath your underwear, with his eyes heavy and glued to your covered breasts.

"Want me to take off my bra, Minnie? You just have to ask. I'll go as far as you want to go," you pecked his lips yet again, still running your hands up and down his chest.

"Y-yeah. Wanna see you. Is that ... is that okay? Just wanna make you feel as- as good as you did me ..."

Your breath hitched, "Oh, angel ... So sweet and selfless. I'll show you. Fuck, I'll show you everything."

You separated yourself from him a bit in order to give him a full view. Then, in slow and sensual movements, you threw off your bra, proceeding to caress your own breasts as you gave Seokmin a sultry look.

Fuck.

What type of teachings were preventing him from seeing you in your barest of forms? You were nothing lesser than art itself. You were so warm and beautiful; so soft and perfect – both inside and out. Seokmin couldn't believe he had ever considered such things to be scandalous (which admittedly, he still kind of believed). At the same time, he was kind of glad he had never engaged in such acts before, because it allowed for you to be the first (and hopefully last) woman he would ever see in such an intimate setting.

Those thoughts aside, Seokmin was short-circuiting. He was so distracted he didn't even notice you removing your panties and settling back on his lap until you verbally called his attention again.

"Minnie? Wanna feel them? Hmm?", your hands were already on his, leading them directly to your soft mounds.

"F-fuck," he couldn't help but groan upon feeling the weight of them on his hands, "you're so beautiful ... Y-you're, oh fuck-"

Words could not express the unimaginable beauty he was witnessing, nor the arousal he felt at having you so bare and willing in front of him. He didn't know what to do or how he was supposed to react. He felt kind of bad at his wordless state, but he couldn't help being speechless at feeling such pleasure from merely seeing you.

"Like this, Minnie. Just- fuck ... yeah, like that ..." you instructed for his thumbs to play with your nipples, even making him pinch at them. Your sighs and the way you arched your back were enough for Seokmin to want to leave everything behind and dedicate his life to your pleasure.

"K- kiss them? Please, Minnie ..."

He took your order immediately, leaning down to kiss around your nipples, glasses fogging from the close proximity to your skin.

Your sighs intensified and your hand moved to angle his head so that his lips would land on your nipple. Taking the hint, he enveloped your pert nipple in between his lips and sucked, licking and nibbling at it as he saw fit. Eventually he lost himself a bit, allowing his hands to fondle your breasts desperately as he whined into your breast. Your whines for more made him lose his mind, leading to his mind fogging up even more.

This progressed for a while until you finally moved his head away from your tits and stole a wet kiss from his lips.

"You're so good, Minnie. So obedient ... Such a good boy for me," you breathed against his lips, wiping his foggy glasses before slipping them back on.

He physically keened at your praise, not at all used to being praised for such filthy behavior but still extremely pleased he was making you feel good.

"Now ... now I'm gonna show you how to make me feel good, yeah? Still wanna try that, angel?"

He nodded too enthusiastically, glasses coming out of place due to his enthusiasm.

"Okay, baby," you giggled, "Need you to kneel on the floor for me, okay? Right between my legs ..."

Oh. You wanted him to-

He had never explored his sexual desires in any way, so he was fully unaware where exactly this was going, but the thought of looking up at you while he made you feel good between your legs sounded like the holiest act known to human.

He followed your direction, groaning when he saw the hidden space between your legs glisten.

"Oh, God ..."

"Shh, don't use the lord's name in vain, Minnie", you were just teasing, but somehow the reminder of his lord made Seokmin feel a small pang of guilt at the thought of the sin he had been actively committing with you thus far. He decided to push it aside and continue on his path. Nothing mattered to him more right now than your utmost pleasure.

"Lick it?" you used your fingers to open up your folds, letting out even more honey for Seokmin to gawk at.

Wordlessly he got closer and closer, up until his tongue was able to flick at the length of your folds. He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding at the taste of your essence, becoming instantly obsessed with its warmth. What he was even more obsessed with, however, was the whine you let out at such a simple touch.

Was it possible for him – an inexperienced and sheltered boy – to make someone like you – a gorgeous and clearly knowledgeable girl – feel this good? He needed to test the theory so he kept licking to his heart's contentment, following the directions your hand gave him as you guided his head against you.

He licked shyly at first, only sucking every now and then as he did his best to act accordingly to the sounds you were making. It didn't help that his mind was plagued by your taste, smell, and the warmth between your legs – not to mention your mewls of pleasure.

"My clit, baby ... Your tongue, angle it here- oh ... fuck, right there, Minnie ..." you angled him so that he could flick his tongue at a tiny little pearl found between your legs.

With all the newfound knowledge he had on how to deliver your pleasure, Seokmin did the best he could to repeat the movements you seemed to really enjoy (at least based on how prettily you'd cry his name after). Despite his mind being completely clouded by the entirety of your person, Seokmin continued to moan and cry against your cunt as he silently begged for more of your cunt against his face.

"M-minnie! Oh ... Fuck. Such a g-good boy ... All mine, shit ... Your tongue, oh ... just like that, angel ... Y-your nose, Minnie, please! Your nose, just- oh! Fuck", you cried for him, at some point taking full control and just grinding against his face as his nose and tongue poked into your most sensitive spots.

Seokmin felt incredibly proud at your mindless state, knowing it was him who had achieved that. Nothing mattered more in that moment than your pleasure; pleasure which only Seokmin could give you.

"Gonna cum for you, angel. Lick it all for me? Be a good boy and take it for me, yeah? Shit!", you practically vibrated against him as your high took over you.

Seokmin kept his face between your legs as you came, doing his best to lick at every single drop of essence and moaning at the taste of you. He allowed you to use his face as you saw fit, reveling in the knowledge that he had given you such other-worldly pleasure.

He didn't know it was possible for him to feel such pleasure from just watching you, but now he understood. If anyone asked, this was what heaven was supposed to look like – a beautiful girl losing herself to Seokmin's touch as he himself tried not to lose his own mind.

Throughout the entirety of your orgasm, Seokmin couldn't control his hips as they ground against the bed with a complete lack of rhythm, simply humping animalistically at you taking over every single one of his senses.

After a few moments of aftershock, you suddenly pulled Seokmin up and attacked him with a filthy kiss; filthier than any you'd shared before.

Your kiss alone had Seokmin struggling to keep himself from cumming in his boxers. You had been testing his self-control from the moment you teased him in class earlier today and he just wasn't sure how much longer he could take until pleasure took over him once again.

"Want me to try it on you, Minnie?", you asked once you pulled away from the kiss.

"That? O-on me?"

"Mhmm. My mouth on you? Is that okay?", you pecked his lips again, seemingly unable to disconnect from him for too long (which Seokmin thoroughly related to).

"Yes", he deadpanned, still out of breath from being suffocated by your thighs and then your lips just moments ago.

You wasted no time in removing his boxers. Seokmin felt slightly shy at this, having never let anyone ever see him nude before. Even last time he had been with you, you had pleasured him through his clothes and not seen past his shirtless state thus far.

But you praised him as soon as he was fully nude, kissing up and down his thighs as you told him how beautiful he was, how pretty and deserving of praise you believed him to be. His whole body heat up at your soft words, with goosebumps forming at your soft kisses that led up closer and closer to where he was aching the most.

He gasped when you finally took a hold of his member, bringing your face close enough to give the weeping tip a kiss.

"O-oh ..." he threw his head back at the sweet yet filthy gesture.

You giggled under your breath and began kitten licking at his tip, sucking lightly every so often. He felt like he had finally arrived to heaven. All those stories about what awaited his good behavior while on earth must've been lies, because he found the greatest reward of all in the form of your mouth wrapped around him.

Getting braver by the second, you put almost the entirety of him in your mouth, doing things with your tongue and lips that his poor brain couldn't even process. He whined and cried at your movements, not able to understand how easily you could bring him to tears.

As he quickly neared his high, his mind turned into mush, not allowing him to register what was going on with his body. All he knew was that his cries got louder by the second, his cheeks now damp with the tears that wouldn't stop falling from his eyes. His hips were uncontrollable, having to be restrained by your hands as he chased for his high with the utmost desperation.

"P-please! I need ... Fuck, please ..." he begged for nothing in particular as his high completely took over.

He felt dirty and disrespectful as he did it, but he came inside your mouth, wincing at the way your moans vibrated while he was still in your mouth. He couldn't help himself; his thoughts had been completely overtaken by the pleasure.

His cries had not stopped as of yet, even rendering him emotional as the high of his orgasm wore down. Now was the moment of regret, knowing he had broken his unspoken oath of celibacy yet again.

This was something all people in his community swore to. It was rarely ever spoken about, but Seokmin knew that he was supposed to save himself for marriage – in every sense. Despite already having quite strong feelings towards you and the things you did to him, Seokmin still felt like he had somehow disrespected you by engaging in such acts with you. But more than anything, he felt like he had disappointed God.

So he cried. He cried into his hands despite how embarrassed he felt at doing such thing in front of you, specially after having shared such intimacy.

"Oh, Minnie ..." you coo'd at him, getting up to hold his large frame in your arms.

You allowed him to exhaust his cries as he quietly asked for forgiveness. He didn't have to explain himself, as you understood. You made your understanding evident by reassuring him that he had done nothing wrong, and that he was still such a good man.

He believed your words and thanked you, eventually calming down enough to stop crying and speak coherently.

"Do you ... do you think He'd be disappointed in me?", he knew it was a stupid question to ask considering your lack of religion. The two of you had never thoroughly discussed religion with one another, but he knew you at least understood where he was coming from.

You pouted at him, cooing at him as you responded, "Of course not, Minnie. He loves you. You're such a good boy; treat everyone so kindly even when they don't deserve it. Treat me so kindly ... No matter what anyone ever tells you, what we just did is no sin", you explained.

"B- but the bible-"

"Shhh. Your faith is your own. No one can take that away from you, Minnie. Even if I don't share those beliefs anymore, I know an amazing person when I see one. You've done nothing wrong, okay?", you caressed his cheek and pecked his lips to drive your point home.

He nodded as he tried not to tear up at your kindness.

Him even questioning his actions' consequences on his faith would've provided him with a scolding from his parents or a look in disapproval from his reverend. But in turn you gave him acceptance and love. There was no way in his mind to believe that being with you – feeling good with you – was anything other than the holiest act he could engage in.

"Do you regret it?", you interrupted his thoughts.

"N-no, of course not ... It's just ..."

"I'd never want to make you do something you don't wanna do. I ... I know we haven't known each other for long, but I like you, Seokmin. I don't want you to think I'm just trying to ... corrupt you."

"You're not!," in a change of pace, he grabbed onto your hands and looked directly into your eyes as he spoke, "Everything you've taught me, I've wanted it too. I ... I like you too."

You smiled at this, squeezing his hands affectionately, "Yeah? Does that mean you wanna keep hanging out?"

"Yeah, I'd love that."

~

Unfortunately, time for Seokmin to go home eventually came and he bid his goodbyes to you.

The two of you spent a few hours after your heart to heart actually working on your project and later watching a few episodes of a show you said you'd been watching on Hulu. It was a nice time for Seokmin to get to know you outside of school, and it only reinstated how much he liked you already.

It was about 10PM by the time he got home, which was usually around the time he went to sleep due to the early hours of his classes the following day. Almost as soon as he finished his nightly skincare and prepared himself to go to sleep, he suddenly got a call.

It was odd for him to get calls in general, but this time around he knew who it'd be before even checking his phone.

It was his parents.

Seokmin had seen this coming. He had gotten too into his head this past week; too into you. Not only had he neglected contacting his parents as frequently as they had agreed (re: every night in order to 'keep a close eye on him'), but he had also been neglecting his religious duties. He had not kept contact with any of his religious friends from back home nor had he even attended church as of late. And surprisingly ... Seokmin had not minded these recent developments. He felt freer than ever. For the first time in his life, he was not under constant surveillance, receiving judgment for any instance in which his parents believed him to step out of line in his religious lifestyle.

Back home, a single absence from bi-weekly mass would be met with passive aggressive disapproval. Any instance in which Seokmin expressed interest in anything outside of the church (such as non catholic music and dance – both of which his parents had immediately shut down), he felt as if he was breaking a law at the way in which his parents would scold him for ever even considering such 'perverted' hobbies.

Upon moving away, Seokmin had begun to realize that his upbringing hadn't been as perfect as he had thought it to be, that his parents didn't love him as unconditionally as he first thought. He thought back to his brother's estrangement from his family and felt regret at not standing up for him, knowing that his parents would turn on him just as fast as they did Jeonghan.

With a sigh, he picked up the call, mustering as much interest as he could. He made some excuse as to why he had been unable to keep in contact and promised to be better moving forward. He faked a smile in his voice and forced his way through a peaceful call (sans the few passive aggressive comments his parents threw his way) and called it a night.

For the first time in his life, he put religion and his parents aside to give himself a restful sleep, only looking forward to seeing you the next morning and going to sleep with the remembrance of what the two of you did fresh in his mind.

"Oh ... I- please ..."

"Just like that, Minnie, fuck ... Don't move, angel. Just let me do all the work, yeah?", you ground against him even faster, angling your hips so that his member would grace against your clothed folds.

It seemed like the dam had broken for you at the same time as it had for Seokmin, because you had jumped him the very next time he made his way through the threshold of your apartment.

The two of you kissed until exhausting yourselves, leading Seokmin to beg you to undress both you and him (with pleading eyes rather than verbally, as he was still too shy to beg for such things with words).

It was only one day after you had given Seokmin oral (a concept which you had introduced him to), which somehow made Seokmin even more desperate to have you. Even after his parents' call ruining his mood, you had managed to bring it back up immediately after when you messaged him late at night suggesting the two of you meet up today. After spending the entire day together, Seokmin walked you home yet again, only to be jumped by you (once again) upon entering your apartment.

One thing led to another and Seokmin found himself fully unclothed under you as you ground against him through the thin layer of your panties. Seokmin was completely weightless under you, becoming a shell of his old self as he desperately guided your hips to grind against him. He wasn't sure where this would lead, but he felt the usual conflict that always arose when the two of you were alone like this. Even through all your reassurance, Seokmin felt as if he was betraying an oath by engaging with his sexual desires for you. However, these thoughts were immediately pushed aside when you leaned back down to kiss him again.

The kiss was nasty, for lack of a better word. Seokmin didn't fully realize it, but his desperation for your touch would sometimes render him into a sloppy kisser, but you seemed to not mind it as you moaned and licked into his mouth any time his kisses got a bit messy. Your grinding got more and more intense by the second, throwing your head back at the way Seokmin senselessly canted his hips against your own.

"M-minnie ... Want more ... Is that okay? Just need to feel you so bad ... Please ..."

"M-more?"

"Do you want it too, Minnie? Wanna know what it feels like?"

"Show me? Wh- Oh ..."

"You want it too, don't you? Hmm? You're so hard against me, angel. Don't you wanna feel me?"

"I just ..."

Before he could formulate a response through the lust that was clouding his mind, you suddenly brought one of his hands between your bodies, going behind the forbidden threshold of your underwear. Anxious but also incredibly turned on, Seokmin fell limp and allowed you to do whatever you wanted. You grabbed his middle and pointer fingers, angling them so that they could seamlessly slip between your folds. Though Seokmin had already felt the wetness between your legs the day prior, he had not properly felt just how warm and tight you could be.

"Oh, it's so ... Fuck," he moaned when you began guiding his hand so his fingers could go in and out.

"Shit, Minnie ... So good ... Wanna feel it now, angel? Will you give it to me?", you slipped his fingers out after proving your point, now going back to caressing his cheek with your own hand.

"B-but ... It's a sin ..." he let out before even realizing. Even with your constant reassurance up to this point, Seokmin still felt ties to his faith that made him second-guess himself.

He knew that he had already gone past certain point with you, and that having sex with you wouldn't make much difference in his morality, but he still thought of all the teachings of celibacy and all the censorship his community had forced onto him. Was this the right choice? His body was screaming at him to let himself go and seek his high from you. His mind was telling him similar things, though there was also emphasis on the fact that doing this with you, of all people, would be the best choice he could ever make.

"Angel ... It's okay to want it. You don't have to be scared ... I'll take care of you. Just wanna be close to you, Minnie. Don't you want that too? Hmm? Just like you so much, angel," you kisses softly at his chest as you said this, breaking his resolve.

And you were right. He wanted this so badly. He wanted to be as close to you as possible, to give himself to you in the most intimate way he could.

"Y-yes. Want you so much ..." he was shy as he said it, but he meant it to the fullest extent.

You proceeded to sensually remove your underwear, sitting back down above Seokmin's dick as you made a show of grinding your nude pelvises against one another, making Seokmin cry out in desperation.

Any doubts he had left him as soon as you allowed his tip to slip in, throwing his head back as he finally felt your warmth envelop him. You let out a variety of expletives at the feelings, all while clawing at Seokmin's chest, something that had his back arching in unexpected pleasure.

"Oh, Minnie ... So full, f-fuck ..." you moaned out, taking on a slow yet deep pace that made Seokmin shut his eyes and scrunch his nose.

Seokmin couldn't describe the pleasure you were giving him. He was practically frozen in place, the only part of his body still conscious were his hands, which were likely bruising your hips from how hard he was digging his fingers onto them. He needed to keep himself grounded, but he truly felt like today was judgment day, and he had gone to heaven.

"Open your eyes, angel. Wanna see you," your hand reached over to his cheek, angling his head so he could look your way rather than keep his head in its thrown back state.

He opened his eyes to find you smiling down at him with the light hanging on your ceiling providing the best view of you possible. You looked like an angel gazing down at him, like you came down to give him the greatest ruin and drag him back up with you. You had corrupted him in the best way possible.

"Oh, Minnie ... So beautiful. My prettiest boy ... Does it feel good, angel?", he nodded and let out a whine at your soft inquiries, "Yeah? How's it feel when I do this?", you squeezed around him, now bouncing rather than grinding against him, making him close his eyes back up and cry out your name.

"I- Please! I need ...", his nails clawed at your hips and back, begging for something unknown to him. He needed more, but he wasn't sure of what.

"I know, pretty. Gonna give it to you, just- fuck ... Just need you to be good for me, yeah?," you hiccuped, leaning down to kiss him again.

He cried against your lips, eyes rolling back when your tongue began dancing with his own, your hands reaching down to toy with his nipples. You were giving him too many things at once, making the overstimulation take over his already hazy brain. He didn't care about any moral repercussions to what you were doing together. Every time you touched him further solidified how right being with you felt.

Only a few moments of your ministrations were enough for Seokmin to feel that familiar coil begin to tighten. He knew his end was near, causing him to grow restless as he planted his legs on the bed and humped against you. Despite his lack of proper technique and the sloppiness of his movements, you matched his own and wailed his name.

Your hands came down to bring his up and pin them above his head, grinding deeper and deeper against him as the two of you crazily chased your highs. The bed shook against the wall at the intensity of your actions, with nothing but nasty sounds of your muffled moans and your arousal filling up the silence. Eventually you disconnected your lips, eyeing the string of spit that connected you before burying your head in the crook of his neck.

"I- I like you so much," he groaned out, high-pitched and breathless.

"Like you so fucking m-much! You have no idea ..." you reciprocated his words as you clamped down around him and let yourself be taken by your high. Your high was more than enough to trigger his own, leaving him in a practically astral state for a few moments as his hands ran frantically up and down your body, squeezing and scratching every so often.

When your highs finally wore down, you laid yourself beside him, cuddling him near you so you could wrap your legs around him and bring him as close as possible. You faced each other as you caught your breaths, running your hands along the length of his back as his own rubbed at your hips. The moment was pure bliss.

"Do you regret it?"

"No. I could never regret anything we've done. I- I'm sorry if I made you feel that way," he looked away from your eyes.

You nudged him to look at you once more, "Don't apologize, Minnie. I understand. I'm happy I was your first. Maybe one day I'll teach you even more fun things," you flirted through a giggle.

"Oh, I- Hah, yeah", he was caught off guard by your flirting, but still laughed along.

Yeah, he wouldn't mind that.

Over the following weeks, Seokmin did a better job of keeping up with his parents. He kept a safe distance while still giving them the belief that he was still fully engaged in the religious spaces they had envisioned for him. However, he could not help but lie when it came to what occupied his day to day life – you. He didn't bring you up, which you agreed upon after a tearful conversation in which Seokmin detailed his upbringing, leading you to spend the night up with him as you comforted him. He was also yet to attend mass again, and he even occasionally skipped the bi-weekly meetings of his church group – though only when you skipped also. These were a few of the things he kept secret from his family – advice from his brother Jeonghan, who he had recently gotten in contact with again.

Seokmin's faith was still standing; his relationship with God was slightly injured by his internal conflict about your sexual relationship, though he was now sure that he felt no regrets at anything the two of you had engaged in. To him, being with you felt like the biggest reward he could have ever hoped for. Seokmin realized quickly that his issue really laid with the catholic community in which he had been brought up, rather than his relationship with God itself. He disagreed with the judgmental and overbearing way in which certain catholics circles ran, something which he distanced himself from upon meeting you.

You had even introduced him to a few of your friends, some which were even catholic like him. Your buddy Joshua was one of the chillest guys he had ever met, yet his faith was pretty intact. This made Seokmin feel less guilt, though his balance between what was right and wrong in the eyes of God was still a bit of a mess. Luckily he had you help him navigate his way through that.

Along with all these developments, Seokmin had also begun speaking to his brother Jeonghan again (behind his parents' backs, of course). It made him happy to know that despite his brother straying away from his community, he had ended up happy with his life, leading a steady relationship and being happy away from his parents' constant religious persecution.

And you ... You had become official in these past few weeks, making Seokmin constantly have to pinch himself to confirm whether or not he was imagining all this. He was still a very shy and awkward individual, usually opting to hang out alone with you in either of your apartments. He appreciated how patient you were with him, never judging him for being a bit different and even teaching him the pleasures he had been missing out on during his very restricted upbringing. You had become a piece of heaven on earth to Seokmin, corrupting him, but only in the best of ways.

a/n: i left so many things unresolved here oops but all i cared about was seokmin's character development and we got there in the end so! anyways hope u guys enjoyed!!

To read short 2k word continuation u can go join my monthly tier on kofi or patreon!

content:

wc: 587 (teaser); 2080 (full drabble)

sneak peak:

Seokmin was, yet again, at a crossroads. Though this time it wasn't anything too serious, or maybe it was.

By current time, it had now been four months since the two of you had begun dating. 'I love you's' were shared and multiple sleep overs were had. Your relationship had been everything anyone could hope for a first relationship, and Seokmin now felt way more at ease whenever the two of you did anything sexual.

Admittedly, Seokmin was still slightly awkward about it, still never allowing himself to start sexual interactions and simply following your lead. Which was the crux of his current predicament.

He was unsure if he had done something wrong, if he had maybe insulted you or maybe there was some other unknown reason behind, but it had been over a week since the two of you had slept together. Over the past four months, the two of you spent most of your nights together, taking on a very domestic routine within the first two months of your relationship. Though you obviously didn't get down to sexual activities every day, it was common for it to happen a few times a week (at the least).

It usually began with you cornering Seokmin against the wall after a tiring day of college, or sometimes it began during a movie night in which you couldn't keep your hands to yourself. Whatever it was, you were always giving Seokmin an opening to entertain his sexual desires with you whenever he pleased. Even though he was always too shy to ask, it was almost as if you were able to read his mind and always incite him when he needed it most.

His sexual desires for you had grown quite a lot, making Seokmin worry at times. Was it normal how badly he wanted you at all times? Was this a consequence of having never before received pleasure until meeting you? He felt like a degenerate sometimes, from how badly he wanted you. Which was the main reason as to why he grew antsy so quickly after not having sex with you for the past week or so.

In contrast to these past months, this past week and a half (nine days to be exact; not that Seokmin was keeping count or anything), you had not given Seokmin anything further than a sweet peck on the lips whenever the two of you fell asleep next to each other. You didn't act any differently past that, still showering him with love and spending as much time as you could with him.

It wasn't that Seokmin expected sex from you or anything, but ever since you had taught him how pleasurable it could be to have a romantic partner, he could not see himself ever going back to his old, puritan lifestyle. Seokmin had become, for lack of a better word, an addict. He couldn't help himself in desiring you every time he caught an inch of your bare legs or the soft skin of your breasts through your cleavage. He had deprived himself of sex for far too long and now he could no longer live without it.

He didn't want to seem desperate, or as if he only valued you for sex, but he needed to get to the bottom of this and find a way to get you to touch him again. He was far too shy to ever ask you directly, but he would work his hardest to entice you into letting him have you again

...

find the 18+ continuation on kofi or patreon!

support me through a one time tip<3

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Brigerton Round-Up

Ok, so I have read all of the Bridgerton books I care to at this point, but my reviews are spread across this blog and possibly like a year of time??? So I thought it would be fun to bring them all together in a single post!

All of these reviews were written between S2 and S3 of Netflix's Bridgerton Series, so bear that in mind when you're wondering why I haven't talked about all the seasons!

Content warning for some misogyny and discussion of sexual assault.

Also...THERE ARE SPOILERS HERE.

The Viscount Who Loved Me

There comes a point where a girl can't deny she has engaged in a fandom. It probably is well before you start writing fic (you can find The Polin Fic on Ao3), but y'know, here we are. Let's talk Bridgerton.

Ok, couple things right off the top.

We are not dealing with either The Duke and I or S1 of Bridgerton on Netflix. We are not dealing with *THAT* scene and it's complete disregard for consent. Find that somewhere else on the internet, it's a big place.

We are literally only talking about The Viscount Who Loved Me and Romancing Mr. Bridgerton. They're the only books I've read, and at this point they're the only books in this series I care to read. That means we'll also chat about S2 of Netflix's Bridgerton.

Ok, with the ground rules established, let's jump on in!

I think the reasonable place to start here is with Kate. I watched Bridgerton the Netflix series before reading The Viscount Who Loved Me, and Kates Sheffield and Sharma are objectively not the same woman. They wouldn't even LIKE each other. Kate Sharma is self-assured, confident, driven, and quite frankly, a force of nature when she wants to be. Kate Sharma understands that not only is she a grown ass woman but also that if she does not get in gear and go for her goals, they ain't happening. You guys, I freaking love Kate Sharma.

By contrast, Kate Sheffield is a blond, blue-eyed, infantilized debutante with some serious unresolved PTSD. I was not at all sorry to see that Shondaland did away with THAT library scene and THAT bee sting scene. I think that the show did both of them way better, and I will never be mad when an adaptation takes an adult female character and lets her ACT like an adult. I also appreciated the shift from creepy Anthony trying to *checks notes* suck the venom out of the bee sting to a full-blown panic attack. It subverted a highly gendered trope and put both Kate and Anthony on a much more even and human footing. It was also--and I cannot stress this enough--so much LESS CREEPY than the book scene. Anthony describing what he was doing in detail while the reader is told but not shown that he's panicky left several different flavors of bad taste in my mouth. Kate Sharma showing actual dimensionality in her strength in the show in this scene as Anthony goes fully nonverbal is objectively a stronger scene that does far more to develop the characters.

Generally speaking, Anthony Bridgerton is Anthony Bridgerton in both the show and the book, with maybe some of the high-and-mighty, self-righteous edges sanded off for the show. He's a regency era Viscount, there's not a whole lot you can do with him in adaptation. Show Anthony is my preference because he has some of the high-handedness sanded off, and because Jonathan Bailey is extremely nice to look at. I don't even hate the S1 (*gasp* she mentioned Bruno!) sideburns and hair, they had a very 1995 Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy vibe that I was willing to lean into. I honestly don't have a whole lot else to say about Anthony, so let's move on and hope that maybe we get an S3 release date before I get to the end of this post. (Spoiler Alert: We did not)

An Offer From a Gentleman

Dearest Gentle Reader, I suppose if you play with fire, you do eventually get burned. This Author has finally been burned by a Bridgerton novel. --Lady Bookshelf's Society Papers, 7 June 2023

So uhh...yeah. We gotta talk about Benedict Bridgerton. And we gotta talk about what the actual hell happened between book and Netflix series, because I found the series before the book, and even knowing that the characterizations were different, this book was JARRINGLY different, and not gonna lie, I absolutely cannot stand book Benedict and I fully do not understand the Benophie appeal. Now that I've finished painting a target on my back, let's talk An Offer from a Gentleman.

Ok y'all, I have recipts for this one, because book Benedict was basically a "too aloof and edgelordy to give a damn" and he really, REALLY needed to stop telling Sophie she was stupid or thinking too much. He also was hideously high-handed about blackmailing, coercing, and passive aggressively manipulating Sophie into doing the closest possible thing he can make happen to what he wants. He can't hear the word "no." His art seems somehow less important to him than the bowl of rocks at the cottage.

Show Benedict is a sweetheart artist with a wicked sense of humor and a real damn good sense for his siblings' moods and needs. I like show Benedict. I was prepared to yeet book Benedict off a cliff.

So real quick before this descends into incoherent screeching, I just need to point out the section where Sophie leaves the Cavendar's house during a party that is SUPER not safe for her. The "male lead saves the female lead from getting raped" is not my favorite trope in the world, but I'm not here to shame anyone for rescue fantasies. What I am here to do is explainin why Benedict is the WORST POSSIBLE EXAMPLE of this trope. I'm just gonna go ahead and put the passage up here, for ease. This is Benedict's reaction to seeing Sophie is an objectively scary situation:

Cavender was standing under a stately old elm with two other gentlemen. They appeared to be having a bit of fun with a housemaid, pushing her back and forth between them. Benedict Groaned. He was too far away to determine whether the housemaid was enjoying their attentions, and if she was not, then he was going to have to save her, which was not how he'd planned to spend his evening. He'd never been particularly enamored of playing the hero, but he had far too many younger sisters--four, to be precise--to ignore any female in distress.

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS REACTION??? What is this "ugh, I guess I HAVE to step in, what a pain in the ass FOR ME" nonsense??? This is not allyship, this isn't even--as Benedict tepidly says--"having sisters," this is just "ugh, I guess I have to be a hero, how annoying."

If you're going to do the rescue trope, it kind of works better if your leading man gives a rat's ass. Like, give him a strong position on rape being bad. Give him a motivation. Give him something other than an eye roll and vague irritation that he has to do the thing! He's not even particularly T-ed off with the guys in this situation, it's just...and event. That he has to deal with. Like going to the DMV or something.

Can we PLEASE not do this. This is gross, it is bare minimum, and frankly? It's the least interesting version of this trope. I wasn't a Twilight girl, but the scene where Edward rescues Bella from implied gang rape was done better than this moist tissue of a scene purely because HE GIVES A RAT'S ASS ABOUT BELLA.

Bare freaking minimum, your romantic leads have to have strong feelings for each other. Those feelings can be positive or negative, depending on whether or not you're doing enemies to lovers, but the feelings have to EXIST. And when you're dealing with limited third omninscient narration, the character in who's head you are should probably have stronger emotions than *eye roll* to keep it interesting for the reader!! We know Sophie is already in love with Benedict at this point in the novel, but we aren't in Sophie's HEAD just now.

I'm basically out of coherent things to say about this book, so let's just go over key examples of other things in this book that made me rage. It's not every instance, but it's a selection of demonstrative examples.

Let's check the receipts:

She shot him an arch look. "Horse races are almost always silly." "Spoken just like a woman," he muttered.

And just WHAT is wrong with speaking like a woman, Benedict??? Is it maybe because you think they're somehow LESSER than men???

"Sophie," he said, "I can practically see the steam coming out of your ears. Stop taxing your brain with useless mathematical computations and do as I asked."

TAXING HER BRAIN, BENEDICT??? Let the woman think for her own damn self for five seconds!

"His chin jutted out belligerently. "You're not supposed to be thinking. That's the point of of it."

LET. HER. THINK. FOR. HER. OWN. DAMN. SELF.

"You bloody fool," he swore. "Do you have any idea how dangerous it is in the world for a woman alone?" "Er, yes," she managed. "Actually I do. If he heard her, he gave no indication, just went on about "men who take advantage" and "helpless women" and "fates worse than death." [...] About halfway through his tirade, she lost all ability to focus on his words. She just kept watching his mouth and hearing the tone of his voice, all the while trying to comprehend the fact that he seemed remarkably concerned for her welfare... "Are you even listening to a word I'm saying?" Benedict demanded.

YOU SPENT THE WHOLE BOOK TELLING HER NOT TO THINK AND NOW YOU'RE MANSPLAINING CLASS TO HER??? SERIOUSLY???

"Don't you ever call me stupid," she hissed. " Benedict blinked, trying to get his eyesight back to the point where he only saw one of her. "I wasn't--" "Yes you were," she replied in a low, angry voice."

Oh, yes, call her stupid. That's a GREAT way to get in any woman's skirts, Benedict. (Please excuse me while I scream incoherently into a pillow in rage.) Punch him again, Sophie.

"I didn't save you from Cavender just to let you squander your life away." "That isn't your choice to make." She had a point there, but he wasn't inclined to give it to her. "Perhaps," he allowed, "but I'm going to make it, anyway."

Wow, so you do ONE DECENT THING and suddenly you own her life??? PUNCH HIM AGAIN, SOPHIE. And no, gentlemen, going "oh shit, I am actually being a huge dick here" and then DOING THE THING ANYWAY does not earn you any points.

"I didn't want--" "You don't know what you want," he cut in. It was a cruel statement, condescending in the extreme, but he was beyond caring. She'd wounded him in a way he hadn't even known was possible, with a power he'd never dreamed she possessed.

ACTUALLY SHE DOES KNOW WHAT SHE WANTS, BENEDICT, BECAUSE SHE IS A HUMAN PERSON WITH AGENCY!!!!!! AND SHE HAS SAID NO TO YOU LIKE FIFTEEN TIMES!!! Dear god, someone throw this man back in the lake and hold his head under.

"I didn't think," she whispered, more to herself than to him. "I know." He smiled. "I know. I hate it when you think. It always ends badly for me."

FOR FUCKS SAKE-- *screams in impotent rage while channeling Beatrice's "would eat his heart in the marketplace" vibes*

So...I actually don't recommend this book. Don't read this one. Just enjoy show Benedict and we can all collectively pretend that the book didn't happen.

Romancing Mr. Bridgerton

I actually thoroughly enjoyed the fluffy confection that is Romancing Mr. Bridgerton, which makes it much harder to talk about than The Viscount Who Loved Me. I suppose the biggest difference between the book and what the show is setting up for Polin is in the stakes. The book stakes are arguably extremely low; the consequences for being Lady Whistledown in the book are essentially a round of polite applause and some deep-seated rage that Cressida freaking Cowper would dare to take credit for Penelope's work. And frankly, I was 100% with Penelope on that one. The show cannot possibly roll with that ending (or if they do, they're going to disappoint everyone) because Penelope has pissed off a reigning monarch, and that has, historically, gone poorly. So I think the show is setting up to give Colin real, concrete reasons to be pissed as hell when it comes out that Penelope is Whistledown, and to actually make the pair work for their romance. And for all I enjoyed the fluff in the book, I am a sucker for multiple layers of increasingly high stakes and I hope the show really goes ham on the payoff for this setup. Frankly, I want Colin to be absolutely furious with Penelope and still ready to sneak her out of England if the Queen decides that Lady Whistledown is too dangerous to leave at liberty.

In terms of how Colin himself changes in the show, I'm fairly cool with the "I am a bottomless pit where is the food" aspect of Colin's character being quietly left behind. I think we can do more interesting things with our male characters than that. However, like many of the people who have both read the book and kept up with the show, I am WORRIED about how much Colin's writing has been downplayed. Yes, he and Penelope have a correspondence, and clearly they mean a lot to each other, but writing letters does not necissarily set up Colin's journals and the writing relationship that the two develop in the book. It's so, so wildly uncommon for game to recognize game and form a partnership of equals in skill in regency romance novels, and that was one of the things I loved about Romancing Mr. Bridgerton. I also loved that Colin, not Penelope, was the less experienced newbie of the writing partnership.

Not that the book didn't complicate this issue, because Julia Quinn didn't hesitate for a millisecond to slot Penelope into the historical role of "uncredited, unpaid, and historically unknown editor and 80% of the reason that history remembers the husband who's name is on the cover of the book." And that SUCKS for Penelope.

That takes me really smoothly into the thing that I love most about what Nicola Coughlan brings to Penelope in the show. She has an edge, a little more willingness to take risks, and that really makes me believe that the Penelope of the show could be behind the edgier, sharper, WAY riskier Whistledown. I am excited to see what they do with Polin in S3!

When He Was Wicked

Ok, as a Bridgerton book, When He Was Wicked was UNUSUAL. Given how tightly knit and very much there for each other the Bridgertons are (although I admit, this might be show bias affecting my reading), the fact that Francesca was, for the most part, isolated up in Scotland and very separate from the rest of the family was odd. It really allowed us to see what a Bridgerton-raised person would do when their back was to the wall and they were more or less alone.

Add to that the fact that most of this book is Francesca's second season and second love and that she gets to have actual EXPERIENCE and CONFIDENCE and not be your bog standard romance ingenue meant that this was a refreshing change of pace. I also would be absolutely remiss to point out that this novel went unapologetic on the fact that Francesca knows a little something about sex and her own body and that she has zero doubt that her needs, wants, and pleasure are important and that she can (and does) ask for what she wants with Michael. That's something that contemporary 2023 still really struggles with, so props to Julia Quinn for making it clear that Francesca can, should and DOES have a voice that matters during sex.

I also want to say that while Francesca wanting to be a mother so badly that she goes for a second season often gets side-eyed or openly pooh-poohed for being anti-feminist, breeding kinky, or somehow lesser, I would say that while the "All I want in the world is to be a mother" is complicated by the regency setting and the gender roles and expectations imposed on women whether they wanted them or not, Francesca is a widow for most of this novel, and widows historically had more (not complete, this isn't perfect) choice about their remarriage, and had Francesca not wanted to, she didn't have to remarry. So I'm willing to give this book the benefit of the doubt that Francesca actually DOES want to be a mother, actually DOES want children, and making the choice to remarry to have kids is an active, intentional choice on her part. Motherhood isn't for everyone, and that's 100% fine. But we shouldn't shame people who do want it, and I think a generous read of this book puts Francesca in that camp without some of the weird vibes and setting complications that you get with Daphne.

Again, none of this is wholly unproblematic, and there are arguments to be made that social conditioning overrode any choice Francesca could make. However, that's a deeply cynical read of a fun, fluffy romance novel, and I'm not here to shame people who can get pregnant for their reproductive choices, whatever those may be.

Michael is, in the grand tradition of non-Bridgerton love interests, fairly bland. His whole thing is being the merry rake, which, like, whatever. That's fine. I'm not like, terribly enamored of his full-on BAILING on Francesca for like three years after her first husband unceremoniously drops dead. I'm also not super enamored of his whole "did I secretly cause my cousin's death because I was coveting his wife and now I can never be with Francesca because I don't deserve her for killing my cousin" schtick, but this is Bridgerton so the absurd drama is pretty par for the course.

The reason to read this book really is Francesca, and Francesca finding her feet as a more mature heroine than we typically see in these books. I was very very much here for Francesca, and I hope that if the show gets this far, we really do get to see how Frannie is different from Daphne, Eloise, Penelope, and Hyacinth.

It's In His Kiss

This is now the fifth Bridgerton book I've read, and I actually have to say that while it's not my favorite of the series, it was a nice change of pace. Hyacinth and Gareth feel like they spend more time together as a couple really getting to know one another, which honestly was not really the vibe of previous couples. Anthony was too wrapped up in waiting to die, Benedict was too busy being shitty Prince Eric and generally devaluing all women everywhere, and Francesca and Colin were working through dead spouse trauma and a variation on professional jealousy, respectively. Hyacinth and Gareth just like each other, and Gareth was refreshingly brief in his daddy issues in favor of seducing Hyacinth and realizing that whoops, he actually meant it. So frankly, Gareth and Hyacinth feel more like they are actually good friends. And as a Polin Stan, that is a little heartbreaking to say, since Polin was supposed to be the friends to lovers storyline and as far as the books go, I actually think Hyacinth and Gareth feel more friends to lovers. Polin is more she fell first, he fell harder, which is a great trope but it's not really friends to lovers.

I swear I'm not going to be low-key disappointed about Polin for this whole post though, because in addition to Hyacinth being genuinely good friends with Gareth, we get her friendship with Lady Danbury. And THAT friendship is an absolute delight, although Jukia Quinn might be flying just a TAD close to the sun by spoofing bad romance books that we read to mock in her series of borderline read-to-mock romance books. This is very akin to my feelings about Penelope getting weak-kneed over Colin's writing talent because he described the temperature of the Agean Sea as half-hour old bathwater. Like, I get what you were going for emotionally, but on a very realistic level, you fell flat on your face and your skirt rode all the way up so you flashed your panties at people by accident, and not in a kinky way. Not that that makes Hyacinth and Lady D's dynamics any less wonderful, it's just one of those "my eyebrows were raised while I was smiling" things. We cannot help but love Lady Danbury.

I also just want to call out the objectively hilarious scene where Gareth goes to ask Anthony for permission to marry Hyacinth and Anthony completely blows the tone with his combination "YES ALL MY SISTERS ARE MARRIED OFF I AM KING" and "hurt her and I won't kill you, I will make your long life a living hell" reactions. I enjoyed this Anthony.

Now, having noted what I enjoyed about this book, it wouldn't be a Bridgerton novel if there weren't also a couple of things that I feel the need to call out as WILDLY WTAF. We're gonna go ahead and start with the prologue, because we need to take a minute and ask ourselves why the actual hell the girl Lord St. Clair was trying to force Gareth to marry had to have a mental disability, and why the hell we needed Lord St. Clair's "kick the dog" moment to be telling his son to rape a vulnerable woman. And that's before we even get into the issues with the rampant asexual objectification and infantilization of disabled people, and how that plays into wildly ableist tropes throughout literature. And the worst part is, this adds literally nothing to the story. We do not even see this character on the page, she is just briefly mentioned twice in the novel and is literally not even an obstacle. This didn't have to be casually thrown in and frankly I saw ten different shades of red when I was reading it. Honestly, it's one of hose thoughtlessly, pointlessly ableist things that causes real harm in the world and I am not here for it.

The other WTAF thing about this book is the fact that Gareth plans to "ruin" Hyacinth. I'm not gonna go do ar as to say there are consent issues here, because to say that would be to wildly and willfully misrepresent their relationship and I'm not going to do that. But I'm not wild about the perpetuation of the idea of virginity as some magical thing that can be taken from a woman and tbat devalues her. And yes, I know, it's it's regency romance. But I can understand scenes-a-faire and still not like it. Which I do not, because it says more about the level to which Gareth initially values Hyacinth than anything else, and you shouldn't have to devalue your SO to feel worthy of them. That is some toxic bullshit, do not do it.

Overall, though, this book was pretty cute and it was heisty, and I am a bit of a sucker for a good heist. Insofar as I recommend any Bridgerton novel, this one was pretty fun.

On The Way To The Wedding

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a hot romantic regency male lead must be in want of a more intelligent heroine. But even given that, Gregory flippin' Bridgerton strains credibility about how obtuse he is throughout this book. Anthony might have been lying to himself and deeply traumatized, Benedict might have been a chauvinist dickhead, and Colin might have been a golden retriever, but none of them were so vacuously vague as Gregory managed to be. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy this book; there were chunks of it I found thoroughly amusing. So let's talk On the Way to the Wedding.

I guess we might as well start with Gregory, because holy cow there was no critical thought in this man's head. He literally did not hear a thing Lucy said to him the night before her wedding to Haselby, because AS COLIN POINTED OUT while he and Gregory were *checks notes* SITTING IN A TREE SPYING ON LUCY'S HOUSE, she did not actually ever at any point say that she wasn't going to marry Haselby, she just made bland statements and let Gregory hear what he wanted to. Like, Greg. Sweetie, honey, friend, she did not explicitly say she was calling off the wedding, and you KNOW she would have if she really intended to. You were thinking with the wrong head, my dude, and frankly it's on your own dang head for being so shocked the next morning.

But on top of having cloth ears when it comes to hearing "no," Gregory managed to talk himself into being in love with Hermione and out of being in live with Lucy. And this is AFTER separate sit downs with Anthony, Kate, and Violet that collectively tell the reader (and should have told Gregory, except he has cotton wool instead of a brain inside his skull) that Gregory has exactly zero connection with reality, no drive or ambition, and has had so much handed to him in life that he won't extend effort to get something that isn't handed to him. Quite literally, my reaction was, "Aww, Lucy gets the second-worst brother. She and Sophie should get together and start a support group." So Gregory and Benedict are super not my favorite Bridgerton Brothers.

One thing about Gregory that was well set up and paid off and used fairly humorously throughout though, is his complete inability to hit anything he aims at with a firearm. I was impressed that he was not toxically masculine about that, and the fact that he nonfatally shot Uncle Richard at the end was well executed, and Lucy telling her Uncle that he is lucky Gregory can't aim for shit actually got a laugh from me. It was very good. AND it established that all four Bridgerton girls can shoot as well, so at some point I want a pall mall game settled via target shooting. My bet is that Eloise thinks she's the best shot, Francesca actually is, Hyacinth does trick shots just to piss off Eloise, and Daphne is scarily efficient as a markswoman.

However, what really kept this book interesting were Lucy and the CW drama-esque plot, because I did not see "oopsie poopsie, did a treason, and now my neice has to marry my blackmailer's gay son" coming in the Bridgertonverse, but here we are, I guess.

Lucy falls into line with Penelope and Sophie in terms of women who are head and shoulders more competent than the Bridgerton man they married, although admittedly Lucy has less personality than either Penelope or Sophie. Lucy is a people manager and pleaser, and she is extremely organized. She also has some excellent one-liners and is more than smart enough to wrap Gregory around her little finger when she needs to.

Unfortunately, she couldn't talk Gregory's stubborn streak out of tying her to a water closet (seriously, what is this, a regency Criminal Minds episode???), which is how we get the big reveal that it's her Uncle, not her father, who committed treason. It's also how we somehow end up with Uncle Richard holding a gun to Sophie in a random bedroom before her marriage to Haselby was consummated, which... Richard. Honey. What was the plan here??? You needed that girl legally and permanently married before Davenport gave up the blackmail. Why are you holding a gun on her right now??? What the hell was the way out of this room of you hadn't been interrupted by the husband squad and their two guns? Weird time for a power trip, is all I can say. You might as well have gotten caught monologuing for all the sense this scene setup made.

And Gregory once again proves that he is a COMPLETE IMBECILE because if you spend an entire book announcing repeatedly that you can't hit the broad side of a barn, why on God's little green earth do you take the shot at a man holding a gun to your love's head? You're as likely to hit her as him! He got lucky because plot armor, but he wasn't the only man in the room with a gun, Lucy's very angry brother ALSO had one, and he was almost certainly a better shot than Gregory. Nobody is exercising critical thought in this scene, is all I'm saying.

Now, for all my criticisms, if you suspend your disbelief, this whole scene is VERY fun, and in principle I quite enjoyed it. Sometimes you have to meet a book where it's at, and in this case it was at CW-esque dramatic farce. So this book was very fun for what it was.

OOH and before I wrap.up and forget: Hyacinth gets to be totally furious in this book, and holy cow I wish we got Hyacinth in a decade st some point, because she would have been show Lady Danbury's equal but more spitfire, and I love that so much for all of us.

This is definitely the last Bridgerton book I'm reading because I have no desire to deal with Daphne or Eloise's books. That said though, the books I have read I was largely either pleasantly surprised by or thoroughly entertained, and really you can't ask more of these books than that. Book Benedict still sucks though.

[idiotsonlyevent]

One day I'm going to write a fic about half foots and gender on the premise that chilchuck and his wife actually tried very hard to raise their daughters separate from the worst of half foot gender roles while still falling victim to those gender roles themselves, leading to the eventual collapse of their relationship wherein chilchuck is Emotionally Repressed but also due to being the family breadwinner has a fairly full life, which starts especially conflicting with chilwife once the kids are moved out because her life is now notably emptier and she's not really sure how to fill that space. But instead of directly stating this it ends up being articulated as like... extra fussing and worrying about chilchuck (because gender is a bitch and Proper Womanhood is frankly just a different mode of emotional repression), which he brushes off because like, he's fine? Both in the repressed way but also like. Genuinely he's doing pretty alright.

Which is why she leaves after meeting his coworkers. It's like that last straw of "my husband is out here having a Life and I have what? A house thats empty most of the time?" And from her perspective he's rebuffed her attempts to reach out, and she's played this role of wife and mother for so long now she doesn't actually know how to exist and communicate outside of it so she just... leaves.

Anyways. Sorry this is long I have a lot of thoughts on that gender flipped chilchuck image and the implications it has on gender roles for half foots. And also on the narrative framing of chilchuck admitting he doesn't know Why his wife left, implying that its the truth. And also that meijack is, as far as I have seen, the only female half foot not seen wearing a dress. And how we never see a female half foot in the dungeon.

(God fuck I'm still not done, I've gotta be clear that when I say chilchuck and his wife tried to raise the girls outside gender roles, that's not even in some like... chilchuck feminist moment way. It's in a "I think its narratively tasty if chilchuck and his older brother become the household breadwinners after their dad dies, and for chilchuck to not have thoughts about this until he has three daughters and suddenly he's realizing he doesn't want them to be dependent on their husbands or sons or uncles when he dies" kind of way)

YOU!!!!!!!!! YOU UNDERSTAND ME!!!!!! YES YES YES!!!!!!!!! this ask...

"[chilchuck's] fine? Both in the repressed way but also like. Genuinely he's doing pretty alright." THISSSSS!!! this is exactly why i've started/scaffolded multiple chilfics, but havent gotten around to actually writing/finishing them; because i think he has so many hangups abt how he's been infantilized and dehumanized and used.... and his wife left him without SAYING ANYTHING and WE KNOW he's torn up as Fuck about it!!!!! there's a very real chance he feels really isolated and lonely, especially because he feels like he can't talk about it, and i dont even think he realizes!

like, i wouldn't be surprised if part of why he hates being 'treated like a kid' is because he doesn't want people 'taking care of him' - maybe because its 'his job' as the 'head of household ('oldest' in the party, in a sense); maybe because his wife used to take care of him and she left him so was it too much? was he too much work? maybe he feels like he doesn't deserve it? i wouldn't be surprised if he drinks not just to loosen up, but because it makes it easier to 'not think about it.'

like i don't think he's 'actually ok' but it's pretty well-concealed under a veneer of competence and stability that i... have no idea how to write that? like, yeah there's the drinking and the pushing people away. but also i think he's the type to drop some shit like 'i don't believe in romance because i'm unlovable' out of nowhere after being provoked/pissed off, and everyone's like '!?!;??!! HUH?!' like it's infiltrated his thinking in ways that he thinks is normal.... he doesn't even realize that his one massive blind spot is himself!

sorry THIS got long 😭 you 🤝 me > forever thinking about how passively important(?) gender is in dungeon meshi.... how, even though its unstated, different cultural expectations and associations w gender and genedered traits affect all of the characters in different ways.... getting a phd in dunmeshi-verse gender studies, brb 🫡

[morticious-delicious]

I finished Poor Things (book by Alisdair Gray) last night after having watched Poor Things (movie dir. Yorgos Lanthimos) this weekend and I am not ok.

The movie: Beautiful to watch, a little extra with the sexi-times, and full of obscenities. (I'm not afraid of the word Fuck but ... FUCK it was excessive! And a little out of character!) I understand that much of the movie was Bella finding the freedom to be herself and do and fuck whom she wanted, I get it. But its all alluded to in the book. We don't have scene after scene of Ruffalos sweaty dad bod. There is no mention of her learning how to use breakfast foods in new and creative ways or assaulting the maid.

(spoilers)

The book has a few parts: The account by McCandless, and then an account by Bella "Victoria" Baxter where she laments the bogusness of his account! She's like holy shit he's a great doctor but has no imagination! He stole from Mary Shelley, He stole from Poe (and a number of other Gothic authors). Basically-

NONE of the story they show in the movie was supposed to have happened. I mean, like, even in the story not like, its fiction. Even in spite of the author throwing in historical tidbits after wards that make it all sound real and true. She runs away from her abusive husband! She moves in with Godwin and loves him for being the only fucking doctor in the UK who is caring to lady patients! She marries McCandless because he's a gentle man who will not try and control her! She LOVES Godwin (who also does not try and control her!) None of the Frankenstein stuff happens! She becomes a doctor and a socialist and has a life thats not quite the adventure they show, but I see what he was trying to do.

The complaints about "She's a baby in a womans body!" Yes! Notice how the men LOVE her when shes infantile and then grow tried of her when she starts thinking and having ideas! (also maturing at an accelerated rate).

She's still a fascinating character but not the manic pixie hmm hmm hmm they show in the movie. If anything she reminds me more of Mattie from True Grit. No nonsense. She does what needs to be done and what she wants! Still interesting but would have made for a less interesting movie.

anyway I'm reeling from this. It reminded me of Blonde. A fictional account of a real person and then they make a movie that shows a lot more sex then was actually in the original piece. Only Bella/Victoria (Beautiful Victory!) wasn't real so I am 100% more ok with it. Anyway. Good movie Good book. I need to lay down. I need men to stop re-writing women.

[blackdevilwhitedemon]

Mari Lives AU

OwO? What's this? The 25th Mari Lives AU you've seen?

You bet your ass it is. And I got brain rot to air out. Okay, so these are notes straight out of my Google Docs'. I wanna write a couple chapters first before I start posting. I think I wrote my notes too neatly instead of line of consciousness like I usually do that I wanna post them here.

Okay so my idea is that Mari lives, they drag her to bed and she wakes up and gets them to call an ambulance but makes them swear on her version of events. 

She tripped down the stairs while arguing bc she wasn’t paying attention and Basil walked in as she fell down the stairs. She’s so scared that they’re (CPS) gonna take away Sunny if anyone finds out he pushed her. Or that their parents will disown him. 

When the ambulance comes Basil said the same things Mari does and Sunny goes non-verbal from stress and shock. He’s shielding Sunny. 

At the hospital she’s told her ribs and spine took some hits and that she’s going to be wheelchair bound for a while. It’ll take months of phy therapy to regain the ability to walk. She’s not happy about this but at least her family is still together. And since no one but the 3 knew Sunny pushed her the others won’t hate him for this. They all think she fell on her own. 

She just wants everything to stay the same.  

Sunny doesn’t take the news well. He feels and thinks that he’s ruined his sister’s life. He’s convinced she’ll never walk again and that he's taken that away from her. He ends up having a mental breakdown soon after Mari is discharged from the hospital and gouges his right eye out with a spoon. 

Mari is absolutely distraught and terrified over this and won’t leave her brother alone if she can help it after this. 

Has a breakdown while Sunny is sleeping on her lap to Hero. She ends up yelling at him before calming down. Hero brings her away to get her to relax. 

I imagine she has to use a cane after her physical therapy is mostly over and she relearns how to walk. She still has the wheelchair in case she is too tired or her back starts hurting or she pushes herself too much. I think she’d have those low back accessibility wheelchairs. And a foldable metal cane that pairs w/ her wheelchair and a glossy finish wooden one for her normal walking cane.

Above are the notes I initially made at like 2am and below are notes I made days later:

Okay so obv Mari needs her room moved to the first floor since she can’t get up the stairs anymore for a long time so the piano room is now her room (later her old room gets turned into a painting room for Sunny!). Sunny starts sleepwalking after his incident and at first it’s just him walking around in his room or walking to the door of the upstairs bathroom and waking up. One night when Mari was getting a glass of water, she noticed in the dim light that there’s a small figure standing at the top of the stairs. When he doesn’t react to her questions, she realizes he must be sleepwalking again. She starts getting worried and yells for him to wake up which he does alongside their parents who put him back to bed. This unlocks a new anxiety in Mari and one day gets a nightmare that Sunny sleepwalks to the top of the stairs and she’s at the base unable to get up to him and he crumples to the bottom. In the nightmare there’s a horrible sound when this happens and blood pools around him (skull cracked) and she just throws herself out of her wheelchair and screams as she holds him, unable to help. This deeply bothers her for days and she eventually voices this to Hero who suggests she should just ask that Sunny move to room with her like he does w/ Kel. Also the door would have a lock, she can keep an eye on him, and lastly could use the excuse to her parents that it’ll make it easier to have Sunny help her with tasks (she doesn't like how they’ve been making him do so much for her. She hates the infantilizing her parents are putting on her and thinks Sunny shouldn’t be forced to do so many chores rn. He isn’t in the right headspace for that [haha pun]). 

Some small details I must put in are like Sunny having to cope/make up with his new lack of depth perception. At first there were some things he broke or damaged bc he’s having trouble judging the distance between the object he’s putting down and the surface he’s putting it on. So bc of this he kinda gets banned from the kitchen after destroying plates and cups on accident when having to make Mari her meals. 

Also like Mari still trying to do things on her own and constantly trying to reach out to Sunny to like hold his hand or even give him a kiss to the forehead or cheek bc she’s scared for his well being and kinda neglects her own mental health in the process. Which leads that to fall on Hero which does eventually take a toll on him worrying about everyone so much but he pushes his feelings to the back so they can lean on him. He reasons at these tough times he has to be the ‘stable’ one. Like, isn’t that kinda his character? I think most write him like this. 

(The siblings don’t get therapy for their mental health bc their father doesn’t believe in that stuff and would get deeply embarrassed and think it would be shameful if ppl hear they were going to it bc then his kids are ‘crazy’ or ‘smth’s wrong w/ them’. The mother doesn't agree w/ this but dad got the final say on this.) I may or may not be projecting cough cough. Man since I’m in the crowd that headcanons the siblings as Asian-Americans w/ shitty parents (dad is the Asian immigrant parent while mother is white or white-mixed? ) imma project so much baby!

Which leads into the fact I have a cooking scene planned! Mari, Sunny, and Hero try their hand in cooking rendang since Mari has this southeast-asian cookbook she got as a gift (yes im ref-ing the one I have irl. Also shut up, im projecting and it’s like my fav food DON'T TOUCH ME!) and wants to try smth. She picks at random. She gives Sunny very easy tasks to help them. And she notices how slow and controlled Sunny is when put things to the counter and it makes her heart clench that he’s so focused on it and scared to mess things up. She’s more eye level with the counter so she’s doing all the measuring. Just needs to tilt her head to read the numbers ez. Anytime she backs up she makes sure to look behind her so she doesn’t run over the boys. Maybe make a funny and that the end result dish is meh bc they used a bad cheap brand of coconut milk. (idk I never cooked my mother did all that)

Also in this AU, Basil is always hanging at their place bc Sunny only talks verbally by whispering in Basil’s or Mari’s ear. He’s only signs nowadays which makes Mari sad bc he made so much progress over the years with talking verbally to his friends and now it’s back to square one like when they first moved to Faraway Town (w/ the expectation of Basil since he knows). 

Some small things of note are like Basil getting real close w/ Sunny now and Kel kinda feeling left out (they are 12).

Earlier on Sunny has a point where he tries to avoid touching Mari as much as possible which she def notices and shakes Basil down for details bc she knows they’ve been stuck together like pb&j recently. Eventually he conceits that Sunny is scared of hurting her anymore/again and this breaks her heart. She straightens things out by sitting her brother down and talking to him. I want this to be a heart to heart scene. If I'm not sobbing when writing then what’s the point? 

For later chapters I want Sunny to start coping by painting. But hehe, he’s not painting cute things. Spooky things, creepy, scary, gorey, whatever you get the point. It’s like how he gets his emotions and worries and frustrations out. His way of venting (more healthily!). Ofc there are some more ‘normal’ things he takes to painting. Like landscapes and ppl on hills, or ballerinas, just flowy fabric stuff. It’s calming for him. And what he can show to others/family. (Basil gets to see all his art and is kinda off put by it at first but kinda shakes it off for Sunny’s sake. When Mari finds out, Sunny gets upset bc he thinks she’ll react badly bc he knows their parents would but she just kinda brushes it off bc if it makes her brother happy or is therapeutic then she has no qualms. As long as it’s not physically harming him.)

Below are snippets from a discord convo I had w/ a friend after I showed her my notes and she helped me bounce some ideas! (Friend-Red) (Me-Orange)

I think Mari’s lack of going out and about should start to slowly ruin Mari and Aubrey’s friendship. Aubrey wants to play with the two but because Sunny is basically mute and Mari is wheelchair bound, they can’t really. And this leads to Aubrey becoming the bad bitch she is when she gets older?

Omg true. Mari can’t go out to play anymore/it’s hard to bc it’s difficult to push her wheelchair in non-concrete areas especially since her arms aren’t used to it yet.

Sunny shuts down for awhile and when he starts to feel better he doesn’t speak to her anymore and maybe bc he still whispers to basil and mari she takes it personally?

Hero and Basil are often at the siblings house, Kel really the only ones that’s sticking around her in her pov

I think maybe Kim should befriend her during these times too and it’ll be a trio of her, Kim, and Kel until the others start joining them again

You planning to keep the Aubrey/Sunny crush thing around or you gonna shift it to her crushing on Kel? 👀 I know Aubrey and kel are fairly popular ship. Enemies to lovers type beat

I didn’t think about that. I was gonna be tagging this fic with Mari/Hero bc I am basic and proud and minor sunflower (basil/Sunny) but it won’t be much besides like implying that basil has a crush on him and Sunny is like kinda codependent? They are 12 so nothing serious XD as for Aubrey,,, maybe

Smth like she feels more betrayed because she had a crush on him and he’s not relying on her? And she knew that he liked her back

[lindszeppelin]

I almost feel bad for some of the Kaustin shippers. So many have done face reveals and/or use their real names/provide other identifying information about themselves.

Like, most are young and in Kaia’s peer group or younger. I was wise beyond my years when I was that age but boy did I get more polished with age. I’m beyond glad there is no internet footprints of most of my thoughts and opinions from that age! I’d say they should know better, but they don’t have the perspective to how much their thoughts on relationships will change as they experience more relationships and witness how other people’s relationships fall apart. It’s the curse of being young: you think you know more than you do. They don’t know that how you feel in your early twenties will not necessarily hold up the rest of your life. That said, I low key feel Mollie should know better. She’s in freakin’ law school and is essentially studying and analyzing consequences at the end of the day. Like…does she think law firms or clients can’t one day come across her blog, tweets, photos (whether they’re still live when she officially enters that profession or on something like screenshots or the way back machine that someone will track down her footprint…which will be fine bc she’s literally teaching her followers how to better stalk Austin via the way back machine 🙄🙄🙄🙄) will find her literal stalking and investing sooooo much time into a relationship between people she’ll never meet cute or professional or even remotely okay? Like how is she not scared that this could be a huge embarrassment and liability to be such a rabid fan who follows several people’s every move? It’s a terrible look professionally.

Like I said, I kinda feel bad bc you don’t know what you don’t know. But they also write fan fiction as they go based on tips of icebergs (largely out of context) and are thinking it’s cool to leave their identifiable information out there. I don’t think I would have done that even at 22 so I cannot wrap my head around it. Sorry- just wanted to vent about this.

Related: I hate it when they say we’re infantilizing Kaia or any young women when we point out age differences aren’t cool. No, we’re 🚨warning🚨 them based on what we’ve learned. Not every older dude is a predator- I don’t think Austin is “ preying” on Kaia. But you hit a few nails on the head some posts back talking about him being a bit lost when he met Kaia. He had just finished some intense projects and was still likely finding himself post his relationship with Vanessa. Yes, it had been 2ish years but a) it was a long ass relationship, b) he wasn’t even living in LA the entire time between relationships and didn’t go home/see his family and c) throw in a global pandemic in there so those 2 years were weird AF. I’m personally of the belief that if an older man is with a younger girl something is a bit off, even if it’s neutral (read: not a bad guy or a predator) but is in a weird place or hasn’t grown into their adult life yet and just has a bit more work to do. I personally think he should have stayed single a bit longer to grow into his adult self. I don’t judge him for going for a younger woman and I semi get it, as I also believe we mentally/emotionally revert back to the relative age we were when a relationship began (post break up). He was so young when he and V got together and was in a serious relationship in his twenties. Of course he’s going to relate to younger people for a hot moment (and that’s not taking away his intelligence or maturity in other ways…this can happen to the best of us). But yeah, he should stayed single and someone should teach Kaia that older men who wanna date young women probably aren’t the best idea for a spectrum of reasons. It’s not infantilizing- it’s a warning, it’s concern, and it’s about being literate about human psychology and behaviors regarding patterns and societal standards that we need to rethink.

Sorry this was longer than I intended. I guess I’ve been wanting to say all of this for some time so it was bottled up. Hope it didn’t come across as a hater- I don’t hate Austin (I’m side eyeing and running out of patience the longer this goes on bc I believe him to be smarter than this, but I still don’t think he’s a bad dude.) As I said, this happens to the best of us and it’s not an attack. Life is messy and dialogues about this stuff are important. And bc we’ve lived it, those young whipper snappers should respect their elders and not gaslight our lived experience/observations/lessons learned 😂

Hello anon! I just wanted to have some dinner and craft a response for you, because damn this was so well put together that it deserves a little more depth of analysis from me. So thank you for taking your time to write in your thoughts.

Off the top, I do agree that the younger generation is way too lax with how they throw around their identifying information out there on social media. A lot of them just aren't aware that whatever you post online leaves a footprint, and even if you try to delete it or conceal it, it will always be there. So even if they think they're being cocky by revealing their faces and leaving their names and where they live and such out there without a care, welp that is gonna come back around and haunt them later. Us millennials (i assume you're a fellow millennial, or Gen X at most lol) know the dangers of the internet as we grew up with the beginnings of social media. I would think twice if i were these kids uploading their faces and other shit to twitter/tumblr. Employers can find all of this even when the shippers don't think they can.

I think when we were these shippers ages we all said some pretty cringe shit online. Here's hope that as these kids grow up they realize the damage they can do by how their words and actions can affect others. And I will also just say here that just because someone goes to college for higher learning doesn't mean they are smarter than anyone else. Book smarts don't equal street smarts. and in this world I highly value being street smart and internet smart over book smart. And i think we all know that not every profession is well suited to everyone that signs up for that career field. Passing the bar is insanely difficult and even then, do you know how many half assed shitty lawyers there are out there roaming these streets? Crazy.

The stalking in this fandom is horrific, and if she really is dishing out details on how to stalk Austin's past social medias to obtain information, then they are certified crazy. It's giving straight jacket. It's giving delusional stalker. And to answer your question of how they can overlook what they say online...arrogance and ego, simply put. You think you're untouchable until one day you're not.

This point you bring up here about Austin and Kaia, dude, amazing. This needed to be said. You are so correct. Of course Austin is not a predator. Only fucking idiots would say that shit and compare him to Leo. This man clearly went through the ringer, and his choice in dating partner only reflects the mental state he was in (and might still be lingering in) at that time. He had a full fledged identity crisis meanwhile he flew to London straight after being released from the Hospital in Australia and filmed MOTA, then a few short months later he met Kaia under questionable circumstances. Plus the whirlwind of the award season and the hefty Elvis press tour is so much for a person to handle, especially when this was his first time doing both of those. No man or woman under normal circumstances would get mixed up with someone much younger than them (especially when the younger one hasn't even been a legal adult for that long). it's really a reflection of a switch not being turned on for the older person AND fucked up trauma somewhere in the young person. Trauma all around really.

At kaia's age, being with a man much older than her might have given the impression to others that she was so wise beyond her years, but she's a damn child. She shows her age all the time when she takes pictures with her young friends, go to these embarrassing parties that involve BDSM or sex or fanfiction readings in her "perverted bookclub". That is all stuff a 22 year old and younger would probably be found doing. That is not something a functioning adult who's doing okay would engage in. Plus, by her own admission she has been around men much older than he all her life thanks to Cindy pushing her to model since she was so young. So she is fucked up from that, and dating older men is what she is used to. She thinks it's normal. But in reality, it's not. And it's the fact that these shippers who are her age DON'T have a problem with it, but those of us who are close to Austin's age have a MASSIVE problem with it.

You're telling me that if theses shippers were to see a regular 32 year old man holding hands with a 22 year old out and about in the grocery store or whatever that they'd be cool with it? No, you side eye that shit. It is not normal or usual, it is odd. I as a near 30 year old woman would never in my life consider dating someone Kaia's age, are you for fucking real? In Hollywood this weirdo shit might be immorally normalized, but in regular society it is NOT OKAY. And I hope Austin get out of this funk he's been in for 2-3 years now. Continuing to be with her will only further damage himself in the long run, as you can clearly tell this man is not in love with her.

I think I hit on everything I wanted to comment on, but honestly I don't remember so im just gonna leave it here lol.

[tobiasdrake]

The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan, Episode 6 - Over the Obento

We just had a fistfight over chocolate. Now we're going to murder each other over lunchbox meals. While I eat a lunchbox meal, because Bestie's wife prepared obentos and egg drop soup for dinner! Serendipitous!

(In two parts.)

Sorry, Kyon, but the jury returned verdict on your dumbness a long time ago. And despite multiple appeals, the evidence has always proven unimpeachable.

With examples as recent as that shit you pulled on White Day.

I guess Haruhi's been formally accepted as an acceptable trespasser. Which is nice for me because I much prefer she sticks to her black uniform. I'm glad we haven't seen the forced and awkward Kyon Gym Clothes look for Haruhi and Itsuki in a couple episodes.

Sure enough, she is an officially licensed and permitted trespasser.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

She caught Yuki gaming, so Yuki wasn't paying attention to what she was being given to sign. Classic con artistry. So, officially, the Literature Club is borrowing an exceptional student from Kouyouen to help them with club affairs.

Well, good for her. But she isn't God here so your expositional services will not be required. I am much more interested in your green and white shoulder furoshiki. There are many different ways that furoshiki are wrapped and carried, but that color, pattern, and method of carrying is commonly used for stealing.

Man from another school walked in here carrying a burglar's lootsack and the teacher was like, "It's so nice you're here to help with a club. La dee dah!"

This is how school supplies, trophies, cheat sheets, and Mikuru go missing.

There's something cathartic about having someone in the cast who can do shit like this to Haruhi. Lawful Menace was a much needed addition to this cast.

They keep teasing Kyon and Mikuru's first meeting but the way they hint at it makes me pretty sure I don't actually want to know. I am entirely comfortable writing off their introduction as "We've all seen the show and know how Mikuru gets used here" and then moving right along without having to dwell on it.

Well shit. Here we go. Guessing this is where the titular obento comes in.

Oh, are we doing a Rashomon? Because it's always fun to do Rashomon.

Okay, never mind. This is surprisingly chaste for a Mikuru incident.

It's not a Rashomon either, but that's okay. There's not enough meat here for a Rashomon anyway. The important thing here is how it affects Yuki.

Who is buying Tsuruya's bullshit hook, line, and sinker. They say a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth has even got its pants on, but that's an underestimation of the lie. It can go much farther.

Ryoko trying to explain in theoretical terms the road to improving Kyon's understanding, and Kyon's takeaway is a practical application of his dumbness.

Well, he tried to get Ryoko's help and then hideously misunderstood what she was trying to explain, so now he gets Lawful Menace instead. XD Ryoko remains MVP.

Because Haruhi got to wear all sorts of cool shit when she was the main character. (We do not talk about Mikuru; It does not count as wearing cool shit when it's involuntary.) Now that we're in Yuki World, Ryoko wants her turn.

Ryoko, what are you doing? Do you have any idea how infantilizing that sounds? You should not have done this in the club room.

Ryoko is trying to keep Kyon away from studying with Yuki but in the process she's expressly excluding Yuki. This is going to hurt her feelings if it keeps up.

The shit raging egomaniacs do whenever attention is not being centered on them. "Oy! I think you've made a mistake. Because your eyes are over there, but my face is over here. I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you that you're looking the wrong direction. And you should correct that."

(Haruhi, my reflection.)

[foryoupeko]

I abhor when people have the sentiment of “I want Peko to get therapy so she can be [insert OP’s bastardize standards of what a normal person is].”

I see people who wants Peko to smile more! Not need Fuyuhiko! But people don’t have to smile all their time to prove their happy. There are characters like Kirigiri who rarely smiles. Why is the only way people think Peko can be happy if she rejects Fuyuhiko? Why just write off Peko’s desire to be by Fuyuhiko’s side as a tragedy?

These people only see Peko as an embodiment of her trauma, too infantile to have her own autonomy. As if her whole narrative in chapter 2 was that she did everything on her own volition. If you try devalue her role in chapter 2 it goes from “Peko sacrificing herself to protecting someone dear” to “Poor victim brainwashed to give up her life for abuser”

More times than not, people think the only way for Peko to see herself as an individual is to push away Fuyuhiko. To which I say 1) Who said Peko doesn’t see herself as an individual? 2) The idea of Peko needing to be separated from Fuyuhiko is LITERALLY what Fuyuhiko has been doing this entire time.

Point 1: Peko is an individual

I really don’t understand when people say “Peko wants to be an individual but can’t because of the Kuzuryu Clan.” There’s nothing outright said that implies Peko’s personality was molded by the Kuzuryu Clan. She has her own interests that directly opposes Fuyuhiko’s interest (Fuyuhiko likes sweets, Peko hates it). Is it because she sees herself as a tool more than a person? Sonia sees herself as a Princess more than a human. Is it because she’s willing to sacrifice her life for another? Nekomaru did that TWICE.

If you really wanted a narrative where someone needs to see themselves more as an individual then Mukuro is literally standing right there.

What gets me the most is that people love saying Peko has no self worth because of her status as a tool and just label it as “Peko needs to be fixed”. Most people don’t know that in her Island Mode Ending, SHE LITERALLY comes to the conclusion she wants to be more than a tool. One gentle push from Hajime and she came to that conclusion very easily! She’s not as far gone as people think she is. If you only look at her Chapter 2 debate then of course it looks like Peko sees herself as only a tool. The entire crux of her argument relied on that narrative. As far as I know in Danganronpa S and Development Plan, (a non-despair setting) she does not call herself a tool.

Point 2: Fuyuhiko pushing Peko away DOES NOT WORK

People jump to the conclusion that “Fuyuhiko and Peko saw each other every day, they’re codependent” Everyone understand the main emotional impact at the end of Chapter 2 was that Fuyuhiko finally confessing he needs Peko right? That everything else before then was Fuyuhiko pushing Peko away. Fuyuhiko pushed her away to prove his independence and give Peko her freedom but the only think he accomplished was making Peko think he didn’t want her. That’s why she was so shocked at Fuyuhiko’s emotional plead to not leave him.

Forcibly separating Fuyuhiko and Peko feels likes Fuyuhiko washing his hands of Peko. “Sorry you came out horribly fucked up because of my family. Hopefully our classmates can make you a normal person because I’m taking myself out of the equation” I rather like how Danganronpa S and Development plan handled it. The two live their own lives but still keep base with each other. They marvel at how the other has grown and move on with their lives after graduation.

I saw this post long time ago pointing out that Fuyuhiko saw Hajime as his first friend meant he didn’t care about Peko. But Peko saids the exact thing to Hajime. Fuyuhiko and Peko do not see each other as friends. Their relationship is so strained despite both parties needing each other and it’s just so sad to boil it down to “separate them both”

tl;dr I don’t like people trying to fix Peko by taking away all her interesting traits and relationships. Just say you don’t like Peko and move on. And I swear to God this isn’t my plead to ship Kuzupeko. It’s more like me begging to stop writing Peko out of Fuyuhiko’s life. They can be platonic!!! I don’t give a shit!!! Just don’t separate!!!

edit: Okay so Peko does call herself a tool in Danganronpa Development plan. But she does also say this so y’know. It equals out.

[wagner-fell]

A Boy and a Tree and Everything in Between

Based on WTNV episode 132, just a quick Christopher Lightwood fic I needed to write

Spoilers from COT incoming so beware!!!

Christopher Lightwood was a boy who wanted to know everything. He was fascinated by the wheels on his Uncle Henry’s chair and even more so of which words strung together made his mother laugh and which made her forehead crinkle with worry. He desired to know what made him desire, what made fuses blow, tempers blow, fists fly, birds fly, all of it. All of it and then everything in between.

His cousin Thomas would tell him, “I love you Kit, I would give my life for you.”

Most days Christopher was made to go and train with his friends. He was not interested in the weapons they wielded however, only how they worked. And this overwhelming curiosity would often result in injury for himself and his cousin. This made Thomas worried, but he did not want to infantilize Kit, or otherwise treat him like a child in any capacity. So when Thomas was worried, he did not speak and only worried himself more, trapped inside his own head with only his anxiety as company.

His parents would tell him, “We love you son, we would give everything we own away for you.”

His parents sometimes baked cakes for the family. Christopher loved cake. He loved leavening agents and the careful art of mixing flour with liquid and the chemical reaction of eggs and fat under extreme heat. Sometimes he would help, but his parents would become frustrated when he would eat a spoonful of raw baking soda or open the oven early and pour the uncooked batter onto the floor, in order to examine the consistency of the cake at different times during the baking process. His father would pick him and put him down outside the kitchen, scolding him to look at the mess he has made.

His sister would tell him, “I hate you brother.” But then their parents would instruct her to set a better example for the newest addition to their family and so she would proclaim, “I love you brother, I will write you a 300 page fire letter expressing my love the day you create them.” But he knew she didn’t believe that day would come, not really.

Christopher knew he would never need Thomas to give his life for him, he just wanted him to express his concerns. He knew his parents would never have to give away all their possessions for their son, he just wanted them to show interest in his curiosity. He knew Anna really loved him, he just wanted her to believe in him.

After Christopher had died, he was greeted by an angel in the garden behind his family’s estate. He couldn’t recognize which angel it was. That bothered him slightly. Huh, he could still be bothered after death. That fact made him smile to himself. He was also smiling because he had neer seen an angel before and he was quite curious about them.

“Are you here to guide me to rebirth,” he asked, smiling despite himself. He knew he probably should be upset he was dead, but his curiosity had taken hold of his emotions now. “No,” the angel answered, “although I could be if you like. I have seen you, Christopher Gideon Lightwood, and I do not think it is time for you to restart. It is time for you to evolve, my child.”

The angel grabbed his arm and stretched it far, turning it a deep, dark brown as it did so. Not the brown of Alastair or Cordelia’s skin, but the brown of the oak rocking chair near his uncle’s fireplace. His legs stretched and became one with his torso and head of his body’s own accord. The angel disappeared as his body (if you could even call it that anymore) stretched and distorted itself until it became its final shape.

Christopher was a tree.

Now that he was stuck in the ground, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to let any of his grieving family know he was right there, the only thing he could do was what he always wanted to do. Learn everything.

He learned about photosynthesis and cellular division. He learned about the mating habits of squirrels and birds with a detached curiosity he never got to express to anyone. He studied the geometry of spider webs and the physics of cars. He spent a lot of time watching his family fall to pieces at his loss and he watched them as they blindly attempted to pick themselves back up again.

He provided shade at Anna’s wedding, and later at Alexander’ too. He let his parents rest against him as they aged. He gave his branches for Thomas and Alastiar’s twins to build a secret-fort out of. He shielded Ari from the sun as his sister played pirate with her children using his wood.

Time slowed for him, and his knowledge grew so vast and so expansive, human triumphs and pains became a distant memory.

“I love you, I would give my life for you,” Thomas told his daughter as she climbed up his branches, “however I care about you so much I cannot let you get hurt about something so easily preventable.”

“I love you, I would give away all my belongings for you,” Cecily told her granddaughter, wailing because she was prevented from jumping into the mud puddle by his roots. “However there are times to experiment and this is not one of those times. Your mum is very fond of that dress on you. Why don’t we go get changed into some of your old clothes and jump in the mud with them?”

“I know you can do this,” Anna told her daughter as she built toy cars under her uncle’s shade. “I full-heartedly believe in you, I love you.”

Christopher, the boy, may be dead but Christopher, the tree, lived in those moments, truly lived, whether they knew it or not.

And maybe, that could be enough.

Sorry if this is shit, I just really needed to write this for me and I’m like really proud of it so 😭😭

This is probably like really OOC but like again it’s mainly for me and I write this from 9-12 so don’t judge me-

@hahahax30 @tea-and-a-clandestine-agenda @lifewouldbebetteronmars @petalsofaflower-shutupthomas @cant-think-of-anything @thechangeling @the-wckd-powers @littlx-songbxrd @tessherongraystairs @melanielocke

[beardedmrbean]

Okay thank you for liking my Jrpg idea. Actually during the launch of Diablo 4, a lot of og Diablo fans realize the age gaps between them and the new blood is that many new blood around their own kids ages.

Hell I knew about Diablo because my dad played the second game on the family computer.

Meh, dystopian Ya novels died in the mid 10’s. Also this

“Hey writers, maybe try writing and working out a solution occasionally, like, as said, patching up a familial relationship issue.”

Well Encanto did that, yes yes the running gag that the big fantasy is elder members apologizing.

Hmm given the abuse my stepmom put me through and my little sister, who was raised by her since the age of 6, develop depression so she can’t join the navy. And the bitch said my little sister said she faking it

Also keep in mind my stepmom is 14 years older than. So she a millenial, like yes she an incest survivor and came from a broken family. Sliver lining she isn’t a misandrist

But I can smell her toxic ass in modern “abuse survivor groups” like on tumblr

So when you see people on social media and the entertainment industry have the same toxicity and try to INFANTILIZE such garbage because they are women with a hard life.

You get pissed.

Oh sorry have to get it out, but the reason why say family healing from a mess is rare in modern media.

Welll a lot of modern writers have unresolved parental issues and treat the audience like their therapists. But feel hard when the writers still think they are the abused child with no power vs the insufferable manchildren that want to take away our human rights

And omg can we go back to HEALING abused children vs INFANTIZING them?

Like this idea that abused people need to be docile for the rest of their lives. Huh, explain a coworker of mine out of the kindness of his heart got me a GameStop gift card

Okay this anon is weird, but I often go

“Okay can we all stop acting like we are an abused character in a kids cartoon? Yes we don’t repeat the same cycle as our abusers. We still have toxicity we need to control…unless you believe you don’t have any.”

I send a better Jrpg, now I shouldn’t have been on here at that age…

I was EXTREMELY uncomfortable with the dehumanization and Nazis level stuff tumblr had towards white people. Like these was from fellow blacks and non whites. So them calling white people subhumans that need to be wipeout

Can for the love of god anyone explain to me why a 13 year old black child who just managed to make sure I never in the same house as my abuser (who never got punished. Enjoy your lonely death when your youngest daughter ditched you in a nursery cunt!) have more empathy and compassion to humans than people who were in their late teens or in COLLEGE?!

What the FUCK cause me to have better morals than the fuckers who grew up on BTAS and ATLA during it height of popularity?

Hell I knew about Diablo because my dad played the second game on the family computer.

I bought 2 a few months after moving back to CA from FL was the only video game I had for like 8.5 years till I got FF6 on steam a couple months back, love that game, both of them. Can't do 3 I get vertigo, never tried 4.

Meh, dystopian Ya novels died in the mid 10’s. Also this

I'm old things run together for me at times as a result, that and people keep bringing them up all the time.

“Hey writers, maybe try writing and working out a solution occasionally, like, as said, patching up a familial relationship issue.” Well Encanto did that, yes yes the running gag that the big fantasy is elder members apologizing.

Fantasy is that because young writers blame their elders for every problem in the world even the ones that predate them.

Hmm given the abuse my stepmom put me through and my little sister, who was raised by her since the age of 6, develop depression so she can’t join the navy. And the bitch said my little sister said she faking it

And here I thought white women were supposed to be more willing to accept mental illness as a thing others have.

But I can smell her toxic ass in modern “abuse survivor groups” like on tumblr

That's the other option ya, social media points

And omg can we go back to HEALING abused children vs INFANTIZING them?

Like this idea that abused people need to be docile for the rest of their lives. Huh, explain a coworker of mine out of the kindness of his heart got me a GameStop gift card

That's the therapy right there, it's different for different people, and genuine kindness, like learning about rome, or building a shed, or many other things can be therapy.

Reese Witherspoon did a movie called Wild, based on a memoir by Cheryl Strayed who afaik that's the only thing she wrote, apparently looking I'm wrong, but she did a 1100 mile hike up the pacific crest, and it was therapy, woman from my church who's husband just died of cancer recently is doing something similar in Europe except it's a pilgrimage walk and nowhere near as isolated, still 8 weeks and therapy.

“Okay can we all stop acting like we are an abused character in a kids cartoon? Yes we don’t repeat the same cycle as our abusers. We still have toxicity we need to control…unless you believe you don’t have any.”

Gaslight the trauma away, or maybe realize it's not so traumatic after all, or things in between too.

Can for the love of god anyone explain to me why a 13 year old black child who just managed to make sure I never in the same house as my abuser (who never got punished. Enjoy your lonely death when your youngest daughter ditched you in a nursery cunt!) have more empathy and compassion to humans than people who were in their late teens or in COLLEGE?!

You were less concerned with how people perceived you where as they felt the need to dehumanize other people and bring them down below their level in their minds so they could feel superior.

Short version even with all the trauma you had/have more self esteem than they do.

What the FUCK cause me to have better morals than the fuckers who grew up on BTAS and ATLA during it height of popularity?

For me it's Mr Rogers and Sesame Street, going with church upbringing that never made me feel lesser for being who I was is another primary one that ran longer than watching Mr Rogers, breaks my heart people got my saviour so wrong as to use him as a hammer to harm others, that ain't who he is.

Fundies may think they're getting the rules right but they forget that the greatest commandment is love, Jesus is the carpenter let him take care of the hammer.

For you it may be that you actually took what you learned from those shows to heart, lots of people did and lots of people got it right, lots of people loved Steven Universe too, and then they nearly bullied an artist to suicide and formed online hate mobs over other peoples opinions and interpretations.

[chloesolace]

Book Review: "The Scarlet Veil" by Shelby Mahurin

Spoiler-free

Genre: young adult, fantasy • Triggers: trauma, death, graphic descriptions of corpses, kidnapping, blood, misogyny, murder • Year of Publication: 2023

Plot: ★★★★

Characters: ★★★★

Writing Style: ★★

Re-Readability: ★★★

all my reviews - blog navigation - Discord Server

General Thoughts

During the first half of this book I thought I would end up disliking it, and was very disappointed because I have been looking for an aristocratic vampire romance for ages. Not reverse-harm, not vampire warrior, no, the actual aristocratic-long-hair-wine-glass-in-hand-elegant vampire one might associate with figures like Carmilla and Dracula. This is also the main reason I did not DNF this, and I'm really glad I gave it a chance, because it ended up getting better the further I got and had me at the edge of my seat toward the ending.

I do wanna say that I have not read Serpent & Dove and although this is a spin-off with the same characters (just a different one taking on the role as MC), I understood everything I needed to. So, in my opinion, reading the Serpent & Dove trilogy is not necessary in order to read this. Sure, you might not have as much of a connection with the characters when you begin to read, but everything that's relevant to the story is explained quite nicely in my opinion. Now, moving on to the actual review.

Plot

The plot is a murder mystery. Bodies of supernatural beings turn up with two puncture wounds in their throats. Without getting into spoiler territory, I can say that the plot is very interesting and has some nice twists in there, too. You will definitely be entertained by it if you enjoy this sort of thing.

Celie being kidnapped and brought to the vampire castle is a scenario I also enjoyed reading. There was a bit of an enemies-to-lovers dynamic going on at times, since Celie, our MC, justifiably disliked Michal, the vampire king, in the beginning. Yes, I know that being kidnapped and then falling for your kidnapper is somewhat problematic but really, this is fiction and YA (not a dark romance). Celie was not actually treated like a real prisoner, and that only progressed further as the story went on; she was dressed in beautiful gowns, walked around the castle grounds and island, and even went on an undercover mission with Michal at a brothel *ahem*.

Also, if authors tried making every fictional scenario inherently healthy and unproblematic I'd die of boredom. I want that in real life, not my books x). But I digress.

Characters

I really disliked Celie in the beginning. Her actions and internal monologue felt juvenile, to the point where I seriously struggled to believe she was 19 and not, say, 15. I understand that she was supposed to be this soft, feminine and lady-like character and this is actually a character type I'd like to see more of, as feminity is often demonized and seen as weak by readers. However, it wasn't Celie's "lady-like" personality I had an issue with, but how she felt infantilized sometimes. The other characters kept her entirely separate from any plans they made, even if she was directly involved in one of the murders since she found the body. This is a good idea, but the execution made it feel like "go away, the adults are talking" instead of "she is too traumatized to take part in this", which is what I believe Mahurin was going for. It is also easier to believe the former due to Célie's often childish behavior and reactions. You can be soft and feminine but still behave a bit more maturely, which is what I would have hoped for her. Still, her character development was fairly satisfying. She still has a long way to go, I think, and I am looking forward to hopefully seeing that develop in book two.

Michal is a character I hope to see Mahurin elaborate on more. We don't know that much about him yet, so it is really hard to judge. He states at some point, and this is no way a spoiler (honestly, it felt kind of random for him to say it), that he is afraid of love. Why? What happened for him to develop that fear? So far I can say that I love how he has a very ruthless and violent side, but can also be extremely caring and sweet at the same time.

I also loved the side characters, at least the vampire ones, Odessa and Dimitri. Especially Odessa. I cannot say much for the Serpent & Dove characters because they mostly appear in the first section of the book, which is exactly the section I disliked.

In general, I enjoyed the characters. I'm giving four out of five stars, though, because as I said before, I think Célie's character could have handled a bit more maturely in the beginning, especially since she was supposed to be 19.

Writing Style

As always, this is entirely subjective but I include this part in my reviews since writing styles have made or broken books for me, and I would like to offer those interested in the books insights into the style before buying it, so you can decide for yourself if this is something you'd enjoy reading.

Oh boy. I didn't really like it, I fear. Firstly, the narrator is a first-person present tense which is already not my favorite combination, but it is easy to overlook really. The main issues I had were t-t-the c-c-onstant s-stuttering l-like this. It was wholly unnecessary in my opinion and widely overused. I also think we have been past this in publishing and established that there are better ways to write stuttering t-than t-t-this. There are stuttering writing guides online. I actually loved the fact Celie stuttered, since it showed her character development very well, I just wish the stuttering had been written differently.

Secondly, the constant italicization of words for emphasis got on my nerves, too. Using it sometimes is totally valid, but I swear there was not one page without at least four or five italicized words for emphasis, and that's not even counting the constant repetition of sentences that had already been said at some point before, just so the reader doesn't forget anything. Those were also in italics, of course.

Overall, this improved toward the end of the book, though. Celie's stuttering ceased and so did the italicization for emphasis (mostly). Still, this is something that annoyed me a tremendous amount and one of the reasons why it was so hard for me to get through the first part of the book, hence the two stars.

Re-Readability

I think this book can definitely be re-read. Especially if you enjoyed the romance scenes between Michal and Celie, like I did. However, keep in mind this book has about 620 pages so it is not short by any means. Also, I would probably skip the first part of the book if I ever re-read it and jump straight into Celie arriving in Requiem.

Conclusion

In essence, I enjoyed this book. It was exactly what I was looking for in terms of vampire romance, but it also pulled me right into the story and I am very excited to see what will happen in book two, especially after that ending. I don't think I will pick up Serpent & Dove, however, since the story of that trilogy doesn't peak my interest as much.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Exploring Adaptation and Bridgerton

There comes a point where a girl can't deny she has engaged in a fandom. It probably is well before you start writing fic (you can find The Polin Fic on Ao3), but y'know, here we are. Let's talk Bridgerton.

Ok, couple things right off the top.

We are not dealing with either The Duke and I or S1 of Bridgerton on Netflix. We are not dealing with *THAT* scene and it's complete disregard for consent. Find that somewhere else on the internet, it's a big place.

We are literally only talking about The Viscount Who Loved Me and Romancing Mr. Bridgerton. They're the only books I've read, and at this point they're the only books in this series I care to read. That means we'll also chat about S2 of Netflix's Bridgerton.

Ok, with the ground rules established, let's jump on in!

I think the reasonable place to start here is with Kate. I watched Bridgerton the Netflix series before reading The Viscount Who Loved Me, and Kates Sheffield and Sharma are objectively not the same woman. They wouldn't even LIKE each other. Kate Sharma is self-assured, confident, driven, and quite frankly, a force of nature when she wants to be. Kate Sharma understands that not only is she a grown ass woman but also that if she does not get in gear and go for her goals, they ain't happening. You guys, I freaking love Kate Sharma.

By contrast, Kate Sheffield is a blond, blue-eyed, infantilized debutante with some serious unresolved PTSD. I was not at all sorry to see that Shondaland did away with THAT library scene and THAT bee sting scene. I think that the show did both of them way better, and I will never be mad when an adaptation takes an adult female character and lets her ACT like an adult. I also appreciated the shift from creepy Anthony trying to *checks notes* suck the venom out of the bee sting to a full-blown panic attack. It subverted a highly gendered trope and put both Kate and Anthony on a much more even and human footing. It was also--and I cannot stress this enough--so much LESS CREEPY than the book scene. Anthony describing what he was doing in detail while the reader is told but not shown that he's panicky left several different flavors of bad taste in my mouth. Kate Sharma showing actual dimensionality in her strength in the show in this scene as Anthony goes fully nonverbal is objectively a stronger scene that does far more to develop the characters.

Generally speaking, Anthony Bridgerton is Anthony Bridgerton in both the show and the book, with maybe some of the high-and-mighty, self-righteous edges sanded off for the show. He's a regency era Viscount, there's not a whole lot you can do with him in adaptation. Show Anthony is my preference because he has some of the high-handedness sanded off, and because Jonathan Bailey is extremely nice to look at. I don't even hate the S1 (*gasp* she mentioned Bruno!) sideburns and hair, they had a very 1995 Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy vibe that I was willing to lean into. I honestly don't have a whole lot else to say about Anthony, so let's move on and hope that maybe we get an S3 release date before I get to the end of this post.

I actually thoroughly enjoyed the fluffy confection that is Romancing Mr. Bridgerton, which makes it much harder to talk about than The Viscount Who Loved Me. I suppose the biggest difference between the book and what the show is setting up for Polin is in the stakes. The book stakes are arguably extremely low; the consequences for being Lady Whistledown in the book are essentially a round of polite applause and some deep-seated rage that Cressida freaking Cowper would dare to take credit for Penelope's work. And frankly, I was 100% with Penelope on that one. The show cannot possibly roll with that ending (or if they do, they're going to disappoint everyone) because Penelope has pissed off a reigning monarch, and that has, historically, gone poorly. So I think the show is setting up to give Colin real, concrete reasons to be pissed as hell when it comes out that Penelope is Whistledown, and to actually make the pair work for their romance. And for all I enjoyed the fluff in the book, I am a sucker for multiple layers of increasingly high stakes and I hope the show really goes ham on the payoff for this setup. Frankly, I want Colin to be absolutely furious with Penelope and still ready to sneak her out of England if the Queen decides that Lady Whistledown is too dangerous to leave at liberty.

In terms of how Colin himself changes in the show, I'm fairly cool with the "I am a bottomless pit where is the food" aspect of Colin's character being quietly left behind. I think we can do more interesting things with our male characters than that. However, like many of the people who have both read the book and kept up with the show, I am WORRIED about how much Colin's writing has been downplayed. Yes, he and Penelope have a correspondence, and clearly they mean a lot to each other, but writing letters does not necissarily set up Colin's journals and the writing relationship that the two develop in the book. It's so, so wildly uncommon for game to recognize game and form a partnership of equals in skill in regency romance novels, and that was one of the things I loved about Romancing Mr. Bridgerton. I also loved that Colin, not Penelope, was the less experienced newbie of the writing partnership.

Not that the book didn't complicate this issue, because Julia Quinn didn't hesitate for a millisecond to slot Penelope into the historical role of "uncredited, unpaid, and historically unknown editor and 80% of the reason that history remembers the husband who's name is on the cover of the book." And that SUCKS for Penelope.

That takes me really smoothly into the thing that I love most about what Nicola Coughlan brings to Penelope in the show. She has an edge, a little more willingness to take risks, and that really makes me believe that the Penelope of the show could be behind the edgier, sharper, WAY riskier Whistledown. I am excited to see what they do with Polin in S3!

[no-where-new-hero]

@batrachised asked me what was my “this piece of media had no goals and succeeded at nothing” movie and I’m going to make a whole post about it because I always have the most of say about movies that was almost good and then just fumbled the ball miserably. Rant under the cut.

The movie was The Edge of Love, made in 2008 as a kind of Atonement-lite. We follow Vera Phillips (Kiera Knightley), who sings for the troops during WWII. We know basically nothing else throughout the entire movie about her backstory, save that she’s Welsh and was childhood friends with Dylan Thomas (Matthew Rhys), who wants to be a poet and complains about writing propaganda films for the British (whether this is from Welsh patriotism or snobbishness that his talents are wasted is never clarified). Vera reconnects with Dylan at the start of the movie and meets his wife Caitlin (Sienna Miller), whose relationship with Dylan is already on the rocks. After initial rivalry with Vera, Caitlin becomes good friends with her from what seems plainly to be emotional starvation (also masochism, but I’ll get to that later). Vera is wooed by a soldier, William (Cillian Murphy), who—after initial resistance—she marries before he gets deployed. While William is off fighting, Vera, Caitlin, and Dylan move to Wales and exist in the messiest of situationships while Vera and Caitlin raise their children, conduct affairs, and ignore the war. When William returns to the infantile mess of his home life, he gets into a fight with Dylan and Dylan’s hoity-toity intellectual friends, ending in a court case against William, which convinces Vera that she loves him. All ends happily (?) for Vera and William, and Caitlin and Dylan leave Wales for God knows where.

From how I saw it, the film tried to be three things: a war drama, a messy love story, and a portrait of female friendship. All three of those goals seem worthy and would have been incredible had they succeeded. HOWEVER, I think all three things failed utterly because of poor character development.

There were four main relationships in the movie: Vera and William, Vera and Dylan, Vera and Caitlin, and Vera with herself. Vera and William should have been the most straightforward: she’s a headstrong girl who doesn’t want to commit herself, he’s a romantic about to potentially die. Very Atonement-style. There’s some beautiful dialogue on Cillian Murphy’s part, a disastrously directed sex scene, a brisk endgame. He asks her (as things start falling apart) why she married him. She can’t answer. They have no emotional connection, scarcely communicate, and don’t even get a final scene of reconciliation or understanding to ensure that all the nonsense of the film has set them up for a happily ever after. Fine, then, this is not the most important relationship. Disappointing, since it holds the most promise (William is a great character, Cillian portrays him superbly, all in all the person I connected with most).

Vera and Dylan seem to bond over their mutually bad behavior and nothing else. Wife Caitlin talks a lot to Vera about Dylan’s unemotional affairs, and it’s unclear whether Vera thinks she’s special and the exception, or thinks Caitlin is just trying to scare her off, or simply doesn’t care. It’s also unclear how much Vera actually thinks she’s in love with Dylan or is happy to be friends-with-benefits while William is away. One of the emotional climaxes is between them, when she accuses Dylan of just being in love with their shared childhood, not the fully mature and responsible woman she is (ha ha). This seems propelled by a fear of losing William but no resolution on her feelings for Dylan. And though we get a few scenes from Dylan’s point of view, these are never connected to Vera, and though he clearly enjoys keeping her on a string, his motivations remain muddy.

Vera and Caitlin weirdly seem situated to be the primary relationship of the film, which is an admirable effort to make, though I’m not entirely sure their conversations really pass the Bechdel test. Caitlin bonds with Vera over Dylan, feels glad to have a confidant, makes a near-sapphic declaration of affection while confessing what a horrible father she had, and basically clings to Vera because she has nobody else. All in all, I found her with the most energy in the entire movie: she loves and hates Dylan and Vera but acts to hold onto them desperately, even if she watches them both implode her life (hence the masochism, which Sienna really leaned into). Vera never entirely reciprocates this affection: oh, they get along well enough, Vera is compelled to sketch her in a very throwaway moment. But since their conversations mostly center on men Vera doesn’t know her feelings for—Dylan and William—there’s very little forthcoming.

The final relationship of Vera with herself is nonexistent, but I bring it up because if it did, that would go a long way to solving my gripes with everything else. We simply do not know how Vera feels about a lot of things, and even when we do, why. Why doesn’t she want to connect with William? Why does she instantly get over her jealousy of Caitlin and become besties? Why hasn’t she talked to Dylan Thomas since they were “kids” (I’m assuming at least a decade ago)? Does she have any family left to care that she had a shotgun wedding and is currently living with another man and his wife? I jest, but you get my drift. I can’t decide whether this is a script issue or a performance issue (Kiera felt unusually wooden in this role) or a directorial issue, but the insufficiency suffuses every scene she’s in. And it makes me feel like the script just made the wrong choice in having her be the main character. I feel if the movie were “seen” through Caitlin’s eyes, or through Dylan Thomas’s as a more intentional biopic, a lot of this vague nonsense would have been resolved.

I grouse this much about the relationships because aside from them, this movie has no plot. The war is set-dressing, existing only to take William away from Vera and return him to her with PTSD and maladjustment. I wish there had been more war since it might have diluted the misery of the characters to a degree.

I was trying to think of a last good thing to say about this as an antidote to my complaints, but I literally couldn’t think of one, so I guess that tells you all that you need to know oops.

[chaoticcomposition]

May I hear all about Nepenthe 👀

omg sure, I'm still working on her & need to discuss how she works with the dms, but I can give you what I have! idk how much you know about matt's exandria setting, but that's where she's from and it informs her story

if anyone ever wants more in-depth stuff that isn't art, I do have a writing sideblog where I put most of my character things, including shitposts

(warning for below the cut: there's a picture of a tarantula at the bottom)

one of the tenets of lolth is ‘it’s better to be loved than feared but you can certainly try to be both’ and she definitely tries to embody that. she trusts her community implicitly and while they may not have her best interests at heart she’s willing to be self-sacrificing if it serves a greater purpose

to bullet point it:

she’s bi, 377, 5′8″, neutral evil. I might tweak one of the existing paladin oaths b/c none of the them fit her exactly. a friend also found one called ‘oath of webs’

personality-wise she’s pretty amiable? very social, encouraging, a good team-player, enjoys card games and communal activities. she prefers to be straightforward where she can, it’s unlikely she’ll stab you in the back but rather the front. she's not the person you send to be a spy or assassin

she's from a surface culture of warriors (the many hosts of igrathad) that's a series of villages always fighting each other. the kryn dynasty (good drow) step in like "stoppit" and the many hosts don't love this, b/c they love to solve things by fighting. her parents however embrace the peace and worship the luxon (mysterious light god who's essence is broken up into beacons)

nepenthe's older sibling (she’s the 2nd oldest of 5) is sent to fight in a war for the kryn who brought them "peace" and disappears. nepenthe is furious, thinks her parents are soft-spined

children of malice (followers of lolth) latch onto this since they're sneaking around the many hosts and convince her to join their cult b/c that's what cultists do

she moves to dumaran (children of malice settlement that's a buncha tunnels) & becomes a paladin of lolth, makes some hobgoblin buddies & has a hobgoblin mentor

they discover the kryn dynasty are sending people to the underdark beneath tal'dorei (different continent) to recruit drow & search for more beacons. children of malice want in on that, but for lolth

she's sent across the world w a team to do this, they find vierna. she's a hot mess but not beyond help. she’s one of a few survivors where she lives cuz the chained oblivion is tearing them apart, lisa

they take her home, show her the way back to lolth. they fall in love, they have a baby (nepenthe carried), they're good parents! vierna proves herself ruthless & imaginative and claws her way up in status

but vierna is like a cold-blooded scientist and is like "ok you have this reservoir of lolth's blood you're guarding, why not use it." lolth's blood is what turns drow into driders in this universe. she works up an antivenom that can revert driders back into their original form but the process is taxing and painful. the person also has to want to change back

after a few initial tests the leaders are like "this is going great, and since you're so confident in it, we should use nepenthe :^)"

they do that, nepenthe is a sometimes-drider now 🕷

unfortunately with great power comes a steep price—the transformations are changing her body over time, and she might eventually succumb to wanting to be a drider all the time. lolth's blood is addicting and driders can go mad from the thirst (I'm sure there are driders who have found ways around this, but for the purpose of this story they haven't met them)

oh great now their daughter's run away b/c she's been manipulated by the archeart!! (parallel to nepenthe running away from her family hehehe) and the cult is like "omg bring her back it's v important you do" & nepenthe is like "you don't need to tell me twice"

their daughter is 66, they kind of infantilize her. they don’t realize she made the decision herself to leave

vierna’s like panic-trying to concoct a way to make sure nepenthe doesn't lose her mind. nepenthe has a strong will but she’s not infallible, especially since it’s a slow erosion

she also has a pet giant spider named cookie who stays behind in dumaran to keep vierna company and eat house intruders. she looks like this:

tl;dr she's a sometimes drider b/c her wife made an antivenom to lolth's blood but it's imperfect and she's changing over time. her fate can be pulled in one of many directions but her main goal is to find her daughter & bring her home safe

I didn’t realize I had so much but thank you for the ask and if you made it this far, hats off to you!!

[rebelcourtesan]

Why Blitzer works better than Stolitz

Not trying to start a shipping war, but here are my reasonings behind why Blitzer works better as a ship compared to Stoliz.

The last time I was so invested in a ship, it was Entrapdak from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power so if you go back into my archives, you'll see I've wrote several essays about them.

Blitzer strikes as ship that I want to write about because it makes so much sense to me of why these characters are good together. In order to prove my point, I'm going to do a comparison between Blitzo's relationship with Stolas vs his relationship with Striker.

First, let's back up and look at how Blitzo's interactions with Stolas. Based on the pilot, it looks like Blitzo seduced Stolas to steal away the book to get access to the Living World to carry out jobs for Sinners. Afterward, in Episode 1, Stolas makes a deal with Blitzo for him to return the book once a month so Stolas can do his 'job' and in exchange for a night of 'Passionate Fornification"

Therefore, Blitzo's relationship with Stolas is purely transactional. Blitzo hasn't shown any affection for Stolas nor does he seem to enjoy being around Stolas anymore than he has to. Episode 2, when he acts as bodyguard for Stolas, he warns him against trying anything sexual in Loo Loo Land. Everything he does with Stolas is for the sake of keeping the grimoire and for money.

On Stolas's end, he is constantly coming onto Blitzo through open flirtations to very lewd sex talk. Their conversations never stray from the job to Stolas wanting Blitzo nearby for him to flirt and desire.

There's never really moment of them bonding, at least not from Blitzo's end.

Also, every time they are together, Stolas is towering over Blitzo. Let at these scenes.

AAnd another thing to point out is that in each of these scenes, Stolas is either speaking to Blitzo with baby talk or openly lusting for him. He objectifies and infantilizes Blitzo which would bring their vastly different ranks into play. Stolas is a royal prince of the Ars Goetia family while Blitzo is a lowly imp from the lowest rung of Hell. There is an imbalance there.

Not saying that Stolas would ever use his status to sexually assault Blitzo, but he is using what Blitzo needs for his business for sexual favors. Another thing to point out is that in each of these scenes, Blitzo is annoyed or angry with Stolas. He's only there for a means to an end. If he could keep the book without ever seeing Stolas again, he'd do it in a heartbeat. I've seen no signs to indicate otherwise.

Now let's look at the end other end.

The first thing I noticed is Blitzo's reaction when Striker compliments him for opening his own business despite being an imp. At first, Blitzo is taken aback by the compliment as if he wasn't sure if it was a compliment or not and once he thought about it, he proudly accepted it. At first, it went over my head until I rewatched the scene and realized it's the first time we've see Blitzo be praised for his endeavors. Everyone he's met new and from his past had nothing, but insults or complaints about him. For him to receive a compliment for an achievement and not know at first how to take it was actually quite sad.

It could be argued that Striker only said it to get the others to let their guard down, but I think it was genuine.

And when Striker brings up Stolas, Blitzo is quick to inform him that his relationship with Stolas was purely transaction, which it is. Akin to the manner of someone assuring they were 'free'.

After their meeting, they aren't too far away from away from each other.

fLook at their faces! They are wrestling together and loving it. While the montage is supposed to have us focus on Moxxie's failings at the games, it shouldn't be too hard to miss how Blitzo and Striker were able to go neck to neck at the games and even tied for first place together!

What I'm trying to point out is there is an equality between them, mutual respect. Blitzo is able to give as he receives which is the same for Striker. So much so that Blitzo even offers Striker a position at I.M.P, to which Striker accepts, both wanting to work together.

Then we have the confrontation between Blitzo and Striker. Blitzo is justifiably pissed, but he also seems hurt, not because Striker was trying to kill Stolas, but someone he had opened himself to accepting Striker.

Remember, Blitzo sees his business and his employees as family! For him to hire Striker, means he was willing to accept him into his family! He's disappointed and angry, but he is accustomed to being harmed by those he's close to (Robo-Fizz and Verosika).

C'mon, you can't look at this scene and not think there isn't any attraction between them.

I honestly believe Striker's offer to partner up with Blitzo was true based on how well they did together in the competition. They are both physically combative, able to go tie for the games and go toe to toe in a fight.

Let's compare.

Stolas is talking down to Blitzo using baby talk, which he mean as affectionate, but it belittling whereas Striker is on equal terms with Blitzo.

Blitzo is annoyed by Stolas and seems to dislike him.

Blitzo is more intrigued with Striker.

Stolas calls Blitzo, Blitzy which he finds annoying and also refers to him more than once as an imp.

Striker calls Blitzo by his name with the silent O.

The key word is respect. Stolas continues to degrade Blitzo's status by never taking him seriously as an equal. He constantly downgrades Blitzo to that of a pet or a plaything by calling him little imp, talking baby talk to him in the beginning of the episode, and their conversations never extend beyond sexual or their agreement over the grimoire. It's understandable for Stolas, a high ranking royal, to see talk down to Blitzo who is on the lowest rung of Hell's social ladder, but if he's going to expect more than physical relationship, his attitude needs to change.

Whereas, Striker is on the same level with Blitzo, even raising him up by acknowledging him as a skilled assassin and offering a partnership in taking down Overlords to which I believe Blitzo was very tempted by. I can see these two talking shop while planning on taking out a target and a loving relationship to grow from there.

I think in the next few episodes, we're going to see Stolas and Blitzo's relationship come to a head. Especially if Stolas tries to move their relationship beyond what it is now and will get rejected.

[butwhatifidothis]

As I read your analyses, the parts where Byleth is likened to a child always stand out to me. This seems like kind of an... ableist writing choice by Cap'n? Like the way he describes her sounds really off. Also it's creepy because By is the love interest (when Ingrid isn't around) and infantilizing your love interest is always a bad move.

Like, I think I get what he was going for? Cuz, like, sometimes a person's innocent mannerisms can be endearing and part of why a love interest could love them: think someone like Annette, for example. And you as the writer want to show off that this is part of this character's... well, character lol, when writing them.

Innocence - or, at least, actions and behaviors that can be likened to innocence - can be a tricky trait to write well without coming off as infantilizing, due to the very nature of the word and the connotations surrounding it. One way to get around this is to simply not call it innocence - describing the mannerisms in question like "bubbly," "cheerful," "energetic," "carefree," "free-thinking," or even "curious," "inquisitive," "honest," "mischievous;" words like that that can encompass the general feel of the character that can relate back to innocence (if you want to go in that direction; note how all of those words can also not being describing someone who's "innocent") without the baggage. Plus they're usually better anyway even without worrying about connotations and implied readings, since they more accurately describe just how the character is actually acting; "innocent" is fairly vague on its own, with that probably being part of why it's so readily associated with "being a child/childlike" as that's a more concrete idea for a reader to conceptualize.

Another way to not infantilize Ficleth - and hold on to your hats for this one - is to... not directly liken her to a child. Over and over. In multiple chapters. Like, all of this:

"I’ve never told anyone no before, not even Papa,” said [Fic]leth sheepishly. “Ever since Remire, it’s like I’m… waking up to the person I am. Rhea has been so kind to me, but when I said that, she became so angry. She screamed at me.” [Fic]leth’s voice was childlike and wounded.

The mercenary again tilted her head, as if straining to hear an unseen speaker. Out of [Fic]leth’s many quirks, this was the one that [Woobie]gard was most taken by. She looked like a child patiently listening to her mother for guidance.

[Fic]leth nodded with childlike simplicity. "We should all try to get along."

“A scar over my heart...” said [Fic]leth calmly. “Just like yours.” She gave [Woobiegard]gard a teasing smile. “Why do you think I wear that medallion over my chest?” She looked away, like a child telling a forbidden secret.

As she thought of [Fic]leth’s words to her students, the words of a lost child surrounded by violence, the Flame Emperor had found her answer.

“You don’t seem happy when you talk like that. You always seem like you’re… evaluating people.” [Ficleth's] words were said with a child-like simplicity — one that cut through the immense weight of [Woobie]gard’s rationalizations and schemes.

Byleth, clad in the snow-white outfit of the Enlightened One, began to rock back and forth like a child caught stealing teacakes from the Enbarr kitchens.

Just, uh. Get rid of it all lmao. Like, look at these slight changes:

Ficleth's voice was betrayed and wounded,

Ficleth again tilted her head, her eyes narrowed as though trying to focus. Out of Ficleth's many quirks, this was the one that Woobiegard was most taken by; it was as if the mercenary was straining to hear an unseen speaker,

Ficleth nodded with a welcome simplicity. "We should all try to get along,"

She looked away, as though reaffirming that the two of them were alone,

the words of a lone woman surrounded by violence,

Ficleth's words were said with a startling simplicity,

Ficleth ... began to bite at her nails.

(that last one's intonation is deliberately changed because of the surrounding context of that line; Woobiegard's looks at Ficleth rockin' back and forth out of what is clearly guilt-ridden nerves and Woobiegard's barely holding back laughter, which is uh. Fucked.)

You start to see that all of the comparisons to being a child is like... extremely unnecessary and outright off-putting. It's fuckin' weird that Woobiegard keeps thinking of this grown ass woman who's spent the overwhelming majority of her life literally killing people for money as a child. And like, don't get me wrong, fuckin' everybody - well, mostly the women, but rarely a man too - gets called a child at some point or another. But it's especially unsettling because, like. This is the romantic love interest. The one that Woobiegard has romantic feelings for. And she sees Ficleth as a child? ...Welp, guess that just means the feelings mutual (this is in Chapter 36):

Poor Ficleth, discovering that the person she killed was the uh. The. Uh. The tiny girl of her memories. C-Cool