#write it in a letter / asks

[letsplayeternity]

Honest question, I've been rethinking the whole "Colin has done the same with Penelope Featherington" speech Anthony gave to Daphne and his mother in season 1 and the fact that when Colin talked to his brothers in 3x05 both Ben and Anthony were like "I didn't have a clue" and like... do we think Anthony spent the evening rethinking every single interaction he has ever witnessed between Colin and Pen and every single instance where he let things slide because "oh that's just eloise's friend?" and just banging his head against a wall as Kate laughs her ass off??

[dixoterin]

💝💝

[cookiekissers]

can we please get a buring spice x fragile reader, like they want to help and fight/hunt but physical can't because they are that fragile, simply bumbing into another cookie could cause them to crack!

Do Not Go Gently

[Burning Spice Cookie x Fragile Reader]

I was inspired and tried something a little different with this so I hope you like it! and Burning Spice redemption anyone? B)

The life of a Wild Spice was fraught with constant struggle and danger. If you were weak, you would be ground into dust, either by one of the other tribes or by the Great Destroyer himself. And you happened to be one of the weaker spices.

Delicate and fragile by nature, your main ingredient was parsley. The harsh desert winds of your homeland often left your leaves and dough brittle. The stronger Wild Spices almost always belittled you and your small tribe as you barely etched out an existence. You weren't tough and built with natural armour, like the Pepper Pangolins, or strong like the Saffron Buffaloes. But if there was one thing you were, it was tenacious.

When the Great Destroyer returned, you feared that your inherent frailness only spelled ruin for you and your tribe, soon to join the scattered remains of your ancestors. Despite the risks, you boldly joined the other Wild Spice leaders and offered your loyalty and service to Burning Spice Cookie.

He had looked over you and laughed, calling you weak and pathetic. As you knelt there, showing your sincere devotion, you thought it was all over for you. Still, Burning Spice miraculously passed over you and left you be. The Great Destroyer was not known to spare those he thought weak, so you could only imagine that he saw something in you that you hadn't. Since that moment, you were inspired by the Great Destroyer, not out of fear but admiration. You knew he didn't care for you. With a sweep of his hand, he could wipe your existence from this earth in seconds. But still, you fought hard and trained harder until your dough was cracked and crumbling to show that you had a right to continue living. Burning Spice Cookie had spared you. Your life had to mean something to him.

The little thing kneeling at his feet was pathetic. A Cookie so fragile that their dough cracked at the mildest of strikes was not worthy to be in his presence. And yet, instead of hiding from his inevitable fury, here you were. Burning Spice had to admit, you had guts. He didn't want to waste his time crumbling you himself when he knew you wouldn't put up a good fight. It would be far more entertaining to watch you struggle, only for you to fall to your unavoidable fate.

And yet...

That moment never came. Regardless of how grievous your wounds or the crumbling of your dough, you threw yourself back into battle again and again. Unafraid of the death that awaited you. Burning Spice Cookie found himself almost... fascinated by you.

You were so fragile, doomed to fail. And yet... you fought to cling a little longer to your short, pathetic life.

It reminded him of a time long past.

One day, after Burning Spice had enough of the annoying thoughts of you buzzing around his head, he decided to pay your tribe a visit. All the inhabitants of your tribe weren't as tough as you, which was somewhat of a disappointment. They scurried into their homes, terrified of him, or fell to their knees, grovelling at his feet for mercy. But you... you remained standing, like a resolute warrior, poised as if death were coming to claim you. You were unafraid. You had accepted it, but that did not mean you would go without a grand fight.

He approached you, ignoring the rest of your tribe, and you bowed your head in respect to the Great Destroyer. You didn't bow as deeply as you used to, but Burning Spice let it slide.

You had changed. Your eyes held a solemn understanding, and your dough was now riddled with scars, honourable rewards of fighting to see another day.

Burning Spice Cookie watched you, realizing he had no words. Why had curiosity brought him here to see you? He couldn't come up with an answer. His previous excuse of being amused by your antics had faded into something... else.

You broke the silence and invited Burning Spice Cookie into your humble home, and he accepted. Your tribe was astonished at their leader, who stood fearlessly in front of the Great Destroyer, and he had not razed their village to the ground in retaliation.

"Well, this is a surprise." Burning Spice Cookie mused. It was still surprising to him. Destruction was the end of all things, whether by his hand or not. But you stood in the face of it and fought it. Refusing to meet it on its terms.

"That I'm still here?" You replied bluntly, an amused smile on your face. Burning Spice Cookie would usually have felt excitement upon discovering a Cookie like you - someone who could ignite his passion and provide a worthy challenge now that you had grown stronger against all odds. However, that’s not how he felt at this moment. It wasn't even boredom. Instead, he felt the same solemness reflected in your eyes.

Burning Spice Cookie asked you to be his right hand. The request came so suddenly that it left you momentarily stunned. All the strife and gruelling work you had endured had finally paid off in a way you never could have imagined.

"Yes, I would be honored, my lord. Thank you." You said, quickly bowing your head deeply in gratitude.

Burning Spice Cookie knew that your luck was going to eventually run out and your fragile dough would crumble, slipping through his fingers like the sands of time. Like with all things, it was inevitable, regardless of how hard you fought to cling to your pitiful life.

But he would be there when it happened, he would watch you. He would burn your rage into his mind as you descended into the endless night, fighting and spitting for just one more day.

Once you joined your ancestors, he would remember you. Always.

[notbecauseofvictories]

So a while ago, my father gave me a loan. It was desperately needed at the time---I was between law school and my first job, I didn't have a lot of ready money on hand. And I was so grateful, using my brand new JD to draft a "contract" that stated the repayment terms. (He was an incredibly forgiving loan administrator too; I just shot him a text any time I didn't think I could wrangle a payment in a specific month.)

Since my dad is quite old school, he wanted written checks as opposed to cash transfers or app payments or what have you. So I fell into the habit of writing him letters to accompany the checks---nothing particularly interesting, but for a man Of His Time, who was never quite sure how to talk to his daughter, I think they did a lot to make him feel connected to me. (Especially since this was purely between us, not something that needed to be triangulated or arranged by my mother.) I wrote him letters about everything from the mundane to the lofty to the mundane again---what I was reading or the things I was thinking about; about Chicago or my job, whatever I was doing that month, loneliness, the power or music, etc.

A couple of times, I wondered (and then wrote in the letters themselves) whether this was something he liked, if he still wanted this? Was this boring? Because I could stop---

---and every time, he would get the letter and immediately text me to say, No, don't stop writing.

The loan has been repaid for a while now, but I would be lying if it didn't warm the stupid cockles of my heart when my father reaches out and says, Hey, I kind of miss your letters.

[cheralith]

hear me out… i feel like roommate!karasu is the type to walk in on you sobbing (lowk js pms) and immediately console you without question. he doesn’t bother to ask what’s wrong until you finally stop crying under his arms. to his surprise, when he finally asked, you let him know that you were crying over a movie…. (these boys would know know ANYTHING about these damn period hormones😭)

"hey, just wanted to let ya know that eita and i are—" karasu pauses momentarily, the sudden hiccup that sparks out of you making him freeze and tighten his grip on your doorknob. he squints , adjusts his eyes to the darkness of your room only lit up by your tv with a limp lamp in the corner and widens them when he sees you.

you're underneath the covers, sitting up with the duvet over your head and a wet river of tears flowing down your face with every blink. a stuttered breath pulls out of you, your voice tight and raw, a disposition that doesn't take karasu too long to deciper.

you turn towards him, revealing the full nature of your face. your eyes are red and heavy, a certain sadness swirling that makes karasu's chest tighten.

at his appearance, your lips tremble.

karasu is quick on his feet— going to quickly close the door to hide your state from yukimiya and otoya who sit outside the walls of your enclosure and sprint towards you, a magnetic pull bringing him to offer you comfort before anymore sorrow can wring more tears out of you.

"woah, woah, hey there," he mutters and lands on your bed, an arm wrapping around you to bring you warmth from other than your blanket. "what's goin' on? you alright?"

a dam bursts suddenly within you and you wail quietly, another stream of tears going to drip down from your swollen eyes. the words that you try to convey to him suddenly tangle in your throat and you can only reply in weak gibberish that karasu can't comprehend.

"talk to me when ya can," he murmurs with patience, you only hiccuping weakly in response.

one large hand goes to rub up and down your back soothingly, the other holding your head tenderly and letting you lean into his chest as another sob wracks your body, a mix of a cry and a cough echoing in your dark room. karasu doesn't know what's wrong, but based on your current state, something must have happened badly enough that it's blurred your voice of reason, so he doesn't need to. the way you leaned into him told him all he needed to know—that you just needed someone here with you.

part of him thinks that he shouldn't be doing this—being so close with you like this, especially in such an enclosed environment and touching you so delicately, fervently even maybe.

if anything, karasu thinks this is the closest you and him have ever been with each other since you started living here. your relationship has bloomed fruitfully, reaching new heights that he thought didn't even exist with you during the first few months, and karasu can't help the flutter in his chest when you give a bright smile or sing a giggle to him at his antics.

so to see you like this makes his heart ache heavily. he's seen you upset, but never in the manner where words are drowned by a sudden sadness. and while he's glad that you've grown comfortable around him to let you see this side of you, karasu doesn't like seeing you overwhelmed with a weeping melancholy.

he lets you cry it out for a moment more, letting his sweater be soaked with your tears as your body slowly settles back into a more composed state.

he swallows when he hears you no longer hiccuping, just soft sniffs here and there.

"ya ready to tell me what's wrong?" he asks.

he feels you nod your head and lets you take it away from his chest that he prays you don't hear the beating of his heart from.

you sigh out heavily, blinking bearily and looking up at him. he raises his brows, as if to let you continue on your behalf.

a finger suddenly points your television, where some ending credits are rolling from a movie.

"the dog died..." you whimper suddenly.

karasu blinks, finding your sentence strange.

"huh?"

you jut your finger again towards the tv.

"hachiko..." you mutter, "the dog... he died waiting for his owner for nine years..."

karasu whips his head at the tv suddenly, where the logo of the movie rolls onto the screen momentarily and finally revealing karasu all he needs to know.

“you were..." karasu clears his throat, "you were sobbing over... a movie?"

you nod feebly, eyes still glazed.

karasu lingers in his place for a moment, trying to make sense of the situation and sighing so heavily, his lungs nearly give out. then, he lets out a shaky chuckle, before it bursts into full-blown laughter.

"hey!" you shove him suddenly with a crease in your brow at his antics. "you can't laugh! why are you laughing at a dog's death?!"

he lets himself settle down for a bit, some leftover laughter still shaking his body every few moments or so. "darlin', ya nearly scared the wits outta me. i thought someone died or yer ex did somethin' to make you cry like that."

you frown. "god forbid someone cries over a sad movie every once in a while..."

"i can't lie t'ya," karasu shrugs, grin still on his face. "it's not that sad of a movie."

you scoff, reddened eyes widening. "it is too!"

"it's not."

"yes, it is!"

"it's really not."

your jaw grits, sadness now replaced with a slight aggravation. "how would you feel if your dog waited for you for nine years and you never returned?"

karasu shrugs, getting up and dusting himself off to prepare you a glass of water to clear up your senses with a relief that nothing too bad happened to you to cause you to cry.

"beats me," he quips, "i'm a cat person."

a/n: apartment 345 masterlist

[minty364]

DPXDC Prompt #141

Danny’s school held a contest where their students would have to write about a member of the Justice League that they admired. They framed it as a normal assignment and then mailed them to the hero. Danny didn’t think anything of his letter until he gets a few letters pop in front of him, apparently if you burn a letter for a ghost the recipient will get it. Danny thinks back to his own letter to Martian Manhunter and he remembers mentioning in his letter that not all ghosts were bad and he wishes they had the same rights as aliens did.

Of course the Justice League shows up to town and Danny is star struck as Martian Manhunter shows up to Danny’s doorstep to ask about his letter.

[haveihitanerve]

batman has trouble telling his family how he feels. So he decides he can write it down in a journal or leave them notes. It's easy to write down the words than say them because the words he wants to say always get lost in translation when he opens his mouth. Dickie when he was robin has a whole box filled with notes from Bruce. Turns out batman can be funny when he writes his thoughts down. Jason writes back to Bruce just as sassy.

i love this

With Dick, the first note appeared after the first fight. A nasty fight, where Dick had screamed

"YOU'RE NOT MY DAD, WHY DO YOU EVEN CARE, I DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOU!!!!"

Bruce had gone quiet after the words, and isolated himself away. Dick had felt crummy afterwards, but there wasn't much to do about it, Bruce wasn't around to apologize to and... well, it was true. The screams had just been... inner thoughts he hadn't voiced.

Bruce knew it too. And, it shouldn't have to be up to Dick to make amends. So he withdrew to his office, locked it tight, so that he wouldn't say words he'd regret and make things worse with Dick.

The first few drafts... were hard. But Bruce found his rhythm, and it was so much better. He could erase and start again, and reword, and clear up any parts that weren't clear. He could be concise, precise, honest and literate, he didn't have to stumble and rip his way through an uncomfortable conversation where he'd make things worse.

Dick found the note later that night, laying on his pillow, three pages worth of words that told him he was loved, whether or not he wanted Bruce to be his dad, he could just remain a friend, a brother if he wanted, and that he cared, even if it wasn't always shown, even if it wasn't as a father.

Bruce established boundaries, and apologized too, because it was needed, and it was so much easier to say what he needed to through written words, instead of admitting them aloud. Maybe it made him a coward, it made him a coward, but the next morning Dick hugged him and apologized back, so it worked.

The notes became frequent from then on, usually after fights, or misunderstandings, and Dick understood the need, knew that Bruce wasn't as able to concisely share his thoughts and formulate them as well on the spot aloud, so he let it happen, but soon they became more commonplace, left on chimneys on patrol for Dick to find, little love notes and encouraging words that Bruce became better at saying aloud too.

Dick kept each one, tucking them safely into his belt, and kept them in a box in his closet, one he had made at school with Bruce during a parent-child fun day, and pulled them out to read every so often, when things between them got hard.

The box moved with him, stuffed in the closet at Bludhaven, and postage was expensive, travel even more so, but Bruce still sent him letters, apologies Dick didn't open, notes taped to his window he tossed away (still into a pile he never threw out, but never read either).

When things got better, Dick would read the notes, but he never touched the letters from before, because for once he needed the words from Bruce's lips, and he had liked Bruce's stumbling, his faltering and chagrin, and did not want to read his well thought out, thorough one instead. He still kept the notes, of course.

With Barbara.... Bruce didn't have a claim to her. She wasn't his daughter. She wasn't looking for a father. She wasn't, quite honestly, even looking for a mentor. But she found one in him anyway, whether either of them liked it or not.

But Bruce still sent her notes. Little letters, facts, information, telling her through a note was easier than in person. Because then he could lay it all out, and maybe she'd see something he'd missed. Because she always did. She completed him, in a way none of the other did. In a way even Dick didn't. But, then again, they all completed him in different ways. Hers was just more noticeable.

After Joker... every day he wrote to her, flooding her phone with messages, her laptop with emails, her room with cards and flowers and notes.

And when she moved to the Clock Tower it didn't stop, maybe slowed a little, became smaller in quantity, but he always sent her something. Let her check over his work, proofread anything and everything. His fresh set of eyes.

She wrote back, sometimes. But she was more like Dick in that regard, choosing to answer his messages verbally rather than write back. She did have the perfect time to do it too, and she always had something to say.

Barbara never struggled with her words the way he did. And he appreciated it. Loved it, even. Even if it usually didn't mean anything good for him...

With Jason... Bruce hadn't done it, originally, because Jason was just so bright, and understood, and didn't need the words because he heard them because Bruce was better, all the mistakes he'd made with Dick cleaned up a bit.

But Jason needed the words, and he had such a spark, so Bruce began writing again, sliding notes under his son's door and leaving them taped around the house, or on patrol. And Jason, Jason wrote back.

Little witty notes, marked up Bruce letters with grammar corrections, book recommendations, questions about what they were eating for dinner, or little stories, scrawled in the margins of notebook paper, stuck to Bruce's cape, or on his pillow, or taped to his mirror.

Bruce still wrote the letters, left them in Jason's room, after his death. Red Hood never mentioned it, but after a trip to the manor to "haunt" them, he became a little less violent.

With Tim, Bruce was ashamed to admit, he just didn't care. He didn't care that Tim winced at his words, he didn't care if he was misunderstood, he didn't care if he neglected the boy.

And it hurt, Bruce knew it hurt him, but he just didn't care, couldn't bring himself to, not when Tim was so much like the boy he'd lost, not when Tim was so different.

But Tim started writing letters, originally just for himself, begging for affection, begging for his parents to love him, begging for Bruce to notice him. Then the notes got angry, rants, screaming, slashes across the page, pencil marks that tore paper and dug groves into the table.

He kept them all to himself, waded up in the corner of his room, but Bruce found them, found them all, and he hated himself, hated the Drakes, but he couldn't even fault them because he, oh he was much worse. (no he wasn't the Drakes owed Tim love and affection those were his parents and a child deserves that from his parents Bruce tech didn't owe him anything but shiii he was awful and-)

So Bruce started writing again, answering all of Tim's pleas, cataloging every single movement and jump and case and file and everything Tim had ever done right and congratulating him, giving him pride Bruce wasn't even sure he was allowed to give anymore, and he apologized, begged for forgiveness, for a chance to start over, because he was better now, Tim had made him better, and he wanted... he wanted to be better. For Tim.

In the end the note was twenty three pages long, and ended with the simple phrase, "I love you, you are my Robin, and I'm so sorry"

Tim was at school, so Bruce left it on his bed, and shut himself away in the cave until he got home. He always stopped by his room first, tidying everything up, because he was only a "guest" and all, before heading down to the cave.

Bruce waited for two hours. When Tim finally came into the cave, his eyes were red, tears still falling down his face.

"Oh Timmy," Bruce breathed. "I'm so so sorry." Tim walked to him, and collapsed in his arms.

And from then on, things were better. Not perfect, nothing to do with Bruce's personal life was perfect, but it was better. It was good. And Bruce started sending notes. Slowly, they turned from letters into emails, into texts and shared google docs. So Tim would have evidence in his favored form, of Bruce's love.

With Stephanie... things were different. She didn't live at the manor. She had a father, albeit a bad one, and Bruce didn't want to give her another one of those.

But he still left her notes, information, or clues, things that gave her autonomy for a bit, let her work still "alone" as Spoiler, but kept her connected to him. To Robin. And when she died...

Bruce gave every letter to Leslie. Not because he knew, exactly, but because he knew she was closer to Stephanie, and he couldn't have them at home. Couldn't look at them.

Leslie gave every one to Steph. Who read them. Sometimes. Enough times that when she came back, she wasn't as hard on Bruce. Enough times that she let him hug her. And came over for dinner. And never regretted being Robin. Enough times to admit she loved him too. And that he would never be her father. Because at his core, he was a good person, and Arthur Brown was not that.

With Cassandra, Bruce didn't write letters. Not only because Cass couldn't read, but because she could read him. And no words were necessary. For once, he could love someone in silence.

With Damian, words came easier, somehow. Maybe because Damian needed words, needed the commands to be spoken aloud, needed the reprimand or the praise. He needed the tone, couldn't weed it out of what Bruce had written like the others, needed the verbal confirmation or denial.

Bruce needed the words to. To tell his son it was alright to mess up, to make mistakes. He needed to words to reassure his son that harsh language was the extent of what he was going to get. That punishment wasn't physical in their world. In his home.

He wrote Damian letters too, of course, in the case his youngest might feel excluded, but usually only at special occasions, a card for his birthday, or a quick poem to brighten his day.

And words... words came easier now. After so many. It was easier to tell Damian what he needed, aloud as well as on paper. It was easier to speak, to not stumble over his words, to praise and apologize. A good thing too, because Damian needed it. And maybe... maybe Bruce did too.

[mizaruwu]

Yo do you subscribe to the theory that Hyrule Warriors merged the three timelines back together? Cause I've been brainrotting over your necromancer au again and imagining Legend asking for help from Wars by writing a letter and hiding it somewhere where he hopes that it will be preserved until Wars' era.

Maybe Wars feels a little lonely after LU too, so he goes on a journey to discover artifacts left by the heroes before him and stumbles across this letter which simply says "Captain, I hope you find this and can find a way to help us. Rulie is not handling our separation well. Please come help him if you are able. -The Vet"

Wars immediately runs to Lana and after some convincing she agrees to send him through time to the point when the letter was written. He arrives to find Legend sitting with paper and quill still in hand, the faintest smile visible in his tired eyes, and he knows right away that something is very, very wrong.

Does he manage to talk some sense into Hyrule? Does he offer some other healthier coping tool? Who knows but oh man the idea is driving me crazy in the best way lol

Oh I'm totally subscibed to that theory XD

A tiny problem– the timeline is locked in the AU. Time travel can't happen to the parts of the timeline post LU (to stop a problem like monsters crossing timelines again) thats why any time travel item Rulie found can't work anymore. It'll be the same for the rest of the links.

I do think its funny to imagine Warriors finding Legend's letter and realising he can't do anything. No matter how much he asks Lana or prays to Hylia the timeline won't open for him. The helpless guilt? It'll be soo delicious

Hypothetically, Hyrule will be so happy to see Wars again but would grow a tiny bit (an understatement) jealous that the captain was able to visit him. How unfair!

I dont think it would go well. How can Warriors say that Rulie shouldnt raise their dead brothers when its his only way to see them again? When Wars can time travel to visit the others if he wants to?

When wars has loved ones around him he wont endanger when he goes home and Hyrule has to stay away from the princesses so the monsters out for his blood wont come for them? The captain wont be the one alone for who knows how long when he goes back!

[orengejoshi]

-How can a man (Flug) get pregnant? It's impossible.

Flug could be a trans man, they can get pregnant bc they're usually born with an uterus. I was. I'm 27 weeks right now🐊🙌🏻✨

I think other people would just explain it with "it's fictional so anything is possible". Black Hat can canonically impregnate people by making them drink his saliva, none of dis shit makes sense or works irl

[christakisbang]

yes, lee know-ya i see you aging along with me you're the second oldest but, to me you'll always be the maknae~♡

[orphicmeliora]

I love love love how u put mc's name as emcee in caleb's fic where he comes back after leaving for awhile it's so genius. I was like "who is emcee... WAIT" like ur mind omg. also do u think if u made boxed mac and cheese caleb would start crying bc it's not "homemade" since he cooks for u so often

im so sorry this is so late

I love love love how u put mc's name as emcee in caleb's fic where he comes back after leaving for awhile it's so genius.

oh i cannot take credit for this, i saw a fanart on tiktok that mentioned mc as Emcee and i was like this is ingenious like it fixed the issue i have with using Y/N and naming people. that person is the real genius here. i think it was a Sylus x MC x Caleb fanart.

also do u think if u made boxed mac and cheese caleb would start crying bc it's not "homemade" since he cooks for u so often

Oh absolutely. Caleb wouldn’t just cry—he’d take it personally on a soul level. I imagine it'd go something like this;

You’re halfway through a bowl of boxed mac and cheese, legs tucked under you on the couch, when you hear the front door open.

“I’m home—!” Caleb’s voice is warm, teasing—until it isn’t. Until he sees you.

Cheese powder stains your fingers. The bowl is already half-empty. And you’re chewing.

He freezes.

“…Is that boxed?”

You blink. “Yeah. I got hungry.”

He steps closer, eyes wide, horrified. “But I—I was literally going to cook for you.”

You shrug. “This was faster.”

He stares at you like you just confessed to cheating.

“Faster?” His voice cracks. “You picked shelf-stable cheese dust over me?”

You slowly lower your spoon. “It’s not that serious—”

Caleb dramatically sinks onto the couch beside you like he’s been shot. “I wanted to make you rosemary chicken. From scratch. I bought ingredients. I had a plan.” He gestures toward your bowl like it’s a betrayal. “You chose betrayal. With elbow pasta.”

You reach out to console him, but he flinches like your powdered-cheese hand might scald him. “I season things with love, you know? With heart. Not with...whatever that is.”

He doesn’t actually cry—but he goes quiet.

So quiet that you end up shoving the bowl aside and pulling him into a hug.

He holds you like you died in battle.

And yes, you do promise to let him cook next time.

And yes, he makes you watch him cook—because “if you knew the effort, you’d never choose the box again.”

[ragnarockz]

*WARNING* The Studio spoilers under the Maya picture

I think it is only fair that you make a fic where Maya ends up kissing Reader or Quinn (dealers' choice) to compensate for that atrocious kiss with Matt on the finale🫠🫠

Pretty pleeeeeeeeaseeeee 🥺🙏

Tip Jar 💰

Lock Me Up Maya Playlist because I'm still on this bs 🔒💛

Maya x Reader after CinemaCon and those kisses burning in reader's brain....

WHY THE FUCK IS THIS SO LONG?! That's what she sa- *GUNSHOTS*

Also the way this pic kept getting me DISTRACTED LIKE FUCK ⬇️

You'd close your eyes and all you could see was the way Maya's tongue slipped past her lips and teased, no, dared it's way into Matt's mouth before he pulled away from her on stage and it made your stomach drop.

That sinking feeling doesn't even cover the other kiss just hours before in the hotel room where she pushed him up against the wall and made out with him aggressively before Sal walked over and cut their session short.

You were fuming; mad beyond belief and all you could do now what keep your distance from her as you and the rest of the crew made their way back to LA after CinemaCon finally wrapped up.

Could you really avoid your boss? No, not when Kool-Aid was the project you had been appointed to and was the most anticipated movie of the upcoming summer. You managed to sneak one day off, feigning sick from the flight back to LA but Maya didn't buy it and you knew the longer you stayed away from her, the more suspicious she would be.

You pulled yourself together and went into the work the next day like nothing had happened; carrying hers and your coffee order and a blueberry muffin for her to boot.

Was this a peace offering? Or, was it more like a, 'hey I saw what you and Matt did not once but twice and now I'm caught here in the middle with nowhere left to turn', you weren't exactly sure.

And, you also knew, there was no way Maya was going to bring it up. She never bragged to you about any men. Women? Yes; many times and even, once or twice, she alluded to bragging about you. So, why Matt all of a sudden and why Matt when it was supposed to be you.

You were standing on the other side of her on that stage; so close you could smell her expensive perfume and feel the ends of her hair brush against your arm. You felt flushed and nervous and still high from the drugs you had done the night before with everyone but standing there on that stage with her by your side, you thought maybe, possibly...

"You alright there Newbie? Still coming down from that fucking awful mushroom high?"

Maya's voice snapped you right back to reality as she got up from her desk chair and made her way over to you. You were still standing there in the door frame to her office with the coffees in your hands and the bag with her muffin tucked under your palm and thumb. She was as close to you know as she was back on that stage; the same perfume wafted and the same hair tickled your forearm as she grinned at you and appeared that any second, she could eat you whole.

You felt a pang of pleasure shoot right through you; down your abdomen and right to your clit and the quick sudden clench of nothing inside of you. All you can do is quietly curse yourself in your head and nod; showing her that you were present and yes, yes actually that mushroom high was awful.

"These are for you..."

You hand over her coffee and muffin which she graciously accepts; almost too scripted with an eye roll and a moan as she snatches her breakfast away like the woman hasn't eaten in weeks. It's endearing and hot and it makes your legs feel like jello as you try and follow close behind her to your own desk which, of course, has been set up right next to hers.

You take your seat at your desk as she stands by your chair and sips on her coffee a little louder than necessary. She wants you to pay attention to her, look up at her. You swallow hard before you place your own coffee down and do just that.

Maya's perfect little pet runs through your fucking head and you try to push that right out before it does something to you that she will for sure use to her advantage.

Maybe she already has.

"You know I don't fuck men, right?"

If you had coffee in your mouth you would have spat it out all over your desk but instead, your eyes lock with hers and she gives you that same grin as if she's a cat and she just had a very good canary between her teeth and tongue.

"I-"

"It was all for show...you know, the people in the audience. Matt and I like to keep up this appearance sometimes you know...so people don't get fucking nosy into my business. He fucks women...I guess, not really. He doesn't have much game...but me? And men? Now that's funny..."

You sit there dumbfounded. You know Maya Mason is always gung-ho for representation in her movies and marketing ploys. She tries in almost every project to have some sort of queer rep and yet...

"So...you and Matt..."

"It's literally nothing. Also, do you think I'm moved on from you? From us? Why do you think I wasn't wearing my lock on the stage?"

Your eyes widen as you recall back to that day and the delicious outfit Maya had on. She looked fucking phenomenal but you recall something was missing from it; something that didn't complete the icing on the cake.

"Look, if you don't believe me..."

She put her coffee and muffin onto your desk before placing her hands on her hips as if she was waiting for you to get up from your seat and join her, stand up in front of her.

How could you ever say no? How could you disobey?

Maya's perfect little pet.

She didn't even wait for you to stand up fully; drawn to you like a goddamn magnet as she threw her arms over your neck and pulled herself in for a kiss. Your thoughts reeled back to her pushing Matt up against that wall and you instantly, in this moment, as you push your tongue into her mouth, realize that this had nothing on that Matt and Maya kiss.

Those goddamn hands of hers covered in her rings and bracelets unwrap from your mouth so they can move down your body; squeezing your breasts as she pushes in deeper into the kiss. She moans in your mouth and you can taste the coffee you bought her on your lips; teasing you into something sweeter. You obey and so does your body as you take a single step back and feel your ass hit the edge of your desk.

You feel her head nod in pleasure from the position you've taken upon yourself to give her as she makes her place known in between your parted legs. You fully sit onto your desk now and wrap your legs around her waist; wanting her to be as close and as deep as she can be against you, inside of you. You moan a little louder and it makes her pull her mouth away from yours if only for a moment so she can whisper against your swollen lips.

"Mommy has a surprise for you..."

You feel like you're drowning in your head as those words sink you and you feel the instant wetness pool between your legs. You can never hold yourself back from her nor the way she makes you feel. Just her words alone drive you over the brink and you know it and so does she. You also know, that she revels in it; puffs herself out in this egotistical sense of sexual prowess that you couldn't even dare exhibiting.

Lucky for you, Maya has no problem in doing so. Not in public or private.

And the surprise starts with her hiking up your skit around your waist and teasing her fingers just past the side of your underwear. She wants to feel how wet you are for her already; how much that kiss really meant to you. Her eyes widen as she stares at you; rubs her fingers together to feel how coated they are as they catch the slick between your folds. That shit-eating grin has yet to leave her and you feel like you're about to pass out.

"Oh, Sweetheart...so wet for me already....god, I bet you were like this all weekend...you did such a good job for me though, waiting out that shit storm...waiting for me..."

You nod your head and close your eyes and feel the pressure building between your legs and right in between your eyes. That desire stirring like a hornets nest that makes you push yourself towards her hand.

She stops. Dead in her tracks and pulls her fingers away from you, leaving your underwear pushed to the side and you fully exposed. A flush of heat covers your face and you keep your eyes closed. You don't dare look at the smug fucking grin on Maya Mason's face. Not yet. Not now.

Now until she demands you do.

And she does.

So you slowly open your eyes and regain your focus and you watch as that evil grin pulls her mouth up and shows off her teeth. You shudder and can't tell if its from being turned on or intimidated or, fuck, both. And those mixed feelings you have about her start to dissolve rather quickly as your gaze falls down to watch her shove her left hand into the waistband of her overly expensive track pants. That all familiar strap of hers reveals itself in her hand; heavy and waiting just for you.

All for you.

Your eyes shoot back up to her face to read her expression now and all you can see written there is the hunger of power over you.

Your hands come away from the edge of the desk and up your thighs; nails tracing slowly as you make her watch you. They gather up the fallen edge of your skirt as you raise it once again to her and hold it there; spread your legs a little wider for her as well. She doesn't need to even open her mouth and you're already doing all that you can for her and more.

You want her to ruin you. Destroy you. You want her to prove to you that the kiss with Matt was absolutely nothing. A drop in the ocean.

"Look at you..."

She moves in closer once more as her right hand grabs your calf and holds your leg open so she can stand back in between your legs at the angle she likes.

"...legs open for me...that perfect pussy of yours already wet and on display...I still don't know how I managed to keep my fucking hands off of you all weekend..."

With her left hand, she guides her cock towards you and you feel the tip trace around your folds. You bite back a moan but find that to be useless; letting it out instead. She loves it and you watch her face light up as if the sun had just come out finally after a cloudy, miserable day. She's eating it all up and you know it, she knows it.

That right hand of hers pulls away and leaves a scratch on your skin from her nails; beady little pearls of blood rushing to the surface of the scratch. It rushes to herself, her own chest as she pulls down the top of her tank top until its past and caught snug underneath her bra.

You stare until your eyes start to hurt; until they start to water and you wonder if you dare do what your brain is screaming at you to attempt. You can only try, right?

Maya Mason, however, is always one step ahead of you. Your hand hangs lose in the air; midway to grabbing to her bra and pull it down. Of course she beats you to it; always has to be in control when it comes to teasing you, fucking you. The tip of her cock starts to push right against your cunt; daring to breach you as her right hand hooks underneath her bra and lifts upwards.

You have no idea where to focus your attention as you feel suddenly overwhelmed by Maya; much like you always do when you're around her. She's more addicting than all the drugs you partook in over the weekend; a craving you fear you'll never be able to satisfy.

She pushes herself forward, inside of you, filling you and that hand caught in the air quickly comes back down once again to grip the edge of your desk. You feel your eyes start to roll back into your skull as you feel the sensation of being filled by her and you grip harder, pull yourself up deeper. You want to watch her; stare at her. You want to focus on her face and the expressions she makes as you fuck her, the way her breasts hang freely in front of your face.

You start to imagine how they taste in your mouth, against your tongue and the second you do it's like she's in your mind. You hear her laugh under her breath; raspy as she pumps into you and pushes you back and forth against the top of your desk. Your eyes come back into focus and your mouth is hung open; drool pooling in the corners.

"So...goddamn desperate it's written all over your fucking face...we should have told Matt...just how much of a needy little slut you are...how bad you need me..."

You're reeling now; can feel the pressure building up inside of you like a dam about to burst. Your legs shake around her waist and you feel the heel of your shoe slip off as your foot bumps against her lower back. God forbid someone were to walk into her office right now...did she even lock her office door?

Her next move is rough, rude. Right up Maya's alley as she fully pulls out of you leaving you clenching and moaning in frustration. She looks down at you like you're nothing; just a desperate hole she loves to fill and fuck.

And you love it just as desperately as she does.

"Get off of your fucking desk."

And you do. No questions asked. No time to fix yourself up.

She eyes you down as she starts to move and you move parallel to her until its her backing up onto the desk and you standing in front of her. Her eyes trace over you inch by inch until she gets to your inner thighs and smirks at the cum dripping down them. You fight the urge to block yourself and it; feeling like the needy little slut she called you.

And maybe you are without apologies; just for her and whatever the fuck she wishes to do to you.

And she's not near done with you, not the way her hand has gone back down to grab the length of her cock as she strokes it.

"I don't think it's fair I'm the only one with my tits out, do you?"

The way she says it makes your skin crawl and heat up; daring you. Tempting you. You have to take your shirt off fully to get the same results as her; letting your shirt drop to the floor before you lift up your own bra.

Her eyes get as wide as saucers and you watch her lick her lips and her hand, with those perfectly manicured brown nails, never stop stroking herself off.

You sink to your knees, as you should be for Maya, and hope that this mock prayer position is exactly what she wants. She moves a little bit, as close as she can get and so do you. You adjust yourself and your height and your eyes hold fast onto the silicone between her legs.

And that silicone, in all its erect and still wet glory from your desperate cunt, slides up perfectly between your tits. Like second nature, you move your hands to the outer sides of your own breasts and push them together to envelope her cock between; nice and snug and tight and perfect for her to fuck you.

And she does, without any hesitation.

Her nipples are just as erect as yours are as she fucks you again. CinemaCon quickly starts to melt away and so do those two kisses that truly, in this moment, mean absolutely nothing especially when you're down on your knees in Maya's office so she can fuck your tits with her cock.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

The TTPD Deep Dive (Part ?)

It’s no secret that I have a lot of Thoughts about The Tortured Poets Department and it has lived rent-free in my head since it came out earlier this year. I’m absolutely blown away by how underneath the chaos, it’s actually an exceptionally cohesive story and is probably the closest to a concept album Taylor has ever done.

There are so many themes that have stood out to me over the last five months, and there’s one in particular that I think not only drives the entire album, but ties into previous albums to help deepen understanding of it.

This is it, my fangirl magnum opus, my months of posts consolidated into one place. This is also my disclaimer that this is just my interpretation of the album, and my summary of the story it tells, and I don’t pretend to have any special insight or authority. I’m not saying I���m correct at all, do not take any of this as fact, it’s just what it sounds like to me, and these are my silly not-so-little thoughts about it.

(Under a cut because it’s way too long and involves discussion many may not care for or be sick of.)

Come one, come all, it's happening again (I'm thinking too hard about Taylor music)

The overarching theme in TTPD to me is: Grief. If you’re looking at TTPD as a story being told (instead of just as someone’s real life), the inciting incident of TTPD is loss, and the grief from that loss is what drives the narrator’s actions and the fallout, as well as unpacks those complicated feelings and how they apply to the her life in general. By the end of the standard album, it’s also about recovering from that pain, moving on from it and learning from it.

The loss specifically is the loss of the dream of having a family (with one’s partner). One thing that is abundantly clear both on the top line and under the surface in TTPD is how Taylor (as a person and as narrator) longed not only to for marriage but specifically parenthood, and the fear and then realization of losing that chance absolutely wrecked her— which is why the next lover’s (the conman's) wooing worked so well, because it preyed on that yearning. Yet that loss also dovetails into the grief of many things: of youth, of idealism, of relationships, of ideas, even of self, which causes almost a deconstruction of a belief system to piece one’s life back together by the end.

THE CONTEXT

TTPD weaves in the topics of marriage and motherhood both explicitly and in the subtext, in various forms and scenarios. The cheating husband in “Fortnight.” The wedding ring line in “TTPD” the song. “He saw forever so he smashed it up” in “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys.” All of “So Long, London.” Running away with her wild boy in “But Daddy I Love Him,” fantasizing about weddings and joking about babies. The imaginary rings in “Fresh Out The Slammer.” The cheating husband (again) and the friends who smell like weed or “little babies” in “Florida!!!” “You and I go from one kiss to getting married,” “Talking rings and talking cradles,” and “our field of dreams engulfed in fire” in “loml.” (And arguably: “I wish I could un-recall how we almost had it all.”) “He said he’d love me all his life, but that life was too short,” in “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart.” They may not sound like much on their own, but they paint a picture about how the topics pervaded her thoughts and her writing, and in many cases express her desires, and her pain.

It’s something that goes back several albums when you pick up on context clues. You get the first hints on Reputation with “New Year’s Day,” and “you and me forevermore.” Then Lover is very forward with it: “Lover” is basically wedding vows, “Paper Rings” is very engagement-coded, “I Think He Knows” is cheeky but low-key “you better put a ring on it,” “It’s Nice To Have A Friend” has wedding/marriage imagery in the last verse. As a self-professed diaristic writer, it’s the type of stuff one presumably doesn’t put out there unless those conversations have already happened, and she was very excited about it at the time it was released.

Then the pandemic happens and folklore comes out, and while there is still happy love there (“invisible string”), there are also the first indications that something has happened to put a halt to whatever future she once dreamed of (“hoax,” “the lakes”) and that she’s trying to reassure herself and him that it can still happen even if she’s scared it might not (“peace”). Notably, as far as I can remember it’s the first time Taylor explicitly brings up the idea of family (with her partner) with “you know that I’d give you my wild, give you a child,” which stood out at the time because it’s so incredibly vulnerable, but it’s even more poignant when you really take in that the whole song is like a confession of her deepest worries, and this is her vowing to give him these things that she holds most sacred if he’ll let her. These are what she cherishes most dearly and wants to return in kind: her youth and commitment (my wild), the family she craves (a child), unconditional support (swing for the fences/sit in the trenches) and understanding/compassion (silence that only comes when two people know each other).

Evermore follows an even darker path, and suddenly the album explores relationships that end and grappling with loss. There are toxic relationships (“tolerate it”), dangerous marriages (“no body, no crime,” “ivy”), failing/broken relationships (“Coney Island,” “champagne problems,” “happiness,” “‘tis the damn season”), as well as grief (“Marjorie,” “evermore”). Even some of the happy songs have uncertainty in them: in “willow” she’s begging for him to take her lead, like she’s still trying to decipher him and ask him to commit; in “cowboy like me,” still a beautiful love song, she’s thinking, “this wasn’t supposed to work and we were supposed to bail on each other but we fell in love instead”; “evermore” is about the depths of severe depression (and more) with the love story being the one saving grace in her darkest hour. And it’s also notable that after all the “fiction” writing, shortly after this album she writes “Renegade” where she’s telling the subject: I’m ready to start the next phase of our life now, why aren’t you? Is it me you don’t want after all? It’s like there’s something telling her that this stall might not just be a stall.

Midnights is a jumble (in a good, but in hindsight, also sad way) with the “sleepless nights” concept, but it seems pretty clear now that the themes and events and relationships she was revisiting tied into a lot of what she was feeling in her present life. I wrote the cliff notes version awhile back, but she’s questioning so much of her life that’s reflected in past events and relationships. Am I actually always the problem? How did we lose sight of each other and what we had? We only seem to work when we block out everyone and everything else. Can we ever go back to when things were good? Why are you neglecting me? I once thought I was going to lose everything but you saved me in the nick of time, can that happen again? I chased my career, but did I give up my chance at having a family in the process? Nobody knows what I really suffer from behind closed doors and I’m all alone.

And so on, which in retrospect now that we have TTPD, is very much what she was grappling with in private while writing and releasing the album. The inspiration behind the songs may have been different events and muses, but regardless of their origins they all end up feeling too familiar, like she's seen this film before (ahem). We’re seeing her view of commitment change too, or rather how she writes about it: she’s not making the outright declarations of it like on Lover, or even the implied ones on folklore, nor is she talking of the dark side of it like evermore. For the most part it’s a return to the early days of some relationships, before things got hard, or the end of them when there was nothing left, and also pushing away the discussion of it altogether by the outside world. “Sweet Nothing” is a sweet slice of life, but even at that, it’s the peace of the home in conflict with the pressure of the outside world. Now that we have “You’re Losing Me,” which was written at the same time as the rest of the album, we can probably deduce that she was going back to the start because something happened that made her doubt the future.

THE SETUP

So much of Midnights directly ties into TTPD, and I said in the post I linked that it’s like Midnights is asking the questions that TTPD answers. But there’s one song in particular on Midnights that sticks out to me as being key in the broadest sense to understanding the state of mind that led to the events of TTPD, and that’s “Bigger Than The Whole Sky,” because the way it expresses grief is reflected in the theme of mourning a life built and the dreams along with it that are never realized in TTPD. There are several instances in TTPD that are basically variations of: “every single thing to come has turned into ashes,” and that’s what makes her snap, and leaves her vulnerable to someone who promises her those things when she’s bereaved at losing them in the first place. (In other words: “the deflation of our dreaming leaving me bereft and reeling.”) The song tells a story about how that loss of hope colours one’s entire mindset, and in some ways is a bridge to TTPD to understand what such a low point feels like.

I think that that grief, and most importantly losing hope for an imagined future in its wake, is fundamental to understanding TTPD on so many levels: both the decline with one partner that kept her hanging on then led her such a dark path, and why she fell for the conman's apparent bullshitting because it offered an express pass to what she was losing with her partner. And I also feel like it plays a part into the ruminating she’s doing all over Midnights, trying to make sense of where she finds herself when she’s writing the album, which directly leads to “You’re Losing Me.” Loss permeates so many of the stories on Midnights: of lovers, of innocence, of youth, of faith, of control, of life’s work, etc. “BTTWS” is just one of the ways in which it is expressed so fully, capturing that deep depression and subsequent extinction of faith in something that once felt assured and very much wanted. (Which is also mentioned in her writing process in the “Depression” playlist on Apple Music.)

If you understand why that feeling of loss in general across so many parts of life is so important to Midnights, then it illuminates so much about the “narrative” in TTPD too. If on Midnights she’s wrestling with the seeds of grief and loss (on multiple fronts), TTPD is her reckoning with it in its full form. “So Long, London” is the song that is the most explicit about it: How much sad did you think I had in me? How much tragedy? Just how low did you think I’d go before I’d have to go be free? You swore that you loved me, but where were the clues? I died on the altar waiting for the proof. It’s the sequel to “You’re Losing Me.” It’s, the air is thick with loss and indecision, I know my pain is such an imposition, I’m getting tired even for a phoenix, all I did was bleed as I tried to be the bravest soldier, I’ve got nothing left to believe unless you’re choosing me, my heart won’t start anymore, but from the other side of the break.

This is highly speculative, but if you follow the thread about the topic and the relationship as told from Rep through TTPD, in broad strokes it goes: young love with a serious connection (Rep) -> growing up and making life plans (Lover) -> something happens that delays those plans or makes them grind to a halt (folklore) -> serious doubts arise and cause a loss of faith in their future (evermore) -> struggling with the loss of that future and trying to make sense of the problems in a last ditch attempt to save the relationship (Midnights) -> fallout from that grief after the blowup of the relationship (TTPD). Understanding that progression of events (through the music) explains not only the storytelling side of TTPD (e.g. the jump from the partner to the conman) but also how the experiences/muses blend in the music, and how the music that on the surface is about the short-term relationship is really driven by the destruction of the long-term one.

Following the music, it’s IMO implied that Taylor (the narrator) was holding out for marriage and family with her partner, for years, and it seems like it was at one point a shared dream until something happened to pump the brakes, and seemingly on her partner’s end. And extrapolating further, given how the sorrow expressed in former albums bleeds into TTPD, it sounds like a plan that had been concrete in some form before it had fallen apart, and losing something that once felt so tangible is what drives her in her grief to find any kind of respite from the pain. Which is why the situation with the conman becomes so appealing as the one with the partner splinters further and further.

(If everything you’ve once touched is sick with sadness and you don’t want to be sad anymore, what are you left to do?)

THE STORY

So (one part of) the story kind of sounds like this from the standard album: the relationship with her partner as well as his mental health slowly deteriorate and he withdraws emotionally (“London,” “Fresh Out The Slammer”) and physically (again, “London,” and “Guilty As Sin?”) and takes his resentment out on her (“London” and arguably “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” even though I don't want to get into muse speculation here). As she sinks deeper into her own depression as a result, the weight of the failing relationship starts feeling like a cage— or a noose (“London,” “Guilty”), but coming to terms with the loss of their life together and the future they’d dreamed of was killing her (again, “London,” but also “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart”).

Enter the conman who she reconnects with at the very point where this is coming to a head (knowing that IRL she reconnected with him around the time Midnights was being worked on) , and if you read between the lines, she confides some deeply personal things to him (“Down Bad” and “hostile takes overs”/“encounters closer and closer,” “Smallest Man” and the entire sleeper cell spy imagery which is one of my favourite things and I could write a whole essay about the meaning of it, “loml” and “A con man sells a fool a get-love-quick scheme”). Then after she’s confided these secrets to him, he insinuates himself back into her life (“Guilty,” “Down Bad,” “Smallest Man”) and sells her a dream that HE can give her all these things she hopes for (again, “Down Bad,” “Smallest Man,” “loml,” song “TTPD,” “Broken Heart”).

But the thing is, he only knows these are the things she wants because she’s revealed it to him, and presumably, told him that was what she was losing by staying with her partner. And instead of the normal response of, “that is really sad that your partner is not supporting you and you deserve to be treated better,” to a friend in growing distress, it seems like it was, “well I can give you all those things!!!! Right now!!!! Trust me!!!!” And worked on her until she believed it, and jumped at the chance at a precarious time in her life. And one thing I want to underscore is: Taylor has agency in the situation always, it’s not like she’s been kidnapped and brainwashed. (In fact, she implores on songs like “But Daddy” that SHE is in charge of her own choices, good or bad.) She chose to rekindle the friendship and then relationship, and she chose to eventually leave her long term relationship for another man, and she reiterates on the album that she owns this all. But it’s also: nothing exists in a vacuum, and she makes choices based on emotions and information she has at the time, which is why it gives so much whiplash.

THE ALBUM

When you look at it as, the situation with the conman only happens because of what happened with the partner first and that the appeal of the conman and the fantasy he sells her is a direct reaction to that, it makes the “swirliness” of the music make so much more sense. And for much of it, even many of the “conman” songs on the surface are really “partner” songs underneath.

Fortnight

A suburban gothic allegory about a broken marriage with a distant husband with a wandering eye, which makes the rekindled romance with the neighbor so appealing. She’s miserable caged in her stifling house because she’s been abandoned by her spouse, so the reappearance of this past love reignites the passion that’s dead at home.

TTPD

“So tell me, who else is gonna know me?” “I chose this cyclone with you.” I’m gonna kill myself if you ever leave. Everyone knows we’re crazy. She’s laying it out there that she’s already in a dangerous state of mind, and she’s actively putting herself in more danger by pursuing the conman. “At dinner you take my ring off my middle finger and put it on the one people put wedding rings on, and that’s the closest I’ve come to my heart exploding,” spells this whole thing out so clearly: whether it’s an actual event (likely) or a metaphor for the promise he makes to her, the reason why it makes her heart explode is because it’s the thing she’s been waiting for forever with no movement, and here this person comes in and slips it on her finger in an instant like it’s nothing. (And eventually, as we’ll come to know, it is absolutely nothing to him.) You mean it could have been this easy this whole time?! (Well, no. Not until a certain other suitor makes his appearance later.) It feels like she’s finally getting everything she wanted in the blink of an eye! How lucky! How convenient! What was that about the get-love-quick scheme you say? (Unsaid: the reason why this feels so urgent is because there’s a sense that time is running out in so many aspects of her life and not just the obvious. Which reappears later on.)

Down Bad

“Did you really beam me up in a cloud of sparkling dust just to do experiments on?” sets the scene for this euphoric experience in the moment that starts to feel violating once the dust settles (which is then followed up in “Smallest Man” and the spy mission on her). The bridge spells out how he weaselled his way into her life, preyed upon (intentionally or not) her emotional state, sold her a dream and then vanished, without the benefit of hindsight yet we see later in the album.

The alien abduction metaphor is pretty brilliant, because it shows both how she was desperate to escape the place she found herself in, and how much it screwed her brain to then be left stranded when the affair was over. “[I loved your] hostile takeovers, encounters closer and closer,” is so evocative because it details how the situation came to be: his overtures under the guise of friendship blurred lines until he made her an offer that she eventually couldn’t refuse (hostile takeovers) as he infiltrated her life more and more intimately. The sad thing is that the song has parallels to how her relationship with the partner started too in earlier albums, in that they ran away to live in their own bubble (or planet) only for him to metaphorically abandon her as the years went on. (Oven, meet microwave.)

My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys

Being continually emotionally broken down by a person who knows he’s hurting you but still acts the way he does. (The original voice memo version makes this even clearer and it’s rather heartbreaking.) “He saw forever so he smashed it up,” speaks to the loss of a future the person became scared of, and the original lyrics (“he saw forever so he blew it up”) somehow cut even deeper to me because it feels so much more intentional.

Also in the original version, “he was my best friend and that was the worst part,” also speaks not only to the loss of an entire partnership in the wake of this hurt, but also to the feelings of betrayal that the person you trust so deeply has the ability to hurt you in this way too, and how it’s a one-two punch of not only losing the relationship but also your closest confidant. (It’s like the sequel to “Renegade” and the missiles firing to me.) Again, there are shades of both/many situations in the song, pointing to an unfortunate pattern in some ways. The situation in “My Boy” is part of why she was so low, and why the “get love quick scheme” was so appealing later on. And it dovetails nicely into…

So Long, London

The most explicitly “partner” song that puts a coda on “You’re Losing Me,” and is Track 5 because it’s the emotional underpinning of how she got to where she was, and drives the events of the rest of the album. It spells everything out: He withdrew, she tried to fix it for both of them, eventually even that stopped working, he was oblivious to or minimized how badly she was suffering and his (in)actions couldn’t reassure her, he wouldn’t move forward on their future plans and stewed in his own struggles, she was spiralling out of control trying to hang on and ultimately felt like she was going to die if she didn’t leave.

But Daddy I Love Him

Like a direct reaction to “So Long, London” in that she breaks free from the death of one relationship and throws herself with reckless abandon to the next, fuck the haters. How dare you judge me, when the relationship you think I should have stayed in was killing me? (Dutiful daughter all the plans were laid. All you want is gray for me.) Fuck all of you, I’m going to choose whoever I want! (So what if I have a baby with HIM, huh?! I tried doing it the proper way and look where that got me so now we're back to square one) It’s again her imagining how wonderful and freeing this “wild boy” is going to be for her, and how wrong she’ll prove everyone. THIS TIME she definitely got it right. So what if she has to run away! So what if she scandalizes the whole town! They don’t know what she really wants or needs anyway! She’s the only one of her (hee-hee-hee) and she’s the only who gets to decides how this goes. (Because: she longs for control in a situation she’ll eventually realize she has little of it in, which we’ll find out is a recurring theme in her life.)

Fresh Out The Slammer

Also spells out what happened with the partner in the first verse and the pre-choruses, which is what makes the conman so appealing as the imagined jailbreak. The bitter loneliness vs. the sultry passion she builds up in her head as she awaits her release from prison is key to understanding the two sides of the story in the album. There’s this whole outlaw imagery (which is also carried through in “I Can Fix Him”), but it’s contrasted in the end with her and her reunited lover sitting on park swings like children with “imaginary rings” — because “Ain't no way I'm gonna screw up now that I know what's at stake.” What’s at stake is lasting love and the promises that come with it (marriage/family) that are precious and time-sensitive. The imaginary rings are both a nod to the youthful dreams of her and her new/old lover, but also has a double meaning to me because those promises aren’t built on anything together; they're made up, intangible. (They’re no more concrete than the plans that went up in smoke with the partner.) Like with most of the conman situation, it’s all a fantasy in her head that has yet to happen, and as we find out later in the album, reality ends up leaving much to be desired.

Florida!!!

Broadly speaking, it’s running away from your problems and wanting to disappear from your life. (But again: the life she’s disappearing from is the cheating husband she may or may not be feeding to the swamp-- another miserable marriage.) What kind of flies under the radar though is the “I don’t want to exist,” line, which points to her dire state of mind that led her to fleeing to that metaphorical timeshare down in Destin. In many ways about cheating death.

Guilty As Sin

Yes it’s the “masturbation song,” but again the nuance is that she’s left to pleasure herself because her partner has abandoned her emotionally and even physically, i.e. “my boredom’s bone deep.” To be blunt: they aren’t even intimate anymore, so she starts fantasizing about the guy she used to have chemistry with who’s reentered her life and is making moves on her. And realizing that she’s now finding release in another man (albeit imaginary) breaks her even as it reinvigorates her because she finally understands that the relationship she’s in is effectively dead. (“Am I allowed to cry?”)

Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me

This isn’t about relationships, but about society and its reaction to them in a general sense. But again, she’s left to stew in all this anger and hurt as she’s been abandoned at home, then abandoned by public opinion, and the public attack on her is part of the origin as well as the end of that story. The trauma inflicted upon her detailed in the song is the reason why she felt trapped in the first place, which led to the decisions she’s made and habits she’s leaned on ever since.

I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)

This is one of the few songs that is the most completely conman-coded, and shows when the delusion finally breaks at the end of the song. She spends the whole song being like, “no really, I alone can make him better! You’ll see! I know he’s gross, but he’s mine! It’ll be fine I swear! You don’t know anything! Uuuuuum hmm wait actually what the fuck—“

Loml

Oof. THE song. Again the surface reading is about the “conman” who comes in and sells her the lie, but the pain is because all the dreams she writes about are HER dreams and implied that they were the dreams she built with her partner that the conman sold back to her. I could do a deeper dive on this but most of the song is applicable to both relationships, which not only shows the “swirliness” of her writing, but also how they both ultimately did the same thing to her in different shades.

The bridge and the last chorus are kind of fundamental to understanding it all, and her ending it with “you’re the loss of my life” is about, among other things, how falling for this trap blew up the life she built and dreamed of for good. (I could talk about this one forever.) “You shit-talked me under the table, talking rings and talking cradles” to “Our field of dreams engulfed in fire” is a hell of a line and progression, and again, indicative of what the real driving force behind the whole album is. The shit-talking is because he took her dreams (of marriage and children) and hyped it back up to her tenfold whether in a moment of his own delusion or for more nefarious reasons — much like how the man prior kept promising these things but never followed through, which left her vulnerable to someone who appeared to offer them enthusiastically. The field of dreams isn’t just the one with the conman, it’s the one with the longterm relationship she’d built the dream with in the first place, because the conman’s actions are part of the reason the LTR went up in smoke. (Not the reason for the rift, but the consequence of the final break.) And THAT is why it’s the loss of her life, so completely.

When she says “I wish I could un-recall how we almost had it all,” IMO it’s not just the fake future that the conman lures her into, but also (and perhaps mainly) the once-real one she had with her partner and the loss of which that made her susceptible to falling for the con in the first place. There’s honestly so much between the lines in this song that covers every theme and speaks to the grief of seeing the life she imagined slip away, slowly by the first man then annihilated by the second.

I Can Do It With a Broken Heart

The juxtaposition of “He said he’d love me all his life, but that life was too short” and “He said he’d love me for all time, but that time was quite short” sums it up to me (and parallels “loml”), because they are two different situations, but they cut her just the same. In the first, “that life” IMO was the life they’d built with the dreams that went along with it and it was too short because he never followed through, and in the second, the “time” was quite short because it was the frenzy of the whirlwind romance that fizzled as quickly as it began. The life that was too short led to the time that was quite short.

The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived

This is definitely THE conman song. The rage, the shame, the violation, it’s all in there. But the key to it is the bridge and the espionage imagery woven through it. A honeypot scheme is when spies target a mark and seduce them to gain their trust and their privileged information for their homeland. So her likening him to a sleeper cell spy who set her up just to mine her deepest secrets and use them against her is a heavy, loaded statement. And implied: that valuable information she unknowingly held were her longings of marriage and family (the aforementioned shit-talking about rings and cradles she never got to have), and more importantly, those dreams preceded him reentering her life and then beginning his mission on her.

The insinuation then is: she confesses these are her deepest wishes which are now seemingly unattainable in her current situation (e.g. with her partner) -> he convinces her HE will give them to her and make the dreams she pines for come true -> she falls for him and blows up her life to make it happen -> he gets what he wants (thrill of the chase/sex/the idea of her/whatever his intent was) -> he abandons her when he gets what he wants, or rather it isn’t what he wants or can handle -> she’s left a) all alone b) with dreams unfulfilled c) with no answers d) feeling used at having her most sacred wishes used against her.

Again, the song is unquestionably about the way the conman absolutely destroyed her, but he was able to do that because there was this thing she wanted more than anything, that was dying in her previous relationship, that he was able to prey upon to seduce her, then discarded her and her dreams as soon as it was inconvenient for him while absolutely hollowing her inside out. (And again: the devastating thing is that this also applies to other relationships she’s written about, in different ways.)

The Alchemy

Not about either the partner or the conman directly, but it (loosely) touches on her finding herself after the whole oven-to-microwave experience and opening herself up to life and love again. #GoodForHer

Clara Bow

This isn’t about the romantic relationships on the surface, but it is about how damaging the entertainment industry and public life are on women, and how women are only valued for their beauty as commodities until they can be discarded and destroyed in the process. Which I think plays into the circumstances that led her to make the decisions that she did years ago, and why she makes the ones she does now. (But also, being valued for physical traits and appeal for the male gaze brings us to…)

The Manuscript

The “original sin” that kicks off all of this. Again, at first light this isn’t about the partner or the conman, but the person it is about is the reason why she has made all the decisions she has ever since in relationships (and that’s Mr. Plaid Shirt Days from “All Too Well”). The realization that her first serious adult relationship is what cemented these patterns, and this view of herself and her worthiness in relationships, is profoundly sad. An older man who valued her for being so mature for her age and implying that the mature activities ahem associated with that were the performance benchmarks in her ability to carry a relationship, only to leave her, was earth shattering. She placed her faith in this person, but then the way he treated her changed her view of love and of herself.

She took his innuendo about “pushing strollers” as a sign of potential commitment, whereas he ultimately meant it as foreplay, and she was too young and naive to know the difference. So not only did she learn from that that this man (and men) didn’t view commitment and family the way she did and that it was something to be toyed with, but she also learned that her value to them among other things was sex. Imagine being an idealistic 20 year old and your boyfriend ten years your senior tells you, “if the sex is anywhere near as good as our dates have been, we’re going to be making babies before you know it,” (e.g. this is relationship is serious) and then he dumps you: does that imply that the sex was not in fact that good? (E.g. that you’re not worthy after all?)

No, obviously from this side of life, it’s because he was a commitment-phobic playboy, even if he did love her, but she couldn’t have known that at 20 and instead internalized that shame. But, it did send her on a path of how she approached sex and love and relationships for over a decade afterwards. And her coming to the realization that that first act of (perhaps unintentional) manipulation is what informed her actions thereafter helped her break the pattern. Her worth to men is not just sex, she has value and her hopes and dreams have value, she doesn’t have to change into a different person to please anyone, because if that is what they want, they won’t ever want her anyway.

It’s been described here on Tumblr by people more eloquent and astute than I as a song that encapsulates the album as this: one did it slow (partner), one did it fast (conman), and one did it first (first love)— and that is haunting. After years of men minimizing her dreams and desires, if not outright using them against her, she’s finally at the point where she can let it all go and move on for good. (There’s a whole other tangent about consent and shame and manipulation, but that’s an entirely different kind of discussion. But it is so devastatingly contrasted with “you said if we had been closer in age maybe it would have been fine, and that made me want to die.”)

THE SUMMATION

This is just my interpretation of it, but in going through the standard album, it feels pretty clear how cohesive the album is about a story of love and loss and grief, then reckoning with what caused it all in the first place that set a person on this path. It’s a formative experience at a young age that was traumatic and led to certain coping mechanisms and a shaping of one’s self-perception, as well as the reaction to external pressures that try to dictate behaviours and influence how one feels one deserves out of love which makes it harder to know when one absolutely deserves more and better. And leaves one struggling to cope with loss when there isn’t anything else to hold onto. Then in light of one’s life blowing up, learning to find oneself in the aftermath all over again.

On another tangent that is somewhat related to the theme of loss, the way she writes about the two main muses on the standard album also ties into how the situations converged to create absolute carnage on her emotional and mental well-being. With one situation, she’s talking about a concrete life that crumbles under the weight of their struggles; with the other, the entire thing is a fantasy that she builds up in her head, and when it comes to fruition it falls far, far short.

If you look at the “microwave” (conman) relationship, you realize that almost everything she writes about it happens before it actually becomes reality, and it’s mostly her imagining how great it’ll be, but with few exceptions, when she writes about what actually occurred, it doesn’t even come close to living up to her expectations. “Fortnight” is an imagined future where she escapes to Florida and his touch finally starts her stalled engine (ahem). “TTPD” is perhaps the most positive retelling of their time together, but even that implies he was better off stoned and when he sobered up he succumbed to his demons all over again, and more importantly she conveys how she also is in extreme distress, barely concealed by the veneer of being infatuated with him. (E.g. saying to that she’ll kill herself if he ever leaves her — the implication is that she is absolutely serious about it when she “felt seen.”) And that the warning bells are going off in her head, but she feels like this person is the only one she can be with (because they’re equally fucked up and the chaos he brings into her life makes her feel alive when she felt so close to death).

“Down Bad” is the most explicit about being in love, but she’s also left completely confused and disoriented by him disappearing, wondering if any of it was real and the seeds of violation creep into her consciousness (“did you really beam me up in a cloud of sparkling dust just to do experiments on?” “Waking up in blood.”). “But Daddy” is her imagining she can tell everyone to fuck off for telling her what to do with her life. “Fresh Out The Slammer” is her fantasizing about this man while feeling trapped in her relationship — but never in the song is she actually reunited with him; she’s using him as the projection of all the things she’ll make right after being wronged by her partner. “Guilty As Sin?” Is very obviously about her fantasizing about sleeping with him, but again it’s such a minefield for her because it hasn’t happened yet; they’ve only just reconnected. “I Can Fix Him” is the only song other than “TTPD” that shows them actually together, and it’s the one where she keeps saying, essentially, “I know he’s gross but I can rehabilitate him into an upstanding person, trust me,” until the mic drop at the end of the song where it finally hits her that no, she can’t, because this is who he is, not the person she’s built him up to be.

“Loml” is when it all comes crashing down, and the song emphasizes everything he did and told her, e.g. that she’s the love of his life, but she doesn’t return the sentiment in the song about their time together. Because now that it’s past tense, she knows it wasn’t actually love. (And says as much in the album epilogue poem.) “Broken Heart” is her reeling in the aftermath, but again, it’s “he said,” not “I loved.” And then there’s “The Smallest Man,” where she eviscerates him: he also pursued an idea of her but didn’t care much for the real her in front of him (who else is gonna know me?), he love bombed her only to hurt her (crushing her dreams), he was constantly stoned (and not just in the funny munchies kind of way), and he wasn’t even a good lover (despite the fantasy she’d created before). That last point is especially striking because she spent albums singing about the importance of and pleasure in (sexual) intimacy in the relationship with her partner (sometimes to both their own detriment) and how it was at times the only way they could connect, but in this case, the idea she hyped up and acted on in her head about this lover never panned out in practice. She spells it out in the epilogue: it wasn’t a love affair, it was a mutual manic phase.

In contrast, there’s a lot more tangible action in the “oven” (partner) parts of the album, showing how hard she tried to make the relationship work in real life instead of just in her head. All of “So Long, London” is her detailing how she tried to break through to him and support him, even when he rejected it and pushed her away, thinking she could carry them both until they ultimately sank, but she did it because she “loved this place for so long.” (The place? Not just the city, but the home and perhaps most importantly, him.) In “Slammer” she stayed with him even as things disintegrated for “one hour of sunshine.” (E.g. holding onto the rarer good times even as they were fewer and further between, hoping things would eventually turn around.) And like in “London,” she held on despite people in her life pleading with her that it was hurting her. (Which is also echoed in “Slammer.”) In “Guilty” her boredom is “bone deep” because the passion that once drove their relationship (and papered over their problems) has finally gone out too, so there’s nothing left to hold onto, leading to her fantasizing about the new suitor, which makes her realize her relationship has passed the point of no return. “Loml” is about the conman on the surface, but the undercurrent of all the things she says about him is that he was co-opting the dreams that she was clinging onto for dear life in the previous relationship, which is why the con is so painful; the field of dreams he sets ablaze isn’t just the fake painting he sold to her, but the original artifact (her life with her partner) too.

All the physical and emotional labour she puts into the relationship with her partner ends up reflected in the fantasizing she does in the one with the conman, which is why it is so confusing in the moment and so lethal when he leaves her without any answers. She wants to get married and start a family with her partner which keeps getting stalled; the conman mock-proposes which makes her think he’s immediately serious (“TTPD,” “loml”). She feels caged by having to hide with her partner and shrink herself; the conman promises he’ll stand by her side publicly and let her shine (“Smallest Man”). She sinks into a deep depression in her loneliness as the relationship with her partner careens off a cliff; the conman convinces her they’re meant for each other in a them-against-the-world way (“Down Bad”). The intimacy (in all senses of the word) in her relationship with her partner fizzles; the conman stokes the fire by sending her secret messages and reigniting passion (“Guilty”). She spent years trying to help her partner to no avail; the conman makes her think she has the power to reform him (“loml”). She feels misunderstood by her partner; the conman acts like he’s the (only) one who truly gets her (“TTPD,” “loml”).

In short: there’s nothing that the conman does or says that isn’t a direct response to what her partner did first, and it’s even worse because the conman knew how much her partner’s actions hurt her and he used that privileged information to paint a picture of what he could give her, but in doing so in some ways aimed at her heart with even deadlier accuracy. (I’ve likened it to him borrowing someone else’s life for his own joyride, until he crashes the rental car and flees the scene.) It’s why in the aftermath, the difference in emotions are so different: she feels nothing but rage and violation towards the conman for getting in her head and using her, whereas her feelings towards her partner are more complicated. There’s anger (at her lost youth and being taken for granted), but there’s also sorrow (at their lost life and future), disappointment (that he never could step up the way he’d promised or she’d needed), even compassion (towards his struggles) and a tiny measure of appreciation (for the good times they did share).

When you look at the bigger picture, the story the album paints is just so painfully normal. You have two people (Taylor and her partner) who once loved each other deeply, and despite warning signs early on telling them they have fundamentally different needs and ways of living their lives they fight like hell to make it work (the epilogue) until those warning signs become grenades that destroy their home (“My Boy,” “London,” “Slammer,” arguably “loml”). Having already been through at least one rough patch/break/breakup that she felt almost destroyed her (harkening back to Midnights on “You’re Losing Me,” “The Great War” and “Hits Different”), the final and fatal downward spiral of the relationship (“YLM,” “London”) and the grief over losing that future sends her into a tailspin, just at the time where a flame from the past (the conman) reenters her life and tells her all the things she’s been longing to hear and feel (“TTPD,” “Down Bad,” “Guilty,” “loml”) and, crucially, missing from the relationship that was once her entire life.

So in her panic, she falls prey to the (empty) promises of the past lover (“loml,” “Smallest Man”) and decides he’s actually what will save her from the free fall, because the alternative (that she will end up in a situation she doesn’t think she can survive) is too painful to bear. When she finally acts on these circumstances (leaves her partner/runs to the conman), she snaps, acting on pure emotion and adrenaline (“But Daddy”), but before she knows it, the new lover abandons her, and she’s left to reckon with the fallout of the episode and process everything that has happened (“Down Bad,” “loml”) — with the conman, with her partner, with the choices made in her adult life personally and professionally which leads her back to the moment she feels set her down that road at the start.

The TL;DR of this unintentionally long essay is that the reason the conman affair was so serious was precisely because it was meant to fulfill the promise of what was her life with her partner. To me, a large part of the story is that she projected that life onto the conman (or he projected her life back to her for his own purposes) because she wasn’t ready to deal with that massive grief and the life raft he offered felt like the only alternative to an even darker end. Whether the conman actually believed what he told her, or he went along with it or encouraged it because it served his purpose, we’ll never know, just like we’ll never know the finer details of what went on (nor should we). But no matter what, the album is just an extreme deep dive into all the ways grief can consume us, and whether it’s a long, drawn-out death or a sudden, inexplicable one, it can turn a person’s life into such a trainwreck that they act in ways unfathomable to even them, let alone the people around them. It can also unleash repressed trauma and mental illness that can crater your sense of self. And when those situations are compounded? It makes for a nearly impossible type of breakdown to unpack. (Which is why you might need a 31 song album to process it.)

[hanafubukki]

I'm a sucker for the "kissing scars" scenario and I just saw your tag about Lilia having them and now I can't stop thinking about it!!! aaaaaaaaAAAAAAAA

[about this post]

YOU AND ME BOTH ANONIE YOU AND ME BOTH AHHHH 🫂🫂💞💞

I headcanon that Lilia has scars. I mean how can he not? He fought in war. He was shocked by thunder. There is no way he doesn’t have scars. Inflicted on him or through training, he has them.

Look at his outfit? Love the outfit. Chef kiss. Sexy sexy fae. But you can’t tell me that armor will protect him from everything (unless it’s magicked?? Or something?? 🤔)

His general outfit is more speed and brunt force attack than defense (from what I can tell) so he has to have had some injuries.

I can see Lilia hide his scars with magic. He didn’t want his boys to worry. Even now, centuries later, he can feel them.

The pain has dulled but it’s still there, some days it hurts more than others. But he sees the smiles in front of him and he’s know each one was worth it. For this moment right in front of him.

When he attends NRC, the diasomnia uniform covers them without issue, and the moments they aren’t? A little magic will do the trick. Beside, he looks cuter this way, wouldn’t you say?

Can you imagine then? The vulnerability of him revealing these scars to you? You running your hands over them? Feeling the uneven skin.

Some scarred red as if new; some darkened with time. All of different sizes. Some too close to places that, for anyone else, would have been fatal.

Can you imagine then? Taking those hands and kissing them? Each and every scar? Can you imagine kissing the scars on his back. Those over his heart? The one by his neck, any deeper it would have spelled his end.

Imagine running ointments over his scars. Him blissfully sleeping. Lilia waking up refreshed for once in many years.

Aches nearly gone. All these years he had kept them hidden, managed the pain on his own, but with you; he has finally been able to rest and recover in a way he hasn’t in a long time.

He finally allowed himself to be vulnerable.

I can see Lilia, after book 7, not hide it anymore. There’s no point. The truth is known and he would rather reserve his magic than waste it.

He might not show it out in the open but in the dorm? In his room? When he’s with family and you? He doesn’t hide it anymore.

His scars are a part of him. They spoke of his past. It spoke of his sacrifices. A constant reminder of what led to his present.

It’s something he doesn’t need to hide anymore.

Not now and not ever again.

He is Lilia Vanrouge, the one who loves his family.

[kortac-sweetheart]

😭 Simon Riley the man that you are, I'd cook so much for him, he'd never go hungry anywhere I reside, he's the sharp edged goblet containing our sweet honey mead self, holding and reveling in the luxury and indulging in the comfort, soft and warm and safe safe safe, oh to hold his face in my hands, look him in his lovely fish eyes and kiss his face, he'll have so much good food to eat if I have a damn thing to say about it, no more starving 💕💕💕 -Simp anon

YEAHHHH!!!!! i’m a guy that loves to eat well, i know what i want to eat and i love to share food as well it’s one of my love languages and ofc that extends to simon too

god, simon that suffered from food scarcity when he was younger, and now you— you’re just so eager to feed him. to make sure that he’s cared for and full and happy and never left wanting, hungry on your watch.

can u imagine it, simon who becomes a gourmand when he’s retired from active duty. when he’s finally able to enjoy all the delicious food he couldn’t when on deployment or younger, it’s like those “what i eat in a day” youtube shorts where all the food looks delicious. well, it might be more like “what my darling boyfriend eats in a day” and everyone is either oohing and awwing over the food or they’re asking about the built tank-of-a-man that’s your boyfriend.

(big homemade protein breakfast of egg omelette, hashbrowns, sausage, fresh berries, hot coffee etc, takes you to a renowned dim sum place for lunch, and a quaint italian spot known for their gnocchi for dinner, and don’t forget about visiting those picturesque cafes with him either. anybody that sees your “wieiad” shorts are always questioning how simon can afford all of this, to which—you’ll never spill.)

and even if he’s eating well now he never forgets his roots, never forgets that gnawing feeling of going to bed on an empty stomach, hunger so intense he can feel it clawing in his throat— therefore he’s always grateful for whatever food he’s having, always finishing it even if he doesn’t like it (and even then he doesn’t have very intense dislikes of anything, he’s just grateful to eat). and if you’ve cooked a meal for him you can rest assured he’s giving you an appreciative kiss before and after eating and he’s washing the dishes too, no if ands or buts about it .

i got sidetracked lol this was initially abt body image issues, but! this mindset also extends to how he loves your body too.

it’s very simple to him. a full figure = well fed, and therefore he must be doing something right.

(ik he would HATE my habit of intermittent fasting 20-4 hours and only having black coffee for breakfast, he’d absolutely hate it 😭 sorry si)

like sure, he kinda gets why you’re insecure about it but he doesn’t get it all the same. even more so if it’s about things you can’t directly control, like hip dips or facial structure. he loves holding your hips and staring at your face, when he sees you it’s like his vision blooms in roses and sparkles and pink and you’re the only thing that matters. (because to him you are.)

he helps you chisel away at it. knows intimately well that problems and insecurities cannot be surmounted in a single day, and alone. so he holds your hand through it, good days and bad— when you’re twirling in the new outfit he got you or pointedly avoiding reflective surfaces, he loves you through it all the same.

[fcthots]

Happy New Year!! I wish you the best of luck and prosperity in the New Year!

Have you thought about teasing Jason? Maybe making him read one of his favorite books out loud as you tease him til he can’t remember the words?

happy new year!!

Anon, you genius. I am a Jason loves teasing you truther, but I hadn't even considered the possibilities of you teasing Jason. And now that I am, he would not be able to take it for long. He would get so whiny and xhibedcd i have so many ideas for this, it's hard to pick one.

I'll proofread this later. <3.

It's not that Jason doesn't pay you enough attention, you take up 75% of his thoughts, but when Jason starts reading, it takes up all of his focus. It's damn near impossible to get his attention. Good thing you love a challenge.

When you walk into the living room, he's seated comfortably on the couch. A well worn book rests in his hands. He is so engrossed in it that he doesn't seem to notice your presence. You'll have to fix that.

"What are you reading?" He doesn't quite jump, but his eyes shoot up. There's something to be said about how he's so comfortable around you that his guards is completely let down. That does something to your insides.

"Just some poetry." It's such a vague answer that it piques your interest.

"What kind?" You step closer to him. His eyes track you.

"Some love letters. It's Letters to Milena by Franz Kafka." He'd spoken of the book before you think.

"Thinking about me while you read?" You climb onto the couch and straddle him. One of his hands moves to your waist on instinct.

His face dusts with a light blush. He doesn't respond, seemingly at a loss for words. You wrap your arms around his neck. He stutters for a moment, but never quite makes a full word. You smile. He's getting so riled up and you've barely done anything.

"Read it to me." His brows furrow and he fumbles with the pages. You dip your face into the crook of his neck and softly bite down. His breathing grows deeper and faster.

He stutters at first, struggling to find his place in the book. Eventually he finds it. "Yesterday, I advised you not to write me every day," You feel him grow hard beneath you, "I still hold the same opinion today and-"

You grind down onto him. His head tilts back, moving your face away from his neck, as he makes a sound between a whine and a moan. You lift your hips away from his and he opens his mouth to say something, but you speak first. "Keep going."

He nods obediently. His movements are shaky, pent up and nervous. "it would be very good for both of us," You drop your hips back onto his and he gasps, but doesn't stop, "and so I repeat my advice today even more-..." His voice trails off as your hand drops from his shoulder to down into your pants. He watches you with something akin to reverence as you slip the pants and underwear off together (with some difficulty). You drop them to the floor. Jason shudders beneath you. "Wait." His voice is whiny as he pants beneath you. "Please," one of his hands moves to the hem of your shirt and tugs, "take this off. Need to see you, please."

You start tugging it over your head. "Only if you keep reading." He nods vigorously and you unclasp your bra.

"Emphatically- only please," his voice hitches when display your tits in his face, you bring one hand to your chest and roll a nipple between your fingers, making a show of throwing your head back and pushing your chest towards his face with a breathy moan. "Milena," you grind against him and he stutters for a moment. You move the other hand back between your legs and begin to work yourself open, starting with two fingers, in and out. He continues and his hooded eyes watch your every move. He doesn't need to look at the book to know the words. "Don't listen to me, and write me every day anyway," you add another finger to your rhythmic motions that brush against his length, "it can even be very brief," you add in your pinky finger and Jason makes a pathetic little whiny sound that is music to your ears.

You undo the drawstring of his sweatpants and push them further down his thighs. Putting his book down, he shimmies his hips to help you get the pants down, as impatient as ever. As soon as he cock springs free, you urge him, "Keep going."

He watches, trying his best to keep talking, as you lift your hips and bring his tip to your folds. Your other hand staying occupied on your chest. His hands anchor themselves on your waist, "briefer than today's letters," he moans out as you begin to slightly push yourself down. He soldiers on, "just 2 lines," you slide down even more. You do your best to keep your own moans under control, you want to be able to watch him. You've worked yourself enough so he slides in easily, the stretch not painful. He feels good.

He can't form words while you take your time bottoming out on his cock. Once, you've sat your full weight on him, he can't tear his eyes away from where your bodies join. One of his hands slides down until his thumb reaches your clit. He's distracted, entranced, by you. You struggle to keep your composure. "Keep reading."

His eyes stay focused on his thumb as it circles your clit. "Just one," you move your hips up and snap them down. Pleasure blooms in your chest and you hear Jason curse and breathe faster. "Just one word," you find a rhythm moving up and down on his dick. His voice constantly wavers and he moans between words. "But if I had to go ah without them," the length between each word gets longer and longer as you move faster and faster and he gets closer and closer. He struggles to get even one word out.

"Finish it and I'll let you finish." You're getting close now too, his demeanor clearly having an effect on you. His thumb speeds up.

He nods, unable to hold himself back for much longer. "I would suffer terribly." He says the words fast, all in one breath as he begins to thrust up into you. You clench around him as he lets out a loud moan. You cum together as he spills out of you. His head tosses back and his thumb stills and he twitches through the last waves of his orgasm. You drop your head onto his shoulder and slouch against his chest. His arms curl around you and he kisses whatever skin he can reach. You legs burn and your knees ache, but you have nothing to be worried about. Jason will take care of you.

Also disclaimer! I have not read the book yet! I plan on getting it soon bc I've been wanting to read it for years, but have yet to read the full thing full so that's why it's undetailed.