#only 220 posts with simon's wings and tail? what are we doing as a fandom?

[palimpsessed]

I posted 4,475 times in 2021

178 posts created (4%)

4297 posts reblogged (96%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 24.1 posts.

I added 5,390 tags in 2021

#simon snow - 1066 posts

#baz pitch - 1013 posts

#tyrannus basilton grimm pitch - 1008 posts

#snowbaz - 734 posts

#awtwb spoilers - 534 posts

#coc 2021 - 223 posts

#wings and tail - 220 posts

#simon’s wings and tail - 220 posts

#coc2020 - 190 posts

#fic rec - 182 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#there is such pressure in the narrative of being queer i feel that places so much importance on labels and it’s nice to see a different take

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

@carryon-countdown 2021, Day 17: Decorating

🎵Don we now our gay apparel🎵

(Full size under the cut because he is looooong)

Click for best quality.

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218 notes • Posted 2021-12-12 16:18:29 GMT

#4

Thinking about Simon biting Baz, on his neck, over his old bite, and Baz asking Simon to be gentle. And how this mirrors Simon wanting to embrace Baz’s vampirism, and Baz resisting. And Simon wanting Baz to bite and drink from him and Baz refusing.

And how Simon biting Baz must have been particularly hard for Baz to sort through because of the way it inextricably ties to his vampirism and the monstrousness he struggles with so much.

Thinking about Simon trying to talk to Penelope in WS about coddling him, and Baz’s tentative touches, and Simon not wanting to feel like Baz thinks he’s going to break. And wanting to be touched harder and trying to touch Baz harder.

Thinking about how Simon was treating Baz the way he thought he wanted because of his own experience, and Baz treating Simon the way he thought he wanted because of his own experience.

Thinking about them asking each other for what they really want and need and finally being able to be intimate.

Thinking about Baz trying to decide if he wants Simon to stop being gentle or never stop. Thinking about Baz trying to figure out his relationship to his monstrosity and Simon’s relationship to Baz’s monstrosity.

Thinking about wanting to consume and wanting to be consumed.

340 notes • Posted 2021-07-08 16:11:15 GMT

#3

Ebb, CO:

Agatha, AWTWB:

Someone finally brought the nannies home. 😭

410 notes • Posted 2021-10-19 18:14:57 GMT

#2

He hides his face in my T-shirt. “It’s too much for me.”

I set the violin on the floor by the bed, then rest my hand over his on the hilt of the sword. He lets go. For a moment, I wonder if I’ll be able to lift it, but I can. I set it by the bed, too.

Simon crawls half into my lap, burrowing his face into my chest.

I lay my cheek on top of his head and hold him behind his ears.

“It would be too much for anyone,” I say.

—Chapter 91, Any Way the Wind Blows

@rainbowrowell thank you for this wonderful series and these characters that mean so much to me. It was such an absolute joy getting to see them get to this point together! ❤️❤️❤️

(Please click on the image for better quality.)

Notes, close ups, and process shots under the cut!

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552 notes • Posted 2021-08-07 17:39:07 GMT

#1

Hey. You post a lot of great stuff about Carry On. Can you talk about the biting in AWTWB. The Baz/Simon scenes.Trying to wrap my head around it to understand why Simon did that. Why he bites Baz and keeps biting. Bites his fangs through his cheek. Is it because Simon wants to be bitten? That he wants Baz so much and Baz can't be harmed? I'm really trying to understand it but . . . what do you think?

Anon, thank you for this ask, and also for liking whatever I'm doing on my blog.

Can I talk about the biting? You bet I can!

Why does Simon bite Baz? Is it because he wants to be bitten? In a word, yes! But of course, there's a lot more to it than that. And this went off in another direction than I thought it would, so I hope you can stick with me on this journey! Under the cut because it’s a bit long.

There is a motif running throughout the trilogy of love being a consuming force. So much of Simon and Baz's identities are tied up in hunger very early on: Baz, as a vampire, constantly craving blood; Simon, as the Humdrum, constantly sucking up magic; both of them starved of love and intimacy. There's also a lot of fire imagery, going all the way back to when they first met, and fire is another consuming force.

Simon and Baz are obsessed with each other. The only thing they think about is each other. ("Trying not to think about you…S'like trying not to think about an elephant that's standing on my chest.") They are consumed and they want to consume, and, at least in Simon's case, they want to be consumed.

In WS, Simon reflects on misunderstanding his feelings for Baz prior to eighth year, and the way he does it has always stuck out to me: "I thought about him all the time. I missed him so much in the summer. (I thought I was just lonely. I thought I was hungry. I thought I was bored.)" The second item on that list is what catches my attention. Simon missed Baz and he thought he was hungry. I think it says a lot about how Simon's love for Baz feels if he mistakes it for actual hunger.

In the biting scene you mentioned, Simon says to Baz: "If it were me, if I were you…I'd drain you fuckin' dry, Baz, and it still wouldn't be enough." That's intense. And it's absolutely Simon. We know how much hunger he's capable of; his hunger was so potent, it became a whole other being! I've long maintained that his hunger for magic is a metaphor for his hunger for love. Because Simon is so full of love, and just utterly bereft of people to give it to, and once he has people to love, he doesn't know how to do it without also hurting them. He's never had good relationship modeling. (He thinks Baz should know he loves him because of how many things he's killed for him.—He thinks about teaching Baz how to break someone's neck like it's a fun couples' activity.—He gets turned on by killing things and watching Baz kill, too.—Date night is helping Baz hunt down rats.) Simon is a mess. He wants to love so badly, but he just doesn't know how to do it. ("Is this what people do?")

Simon loves Baz so much, he can't fathom ever getting enough of him. Ever being able to consume enough of him. He can't stop biting and smelling and grabbing because he wants more, more, more. He fits his teeth over Baz's old scars because he needs to claim him—make his own mark on Baz, possess him.

Part of this, as you said, is the fact that Baz is a vampire. Baz can take the roughness (which is not to say that he should just because he can). Simon's fixation on Baz's vampirism, which used to play out as paranoia, has changed into a desire to be bitten. Simon is thinking about Baz's vampirism, thinking about draining Baz dry if he were the vampire, and Baz, the human.

The other part of this is that Simon is unfettered, but really only in the aggressive, physical sense. He's long hidden his desires behind aggression without realizing that's what he was doing. (In CO: "I just want to run him down and knock him over and figure it all out." In AWTWB: "I wanted to jump on you, I didn't really think past that.") He doesn't know how to be unfettered in the vulnerable, emotional sense, and that's what keeps him from being able to be intimate with Baz. ("I don't know how, Baz…To get enough.")

Simon desperately wants to have sex with Baz. Which is what he's trying to do in the biting scene, but all of his desires are warring for control, and he can't sort out what he wants, and what he should be doing in that moment, with Baz.

What this is all leading me to may be a bit off topic, but I think it's all tied up in Simon's head.

Simon doesn't know how to be gentle.

His hunger and his desire for Baz have never been gentle. It's aggression, it's violence, it's possession; it's a forest fire, it's not a hidden waterfall.

Simon has never learned how to be at peace. In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Rainbow said she made Simon "fight of flight"—literally, he has wings! There's a reason that Simon couldn't handle the inaction at the beginning of CO and before the events of WS. There's a reason that Penelope thought that they were "being lulled" because there was no war actively being waged. There's a reason Penelope tells us in WS: "Lesson learned: Relaxation is the most insidious humdrum." These are characters who are so traumatized by childhoods being foot soldiers in a war waged by the adults they trusted, they don't know how to live without fighting! They don't know how to live in peace.

We all have "I can touch you less gently, but I won't love you less kindly" burned into our eyeballs by now, but let's move earlier in that conversation to what sparks this: "What if I asked you to be less kind to me?" —What if I asked you to be less kind to me?— Simon doesn't feel comfortable with Baz's kindness or gentleness, because it "makes me feel like I'm being turned inside out. Like I need to get away." Let's sit with this for a bit. Baz's loving touches make Simon want to run because they're kind and gentle and he doesn't know what to do with kind and gentle. His mind isn't programmed for kind and gentle.

It makes complete sense that Simon would show Baz affection in a way that Simon understands, considering, as I said before, that he hasn't had anyone in his life to show him a healthy way to do this. What does Simon most want from Baz? Love. What does Simon understand love to be? Consumption. He wants roughness and aggression, he wants the inferno, because these are things he understands.

Simon wants Baz's teeth, so he gives Baz his teeth.

This is how Simon feels comfortable. I made this post while processing my feelings about AWTWB. It talks about Simon trying to love Baz the way he wants to be loved, and Baz trying to love Simon the way he wants to be loved. They want to give each other everything, but they haven't actually communicated their needs to one another, and that's what keeps them from being able to work through their problems. It isn't until they voice their needs that they're able to be intimate. This is what I'm really trying to get at here.

"Is this what people do?" Simon asks, over and over again. When Simon was in therapy, he learned a technique to break up "life into bites you can swallow". He tells us he's doing this again in AWTWB "because [the future] is too terrifying. Too uncertain. There are parts of it that are too bright." —There are parts of it that are too bright.— Simon doesn't know how to be happy. He doesn't know how to cope with happiness. "Is this what people do when they're in love? Do they just keep touching and talking? And then what? Like what is it all leading to? I don't mean sex, I mean… If I knew what I meant, it wouldn't be so frightening." When Simon is having all these overwhelming feelings about his future with Baz, they're on the Tube, and Simon sees a guy giving him and Baz "a dirty look". He interrupts his introspective on therapy to tell us that he wants the guy to cause trouble "because I would dearly love to punch something right now. That's a decision I could wrap my brain around." He can wrap his brain around punching someone, but not around a bright future with the man he loves.

Simon doesn't know how to be at peace. He doesn't know how to be in love. He doesn't know how to be happy. I think this is what we're seeing at play when he bites Baz. He wants something so badly, but he doesn't know what it is, can't articulate it, can't get at it. In a way, when he bites Baz, Simon is trying to ask for what he wants, without words, and without really knowing what it is that he does want.

He can't figure out how to let himself be happy and feel good while being happy. He can't stand gentleness, or softness. In his head, he can't give that to Baz, because he can't handle it himself.

So, yes, Simon bites Baz because he wants to be bitten. And he bites Baz because he knows Baz can handle it. And he bites Baz because there's an emptiness inside of him that he's still trying to fill, and he doesn't understand how to do that. Someday, he will fill it. He and Baz are going to figure that out together.

I hope this makes sense. With your indulgence, Anon, I'm going to tag in @theflyingpeach who is all around brilliant, and I know has their own thoughts about this scene (and demon Simon 👀👀👀) that I would like to see more of. 🥰

A follow up to this ask can be found here.

Further reading on the relationship between consumption, food, and love compiled here.

691 notes • Posted 2021-07-19 03:05:10 GMT

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