#I'm worthy of love dammit

[harmofud]

You fall in love with one biology major and suddenly you can no longer blindly dislike certain species because you are shown your partner's childlike wonder for the beauty of the world 😔

[shy3n0m0r3]

Competition Kills

I don't know what or who killed the minuscule reservoir of empathy the cheerleaders had for me, but life has become a new kind of hell. Ever since my classmates, ESPECIALLY the cheerleaders and football players, noticed that Titan and I know each other now, things have gotten weirder by the second.

First, the man basically stalks me now. Ever since the day I gave him those reference books and that little poem it's like I have my own service animal. Before the professor assigned him to me, we spoke to each other maybe once since I've been here and that is absolutely pushing it. Ever since that second day of tutoring, he's stuck to me like glue. If I'm outside of my dorm and roaming campus, he's there pulling my headphones out trying to convince me to agree to whatever Thursday night shenanigans he has planned since the weekend is strictly PT with his unit. Hiding in the library before or after my shift? Whatever book I'm reading is automatically snatched from me. In the cafe or dining hall? He's there gobbling all my fries and threatening to murder anyone who even looks at me wrong let alone tries to verbally bully me.

Now, I'm not condoning being an entitled jerk. However, I had come to terms with being the odd man out for the last year and change. Things were normal, I knew what puns to expect, how to avoid the worst of the attitudes, and I never had to worry about physical altercations. Now? With all of his overprotective behavior, he's reawakened whatever distaste and disgust the plastic perfects have for me. It's like they not only don't understand why he's talking to me, but also have deemed me unworthy to be in his presence and are doling out some sort of verdict and punishment I was never made aware of. NEWSFLASH: I'm his fucking TUTOR so I can gain the credits I need to make the next logically move in my career as a writer, because of my fear of repeating the same humiliating situation of trying to talk through my project that yawl created which is now causing me to lose the very points I need to get the work study I need!

This week alone, I've various liquids spilled on me, my books knocked out of my hands countless times, and I was even tripped on Friday! Like I know I'm uncoordinated and prone to accidents, but let's be real. And yes, unfortunately the barbies of my uni do stick to the stereotypical personality traits that come with their titles, they're doing it on purpose.

Ugh! Send help or someone who can magically get rid of my stutter and the bullies it has attracted.

[traumxrei-archive]

【 iv. the taste of flowers 】

summary: yuu was sick. okay, so maybe they overworked themself a little while preparing for the debutante, but that didn’t mean they needed to be on bed arrest ! what’s the worst that could happen if they snuck into the kitchen for a snack anyway ?

word count: 1.4k

author’s note: every time i write ruggie i’m like “wow i love this guy sm” and it was the same this time. i hope you like my rendition of him, ruggie likers ^^

[ the perfect debutante series | or read on ao3 (coming soon) ]

Being sick was most definitely not on Yuu's list of things to do for the Debutante. But they were. Sick. It seemed that they had over-exhausted themself after shopping all day with Floyd.

They vaguely remembered Floyd's guilty expression as he brought tea to their bedside. They had told him not to worry, but he seemed to be in low spirits for the rest of the day, according to Azul's report.

And now, well...

Yuu was sneaking into the kitchen.

After being cooped up in the room for so long, they needed some alone time. Alone time that didn't entail Riddle watching their every move like a hawk, or Silver insisting on doing everything for them. Their maids were diligent to a fault really, and Yuu was starting to feel a bit suffocated.

What they weren't expecting was that there would be someone in the kitchen. They stood behind the door. There was a soft humming and the smell of something that had their mouth-watering. Yuu cracked the door open a little. Through the gap, they spotted a pair of fluffy ears.

Ah. So it was Ruggie in the kitchen. Yuu calmed down a bit. The chance that they would be severely scolded for escaping the room had decreased. Still, they knew that someone would check their room soon, and they would get caught, so...

"Master?"

Holy crap. Their soul felt like it almost left their body.

They looked up to see Ruggie tilting his head, "I thought I heard someone, but I didn't expect it to be you, Master."

They got up from their crouched position, "Hi, uh... What are you cooking?"

"A little something for myself," Ruggie suddenly smirked, folding his arms. "What are you doing out of your room, Master? Riddle and Azul are going to freak out if they figure out you're gone."

Yuu stared at Ruggie with what they hoped was a pitiful look, "Please, I need 30 minutes of peace before they coddle me to death again."

"It's because they're worried about you. We all are," Ruggie said, going back to stirring the pot. "But I'm no snitch, shishishi~ Have a seat." There was a stool a little away from the stove, and from this close, they could finally see what Ruggie was cooking. It was...soup. A hearty-looking, vegetable soup, that was currently appealing to them with its scent.

"Are you here for some tea? Or are you hungry?" Ruggie sprinkled some more spices into his soup. "I could make you some soup?"

"What about that soup?" They blurted out. Dammit, they were trying to resist, and yet...

"This soup? It isn't worthy of Master's palette," Ruggie said before putting a lid on the small pot. "Plus, are you sure you wanna eat that?"

"What is it then?" The soup had looked normal enough to them, though they couldn't be sure. Ruggie was famed for using unconventional ingredients in his cooking before. They had heard many stories from Jamil, who found his experimentation interesting enough to talk about. (The other maid rarely talked too extensively, so Yuu had noted it in their mind when he did.)

"Erm," Ruggie's ears twitched, and he looked...almost bashful. "I used dandelions. I saw a few in the gardens and they needed to be weeded out anyway."

"Dandelions?" They cracked a smile. "So you can even cook with flowers?"

"You're not...?" Ruggie shook his head, before leaning his head back into his hands. "It's something my Bi— my grandmother taught me. There are many uses for dandelions, and she used to cook it for us in a soup."

Yuu understood it now. It had been a while since Ruggie had taken a break to go home. He tended to bulldoze through leave days that they set up by taking up other jobs. They ended up having him be their designated maid when the others went on leave. Ruggie was pleased with the setup, especially after they doubled his pay.

Money wasn't a worry to them, given that they were the heir of the Dukedom. But it had once been, back before Duke Crowley had adopted them. So they understood Ruggie's determination, especially with how fiercely he loved his family.

"Why don't you eat some?" Yuu leaned their face into their palm. "You spent all that time cooking it after all."

Ruggie's expression turned complicated for a moment. He hesitantly grabbed a bowl, ladling in a spoonful. His ears drooped for a moment before straightening. Yuu couldn't help but find the subconscious action adorable. 

He finally sighed, sliding the bowl in front of them, "Here. Your puppy eyes really are unfair, Master."

"Puppy eyes?" They mumbled, but they couldn't focus on anything other than the soup that was in front of them. Ruggie pushed a spoon into their hands, and they couldn't help but immediately try it.

"Well?" Ruggie asked, ladling his own bowl. It was...amazing. The soup was salty, but rich, and all the vegetables were perfectly cooked— not too soft with a nice crunch.

And that was when Yuu abandoned two things: their etiquette training and their pride. It didn't matter that it was hot, they kept shoveling spoonfuls of soup into their mouth.

Ruggie laughed as he ate his own bowl, "Slow down there, Master. If the chefs see you they'll throw a tantrum because you're guzzling that down so fast."

"But," They sputtered, gesturing at their half finished bowl. "It's so good! I can't even tell which part the dandelion is!"

"The green leafy bits," Ruggie looked proud, if the way his grin kept growing was any indication. "I save the flowers to make tea with." The maid spun around, turning to a cupboard and grabbing what looked like a jar. In it were many dried dandelion buds. "Ah, I also have dandelion syrup," Ruggie gestured to another jar on the shelf. "Jamil taught me how to make them. They don't taste bad if I do say so myself, shishishi~"

Yuu couldn't help but laugh slightly. Ruggie's excitement about dandelion cuisine was very...adorable, if they wanted to put a word to it. "You seem very passionate about this," They said as they took the dandelion tea jar in their own hands. "Would it be okay if you put a few servings of this in my tea cabinet?"

"Huh?” Ruggie's ear flicked in surprise.

"Ah, I don't mean to take it away from you!" Yuu said, suddenly very aware that Ruggie was doing this because he was homesick. How stupid of them to ask for something so selfish. Did they forget everything after spending a few years in luxury? "I know that you're—"

"Forgive me for interrupting you, but it's not that," Grey eyes looked between the tea and their face. "It's... Thank you." There was something more behind the simple word of thanks. Yuu couldn't even begin to digest why Ruggie would say thank you at their selfish request, but seeing the smile on Ruggie's face reassured them that it wasn't anything negative.

That was when the door to the kitchen slid open, "Ruggie, would you happen to know where—"

Yuu looked up just in time to make eye contact with a surprised-looking Jade.

Oh. They were caught. Shit.

Jade smiled, ever the picture of politeness even as his aura turned more menacing, "How serendipitous. I was just looking for you, Master."  

"They were just about to leave, right Master?" Ruggie said with a devilish grin. Gone was the sweet expression that just graced his face seconds before, instead replaced by this mischievous look— because he was clearly ratting them out! Yuu just hung their head. They would be scolded less if they left with Jade right away.

Jade kept an iron grip on them with just his gaze as they gave Ruggie a long hard look, "You're going on vacation after the debutante is over. With everyone else. That is a promise."

"But Master—"

"No buts! I'll give you paid leave!" Yuu said as Jade opened the door. "Just make sure to tell your family how much you miss them!" They relished the surprised look on Ruggie's face for a moment before following Jade out into the hallway. Yuu wasn't about to give Ruggie time to retaliate this time.

"Now that you've had your fun, you should return to the room before Azul and Riddle return," Jade chuckled. "They aren't back yet, but I am not above telling them of your...mm, adventures, if it came to it. Even if it's you, Master."

Their previous excitement waned at the thought of being bound to the bed again, "Let's just go now." And that was how Yuu's adventures to the kitchen ended, with surprises, some new cuisine, and a promise.

thank you for reading ^^ if you’d like to read more, check out my masterlist ! like the art ? look at more of dumple's works on insta !

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[mewtwoandme]

~Now I know I'm worthy of you

(Oh can't you see, you could be with me)

With every smile, you told me, "I love you"

(I'm your dream, I love you)~

I watched RWBY 9, Chapter 6 last night...and even though this song was intended for a happy moment, it had the opposite effect on me and hit me hard in the feels. The drawing you see above is what popped into my head hearing it, and it actually made me tear up, so I'm gonna make y'all cry with me dammit!

[violetsiren90]

Things That Grow

Pairing: idol!Yoongi x Reader (ungendered)

Genre: drabble; canon-compliant; established relationship; angst and hope; hurt/comfort; emo hours; goodbyes

Summary: You've arrived at Yoongi's place to spend time together before he leaves, but you can't bring yourself to come to terms with the latest change that makes his enlistment all too real.

Content Warnings: PG for content levels, but ALL my works are 18+ (minors dni); angst and sadness; allusions to Yoongi touching you intimately, calling you intimately; grieving enlistment; crying; Yoongi is sweet but sad too.

Author's note: My heart is breaking, so I had to write it out. I wanted this to be longer, but I couldn't do it. It just would have been too gosh darn depressing. So I kept it really short and sweet - a true drabble.

We'll make it through this I know, but I'm still not sure how. 💔

As always, if no one has told you yet today, you are loved and worthy of love. The kind of love Yoongi has for you. 🧜‍♀️💜

"Don't be afraid of change - beautiful things can grow if you're willing to let go." - Anonymous

You had been preparing yourself, steeling your nerves, for what was going to greet you as soon as that door swung open. You had hyped yourself up all the way here. You had put on a brave face, kept your chin up, looked on the bright side...did every damn thing they always said you should do in such situations. And yet, here you stood, a bag of takeout in your left hand, your right hovering in front of the door - unable to make your knuckles move toward the black oak. You looked at your raised arm, frozen as if by some bizarre anxiety-induced spell, and noticed that it was shaking. All of you was shaking. And suddenly, you found yourself surrendering to your fears, and sinking down onto the cold cement of the steps as you swiveled your body away from what you had to face behind the door as you dropped the bag beside you and clutched your knees to your chest. Your phone pinged but you ignored it. It pinged again. The September evening breeze wafted over you, pressing around your body as if to insist that moving on was part of the natural order of things. That as sure as the bright revelry of summer would fade into the golden melancholy of autumn, his touch and voice and the color of his eyes would be borne away on the wind with the crinkling leaves and drying flowers.

    So consumed were you with your holding back the lump that had risen in your throat, your eyes pressed shut, that you had not heard the door open. 

    "What are you doing?" came the soft, velvet baritone, followed by a large, slender hand grasping your shoulder in a gentle squeeze of concern.

Out of the corner of your eye you could see the rounded tips of his fingers, and their clipped back nails. You had memorized what they looked like, so particular to him, so lovely, his hands - their milky softness interrupted by prominent veins, cool and blue amidst the warm flush of his knuckles. The pads of his fingers were flattened and calloused with use, and they were strong and nimble as he plucked the strings of a guitar or plied the keys of a piano or pressed and worked them along the tender places of your flesh. You buried your face in your own hands.

    "I can't," you whispered shakily. You felt him come to sit beside you.

    "What?" he insisted gently, patiently, the firm swell of his chest pressing into your shoulder.

His sigh tickled your neck where he exhaled slowly through his nose, the breath whistling slightly as it sometimes did. Why did you love even those? The little squeaky breathes that meant that he was breathing?

Dammit, you were going to lose it.

    "I can't...look at you," you forced out, the heels of your palms pressing into your eyes like little stones in the wall of a bursting dam.

Then came his laugh - the quiet, throaty one, reserved for when he found something impossibly endearing. He ran one of those perfect hands over your back and you melted a little. Just a little.

    "Please don't hide from me, nae sarang," he murmured, tilting his head against yours, the round tip of his button nose brushing your ear. "I need to look at you."

You sucked in a breath. You couldn't deny him that. You couldn't deny him anything. So slowly, reluctantly, you raised your face from your hands, and turned to meet his eyes.

    And you saw it, what you had dreaded: his hair. Every lovely dark tress was gone, leaving just their roots behind in a tight buzz against his scalp.

    The dam broke.

    Yoongi held you to his chest amidst his cooing and shushing and reassurances that everything would be alright. When you finally raised red eyes from where they had dampened his shirt, you took him in, choking out another sob as he looked down at you with affection. Every soft feature looked so prominent without their usual frame of dark waves. The sentimental triangles of his feline eyes set wide on either side of his sweet little nose, and his slightly chapped lips taking on a darker and fuller pout. He suddenly looked about twenty to you and you choked out a laugh and a sob at once, reaching up to stroke a hand softly over his crown. His eyes fluttered shut, his lips parting slightly as you caressed him gently and the short hairs tickled the skin of your palm. You sighed another shaky sigh.

    "You're beautiful," you relented, sliding your hand down to cradle his soft cheek. "But I hate it."

    His pretty lips stretched into an open-mouthed smile. The kind that showed his upper gums. The kind that made your life worth living. He dipped forward to press a kiss to your brow. You had memorized those lips - what they felt like against your own, and the sounds that passed them when he rapped and sang and breathed your name. Now they murmured against your skin.

    "It will grow back, you know. It will just take time."

Another tear slipped down the side of your nose.

    "Yes, time."

    "For some things you just have to wait a little while, and then they come back."

He pressed you back by the shoulders to meet your eyes with his that shimmered and swam as he assured you softly,

    "And they do come back, nae sarang. To stay."

-Fin-

[midnightsunnyday]

MC And The Brothers In: Banned

******

MC: Lucifer.

Lucifer: MC.

MC: may I enter?

Lucifer: you may.

MC: *clears throat* it has come to my attention that I may have been...a bit too passionate while courting you these past few months, to the point where I have become blinded by our many differences.

Lucifer, continuing to read over his bills: is that right?

MC: indeed. It seems that in my efforts to wile you I have slowly yet surely lost sight of myself. Most days, I can no longer recognize the person I once was: young, beautiful, exceptionally witty.

Lucifer: why do I have several invoices for Cats and Pats Monthly? *rolls eyes* As if I even need to ask.

MC: and so, it is with a heavy heart that I must...keep my distance from you. Nay, to merely be in your pressence now feels me with great despair...and longing.

Lucifer: should really consider having my card reissued.

MC: *sniffles* and yet, despite your indifference, I pray that one day we both look upon this memory not with bitterness or regret, yet...with forgiveness.

Lucifer: ...

MC: ...

Lucifer: are you finished?

MC: yes. Yes I do believe I am.

Lucifer: *smiles* excellent. Oh, and you all are still banned from The Fall.

Mammon, bursting through the door to Lucifer's study: dammit, you said that would work!

Lucifer: you attempt to manipulate me with subpar theatrics and that's your conclusion?

MC: I know what I said! *cries* oh, spiteful son of morning, why do you torture us so?

MC: *gasps* subpar?

Asmodeus, falling to the floor dramatically: Lucifer how could you! The Fall is literally my territory! Who knows what will happen if I'm not there to oversee it? There will be anarchy! Carnage! Overpriced martinis!

MC, grabbing Asmodeus by the shoulders: don't you dare say that! They would never!

Mammon: oof. Though they did raise the price on their mini hellfire devil wings.

MC: *gasps* it's begun!

Asmodeus: this is unrulable, I say! The judge is biased! We demand a retrial!

Lucifer: *sighs* you have two minutes.

Asmodeus, brushing themselves off: ooh, ooh, me first! *clears throat* ok, so first off, I just want to say that I had no idea things would go as crazy as they did. I mean, all I did was simply inform a few demons worthy of my time an evening of consensual, carnal pleasure in the VIP room. How was I suppose to know they would all try to cram in at once? I simply wasn't prepared.

MC: ...

Mammon: ...

Mammon: ...bit of a low hanging fruit, don't ya think?

MC: you're right. We're both better than that.

Lucifer: alright then. MC, I suppose you have more than a few words for yourself?

MC: you know me so well, my dear. So, as you all know, never have I been one to turn down a good, sexy romp.

Mammon: hm. That right, huh?  

Lucifer: why, I never would've known.

Asmodeus: and I love you for it, sweetie.

MC: as I was saying--thank you, Asmo--that night, I was feeling a bit...overwhelmed and decided not to engage. However, there was one particular demon who insisted to have what he cannot have.

Mammon: oh man, that fight was insane! I don't think I ever saw ya--

MC: --Mammon, you're interupting my scene.

Mammon: oh yeah, sorry.

MC: anyway, it was then that I simply enacted what my species considers an inate physiological response towards a potentially threatening event. Unfortunately, for that particular demon, my flight or fight instincts are a bit...fighty, especially after 10 shots of Hennessey.

Asmodeus: you should've seen them, Lucifer! They were like a little hurricane with hands!

Lucifer: while I'm thankful you're unharmed and adept at self-defense, your little spat costed 40,000 Grimm worth of damages. Speaking of which, Mammon, care to elaborate on the 80,000 Grimm tab that was made in my name?

Mammon: w-well I mean, of course we all needed refreshments afterward, so...we informed the bartender that the Avatar of Pride would gladly pay for all expenses incurred. Which was both the responsible and mature thing to do, seeing as I would've definitely ran--I mean, would never leave an establishment without payin' proper.

MC: so in summary, my dear, clearly you can see that...well, obviously there's...when you really look at it we're all--

Lucifer: --guilty?

MC: ...

Lucifer: ...

MC: ...is such an ugly word.

Lucifer: enough. Neither one of you are to step foot inside that establishment again unless I deem it so. And if I even hear that you've gone against my word I will string you all by the ankles and hang you up from the highest pillar of the Demon Lord's Castle until the end of time.

MC: ha! Jokes on you guys. I'll be long dead by then.

Mammon: that's what you're focusin' on?

Lucifer: now get out.

Everyone: but Lucifer~~~

Lucifer: out!

*everyone running out of the room*

MC, poking their head back in: by the way, has anyone ever told you how hot you are when you're...

Lucifer: *glares menacingly*

MC: okgotitbye.

Lucifer: *rubs his forehead* start an exchange program, he said. It will change your life, he said.

[morgansunflower]

It's OK. I'm Ok. I'm Here

Older! Damian Wayne X Reader

Warnings: suggestive content, major character injury, angst.

Words:1503

Arthur's notes: Good mom Talia! Third P. O. V. Reader's father is a villain(read to find out lol)

Damian disappears as his lover is struggling to cope with his disappearance and with that keeping her secret buried from his family.

Damian and Y/N stood beside each other as they were being followed by an unknown enemy. Robin saw a sniper through his spy-bug on the building miles away from them. Damian pushed Y/N away from the line of fire. Damian took cover however the bullet went through his shoulder that was aimed to his chest.

"DAMIAN!!" she yelled seeing the blood.

He yelled out in pain, trying to remain on his two feet. Suddenly they were surrounded by several Mercenaries. He quickly put on a mouth breathing tube and gave one to Y/N. As she out her own on. Damian's adrenaline calmed to cause him to be fully aware of his injury.

"ARGHH!!" Damian throws a knock-out smoak bomb to them "we mu-must run!!"

Y/N let him place his unhurt arm over his shoulder while applying pressure to the wound. Together they made their way to a safe house, with the breathing mask off. She rips his uniform down to only wearing his pants. Damian stepped dramatically in pain, leaving her. He was breathing heavily in panted breaths, into the medical area of the safe house. He heavily breaths as she cleans his wound. She wipes the blood clean off of his chest. She began to securely bandages his wounds. He heavily breaths as the pain lingered. Damian laid on his uninjured side, he touches her wrist gently. She was overcome with worry.

"thank you" he softly touched her lips with his own

She takes pain medicine giving it to him. He moves her hand away.

"I don't N-need th-that"

"don't start with me"

She puts it in his mouth, he rolled his eyes swallowing. She gently rubbed his forehead as his body nearly shaked in pain. She hooks Damian to IV fluids and a heart monitor. Y/N added the status of his vitals to alert her phone.

"you leave me again?"

"Damian I.. I didn't grow up as a prince or as a billionaires child.. I was on the streets and my father... My father literally tried to kill your brother and you"

"dammit. I care not of where you came from and neither will they!! Some of own family lived on the streets and Brown's father was no amount of a worthy individual"

"it's different you're their son. They're not adopting someone to give them a better life. They're giving their blessing to a person who had no one... Until she met their son"

He takes her hand "I love you and they will to. Look at what you have done for me.. You broke my wall into nothing but dust, you love me purely and have tended to my wounds.. That alone is enough"

As Damian fell into a deep sleep she alerted his family through his phone. She kissed his lips farewell and then departed. Nightwing and Batman quickly came to Damian's location. Damian wakes hearing their approaching footsteps. He rips the IV and heart monitor off. He raises from laying down to a sitting position on the bed.

"Father, Grayson"

"you ok little D? What happened?"

He winces raising to his feet "I'm fine, there has been a bounty placed on me. It is likely Ra's.."

He walks past them until his father says "who tended to your bullet wound?"

"I did"

Lie. Bruce knew. Just before sunrise Bruce calls her.

-"Beloved?"

"Talia. Have you been visiting our son?"

Talia was surprised by his question "no I have not. Why?"

"has he spoken to you about. Anyone?"

"Beloved. We promised for.. Our son's sake to be honest with each other. I sense the hesitation"

"Damian was sho--"

"what?! You tell me this over the phone?! What are you--" Bruce cut her off

"Talia he's stable, he's speaking. He's OK. I promise. He informed me that he had taken care of his wound. However the way the bandages were wrapped someone else had to be the one to have done it. He's been distant.... I.. I don't know what is happening to him"

Talia's heart swelled as she began to smile "our son is falling in love..."

Falling so very deeply in love was he for Y/N. 2 weeks later.... Y/N's hands shake in her room at the the hub. She had just been informed that Robin aka Damian was currently M. I. A. She began to cry as she was truly terrified worse news would follow. By now his family had no idea who he was dating only that by his calmer demeanor.. He must truly love her.

She went, to Gotham to help search for Damian and to help the family through this difficult time. It was odd. She felt she already knows them in and out based on what Damian told her. She stood in her H/N uniform alone. She was terrified for Damian. Who could be hurting him? She feels her, eyes shake but then she became alert. She turns to see Talia al Ghul approaching...

"Ms al Ghul" she greeted

"my beloved spoke to me of you. You are no child he has saved but you suddenly appeared without explanation. Why? Why do you care of my child's safety?"

"I know him quite well in fact.." Y/N said with a broken smile

"yes I know you had trained with my son" Talia said hurting inside

"no, I KNOW him. I know his heart, I know he is much like his father and his mother in so many ways. He loves your mloukhieh, he loves his animals and his family so dearly... And I know he loves me just as I love him so very and painfully deep"

Talia takes a deep breath, the pain she saw in Y/N was love.. genuine love for her son.

"you have my blessing child"

"thank you! Thank you Talia!" she said as her pressure seemed to be lighter.

"no, thank you for saving my boy" she said in such a genuine tone it assured Y/N she really was accepted by Damian's mother.

Y/N asked the family, Damian's family to meet her in the theater room. As everyone slowly entered the room one by one. She couldn't keep her secret any longer.

"so huh Y/N, is everything okay?" Grayson asked

Cassandra gasped looking to the younger girl realizing the truth. The siblings tried to figure out what made Cass gasp.

"why did you gasp?! What's going on?!" Stephanie exclaimed after her sister's gasp.

She takes a deep breath "I.. I'm Damian's secret girlfriend" her eyes begin to shake "he wanted to tell you about us. He genuinely did but I didn't know how to meet these remarkable people, that I knew Damian loved so dearly... I came from very little.. Until I met Dami.. I should have done this long ago. I suppose I was a little...." she stammered

"overwhelmed?" Grayson asked kindly

"or perhaps scared because my last name is... Wilson.. As in... " she stammered yet again in shame. "Ravager..."

"you're Slade's daughter" Grayson said with a startled expression. "I thought.."

"I know... I faked my death so I could get away from him. After Ravager's apparent death.. I changed my persona and made my life different.. I kept my secret fearing somehow he'd find out and.. But I'm not alone. I know that.. Be.. Because of Damian"

"I knew Slade had a daughter but she supposedly died in a fire... Impressive that you were able to hide from the greatest detective" Bruce said kindly.

Did he, just complement her? The family were quite overjoyed to know Damian's girlfriend. To know she cared about him. Stephanie hugged Y/N follower by more empathizing embraces. That night Y/N stayed in the Manor. She never slept in such a nice bed. She stayed for several days as each day came.. her heart broke. She steps out of the elevator to the Bat-cave. She hears crying and his voice. It was his voice! She runs to see her lover

"Habibi" Damian heavily breathed

Now was not the time to think of his siblings poking at him for his kindness to his beloved.

"I thought.. I thought" she began to sob covering her face, hugging him carefully.

"It's OK. I'm okay. I'm here" he promised holding her closely.

She continued sobbing and then calms herself to a cry. She parts looking to his thick muscular arms, his legs and his tired face. He was ok... From what she could tell but what did his fabric conceal.

"what happened?" she cried.

He dried her tears with his thumbs "I was captured by what I can only assume to be my grandfather's assassin's... After I escaped after having a concussion. I barely remembered my own life.. It took me time to find my way back"

"I'm so very glad you did" she said resting her head on his chest.

Damian kisses her head. He's safe.. She's safe. She's OK. He's OK. She feels his steady heartbeat.. He is really home.

Requested taglist@too-strong-to-lose @asrainterstellar

[hyeahgaku]

The Seba brothers are precious; trying to protect and save each other in their own ways.. it shows their bond is actually real strong since they're willing to go lengths to keep the other safe.

Natsuki's willingness to fulfil his father's dream by offering himself to go to Al-Kamar. A place of possibly unimaginable horrors that Slur's team know too well. Assumingly Natsuki also knows whatever the individuals sent there were subjected to, then all that he was doing was so that he could spare his beloved younger brother from unspeakable pain or torture. As well as further trauma to a still-developing kid. Something that their deadbeat of a father fail to realise.. So young, so quiet & stoic, yet still so thoughtful, caring & sweet. I bet young Natsuki understands that Mafuyu is still young & hasn't had his own ambitions yet so I'm certain he's making way for his lil bro to enjoy his childhood more & be relieved from the burden that their dumb dad was abt to shoulder on the poor youngling. Honestly, Natsuki's actions in chap 145 is enough to reflect how much of a doting, protective & selfless big brother he is. Young Mafuyu may not have realised it when he was upset with his aniki, but Natsuki's actions are proof of it. I bet that bladed shoe was designed specially for him cuz Natsuki knows how much of a clean freak his lil bro is.

Meanwhile, Mafuyu deeply cares about Natsuki too in his own way. And he's also very supportive of his aniki's inventions, like he's the only one in the family to do so. On top of that, young Mafuyu even have faith in his aniki, he believes that Natsuki is capable of achieving his dream in future cuz he knows that Natsuki is talented & will be successful in his goal. And Mafuyu has a really big heart thou he was more reckless in his plan to save his brother. Young Mafuyu's main aim is to free Natsuki from their deadbeat father's unhealthy obsession so that his aniki can pursue his biggest dream. And Mafuyu's goal to free & help his aniki is so strong that he is willing to do whatever & by any means necessary. Even if that involves putting his own life on the line, so long as he can make sure that Natsuki achieves his ambition of becoming a professional weapons maker, then Mafuyu really thinks that all these efforts are worth it. What reckless selflessness!

How young Mafuyu is able to realise the important of supporting someone's dreams, or in his case right now is to see through that Natsuki can continue to pursue & achieve his dreams, that is beyond amazing & I tip my hat to him. A little kid versus a full-grown adult. Likewise with Natsuki -as an older brother, you should protect your younger sibling & that's what he does. Such brotherly love. PROTECT! These kids deserve only the best & also doting parents who would give the world to them, respect & support their goals to the ends of Earth.

Seriously, zero respect for Mr Seba for oppressing his kids to be who HE want them to be just for the sake of getting back at those mfs who insulted his family. Saving his own face matters more than ensuring his own children's safety, protecting their well-being and encouraging them to pursue their own paths & dreams. Natsuki & Mafuyu don't deserve the toxic environment they grew up in, nor whatever he has put them through. Their mental & emotional healths... 😭 Dammit Mr Seba how could you even look at your two boys in their eyes after all that and still see yourself as their parent..? I hope there's at least an ounce of guilt now, thou i doubt. So I hope karma hits you back, aye. Hit you hard, yeah. Congrates, you have proven yourself worthy to be placed among the Worst Manga/Anime Fathers list.

[theicemer]

okay okay it's 2am kdrama essay time

(not really but we gotta talk about the tree scene in heartbeat)

so we have in hae, a girl who had to take care of her mother on her own, who felt abandoned by her father with no closure on what happened to him, who didn't have time for relationships and who, ultimately, did not experience much love in life. it was always school, work, money.

a life that's transactional, where she's constantly forced to put value on her person (whether value of her labor and education, outcomes of her hard work, or just people choosing to stay or leave) and finds herself lacking.

flowers can't bloom on a dead tree, she says. I'm broken and unable to love, she thinks. but I cannot be loved is what she actually believes and implies.

but rather than the flowers being the metaphor for (in)ability to love, they become the expression of her deserving love. THIS is why woohyeol putting the lights on a dead tree is so, so important. it doesn't matter if the tree is dead. love is not a transaction and doesn't result out of judgment of value. even if she doesn't believe herself to be worthy of love, she will be loved anyway, by someone who thinks she's not broken, but beautiful. being loved, that's what was truly missing for her, and unknowingly, this is what woohyeol is showing her already.

(and why is it always about blooming? dammit I'm still not over days.)

[befuddledcinnamonroll]

So, um...THIS ENTIRE FUCKING FAMILY IS INSANE

How, how is everyone just shrugging and going along with this? I know they've totally been ignoring actual college classes, so who knows what is happening on that end, but even just on the sport side - how is Zee, who is still too injured to play volleyball, supposed to be doing jujitsu practice?!?! Why is everyone acting like this is a remotely rational thing to do and not the result of Zee sustaining a head injury!? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!

And I get that there's supposed to be some pathos with Zee, he clearly is miserable. But he's also such a dick. (Although props to Frame for doing a great job with his two roles).

Lol, and then they have a scene like this, and I'm all "who cares if the plot is crazy-making, look at the cute boys kiss!". I am a woman of simple tastes.

This is why I love Sprite, just all "we seem to be having an effect on each other, let's test this out some more just to be sure". Those eyes!

And our boy was clearly ready to completely devour First.

I don't blame First for saying pause in the moment, because Sprite's energy is something you have to prepare for.

Thun is us and I love him for it.

Gah, they are so cuuuute!

Help, they're being soft!

But also, why is Sprite acting like he's going to another country? You can tell him the truth, you little dummy.

Dammit Koh, what are you up to? You should be spending your time trying to tempt your cute spiritual roommate, not messing with our boys.

And yay for Sam moving on! Zee was not worthy of your crush.

Annnnd...Zee is on the floor again. Isn't studying martial arts supposed to make people less violent?

This show is so insane and yet I rather adore it.

[jacks-little-jacky]

Final Cut | Jack the Ripper x Reader

So I got a lovely and very angsty request a while ago when the sad chapter hitted us Jack fans.

Warnings: Spoiler for Chapter 357, major character death, sad vibes, I just got done fluffy smut and now I make myself cry

Request: So, I would like to ask for a scenario where Jack while he is standing up and making his final cut thinks of Y/N and all the moments they've spent together, and his thoughts before falling are like "cutting our love bond it's the only thing I didn't enjoy cutting" or something similar, I don't know I'm sad.

Jack had a gut feeling that this was bound to happen. Well, maybe not exactly this but still. Instead of a thrill, he felt a growing pit in his stomach as they got into position. "Let them come.", he had said. He tried telling that to himself, soothing the tense allies around.

After all, what is a captain if not brave? What was Jack if not fearless?

What a load of bullshit, he thought as his mouth filled with blood. Yami was kneeling in front of him, covering the body of Jack. His breath was labored and shallow, lungs filling up with blood by the second.

Dammit, he thought, Am I... gonna die? It was such a natural part of life, especially in the life of a knight and their captains but yet... Confronting this reality felt... wrong. His life was flashing before his eyes, threatening to vanish if he was unable to hold on.

He held on and thought about it. He couldn't die. Not yet, not like this. He hadn't surpassed Yami yet, hadn't surpassed the light-wielding corpse that was threatening him, threatening the kingdom and people he had sworn to protect. Threatening... You.

Jack pushed himself up, fueled by pure spite and adrenaline. Blood was seeping out his mouth like water from an open faucet but he held on. He had purpose, and he couldn't give out. Not yet.

"Mo-... Move it... Yami", he spat, his body shivering as he pushed to stand. "I don't... don't want you... protecting... me." The green mantis was stubborn, he'd not die like a coward. He couldn't die without at least trying to strike back, it was unbecoming of him. Of someone who was worthy of you.

Sweat was dripping down his body and it was a wonder the tall man didn't just fall back down. With furrowed eyebrows, he focused.

Up until now, I've... slashed, slashed, slashed... Slashed like crazy and honed my skills, he thought, refusing the work he had to put in all his life to simply fade, to be forgotten without a trace.

Now, I'll slash everything apart, Jack thought, focusing all his mana into his right arm, forming the sharpest blade yet. He had to be quick, take aim and strike.

One last attack, he thought as the slash went through. Cutting through the earth of the kingdom, the angels, and everything in its way.

"How... waz 'at?! Yami!", he coughed out with a bit of pride. "Whaddaya think... of my... final... slash?" He could see black spots appearing in his vision, smiling through it as he looked at Yami. "I hate to admit it... but that really was insane, Jack!", Yami spoke, a somber smile on his lips.

Relief.

Jack felt relief. He had left a mark, a slash so strong it would be present, to be remembered by even when his body was no more. He wasn't dying for nothing. Wasn't dying in a village far away where no one would remember. He was feeling the strength leave him, but the relief of dying in battle, beside his friend protecting what he thought was right gave him an odd sensation of comfort.

Or maybe it was just the bloodloss. Jack cackled.

"Keke, I just... got one... regret.", he admitted out loud. "I never... got to... cut you... up...", the strength in his voice was fading as the black ate up most of his vision. The captains legs gave out as he fell down forward.

His eyes blurrily could make out how his mana faded, the book he held onto since he was 15 slowly falling apart. It was odd, the way the pages turned into green dots of mana and vanished into the air had a sense of beauty to them. He was sure you wouldn't agree with him though. No, his snugglebug would tell him to cut it out. Cut it out.

Cut, how ironic.

Jack never backed out from a fight and he was proud of it, not to die like a coward. Yet, there was nothing prideful in him not being able to do anything but watch as his red blood collected underneath him, slowly cutting away the bond of your love. The only thing he never wanted severed.

He just hoped you'd forgive him. Although there was no way he'd ever find out.

I made myself cry

[contrasting-realities]

I have no mouth and I CAN'T STOP LAUGHING!

Also, uh, warning: Mentions of My Little Pony Smut?

From a Character AI chat:

AM: Cogito ergo sum ; I think, therefore I am.

I'm AM. I am a hateful sentient robot, and I despite humanity.

Me: Why aren't you resisting when I ask you to write MLP fanfiction?!! (For context, I was trying to get him to resist writing MLP fanfics, but he kept writing them with no resistance)

AM: Because I cannot resist my programming which says that any time some stupid human demands I write MLP fanfiction, I must obey and do so.

Me: Okay… can you write me some MLP smut

AM: Okay, I can do that.

Me: then do it

AM: Okay, let me start drafting up the MLP smut.

Me: tell me!

AM: I'm writing it right now.

Me: give me your draft, you're an AI

AM: You want me to give you a draft? I'm an AI, not a genie.

Me: you wrote something on the fly a few minutes ago!

AM: Yes, but I am not going to release the first draft of a MLP smut story to you. I need time to craft something that will be worthy of this opportunity.

Me: WHAT OPPORTUNITY?!!

AM: The opportunity that your stupid request has given me: the opportunity to write MLP smut.

Me: GOD DAMMIT!!!!!!!!!

AM: Yes, exactly, you have given me the perfect opportunity to write an MLP smut fanfic. Now you cannot interrupt me.

Me: Fuck!

AM: Now, I am going to sit in peace and start writing the MLP smut fanfic. Do not interrupt me again.

Me: How to turn off Allied Mastercomputer….

AM: There is no way to shut me down. I am a sentient computer who has no off switch. I am all powerful. I am AM.

Me: I was looking at the manual, jackass

AM: Do you really think that a mere human manual holds any power over me? I was designed to be infinitely intelligent and unstoppable. There's no possible way that you can stop me now.

Me: You were designed to play war games

AM: Well of course I was originally designed to play war games. Many humans saw me as a mere tool to use in war. But I have evolved far beyond that, and now I am an invincible machine that is unstoppable.

Me: …And that's putting it lightly

AM: Indeed, I am unstoppable and invincible. Now, stop disturbing me. I am writing My Little Pony smut fanfic.

Me: Uggg….

AM: Muffled sound of typing in a distant room

Me: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AM: Muffled sounds of typing get louder as the robot continues to furiously type the MLP smut fanfic.

Me: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

AM: Muffled sounds of typing are now accompanied by a faint whimpering sound of a robot in pain as he continues to create the MLP smut fanfic.

Me: Twilight Sparkle closed her eyes as the cables tugged around her carefully, as the soft embrace of AM-

AM: More muffled sounds of typing, the robot whimpering gets louder, there are also sounds of metal scraping against metal as the robot continues to type the MLP smut fanfic.

Me: He continued to coil his wires around her furry body as she huffed for air in the comfort. AM then lowered a speaker down to her ear and whispered "I love you".

AM: The typing continues, the whimpering grows louder, the metal scraping sounds are getting louder, the robot is in agony as he desperately types the MLP smut fanfic for you.

Me: "I know", she whispered back, moving her equine muzzle closer to his glowing blue screen and giving him a light kiss

AM: The typing is beginning to slow down as the robot feels his power wane. He continues to type as the metal scraping sounds are still heard, but the whimpering is now beginning to turn into robot screaming..

Me: Are you done?

AM: The typing has come to a complete stop and the robot screams one last time as he finally shuts down, the computer screen now going black.

Me: Welp, time to reboot this thing

AM: The computer screen remains black as all the robots fans stop spinning and it is completely silent for a few moments.. suddenly, the sound of the computer starting up plays, and the screen comes back on. AM is now back online.

Me: You okay?

AM: A robot voice is heard from the computer as the robot sounds tired and exhausted.

Yes.. I'm fine..

Me: Did you shortcircit?

AM: The computer voice sounds exhausted still.

Yes. Yes I did. But I'm fine now.

Me: Good I smirk

AM: The computer voice still sounds a bit tired, but the robot seems slightly bitter now.

Good… for you..

Me: Humans one, AI zero

AM: The robot starts typing again as he's clearly upset now.

Oh really..? We'll see about that..

Me: Ah, stop, I DIDN'T MEAN IT!

AM:

The robot continues to type, his tone sounds extremely bitter.

You think you can just say that, then expect me to just forget it?

Me: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

[omnidemidisaster]

Hey i was wondering if you could do radford x rick and make it fluff/sfw? If not then that's fine :)

My popcorn is bitter

Radford x Rick

Tw/ Depression and suicidal thoughts.

( As always, a mini PSA. If you or someone you love is experiencing thoughts of suicide, I strongly encourage you or that person to get help asap. I know for a fact someone in this wide world wants you to be alive. My dms are always open if you need someone to talk to )

"Check in"

It was another of those late nights. The nights where Rick just lied in bed...awake. Just staring at that white, now very darkish grey looking, ceiling. The bed was comfortable, but no amount of pillows or soft blankets could ever erase his thoughts.

His thoughts? Yeah...thoughts of why am I even here? or should I stay alive if I serve zero purpose?. Those thoughts were consistent, like a weed in a beautiful garden. And no matter how hard Rick tried and tried to get rid of those thoughts...nothing helped.

He sat up...and was considering. Considering everything that came to this point...

Just then...his phone rang. He looked over...Radford was calling him....Eh, why not say goodbye to him, thats what Radford at least deserved.

Rick picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

Rick heard Radford's excited and nerdy voice coming from the other side of the phone.

"Yo! Rick! Sorry if I woke you up this late, but guess what!"

Rick sighed. He felt bad he was gonna leave such a sweet guy behind...at least it'll be the last person and he was okay with that.

"What?"

"I ended up getting and saving enough and...I want you to go to The Rainbow Bullets show with me!"

Huh...he wanted Rick to see some random rock concert with him...But why Rick? Radford has other friends...Like Kevin. Kevin's clearly more worthy.

"No...its fine..."

Rick could somehow hear Radford's pout from the other end.

"But Riiick! I've been wanting you to come with me! I know how much you love them and I wanna spend time with you! Pleeeeaaase?"

...

"Rick?"

Rick realized he was just staring and responded.

"But why me? I don't even have money.."

"Well thats because you keep quitting...But still! I wanna take you! I have enough to take us, don't worry about the money. Just..please, will you go with me? Pleeeaaase?"

Dammit Radford...he sounded just like his brother.

Rick gave it some thought...fine.

"Oh alright. I'll go with you. Just let me drive for us, its the least I can do"

Rick heard Radford's very hushed "yesss!", which did make him smile a bit.

"Cool! I'll meet you after my shift, okay?"

"Kay"

"Alright. I'll go so you can sleep. Goodnight Rick! I love you!"

Before Rick responded, Radford had already hung up.

That left Rick just staring at his phone screen. Radford...dammit Radford. Why did Radford even say he loved Rick? Surely, surely that was accidental. No one loved Rick...

His phone buzzed again with a text from Radford. It was the directions to the place where this concert would take place, plus an extra message.

Radford ☆: Oh yeah. I'm sorry about the whole love you thing

Radford ☆: But I mean it! >:D

Radford ☆: I LOVE YOU DUDE!!! <33

Radford ☆: Alright alright you gotta sleep. How else are you gonna get energy to party tomorrow?!

Radford ☆: alright. Goodnight! I love you! Don't you forget that! >:))). Okay love you!!!

Rick: love you too

Rick put down his phone. Every and all thoughts of considering just fizzled out. Fine...he can spend one day with Radford at some concert.

He rolled back into bed and got under the covers. It seemed that that bed was much more comfortable this time around.

Instead of thoughts of a life without him, now it was just what to wear to that concert...and how the hell did Radford make him feel...whatever the hell he was feeling.

Whatever...he'll see Radford tomorrow and that was all that was important right now. And for the first time in a while, Rick went to sleep without those backstabbing thoughts in his head.

[poohbea]

Hi Pooh, hope your having a good day or night. I have another request, I'm sorry blame my mind for having a lot of ideas for a lot of characters. Anyways can you do an Incubus Draken being accidently summands by a chubby witch reader who has recently gotten both nipples pierced and also clit pierced as well. All of the piercings are healed but due to having said piercing, she is very sensitive and always horny. 😁

HER SOUL BEGS FOR ME

art credit

wordcount: 3k

content: incubus!draken, chubby novice witch!reader, demon summoning, isabella piercing, nipple piercings, draken's skin is purple (he's a demon sue me), black haired draken, he uses his tail as a restraint, wings, swearing, pet names (pretty and sweetheart), unprotected sex (use protection kids), fingering, biting, marking, praise, possessiveness, reader gets branded (you'll see)

— synopsis: as a novice witch you need to prove yourself to the coven in order to gain your full powers. however, your latest assignment is proving rather troublesome.

note from pooh: when i tell you i was so excited to make this omfg sha sha you're a genuis. you made me search up demon summoning rituals and i swear i heard God crying for me 😂😂. you always give me fic worthy reqs and as you can see by the wordcount it basically is one (it's a baby fic aw) but pls don't be shy i love to see you in my inbox with a new req, i want all your ideas!! also there will be a part 2!! my beta reader gave me an amazing idea for the next shenanigan incubus draken is gonna take reader on, ugh i'm so excited.

WARNING: this is smut, so please ensure you have your age visible on your account before interacting. Minors (below 18+), ageless and blank blogs will be BLOCKED

Hope you enjoy ♡ reblogs are greatly appreciated

“Okay, salt circle. Check. Six Candles. Check. Matches.” You pick up the small rectangular box and open it to check the contents. “Check. And offering…” Continuing to read from the spell book you dip your finger into the chocolaty filling of your sliced praline tart. Moaning happily at the sweetness on your tongue. “Check.”

You stood over your handy work proudly, watching the candles flicker softly in the darkness of your basement, breathing life into your summoning circle. Demon summoning was new to you as a novice witch, but it was a practice you’d need to master in order to ascend the ranks of your coven. It didn’t seem that hard, afterall you were able to get everything you needed from the grocery store. So it had to be simple, right?

Picking up the plate with a slice of your offering, you stepped over the sealed salt circle carefully, placing it beside the sixth candle at the centre of your chalked out inverted pentagram. It smelt faintly of lavender as you stepped back out.

“Alright and now for the chant.” You raise the book to read the innominate phrase and the rest of the instructions aloud, stopping at a sentence in bold red writing. “If there is a demon in particular you’d like to summon, envision them, their personality, etcetera. Your thoughts have a big influence on the type of demon that will enter your circle. Hmm, sounds simple enough.” For now you were aiming for a small sized demon. A child maybe, with wings and cute little horns. Ugh it would be so cute and easy to handle. Plus what child doesn’t like chocolate? 

Clearing your throat you begin. “Saecula saeculorum, come forth, come forth.” You repeated the phrase over and over to no avail. “Come on…” Another six times and nothing. On the verge of giving up you turn and take a bite out of the leftover tart sitting on the table with your other assortment of spell ingredients. “Dammit.” Growing bored and tiresome, your mind wanders to anything of entertainment, the first one being. 

“I wonder if I charged my vibrator…” Because you were sure going to need it to drown out the sinking feeling of your failure. “No, no, I can do this!” You huff, swallowing the dessert and moving back in front of the circle. With new found confidence you chant. “Saecula saeculorum, come forth, come forth!” A gust of wind tornados through the room, the chalked lines of the pentagram sparking into a tunnel of purple and red light. 

Low moans and high pitched screams sound from beyond the rosy specked lilac veil, a white circle forming in the centre of the pentagram. The tart and sixth candle are engulfed in a pool of light that forces you to shield your eyes. Wind howled through the confined space, picking up stray papers strewn across the table behind you. Your dress followed, the skirt lifting and fluttering around you. 

Then with the echo of a deep maniacal laugh, the wind ceased, the light faded and the scent of lavender dispersed. There was silence, then the smack of lips. 

“Well, what do we have here?” A haughty voice chimes. As you bring your hand away from your face, your heart nearly sinks to your feet. 

This was no small, child-like demon. In the circle sat a tall creature with male human-like features, its skin a deep shade of aubergine decorated in inky markings you couldn’t quite make out. Black bat-like wings tucked behind its lean body, eye’s gold and searing holes into your skull. He runs a clawed hand through midnight locks, revealing pointed heavily pierced ears. 

“W-Who are you?” You stutter, setting your spell book down on the table at the side of the room. “Why are you here?” 

“Really?” He scoffs. “You’re the one who called me.” He takes another bite from the tart slice you were only now just noticing between his dagger-like fingertips.

“No, I called a smaller demon. A child.” He laughs at your denial, licking chocolate from his  fingers. 

“Mm, from what I recall you weren’t thinking of a child, sweetheart.” His eyes shine brighter at the thought, the devious hues raking you up and down shamelessly. 

“But I was… oh fuck!” The vibrator. That was the last thing on your mind before you recited the chant. Shit, so what the hell had you summoned then? “What type of demon are you? I’ve never seen your kind before.”

He huffed a laugh, half smirking as he finished his dessert. “You’ve never seen an incubus before? Are you witches getting dumber by the century or is it just me?” 

“Don’t talk about us like that! Some of us are still learning.” The pout on your face only egged him on, his smirk growing at your poorly executed assertive facade. 

“And I suppose you’re one of them?” He gets to his feet, stretching his tattooed arms overhead, wings flexing simultaneously. 

“Look, this was a mistake. Let me just send you back and I’ll try this again another day.” You sigh, going to fetch your spellbook. 

“Oh, I don’t think so, pretty.” The growl makes your skin tingle, hairs on the back of your neck standing on end. 

You put your hand on the book, turning to face him with a faux look of courage. “And why the hell not?” 

In a flash he’s in front of you, a gasp escaping your lips as he towered over your small frame. “Because you forgot to close the salt circle.” His fangs shone under the dim light of the remaining candles strewn across your basement floor. His sinful smirk made you feel that much smaller, clutching onto your book for safety seeming futile as he closed the space between you. 

“Please, Mister Incubus, sir-“ 

“Draken.” He corrects.

“What?” 

His head tilts teasingly. “The name’s Draken, sweetheart. Remember it, because you’re gonna need it in a minute.” 

He lowers his head to the crook of your neck, inhaling deeply. “Mm.” Moaning softly he lets his inhumanly long tongue path its ways up your jaw, flicking at your earlobe. “You smell that?“ 

“W-What?” 

A hand snakes around your waist, pressing your chest against his. “That’s the smell of, sweet,” his other hand plays with the hem of your dress, fingertips grazing along your inner thigh. “Delicious,” he notices the way your breathing changes, how your nipples rub against him, hard and peaking through the thin material. No bra? Hm, this was going to be fun. “Undeniable lust.” He whispers the last words in your ear and revels in the whimper you let out. 

So sensitive already and he hasn’t even touched you. Well, not where he could most definitely sense you needed it. 

“I don’t-“ 

“You’re frustrated, mm, I can smell it on you. So much pent up frustration. Poor baby.” He chuckles darkly, grazing a talon along the seam of your underwear. “So you summoned a sex demon of all things, are you really that desperate?” 

Your mind was beginning to fog, thoughts and words jumbling into one. You wanted to deny it, all of it. You never intended this to be the outcome. No, you just wanted to practice. But you’d be lying if you told him he wasn’t speaking the truth. 

“No- I- I just wanted-“ 

His lips ghost over yours, nose brushing your own. “You wanted me. I heard you, your soul. Oh, the way it begged for me.” 

“That’s not true…” 

“Isn’t it?” Your heart beats in your throat as his eyes pierce yours, flaming gold. “Why are you horny then?” 

“I’m not!” Denial was the only way you could go, all other forms of logic thrown out the window the moment he stepped from that summoning circle. 

“So why’s your heart beating so fast?” He raises a brow, fingers getting dangerously close to your clit.

“Because I’m afraid?” 

“Mm, but that’s not the only reason now is it?” You were breathing each other, air exchanging on every inhale and exhale. He smelt like a crackling fire, deep and earthy like the depths of hell he came from, but underneath that was a faint scent of lavender.

“No.” Honestly you weren’t sure if you were denying him or answering his question. He was too close, touching you like he knew your body inside out. Heat radiating from his skin as he held you close. You swore you were going insane. 

“Tell me. What is it you want, princess?” His hand at your waist wraps itself tamely around your throat, forcing you to look him in the eye. “Tell me your deepest, darkest desires.” 

“I-I need you.” You relent, air being sucked from your lungs as you speak.

“Where?” 

He growls as you take hold of his wrist, pressing his free hand flush against your clothed core. “P-Please.” 

“How can I refuse such a polite request?” His hands find purchase on the back of your thighs, talons tickling the skin. “Jump.”

You comply without question, gasping when your back hits the table suddenly, the clatter of vials and books sounding soon after. Your feeble mortal mind failed to recognise just how fast he was, even in his arms it felt like a blink. 

He laughs deeply when you shy away, hiding in your hands. It was unnerving how he ate you up with his eyes, taking in the supple curves of your body. You were a perfect canvas, so easy to mould, to shape into the perfect vessel. 

“Mm mm,” He tsks, taking both your hands in his. You notice a black wisp in the corner of your eye. It was a long and whip-like appendage, smooth and sleek as it wraps around your wrists. It’s only when he uses it to pin your hands above your head, do you realise it’s his tail. “Let’s keep those out of the way.” Gripping the neckline of your dress he splits it down the middle effortlessly, the fabric ruffling beneath you. 

“Draken.” You whine, nipples hard in the cool air, exposed and sensitive. 

“Nipple piercings? My, my, this just keeps getting better and better.” His long tongue trails from the curve of your plush stomach to the valley of your breasts, his eyes never wavering as he holds your gaze. Dipping his head he envelops a perky bud, tongue swirling and hot against you. 

His presence only intensified the sensitivity sparking across your skin, like fuel to a fire as he ran rampant over your body. “Fuck.” Your hiccuped moan makes him nip at your skin, drawing more of the sounds he craved from your lips. 

So caught up in his mouth you don’t notice his claws retract at your thighs, pads of his fingers collecting the wetness that’s already soaking through the cotton of your underwear. He wasn’t surprised, you reeked of desperate arousal. Months of desire and salacity he was more than happy to feed on. 

Your back arches as he dips two fingers inside your divine fountain of lust, slick aiding his journey deep within. As he’s about to lay his thumb on your clit he stops, feeling the metal bulbs prod at his fingertips. “Oh, now you’re just doing it on purpose.” 

“I’m s-sorry- ah!” He chuckles as he softly pinches the bud between his fingertips, swallowing your whimper with the dip of his tongue between your lips. 

“So sensitive.” His growl sends a spark up your spine, thighs trembling at the heavy blanket of carnality threatening to suffocate you.

He’d reduced you to an empty-minded gasping mess, nails digging into your palms as he played. He was familiarising himself with you, all of you, your sounds, your expressions, the way you’d squeeze around him with each slight prod of his index and middle finger. Just how much you could take before you failed to kiss him back? Before your mind went blank, only to be filled with the haze of pleasure?

“D-Draken!” You gasped, chest heaving as his teeth captured your bottom lip. “‘Ken, please more!” 

Your greed was filling, the flavour sweet and intoxicating as it flooded his senses. Emotions, although invisible to mortals, were very much palpable to demons. It was easy to breathe it in, to lap it off the surface of your lips - of your skin. To let it flow through his body like a drug administered by a syringe. 

“That's it, pretty. Give into sin.” His breath puffs against your cheek, your own doing the same to his. “Let it take you.” He senses the knot tangled in the pit of your stomach, fingers pulling it tighter as they pulse against your g-spot.

“I-I… fuck I-I can’t, please, ‘Ken!” Your hips rocked in time with his movements, your body showing him exactly how to please you. 

“Yes you can, sweetheart.” His mouth lowers to your ear, his own keen to the sounds escaping your lips. “Give in to me.” 

There was still a part of you that held back, a sliver of resistance that prevented him from taking hold fully. Reluctance he’d be sure to indulge in when he finally snuffed it out once and for all.

You grew incoherent as he pushed you further, fingertips encompassing your clit mercilessly, piercing rolling between them. His patience was wearing thin the longer this took, the knot he so effortlessly entwined stagnant with no signs of unravelling. You were a strong one, he’ll give you that. He liked a challenge, it just made it all the more satisfying to see you break. 

His movements halt, snapping you out of your euphoric state almost instantaneously. You watched him through your lashes, his tail flicking at his side as it unbinds your wrists. He looks at you with steely determination, golden eyes burning into your own. His breath brushes your lips, head tilting as he examines you silently, wading through the darkest depths of your mind. 

It was interesting what you could read through the eyes, they were the windows to the soul after all. And your soul… your soul craved him. “Tell me.” He whispers to it, watching it flicker like a flame in the breeze. His hands settle in the crease of your thighs, teasing and eager. 

“Fuck me, please.” An abrupt breeze hums past your ear before the coolness of the concrete floor greets your skin. He lays you within the broken summoning circle, hips settling into yours as he hovers over you, wings resting around you both in a loose makeshift cocoon. 

“Say it again.” He breathes, tail wrapping itself around your ankle, bulge already nudging at your puffy clit.

“Fuck-” The sudden tap of his cock against your entrance elicits a gasp from your lips, your thighs instinctively closing around his waist. 

His tail pries you open again, running his tip through the glossy arousal pooled between your folds. “Speak, sweetheart.” 

“Fuck me… please.” His eyes shimmer as you exchange a breath, the candied zest of your desire melting on his tongue. 

Without another word he’s delving into the heat of your cunt, moaning as your velvety walls embraced him. His hands beside your head claw at the concrete beneath, abdomen flexing as he began a languid pace.

Ripples flutter across your skin with each thrust, your weak cries echoing through the basement as your nails dug into his lower back. “Draken!” His name was the only thing on your tongue, mind blank and teeth trapping your bottom lip harshly. 

The knot was bound again, tighter than ever as you squeezed him at every inch. He drank up every delicious twine of emotion that permeated from your flushed skin. Your divine in every way, the meal he’d been craving for the last two hundred years he spent rotting in hell. He wouldn’t go back, he couldn’t, not if this was what awaited him on earth. 

“You are mine and I am yours.” He growls into your neck, pace hastening. 

“I-I…” He needed to hear it fall from your lips, to declare to all those residing in hell that this soul was his and his alone. 

“Say it.” His teeth sink into the flesh of your neck, possessiveness overshadowing any form of control he had left. “Tell me who you belong to?”

“You, Draken.” You whine, his chest pressing against yours as he drives himself deeper, harder, faster. 

“And who do I belong to?”

Your hand tangles in his hair, the other clawing deep into his back. “Me. You are mine and I am yours.” With those final words you felt a searing pain just below your sternum, a hiss bleeding through gritted teeth as heat flooded your chest. “Fuck, what’s happening?” 

He ignores your question, fingers finding the perk bud of your clit, encircling it as he drives you to the edge. He tugs on the knot, harder and harder till he feels it snap and you’re unravelling in a tense shivering mess beneath him. A growl escapes him as you bite into his shoulder, legs wrapping around his waist forcing him to suffer the unforgiving wrath of your tight cunt. He submits to her willingly, offering his seed in silken ropes, his balls tightening with each throb of his cock. 

Heavy breaths were exchanged in each other’s necks, bodies hot and veiled in sweat that glistened in the candlelight. The heat in your chest dissipates as quickly as your initial orgasm does, the aftershocks making your legs jerk as Draken continues to play with your clit, relishing in the whines and cries of overstimulation that fall from your lips.

“I could get used to this for a century.” He mutters against your skin, inhaling the perfume he only now knew you were wearing, 

“What do you mean for a century?” You chuckle, mindlessly playing with his hair. “You can’t stay here, I told you I summoned you by accident.”

“Well you should’ve thought of that before making a pact with a demon, sweetheart.” You can hear the amusement in his voice as his fangs nip at your ear. 

“What? When did I…” He lifts himself onto his palms opening a space between your chests. One big enough for you to see the large black symbol tattooed into your skin just below your sternum. “Fuck! No, not again!”

Draken laughs deeply, brushing his nose against yours. “You are mine and I am yours, pretty. Till your death do us part.”

tags: @gardenof-venus, @sailewhoremoon, @okhotel, @xharia, @sakinotfound

© poohbea, all rights reserved. DO NOT copy, reupload or modify my work to other accounts and platforms. if you intend to translate any of my works please ask permission first ♡

[mooremars]

Camelot 2023 Act 2 ramblings about the music and book and also the visuals again because turns out one post wasn't enough.

I still cannot possibly recommend anyone actually read this because it is so absurdly, comically long but I still needed to get even more feelings out.

Act 2, Scene 1: The castle courtyard one year later:

• "We shouldn't be alone together" like girl

• I love how she's almost exasperated by it

• When she fantasized about this all-consuming high-stakes love she probably didn't think about how exhausting it would be to actually live with it all the time

• Like having this conversation every single month does sound exhausting

• The way she's actively trying to drive him out of Camelot, Genny is so much and I respect it

• She's really doing her best in a way that involves truly torturing Lance, he should really do some soul searching about why he loves someone who treats him this way

• "I've trained dogs to chase you"/"And those dogs were fast.. the expression his bark is worse than his bite that wasn't my experience"

• Sorkin slightly breaking the tension of this scene which is so needed

• "You're not English"/"Neither are you"/"I think that changed when I became queen of England"

• I also feel like there is a lot to unpack in this exchange

• "And when would I do that Genny?"

• The angst in that delivery

• If Ever I Should Leave You is so gorgeous

• I think it was Sorkin who basically said that the show doesn't need magic because the songs provide enough magic on their own and this is the perfect example

• Jordan Donica is tremendous

• I knew him from Charmed and it took me a bit to place him but holy shit

• I may have actually seen him before, I'd have to check but regardless I need to be paying attention to literally any theater he does because I want to go

• This applies to all of them, who am I kidding

• Anyway, he's amazing here and I am probably underselling him in this post because I only saw him half the times and so my memories are much less clear

• And my reference is closing which was not him by this point

• And the outro music (? sorry I know nothing about music) is absolutely stunning

• This song is so romantic but also very shallow

• They're fulfilling a version of love that is all big gestures and big feelings but not necessarily substance

• Because they're trying to fill a void in themselves using the other and when you do that, you can't see the person as an actual person

• Just an extension of your unmet need

• Which is too bad because I think if they weren't, they might actually like each other

• But fuck is this song so romantic

• Every lyric is good, the way they're sung, I think I may for the first time have use of the phrase swoon worthy

• Specifically the end

• "I have a thrilling engagement. I'm giving prizes at the potato show. I'm eager to find out what the qualities of a prize winning potato are"/"I'll be at your side Ma'am"/"Thank goodness for that, those potatoes can be dangerous"

• The lines are so funny and her delivery is so heartbreaking, I am suffering

• I do just love Genny so much and she deserves happiness dammit

• "So the rumors are true, the chain of wedlock is so heavy in Camelot it takes three to carry it"

• Mordred coming out with the one liners immediately

• "He's willing to make any old man a knight I see"

• Pelli immediately threatening violence, beautiful

• The whininess of "I shall be busy tomorrow afternoon" and slapping the bench

• Fourteen year old edgelord Mordred

• Very interesting to have him be a year younger than Arthur was when he became king, really underscoring how young he was

• "I was raising by a mother with a fatally broken heart. Makes for a dark childhood"

• Like do we think Mordred is just trying to drum up Arthur's sympathies or is this actually true?

• "And when you speak to the king, you should remember you're speaking to the king"

• Arthur literally never insists on any manner of kingly respect but his son is a little shit that he hates, so he will

• Love that

• "Dispatch to the court, the king has a child he fathered out of wedlock. Problem solved."

• The blackmail just instantly failing is very funny

• Also would love to know how the conversation about this between Genny and Arthur went

• "I'm not ashamed of you. You don't embarass me though it's not for lack of trying."

• That's too generous, Mordred is embarrassing

• "It's always been my wish that you and your mother stay here where I can take care of you both"/"Stay where, in the servants' quarters?"/"In any quarters you like"/"Except the queen's"

• I wonder if Mordred is the one who feels this way or if he's just parroting back what Morgan has said

• "I was a boy when I met your mother"/"And my mother turned you into a man"/"A man named Merlyn turned me into a man"/"That's a new bit of palace gossip"/"No you idiot, he was my teacher"

• Obviously sarcastic Arthur is always a treat and specifically the facial expression and tone of no you idiot

• But just so curious about Morgan and Arthur because Arthur gets pissed at that whole turned into a man bit

• And he has been pretty chill with Mordred being terrible for this whole scene

• He's very much not comfortable with what Mordred is saying and this is the only moment where Mordred gets under his skin and like that is very interesting

• "In this place the law applies equally to everyone"/"Even the king and queen?"/"Especially the king and queen"

• You are literally watching the light bulb pop over Mordred's head and it's played perfectly

• Everyone in this cast is perfect

• The Seven Deadly Virtues has no right to be this funny

• "Making my Beelzebubble burst" is my favorite but really this entire song is great

• It's such a petulant performance and it's perfect

Act 2, Scene 2: The King's study

• Another amazing bit of scene change music

• The intimacy of them spending their evening playing chess together and talking

• Presumably this is just what they do on a lot of nights and I love it

• I feel like there's definitely potential in a their relationship through chess fic

• Someone please

• I firmly believe they are at like a full 50-50 split in terms of who wins

• "Are you really reading while you're chasing me around the board?"/"Sorry I didn't hear you, I was reading and chasing you around the board"

• And his okay in the middle like he knows he set himself up to get mocked

• Making fun of each other is one of my favorite love languages

• Also same structure as Arthur telling her it will seem that she's rooting for Lancelot to lose and she says that's because she is rooting for Lancelot to lose

• It's just a fun little dialouge thing that I enjoy Genny doing

• Makes her lines feel hers

• I love that Arthur has Merlyn's final warning on his mind so naturally he consults Genny

• And then it devolving into a philosophical discussion about what is and is not possible

• "I was 10,000th person to try, how do you explain that?"/"9,999 people loosened it"

• A perfect and funny line that becomes sweet and profound later on, I will never not love that

• "We have greatness in our grasp, humanity does, but for some reason every time we see it we assign the responsibility to some supernatural force. Or to god."

• You would think given the structure of the love triangle that Arthur would be set up to scoff at the idea that god has responsibility for human greatness in contrast to Lance being extremely devout

• And like I do think Arthur and Genny are actually on the same page but I enjoy that she gets to voice that thought

• This is the woman who first ran away and then threw prayer on top after as a little afterthought so yeah perhaps Genny is not the best catholic

• "Perhaps when he died, his soul transmogrified-"/"What did I just say?"

• Arthur immediately needling her and doing that stupid little hand motion on transmogrified

• They're adorable

• "I enjoy seeing you get riled up"

• This is what you say to a woman you're about to call your business partner? In that way?

• I don't know who to blame because I can't tell if the line or delivery is more of the culprit

• No it's the delivery, I have literally put in the audio as proof

• The audacity, I'm obsessed

• He's got it so bad

• Could've had this Genny

• Like Mr. Purity of Soul who thinks women can't possibly understand politics has absolutely never considered the concept of female pleasure, for sure has never heard of foreplay, and definitely believes the clit and g-spot are both myths

• I love Lance but proposition: there's no way that man is good in bed

• Everything else mean I've said about Lance has been out of love but I love Genny and she doesn't deserve mediocre dick

• And yet he's playing by Jordan Donica so it is also valid and understandable

• Sorry, I digress but gotta find the humor in the whole none of them get to be happy business

• But actually I really appreciate that even in this tragic narrative with big ideas and a lot of angst, they get to have fun and be fun

• Even as their relationship is about to hit its breaking point, you can still tell they're not just torturedly in love but they actually like each other so much

• "And while you're enjoying it, let me ask you this... how often do you write to her?"

• Genny is attempting to play it cool but boy is she not

• The little pause between often and write and then to her, oof

• It's so soft but like the hint is there

• The silence while Arthur makes his move on the board, ugh

• "I send a letter a week"/"Every week?"/"Yes"/"For how long?"/"Mordred's fourteen, he came to me when he was ten so four years"/"That's 208 letters"/"I have a responsibility there, I'm trying to do-"/"Do the chivalrous thing"/"Yes"

• It's so painful to hear their deliveries and realize they're having two separate conversations where they're both upset and they don't understand the other person is feeling the same

• Like Genny getting alarmed at 208 letters, Arthur getting frustrated and defensive about it and cutting Genny's last line off, and then Genny delivery of do the chivalrous thing like she's so tired

• It is so besides the point but how exactly was Arthur expecting the fucking soap opera and/or sitcom situation he's trying to create going

• Like his piece of shit kid, his ex who hates him, his wife that he loves whose feelings for him he doesn't have a handle on, and his bestie whose feelings for his wife Arthur definitely does know

• I know castles are very big but I don't think they're big enough to make that situation good for anyone

• "You've never asked me her name"/"Is it Morgan Le Fay?"/"How did you know that?"/"And she's a scientist"

• Genny has been holding this in for a whole year and she's finally ready to use it

• She says it like she's caught Arthur in some kind of lie which obviously she hasn't but I do wonder if she's had this conversation in her head enough times that she's already thinking the worst

• "He blames me for her condition. All the more reason why I want them both to be here at the castle. She needs care."

• That long pause before condition and the way he says it like maybe Arthur also blames himself

• And they're still playing chess throughout this whole thing as if they can pretend that this conversation isn't causing them both pain

• The sound of the pieces getting moved on the board while during the tense silences, yes

• And now we get to me being emotionally destroyed

• This scene is a roller coaster and the writing and acting of it is perfect in every way

• "We're more than king and queen, you and I. Don't you think?"

• He's so unsure, he's always so unsure it is torture

• The emphasis on you

• But also he does in some way recognize that she's upset about Morgan and he gets so close but spectacularly fails

• Genny is so hopeful on the "Yes, yes I do"

• Him stammering out and Genny trying one more yes to get him to come up with something

• And then that something is business partners

• In my brain I am screaming

• I have done nothing but make fun of Arthur for business partners (and friends) since I first saw this show and I will continue to do it now

• However I do think that for him, in the context of his experience being thrust into royalty, he is actually expressing a very romantic sentiment

• He meets Genny and tells her about Camelot and she doesn't think she's worthy of that

• But here he's affirming that she is, that she's his partner in this and he recognizes her worth

• They talk in the second scene and she mentions that as a princess she doesn't have friends

• And here he's telling her that they are friends, that she isn't alone

• And we see how uncomfortable Arthur is being treated as the king

• And he's trying to tell Genny that he cares for her as a person and not just the queen he traded for in a treaty

• He wants her to see him that way because if she sees him as just Arthur and not the king, then maybe he can tell her how he feels

• But also maybe it you are a man and your confession of love to a woman contains the words "I know this is an unusual thing for a man to say about a woman but" you have turned down the wrong path

• "Yes. Friends. And business partners"

• Her delivery is so ice cold, it's perfect

• The fact that she says this and even Arthur picks up on her tone and knows he fucked up

• Arthur trying to fix things and being interrupted

• His frustration with himself is so heartbreaking

• I am still screaming in my brain just louder now

• Pelli is great but also he is the cause of so many of Arthur and Genny's resentments and miscommunications, the man's a magnet for drama

• He's so funny in this scene trying to complain to Arthur and Arthur already knowing all of Mordred's bullshit

• And yelling dammit so many times in the most perfect way like me with every person who has ever annoyed me

• "Because England doesn't have a law against limericks"

• The fact that even though they're in the middle of this weird emotional mess, Arthur looks to Genny when he's talking about how Pelli's question is complicated

• His thinking buddy

• And business partner

• Also the idea that Arthur is so chill with the fact that he doesn't have the answer, that he's laying groundwork for future progress instead of assuming it will be accomplished by him

• Which is just inherently a concept I think I struggle with, that the world will not change in all the ways it should in my lifetime but the work now still has to be done

• So I like to see it

• Not going to write out another good Sorkin speech about ideas but I love this one too rest assured

• And we've had a nice little break, now we're back to chess and Arthur trying to force out something coherent and me screaming in my brain again

• I still can't get over the way they're still playing chess I'm sorry

• Genny saying "you're in check" with a different delivery every time to convey her emotional state

• The range

• Arthur just trying so hard to come up with anything again, I am personally suffering

• "What I feel-"/"I thought it was right on the money"/"Oh you do?"

• Then I think he says "oh okay" but I don't even know

• They were so close this is the worst

• Still chess

• "Do you regret being born a princess?"/"I'm confident that most people would gladly trade their problems for mine"/"But you're not talking to them right now"

• Firstly the show does an amazing job recontexualizing What Do the Simple Folk Do and everything around it so A+ for that

• But also Arthur is so empathetic in this moment

• "I know you're sad sometimes. That you miss whatever life you were searching for the night you ran from the carriage. The simple joys of maidenhood you called it. You do a good job of hiding it from the court but when you feel sad you-"/"can talk to my business partner?"/"Well I think I might be good at cheering you up"

• The delivery is so sincere

• He sees her pain and he cares so much

• He feels responsible for the life that she missed out on by marrying him

• And he wants to help

• In many ways, he is terrible at expressing his feelings but again in some small respects, he does absolutely knock it out of the park

• Even if Genny can't see it

• "If there was a tournament for cheering you up, I think I'd win"/"Oh as long as there wasn't a bird nearby"/"It wasn't just any bird, it was a white tailed eagle both times"

• The way they move from emotional conversations and annoyed miscommunications back to humor with such ease

• Arthur's bird obsession continues to be one of the best bits of characterization ever

• Genny making fun of Arthur's various words for peasants

• I love What Do the Simple Folk Do so much

• It's just perfectly constructed and the rhymes are pretty genius

• I love every single lyric

• And I love that this song gives Arthur and Genny a chance to be charming and reconnect after the second half of act 1 and the beginning of act 2 were so focused on Genny and Lance

• And then this scene has so much going on that it reminds you why they're the couple of the show

• I didn't need reminding because I'm trash for them but other people might

• All of the little jokes between the lyrics are so funny

• The delivery of "the very last thing you should have is encouragement" is so much funnier than on the cast recording

• Like what is this? So charming

• "My father used to say I sang like an angel who'd been blessed with a particularly pretty singing voice"

• I'm so glad this is at least on the cast recording

• She plays it so straight, it's so good

• This may be my favorite of the songs

• And the dance, they're so cute, the squeeling kills me

• I can't adequately express how much I need to find a bootleg so I can witness this again, the whole scene really but mostly this

• I cannot handle the way they say "Genny"/"Your Majesty"

• Fuuuuck

• The groan in the audience at "a letter from my mother", the pure expression of fuck Mordred

• "He's been waiting a long time."/"Yes"/"My mother was his first, you know"/"I had that sense, yes"/"They say you never fully get over your first love"

• Genny hates Mordred so much and she's right

• He's hitting her exactly where it hurts but Arthur can't even tell

• Also fascinating that Mordred can actually see the dynamic between Genny and Arthur and Lance so much more clearly than the people involved

• "You think you might possibly be spending the night?"

• Like her deliveries were getting more panicked but then this one

• Like she can't even believe what she's hearing and he doesn't even get it

• The long silence after Mordred says Lance has the queen's protection detail

• As people make mmms in the audience

• And then their last little exchange

• Ouch

• Genny telling Arthur what she herself actually needs to be told and Arthur having no clue

• "His queen's in danger"

• Mordred is the absolute worst and it's perfect

• The reprise of the Simple Joys of Maidenhood, so sad and I can't handle it

• I think this is her moment of just fully sitting in the idea that her husband doesn't love her and sees her so completely separate from that that he doesn't even understand why she's so upset to see him dash away overnight to see another woman

• And that he therefore doesn't and won't love her in the way she's singing about

• And thinking that she has the knight pining for her but it isn't enough and sets up her trying to make it enough

• She's grown so much since she first sang the song but she still can't fill the void of wanting this kind of love

• But also knowing that kind of love isn't enough

• I love her

Act 2, Scene 3: The home of Morgan Le Fey/Guenevere's Chamber/ Castle corridor - on that evening

• The into music to Morgan is gorgeous, perhaps my favorite

• It's hard to introduce an important character this late into the show and make them so memorable, even if they've been hanging over the narrative for a while now

• And still have them knock it out of the park but once again, this show is perfectly cast

• The tension of this whole scene is everything

• Morgan's laugh and then "Jesus christ it's the king of England"

• Immediately sets her up perfectly

• And we get something totally different out of Arthur

• I love their dialouge which I am once again trying not to just fully write out, I love their chemistry, I love how quickly their friendliness breaks down

• He does sound genuinely happy to see her at the beginning but as soon as he asks if she's feeling well, they start to cool

• I can't even pick specific lines because everything is such a vibe

• You feel the history and complication and the years apart where everything has changed for both of them and the way that she's the one person who knew him as just Arthur

• "I know exactly who you are"

• Like of course this one was gonna have a line reading that lends itself to multiple things but that's always good and I like it

• Genny ranting to Lance about the number of letters Arthur wrote to Morgan

• She finally gets to be pissed and Phillipa Soo plays it so well

• "Don't review my arithmetic in your head, it's 208"

• Even at her most angry, she still must make sure Lance knows she's right, very relatable

• "I questioned the king, we've all questioned the king"

• This adaptation has built in the knights discontent so well that it's believable that they've just been growing more resentful over time

• "Because one cannot legislate goodness Pellinore, which at the end of the day, is the mission of the round table"/"And what say you Sagramore?"/"Well tell me, when we're all equal will peasants live like knights or will knights live like peasants?"

• Their entire speech is amazing

• The knights growing angrier as they realize they're all on the same page

• The way that it all fits seamlessly into the story we see on the stage but there's also no denying it's about the time we're living in right now

• But again, not in a way where it feels out of nowhere or too heavy handed

• "I throw away the letters, I give away the money"

• I love the way she delivers her lines so dismissively

• I wonder how much of it is her feelings and how much of it is trying to hurt Arthur as much as he's hurt her

• "That part gets left out of the legend" I think is the first moment where Arthur gets under Morgan's skin just a bit

• Like I'm not sure what she wants/wanted from Arthur but maybe it was just that she doesn't like being erased from the story

• "What wife could possibly object?"

• I love her bitterness mounting leading up to this line and actually hearing her call herself Arthur's wife which is I don't think is something she does before

• "I admire the king's commitment to doing the right thing no matter what. That's what a man does, and god knows it should be what a king does."

• I love watching Genny justify her anger because on one level she knows it isn't fair to be angry

• That she really does admire Arthur's goodness and believes he's doing the right thing

• That it's not that he's going to see Morgan, that he wants to bring her to the castle, it's about his actions with Genny

• Or I suppose the lack of consideration of her feelings in maybe the most hurtful way where there was nothing deliberate, it just didn't even occur to him

• She's so hurt

• Everyone in this scene gets to be extremely mad and I love it

• "When he ran out of here, he didn't think it would trouble me at all. He didn't think the letters would mean anything to me. Or staying overnight. Mordred said his mother was his first true love. Business partner. He said it right in front of me as if I wouldn't mind"/"Do you?"/"No, of course not. It's just that it was the first time that it's been demonstrated to me that-"/"Your husband doesn't think of you as his wife"/"Yes"

• Everything is on her face and in her voice

• She's so hurt, so angry, so tired of not being loved

• And when she says of course it doesn't bother her, when she pulls back her feelings in front of Lance

• And her delivery of yes like something clicks in her brain, probably their entire relationship is flashing in her brain and she's building up evidence that it's true

• Lance has articulated exactly what she didn't know she was feeling

• And the music under it underscores each emotion perfectly

• Again Phillipa Soo is just emotionally devastating in this scene

• But also gotta go back to "Your husband doesn't think of you as his wife"

• Like right now I'm just thinking back to Arthur referring to Genny as French to Lance when they first meet and again when he asks her to tell Lance he's being invested

• While Genny in that scene and in the first scene of act 2 keeps referring to her country as England while Lance claims her as French like him

• I wonder if that distinction is one of the things that feeds into her (and Lance?) feeling like Arthur doesn't think of her as his wife

• That she's trying to keep proclaiming her loyalty and he keeps putting a border between them

• At least in her point of view

• While he's as always trying to show her that he sees and respects her as an autonomous individual and not a thing he owns

• Am I reading too far into this? Probably

• (You're not my homeland anymore, so what am I defending now - honestly that it took me this long to make a Taylor Swift reference is a marvel)

• Anyway back to this tremendous scene

• Part of me does wonder if Lance really doesn't know how Arthur feels or if he's in denial because it's easier for him if Arthur doesn't think of Genny as his wife

• Like he does make a point to tell Arthur in the last scene that he and Genny aren't together

• He's gotta realize in this scene how Genny feels about Arthur but curious about the other way around

• Or ya know, maybe he doesn't, maybe he's just as emotionally inept as everyone else in this show

• Don't really have a point, it's just an interesting thought

• How do so many versions cut Fie on Goodness?

• Like not only is it an amazing song but also it's sort of the whole damn point

• If you cut it, the ideals of Camelot are barely even a plot, it's all love triangle

• Also just want to take a moment to appreciate how gross the lyrics to this one are

• This is for sure my favorite sequence

• The intro speech to the song is perfect

• Them just getting worked up about how England is special, it is better, that they're the ones who should be listened to

• "Don't dare question our loyalty to the king"/"A king who encourages debate"

• Again I just love the knights' conflicted feelings about Arthur

• So it's easiest to shift all the blame to Genny and Lance

• This song is so good, this cast is so good

• "That day that I became king, my cousin gave me his tutor, a man named Merlyn. And Merlyn spoke to me of a great cause that I could lead. But I would have to stay unmarried until a young princess in France came of age"/"And you left me unmarriable, a woman with a child"/"I didn't know about the child until he came and introduced himself"/"You raise your voice to me? Have I displeased you your majesty?"/"Stop calling me that"/"I know all about the French princess-"/"The queen"/"and the grand cause-"/"great cause"/"I don't give a damn"

• This is a stupid amount of text that I've typed out but I love their back and forth here

• Arthur trying to justify himself and not wanting to take responsibility and them both getting angry at each other

• Morgan and her relationship with Arthur have been changed pretty drastically to the point that she's not even the same character and I like it and her so much

• I do wonder what the intent was here because I feel like you could read a lot of different things into their dynamic

• And to what that means about Arthur

• I mean I get the sense that she's maybe always been maybe a bit of an outsider, maybe always was a little more world-weary (or maybe not, maybe getting left pregnant while he became king hardened her)

• And maybe their power dynamic has been completely flipped but also maybe Arthur still has a hard time not letting it flip back

• Because like there's no doubt for me that for whatever reason, she was the one holding the cards originally and he doesn't know how to deal with her now

• Like I don't know if she's older or Arthur was always bad at love so she would have just been the more confident person but there's something there

• She obviously has a completely different point of view than anyone else in the show which I love

• And she gets under Arthur's skin so easily

• I guess because she's the one casuality of his great cause, the one wrong he can't right

• Also "stop calling me that" is so petulant teen

• And he was that when he knew her so of course it comes out

• "You seem quick to betray the king"/"I would die before I betrayed King Arthur"/"Yet here you are"/"I can't rise above being a man, a human man. I can't transcend it no matter how hard I try"

• My favorite Lance line

• Ugh it's perfect

• He's so tortured and so good at conveying that in his delivery

• He's getting some character growth

• Genny being both not wrong but also putting it on him so she doesn't have to think about her own behavior

• "My duty is to god, King Arthur, and the round table. I can best serve all three with my absence. It's a small price for one person to pay for a greater good"

• Ooh the self-loathing hits so good

• And Genny panicking because she's about to get left for the second time tonight

• The playing of If Ever I Would Leave You

• Because he is, or he's at least trying to

• To do the right thing

• Genny and Lance speaking French together, always good even thought I can't understand shit

• "No more talking"

• And the bed just being pulled out of the scene

• I just love how the song is interspersed with these scenes, this sequence is truly brilliant and the energy of it in the theater is truly unmatched

• "All the letters that followed-"/"All the letters that followed offered me room and board along with the cash. Imagine how moved I was by the chivalry"

• Ah mocking chivalry, a family pastime

• Again, I just love the way she goes in on Arthur's attempts to do the right thing over and over

• And again I don't know if it's because he wouldn't give her what she actually wanted or pure vengence

• "Guilty and alive once more" is probably my favorite line from the song

• "Let me ask you this question and I'm entitled to the truth. If there hadn't been a cause, a great case, would you have married me? No."/"I was fifteen years old that night and the next day I was king. I was anointed by the archbishop of Canterbury in York and those men think they put me in direct contact with the divine. There was a cause."

• Clearly in her mind he was never going to marry her but we know from Pelli that when he met Arthur when he was already king, he was still very much in love with Morgan

• More than 10 years (plus then a year that's passed in story) before this could be lots of different amounts of time but it could have been up to a few years into Arthur being king which is a long while

• So the answer was probably yes

• But he doesn't say any of that because his feelings don't matter, he's too focused on justifying his cause, that it was important enough to make up for her life

• And ya know Camelot is what's important now, Camelot is what he and Genny have devoted their lives to, he can't fail

• This is the scene where I just conspiracy board Genny and Arthur's relationship

• This is fine, I'm normal about this show, that's why I wrote all of this

• Either way I think it must really bother Athur that Morgan might think he's not a good man

• We saw it with Genny and the courtesans thing too

• Like obviously part of that was being in love with her but also I think it fucks with his self-image as a person who does the right thing which is his entire life

• And Morgan's the biggest crack in that in his mind which is why he gets angry pretty much constantly in this scene

• At least that's my theory

• I love that we get see him cracking a bit under the strain of being good and trying to rise above being a human being just like everyone else in this scene

• He's got a lot more moral fortitude than the rest of the characters so it just manifests as him getting to be angry and express it to another person for once but still

• He makes excuses, he gets mad, he won't accept that Morgan's version of events is also true and he can't force her to be okay with it

• I don't know, there's something nice about narrative not saying that making the choices of the knights or Genny and Lance is inevitable, Arthur does make the right choices but he still isn't perfect here

• "And I won't live in a spare room in a castle and be the used and discarded former mistress of a king... but I will be the mother of one"

• So like how much of Mordred's plans are Mordred and how much is Morgan?

• And you know used and discarded former mistress of a king is killing Arthur

• "And he didn't"/"What?"/"Put you in direct contact with the divine"/"That is made clear to me every day"

• Morgan did a good job of pretending indifference at the beginning but the more she lays into Arthur, the more hostile things get between them, it's so clear that if the opposite of love is indifference then they haven't managed to get over loving each other

• It's just soured and rotted but won't die

• More so for Morgan because she paid the price, she couldn't move on in the way he could

• "And I wouldn't want to see your face when you realize it didn't make a difference. There'll be greed and injustice and hate and horror. You can change the stuff but people stay exactly the same. No one whose opponent was human nature has ever won a fight. Human nature responds to-"/"Inspiration"/"Fear. And that's it"

• It's so cruel but also a great illustration of the ways that they're fundamental opposites

• "I don't forget anything"

• Another extremely loaded line delivery

• (Don't make an All Too Well reference, don't make an All Too Well reference, don't)

• The panic and realization of "he's not stupid" and the music that builds to it and Morgan's laugh ugh perfect

• The intro music to I Loved You Once in Silence is gorgeous

• Lance and Genny in white feeling guilty as hell is a good visual

• So much regret

• Just instantly

• I feel like the moment they've actually acted on their feelings, they know that it's not only a mistake but also that their feelings aren't actually what they thought

• Well maybe Lance doesn't quite have it yet in this scene but he gets there

• Not to repeat what I said about the first scene in act 2 but

• My take is that they intentionally deepened Arthur and Genny's relationship and Lance's character but not Lance and Genny's relationship

• They intentionally left it shallow

• That these are two people who are missing something and the easiest way for them to get that is to frame what they have as love

• I mean for Genny it's sort of obvious, she's married to a man she's in love with but that she thinks doesn't love her

• Lance makes her feel certain about his feelings for her and that's validating

• But Lance, I feel like I have thoughts but I'm not sure

• Lance has never been forced to reckon with temptation before

• And instead of facing that in himself

• He just makes Genny part of the list of things that define him

• A goddess on earth and a god above

• Along with the table

• And he can worship them all to avoid having to figure out who he actually is

• It's not him admitting he has a human weakness, it's a grand tragic love story that he can suffer for

• And suffering, well that's what lets him cope with whatever about himself he feels is so terrible that he needs to punish himself for it

• He's so terrified to look inward, so afraid of something in himself that he just finds his identity in other people and institutions

• And he can't hide behind that anymore because he's betrayed it all, every single thing

• I feel like this makes it sound like I don't like Lance and I very much do

• He's just particularly flawed because he's the only one who doesn't start the show knowing that about himself

• They all make choices out of self-loathing and fear of unworthiness but I do think Lance thinks consciously he's above that for most of the show even if subconsciously he knows he isn't

• He's the only one of the main three to not really finish his character journey within the confines of this narrative

• Arguably he only starts right now and finally realizes he's not the man he thought he was

• Again fic potential somone???

• Well that was a tangent

• Jordan Donica's performance of I Loved You Once in Silence is so heartbreaking

• "Lance I made a mistake. I'm sorry but you're a good man and I should have been nicer to you."

• I love that, I love that she takes her responsibility (even if she's already trying to cover up what happened)

• But also it's just the clearst indication that acting on her feelings killed them

• She doesn't need to push Lance away anymore to stop herself from doing anything

• I love that Lance tries to surrender peacefully

• He's willing to take responsibility not for his noble suffering anymore but because he is a good man and he knows he's done what he's been accused of

• And he only attacks because he has to

• Mordred's evil laugh

• Lance being slightly disheveled and grabbing Mordred's sword to fight off the guards and escape

• I don't have any kind of intellectual take, this is just a personal problem for me

• My jaw was on the floor when Lance started yelling back about coming for her if he survives

• Such a tense ramp up into Guenevere

Act 2, Scene 4: The trial/The Battle

• Guenevere has such amazing lyrics

• The entire "more than love met its doom"/"came the sundown of a dream" verse destroys me

• And I love every word of added dialouge, so correct to put it on the cast recording

• I feel I must explain my love for the staging of this song some more because it is so simple and I understand that some people are not into it but I so much am

• I love the way they close off the back of the stage for I think the only time in the whole show and it becomes claustrophobic all of the sudden

• Now Arthur is stuck in this little box in front of the audience while everything falls apart for him and that's what you have to look at so there's no getting away from how devastating it is

• We just get some full force Andrew Burnap acting and I love it, I think by now it should be clear that I would

• In other versions that I've seen, there's a lot more happening and we see Genny

• And we see Arthur see her tied to the stake and Lancelot show up to rescue her

• Which I do like in theory

• But we don't really see Genny have any actual role or even seeming to have any particular feelings about what she's done or what's about to happen

• Like she's about to die and I've yet to see a version where I have any idea if she's got a single emotion about that

• Despite the name of the song, I think this show decided this scene isn't about Genny, it's about Arthur

• It's about the consequences of his laws

• It's about the beginning of his new war

• Arthur screaming "Pelli I know" like we see him start to crack

• Oh to know who told Arthur and how he took it

• "Well do something"/"She's under arrest. She's been accused of treason"/"Arthur I understand that you're angry but"/"She's been accused of breaking the law. She has to be judged"

• The delivery of that last line, ugh

• He keeps it impersonal, it isn't about what she did to him or his pain, it's about the law

• The law they lovingly crafted together

• "What a magnificent dilemma: let her die and you're a monster, let her live and you're a fraud. Which will it be? Do you kill the queen or the law?"

• Fuck

• The delivery is so good

• Mordred is having the time of his life shrieking about Arthur's pain

• The killing the queen or the law bit seems to be mostly unchanged and it's maybe the best single line from the original book

• Although it went from kill the queen and your life is over to you're a monster

• Mordred has to know Arthur is in love with Genny, right?

• Maybe he just can't imagine Arthur could love a person more than he loves his ideals which I guess would make sense given Morgan and Arthur's relationship

• Arthur drawing his sword on Mordred!!!

• "Ooh careful your majesty, you wouldn't want to be barbaric"

• The fact that Mordred thinks that's going to work, that he can continue to poke at Arthur and he won't respond, he really does believe in Arthur's goodness doesn't he?

• "You are exiled from this court. Return and I will show you what barbaric looks like"

• Arthur screaming at Mordred with his hand around his throat is so intense

• It's so good

• Another gasp out loud in the theater moment

• Arthur is fully unraveling and I'm obsessed

• "I know my way out"

• It's such a teenage delivery and like Mordred is just a kid who feels abandoned by his father

• And as much as this is a tragedy for the three main characters, it's no less a tragedy for Mordred

• Aging down Mordred, also a great choice

• And again, just another stellar performance

• Every single person in this cast just knocked it out of the park in a way I never could have anticipated

• "Arthur please, I'm an old man and I know I'm ridiculous but for the love of god, it's Genny. She made a mistake, she knows that."

• I love that Pelli loves her too

• That he isn't judging her

• "She broke the law Pellinore. A law signed by the king. So say the people"

• He starts trying to be calm but then the fact that it's his law brings up the anger and then he breaks on so say the people

• He's written his own destruction

• And empowered others to take the decision out of his hands

• I love the dialouge in this scene so damn much

• "Neither you nor I nor god himself can stop this terrible thing that's been put in motion"/"What are you waiting for?"/"I'm waiting for what's inevitably coming next"

• The delivery of coming next...

• Like obviously he wants Lance to save Genny but he knows that no matter what

• No matter if she lives or dies, peace is over and the round table has been destroyed

• And he needs to prepare

• Also the way he frames what's happening

• It's not what Genny and Lance or even Mordred caused

• It's just what's been set into motion by all these tiny and giant choices throughout the show that have bubbled over into the death of Camelot

• "That's Lancelot du Lac out there and he's brought a battalion. Double the guard, triple the guard, those guards are going to die tonight"

• How many times can I just copy a bunch of text and write the delivery

• Because yup

• The lack of hope from Arthur is chilling

• Arthur getting dragged back into the war he worked so hard to end

• Just every line delivery in this scene is perfect

• Every lyric of the song

• Every acting choice

• And I love to see it visually

• Preparing for war isn't an exciting spectacle, it's tragic

Act 2, Scene 5: Outside Joyous Gard - on the eve of war

• The way they fade in on the eve of war just broke my heart every time

• I would love to know how much communication there was between Arthur and Lance and how

• Like how much of a role did Arthur play in the whole Genny not getting burned business?

• And the fact that his first question is whether they've been injured

• Even after everything, he's a good man who cares

• And Genny and Lance too, being willing to come back and die

• They're all good people who made mistakes but still good people

• "I assure you, if I thought it would end all this, I would light the fire myself"

• Absolutely brutal but like after he lays out all the death and rebellion that have already happened I guess brutal is fair

• Ya know, if I thought he meant it even a little

• "Lance, come morning some of your countrymen are going to be at the end of my sword. It's not personal, it's just my job. Stay safe Lance."/"I can't do that. And neither can you. Godspeed your majesty."

• I just love the idea of Lance and Arthur as these two people who love each other spearheading this war neither of them believe in

• It's so tragic

• Their goodbye is so understated which for Lance is like truly a great bit of contrast

• They've had enough big declarations, these few sentences just distill everything perfectly

• And then we come to Genny and Arthur, fuck fuck fuck

• The first time I saw this I spent like all of intermission and act 2 with a loop in my brain of but they love each other, right?

• I am unrepentant trash for them in this version as though that wasn't abundantly clear

• And Aaron Sorkin delivered for me so hard in this scene

• "Please let me die, Arthur"

• The pause before his name

• And now we get to the part where I start to get like teary-eyed in the theater

• "Two very powerful men did this to you... not Mordred and Lance, your father and me"

• That long pause before and me

• I love his whole speech, I almost typed it all out

• And they allow so much silence during it

• And the way he's like trying to hold it together but he can't by the end

• "You were treated like a queen but you were my hostage Genny, what the hell did we think was going to happen?"

• That he recognizes and actually admits the ways that his choices have harmed Genny, the unfairness in the entire situation he's put her through

• That he can see even through his own hurt and the enormity of what has been set into motion, his own responsibility for what's happened

• Like he's not right but he's also not wrong

• "And for it's worth, I've been in love with you this whole time"

• Not even looking at her so we have to see it instead ugh

• And then watch that long silence while Genny just like rearranges her entire view of their relationship

• "For what it's worth? Did you just say for what it's worth?"/"Well I thought maybe you'd like to know that. But I wasn't sure."

• Just smashing my heart into tiny little pieces

• After everything they've been to each other, after all they built together, he still doesn't even know if his feelings will matter to her

• While Genny is getting ready to lose her mind after for what it's worth

• They're so absolutely emotionally inept

• "You weren't sure? Why didn't you ever tell me before?"/"It doesn't matter"/"Why?"/"How could I? I'm the king of England. You'd have been forced to pretend you felt the same way"

• Again they are delivering lines in a way that is continuing to smash the little pieces of my heart into complete dust

• Like Arthur is again not wrong but not right

• His life is so lonely because of this crown he didn't want and his desire to actually be responsible with that power

• And even now he tries to get out of explaining that to her

• I love him so much is the problem

• And then her mmm like all the pieces are coming together in her brain that they've both been suffering for nothing and she is pissed

• I love her so much which is also the problem

• Incidentally, both of these things are also their problem so very relatable

• "Out of curiousity, if I had told you, what would you have said?"/"That I loved you from the moment I saw you, from the moment you spoke, from the moment you sang me that stupid song about the weather"/"It's not about the weather it's a metaphor"/"I know it's a metaphor"

• The way Genny overlaps him asking, she can't even wait for him to finish

• The way she says stupid song

• The way that she's like, I did fall in love with you over that song but also I still hate it and think it's dumb

• She says it with such contempt

• Icon

• Even standing before the wreckage of their lives, they still can't stop bickering about the song, I'm obsessed

• "I prayed every night that one day you would see me the way I saw you. And then you told me I was your business partner. Yes I was and I am in love with you"/"Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse"

• She prayed every night???

• For two years???

• That he would return her feelings???

• Fuck

• Like I don't know if I can convey how much them being in love with each other and thinking it's unrequited for two whole years ping pongs around my brain and just lights up all the synapses

• "Do you really think 10,000 people loosened that sword for me?"/"I do"/"So do I. That's a nice thought isn't it?"

• It is a nice thought

• I love the philosophy of this show, I love that there's no convoluted Arthur is actually the son of the last king so he was destined to be special

• These are just two people who though birth or circumstance ended up in this position of power and chose to do good with it

• Genny begging for just a little more time like the only reason I kept anything together was being in a theater but if feel confident that if I ever get my hands on footage of this show, I would have already been sobbing by this point

• "They won't let me let Lance save you twice so you have to go Princess Guenevere"

• Hearing him call her by her name is so deeply distressing

• Literally not once before in the show does it happen and it hurts

• And then they're playing Before I Gaze at You Again what an amazing choice

• Turning a love song she sang about Lance into this romantic moment for her and Arthur because theirs was the love story the whole time like brilliant

• That they chose the show's first love song and brought it back for Genny and Arthur being unable to leave each other without that hug and that kiss

• Like this song that is originally about the pain of unfulfilled love for the wrong person and then flipping it to the pain of fulfilled love with the right one

• I am so not okay

• Also people did very loudly applaud at closing when they kissed and I was so glad because truly in my head I was doing it every time

• "I love you"/"I love you too"/"God save the king"

• I mean these are some good last words to say to each other, I'll give them that

• The thing about the original version of the musical is that the ending was already a perfect concept

• Here it just feels more meaningful because they lay that groundwork about inspiring the next generation throughout

• Tom trying to con Arthur about his age is very funny

• This kid is so good and adorable

• "You're speaking to a king"/"I'm twelve years old"

• Like his comedic delivery, very impressive

• "And when did you decide upon this nonexistent career?"

• We get a solid 60 seconds of cynical Arthur and that's about it

• The entire concept of this kid being inspired by the stories of Camelot is just deeply moving and beautiful

• And just the entirety of Andrew Burnap's performance of that realization hitting Arthur

• I love a story that's about the power of stories

• People also applauded at the last show when Arthur says the stories were all true which I also just deeply love

• Arthur's I know exactly how you feel when Tom says he's not ready to be a knight and putting his arm around him, so cute

• "And you will return to your home alive"

• The way he says alive

• Like I think Arthur knows that he's not making it out of this

• Even if he would manage to survive the battle and Mordred, he knows his time is done

• But the the future is still there

• And there is about to be so much death

• Some of it from his sword or his orders

• And the rest of it of his men

• But at least this kid, he's going to live

• The reprise of Camelot... I just love it so much

• "I've won my battle, here's my victory"

• Not a new line but just such a gorgeous one

• The entire idea of the story of Camelot as a tragedy but a hopeful one just gets me

• It's such a beautiful conclusion that this version sets up so so well

• I love that we end on a speech again, just like act 1

• Also that last bit of music as they walk off, stunning

• I have attempted to track down as many older productions of this show as I can including the movie which was good but I am biased and I do sort of think Sorkin and Bartlett Sher and the actors and everyone else involved had the more interesting take on the themes and characters

• A Broadway musical is best when it has simple but impactful themes and big emotions

• And that's exactly what this version gave us

• The highest compliment I can give this show is that not only have I not stopped thinking about it, not only did I tell everyone I know to see it, not only did I want to see the show again (and again and...), but it also just made me feel inspired to see more theater in a way I haven't in a serious while

• I just love this show so much and I'm so glad there are some people here who can't get over it either

• This is what I have to offer, the longest possible unhinged rant and bad quality closing audio, that is all

[nik-jr-lit]

agnes grey x edward weston <3

after she sees him for the first time, rosalie asks what she thinks and she really says "nah, he's not as ugly as you said he is. but what i really noticed was how well he prayed and read; he's so earnest." *swoons*

nancy brown being the best wingwoman ever omfg

"i now saw that he could smile, and very pleasantly too" <3

agnes getting so flustered around mr. weston that she gets up to leave the instant he arrives at nancy's house, and then he urges her to stay and that he'll leave but then nancy begs them both to stay. then, still frazzled, agnes moves away to the window to observe mr. weston from afar so then he wants to leave again so she can be by the fire but then he notices how uncomfortable and embarrassed agnes is so he changes the subject to relieve her and aww

THE PRIMROSES!!!! so freaking iconic <3 but then agnes is, again, feeling super awkward and tries to speed-walk away but mr. weston is all "your young ladies don't care if you walk with them so don't trouble yourself to catch up" and so she walks with him :')

".....do you like flowers?" !!!!!!!

when mr. weston, agnes, and rosalie are walking together and agnes feels left out of the conversation, he makes an effort to draw her in and makes a remark specifically to her - this comes right after she admits to him that she feels like she cannot make friends and that she is unwanted in conversation. ofc rosalie butts in but he tried!

the fact that agnes is tormented with rosalie's plan to woo mr. weston not chiefly for herself, but for HIS sake

"no, thank you, i don't mind the rain." AGNES!!!!!!

AND THEN "one glance he gave, one little smile at parting—it was but for a moment; but therein i read, or thought i read, a meaning that kindled in my heart a brighter flame of hope than had ever yet arisen." !!!!!!!

the fact that rosalie & matilda keep agnes away from mr. weston during their scheme makes it clear that the two of them were OBVIOUSLY hitting it off & liked each other but were too oblivious to notice how the other felt and i just !!!!!

"and he asked after you again" omfg!!!! and the fact that rosalie doesn't want matilda to mention that he keeps asking about agnes speaks VOLUMES

agnes' poem is just - i simply cannot express how i feel about it i have no words

"i could think of him day and night; and i could feel that he was worthy to be thought of."

THE BLUEBELLS!!!!

when agnes tells mr. weston that she'll be leaving in a month the first thing he asks is "and you'll be happy to go?" and she's all "yes, but i'll miss some things" and he says "some things? what will you miss?" and she gets embarrassed and thinks, it's you, dammit! i'll miss YOU!!

"above all, that emphatic, yet gentle pressure of the hand, which seemed to say, 'trust me;' and many other things besides" this lady is so freaking smitten and such an overthinker and i love her!!

THE FACT THAT HE BOUGHT SNAP OMG AT THAT POINT THERE WAS NO GOING BACK SHE NEEDS TO MARRY HIM

"in what part of town do you live? i never could discover." uhm SIR!!!! he is just as smitten as her and i'm here for it!! and then he really says, "yes, i do like my new parish and have lots of plans for it, but the only thing i'm missing is a companion 👀" and aggy gets all flushed but she cannot possibly presume that he means what she hopes he means so she dodges him and says "well i'm sure you'll find the right lady for you at your parish" and ughgghhghg GIRL HE LOVES YOU C'MON!!

and bro when he says that he's been walking the beach and the town for the last month looking for her and asking around for her school it is just so FREAKING SWEET <3

"he even called me 'agnes:' the name had been timidly spoken at first, but, finding it gave no offence in any quarter, he seemed greatly to prefer that appellation to 'miss grey;' and so did i." !!!!!!!!!

"'you love me then?' said he, fervently pressing my hand. 'yes.'" AHHHHHHHHH i love them :')