your honour i am simply just a girl

MDNI pls! ouat (cs forever), btvs (anti bangel), all things pirate, and writing (currently dealing with the dreaded writers block)

[o0psididitagain]

a bit about my duology (and me!)

(just cause i can, and it’ll help me write)

moodboard of vibes:

yes there’s some captianswan in there, don’t question it

the themes:

hurt/comfort

angst

enemies to friends to lovers

he falls first, she falls harder

pirate romance

found family

morally grey characters

i would go to hell for you (literally)

SLOW burn

“Maybe you’re not what I thought you were”

very much inspired by once upon a time and pirates of the caribbean

the characters:

Aoife “Byrde” Bennet: A queen forced into hiding, finding solace in the art of the blade. Raised to hate pirates, forced to become one, and worst of all, fated to love one.

Captain Caspian “Ironhart”: The cocky pirate captain bound to her by fate, chasing his freedom one body at a time. May or may not have taken a side road to help the woman he loves- but that’s totally irrelevant. All he really wants is a good bottle of rum and a night on the waves. (And his love beside him, thoroughly shagged and deeply happy)

Alexander Boggs: The father they never had. Also their biggest shipper. Once locked them in the captain’s cabin for a full day because he was sick of watching them dance around an issue.

And of course, there’s a whole crew I couldn’t include. Just couldn’t resist adding Boggs!

a few of my favourite quotes thus far:

“Because I love you, you daft woman!”

“She suddenly understands why it is they say lust is one of the deadly sins.”

“You’ve woken me up, Byrde, and I won’t forget that.”

“She certainly doesn’t have the gentlest hands- hers are usually made for taking lives apart, not for putting them back together.”

“The low light catches on his gleaming canines as he grins, an unsteady, immature alliance snapping between them like the threads of fate tightening, their lives now inexplicably intertwined - whether they like it or not.”

“You never deserved this. You deserve more.” “I don’t care. I want you, and I’m willing to fight a thousand battles to convince you that you’re all I bloody need.”

“There, in the quiet, is a glimmer of something. It’s not quite real, not quite tangible, but it’s there. Perhaps it’s a whisper in the swill of the rum, a brush of the hand, a soft rustle of wind- or perhaps, it’s something entirely new.”

and a bit about me, the author:

I’m Aussie, born and raised!

20 years old

AFAB- pronouns are they/them/she/her (but like, she/her the way you’d call a ship she, or a water nymph)

My fav shows/movies/books include: once upon a time, buffy, the hunger games, twilight, greys anatomy, it’s always sunny in philadelphia, pirates of the caribbean

I have two cats who are my SONS who i BIRTHED

Basically married to the loml (let’s go lesbians let’s go!)

Bisexual but like mostly a lesbian, plus fictional men

[porscheinheywood]

hi everyone!!! i am so sorry for those who have been waiting on fic updates, i have started another chapter, but in the last month my partner of four years and i have split up, which obviously has made things chaotic as hell. i haven't had the time or space to write, or even play games, but things are sort of calming down now so hopefully i can have some more time for myself and my hobbies.

much love to everyone who is still leaving kudos!!!

[o0psididitagain]

reblogging this here too, i'm so sorry to my moots for being so awol!!!

[o0psididitagain]

I posted my first ever ao3 fic!!!!!!!!!!!

Feel free to check it out, I appreciate any and all feedback.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[o0psididitagain]

hi moots yes i’m alive i’ve been so deep in my cyberpunk obsessed that i genuinely forgot this app existed 🥰 get ready for me to obsessively post about this silly little game for like three weeks straight

[burneddownthegym]

+ bonus

[o0psididitagain]

When worlds collide…

[desicat-writer]

i think Angel vs Spike discourse boils down to:

which kinda cat is better?

Angel is a bite and avoid kitty, lurks at the edge of a group of people. He trusts only one person and might slow blink at others, but if you get too close he will bite and flee. Also might destroy everything because he has the case of the zoomies (Angelus)

Spike is a cat that rolled out the trash, he's a tomcat fighting in alleys. licking his wounds in someone's bathroom. he whirls around legs to purposely trip a person. he's knocking over fine china. he demands affection and will leave something dead in a person's lap.

[o0psididitagain]

Spike is male cat energy and Angel is female cat energy, and no, you cannot change my mind 🖤

[the-little-moment]

A Hopefully Helpful List of Common Mistakes in Writing

These are just some examples that I see pop up fairly often, in fanfiction and in regular conversation, so I decided to compile them here in case it could be helpful to someone.

You have a bias. You are biased. You are not "bias".

2. Crying loudly is bawling, not balling.

3. The singular of barracks is still barracks. Barrack is a verb. For example, "They decided to barrack there." "He knocked on the door of their barracks."

4. Canon, not cannon, unless you are talking about a big gun. "That work is still canon." "He was a loose cannon." "She fired the cannon."

5. Lightning comes before thunder. Lightening is the act of making something lighter.

6. Planes are kept in a hangar. Clothes are stored on hangers.

7. Slang for kilometer is klik, not clik, or click.

8. Callous means insensitive or cruel. A callus is a thickened or rough patch of skin.

9. You are a part of something, not "apart of".

10. Your interest is piqued. He peeked around the corner. The roof was peaked. After days without sleep, she looked peaked (pronounced pee-kid).

11. Honey is viscous. Wolverines are vicious.

If anyone has anything to add, please leave a comment and I can make updates. 🙂

Edit: I don't seem to be able to make the 1. line up when I hit post, so just ignore that I guess.

[o0psididitagain]

The amount of times in my daily life that I have to correct someone on “balling” vs “bawling” is actually insane. Whenever someone says “I’m balling 😭” I just imagine Troy Bolton

[animentality]

[orbitalmirror]

reblog if you're an actual person IRL who gets genuinely upset if you catch someone using ChatGPT and view it as a serious moral failing

[help-help-i-need-an-adult]

I’m still upset every time I remember I have co-workers who use it to write their emails.

[o0psididitagain]

this is just so sad…

[coraniaid]

I know that twenty-five years ago is a long time in the past and I know that Season 4 of Buffy aired in a cultural context very different from today, but I am once again begging you to understand that -- even though neither Willow nor Tara will describe themselves as lesbians anywhere the audience can hear until halfway through the next season, and even though they won't so much as kiss on screen until several episodes after that -- we are definitely meant to understand that Willow and Tara are sleeping together for a large part of Season 4.

They are not friends for a long time first before starting a physical relationship, as I've seen some people claim (largely to compare Kennedy unfavorably with Tara). Tara's decision to describe herself as "yours" to Willow in Who Are You? doesn't come out of the blue at all. Oz smelling Willow "all over" Tara when he comes back to Sunnydale in Bad Moon Rising isn't a strange misunderstanding or leap of logic. Willow and Tara have been "doing spells together" from the very first episode they meet, and it is not even slightly subtle what "doing spells together" is intended to be a metaphor for. Subtle enough to fool a TV network censor, maybe, but the intended audience are not meant to be under any illusions about what's happening.

By A New Man -- Tara's second episode! -- Tara and Willow are meeting in Tara's bedroom late at night to "get together" and Willow is promising Tara they'll "start out slow". Tara even lampshades this by asking "start out slow doing what?" What could it mean? Furthermore, this scene is explicitly juxtaposed with a scene in which Ethan and Giles -- who Jane Espenson, the writer of the episode, is on the record as writing as if they had a shared sexual history -- meet up at a bar to get drunk and discuss their past, with Giles indignant that somebody has recently questioned his masculinity and Ethan ruefully describing the two of them as "a pair of old ... sorcerers", musing that "the night is still our time" and (though it's played for laughs as a misdirection) seemingly telling Giles that he's "really very attractive". We know, too, from something Buffy says later, that Willow didn't go back to her room at all that night after casting a spell with Tara. Where did she sleep? Why is she embarrassed about it enough to lie when Buffy asks her where she was? For that matter, back in Hush, Tara's first ever episode, Willow and Tara do a spell together too. That episode ends with three parallel scenes: Buffy having a conversation with her future boyfriend Riley, Giles having a conversation with his soon to be ex-girlfriend Olivia, and Willow having a conversation with [... well, come on, what do you think this relationship is being framed as?] Tara.

By The I In Team -- only Tara's third episode! -- Tara is very explicitly being written as though she's a girl Willow is regularly hooking up with in secret but isn't ready to introduce to her friends yet. She's trying to gift Willow emotionally significant old family heirlooms and looking hurt when Willow doesn't want to accept them. She's saying suggestive things like "maybe tonight, if you're not doing anything, you could come over and we could ... do something" and getting (justifiably) upset when Willow tells her she's already made plans "with people" whom she's clearly not ready to introduce Tara to ("it's kind of a specific crowd ... you might feel out of place"). And Willow does end up going to see Tara that night, when Buffy in turn brushes her off to go and hang out with her boyfriend (and the rest of the Initiative). What do you think is happening when Willow knocks on Tara's door late that night and asks if she "still want[s] to do something?" and the door closes behind them? Were they staying up late to read a book or play checkers, do we think?

This is the wider context in which we're meant to understand the conversation Willow and Tara have in Goodbye Iowa. Willow wistfully says that she "had so much fun the other night, those spells...". before rushing to reassure Tara that "I hope you don't think that I just come over for the spells and everything. I mean ,I really like just talking and hanging out with you and stuff." Or Tara saying in response she's okay if that's the only thing Willow wants to do tonight and shyly admitting that she's "been thinking about that last spell we did all day." They are emphatically not friends who later fall in love and start a physical relationship. That's exactly backwards. They start off fooling around "doing spells" together, then they quickly develop deeper emotional feelings for each other. The magic -- and everything that represents -- explicitly comes first.

Yes, it won't be until New Moon Rising that Willow tells any of her friends about Tara as a possible rival or replacement for Oz. It won't be until the end of that episode that Willow will tell Tara she loves her (indirectly, at that), and it won't be until the following episode The Yoko Factor that Willow will describe Tara as "my girlfriend". And, as I said above, we won't see them so much as kiss on screen until well over halfway through Season 5. It was the early 2000s -- it was, in fact, literally early in the year 2000 -- and there were very clear limits to what the writers could actually get away with showing on network television. Not only was this fifteen years before gay marriage would become legal across the country, it was three years before Lawrence v Texas. Multiple states still had laws prohibiting same sex relationships. To modern eyes it's all a bit tame and understated, sure, but the writers were trying to be as clear as they thought they could be!

But every now and then I read posts that seem to just ... ignore all of that subtext entirely. That seem to proceed on the basis that Willow and Tara were just good friends who, sure, secretly got together at night and did spells together, but seem entirely unaware of the mere idea that this could be read a metaphor for anything. That assume because they aren't officially a couple until the end of Season 4, they can't possibly have been doing anything physical before that (as if this season isn't full of examples of the rest of the core four Scooby Gang members having casual sexual relationships with people they've yet to formally label as their boyfriend or girlfriend). Posts where people complain that Kennedy and Willow got together too quickly, in contrast to Willow and Tara who -- they seem to think -- had a much longer period of getting to know each other as friends first (when? I always want to ask, when do you think this happened?). Posts where people think Tara's just being weirdly intense when she tells Willow "I am, you know. Yours" in Who Are You?, as if the two of them hadn't been symbolically (and presumably literally) sleeping together for weeks by this point. People for whom the central metaphor of Willow and Tara's relationship -- something the show itself introduces and repeatedly calls attention to throughout Season 4 -- just doesn't exist. People who assume Willow is just randomly awkward about introducing her new platonic friend to Buffy or Xander, in a way she's never been about any other friend she's had (witch or otherwise) and that there's no deeper meaning to it than that.

And, well.

On the one hand: so what, right? People have lots of odd takes on this show. This isn't even the most egregious popular reading of Buffy I can think of. But I guess this bothers me more than some other readings I dislike because it doesn't seem like a deliberate attempt to ignore canon, the way some takes that rub me the wrong way do. People aren't reading the show this way because they want to downplay Willow and Tara's relationship: on the contrary, the people who post this way are fans of that relationship. And yet, to me, it just makes the whole thing feel ... I don't know, kind of chaste and bloodless. I mean, in this reading, Giles and his "orgasm friend" Olivia are having sex throughout the first half of the season and Buffy and Riley are having sex throughout the second half of the season (especially so in one particular episode) and Anya and Xander are having sex pretty much all season and meanwhile Willow and Tara are ... what, holding hands and looking at roses and thinking pure, innocent thoughts? I just find that kind of grating.

Yes, if the show was airing for the very first time now, in 2025, then Willow and Tara could -- and I believe would -- have been a lot more explicit about their mutual physical attraction, right from the start. But the fact that the norms and prejudices of the time meant the writers couldn't show us that explicitly doesn't mean they didn't try to make it obvious. It doesn't mean that they didn't succeed in making it obvious, for the people watching along as the show first aired who understood the metaphor. And I just think it's something of a shame that this point seems to be lost on some modern audiences.

[o0psididitagain]

Magic is so clearly used as a metaphor or symbol for so much more than just “magic”. In season 4, it’s queerness. In season 6, it’s addiction. And even the characters acknowledge this!!!

Think about Dawn, writing in her diary that she asked Tara and Willow to teach her some of the stuff they do together, and her mother getting quiet. DUH. QUEER METAPHOR. Or- Spike, noticing in the end of season 4 that Tara and Willow are particularly close, and making a comment about her “witchcraft”. DUH. DUHDUHDUH!!

[dreamsinstopmotion]

I am never not annoyed in Season 5, EP 2: The Real Me when Riley is laughing along with Buffy about Harmony having a vampire gang and calling Buffy out to fight.

Shut up, Riley! You don't even know Harmony! You're not in on this joke!!

[o0psididitagain]

Watching “The Gift” (5x22) and thinking about the fic “don't look much like a lover (doesn't mean I won't try)” by SummerFrost, and how it’s probably one of the things Spike thinks about every night. You know how every night he saves her? Yeah.

[o0psididitagain]

Drop your favourite domestic spuffy fics!!! Particularly with co-parenting of Dawn! I need more 👹

Mine:

- Goodbye to Everything That I Knew by fortes775 on Elysian Fields Archive

- don’t look much like a lover (doesn’t mean I won’t try) by SummerFrost on ao3

- When the Floods Roll Back by OffYourBird on ao3

[o0psididitagain]

“Intervention” (5x18) is one of the best episodes that shows Spike’s humanity, while simultaneously showing some of the worst parts of him.

Part of why I love Spike and Spuffy so much is because of his complexity as a character, and his development over the course of the show. Sure, he’s a soulless demon who has a twisted obsession with Buffy (so much so that he makes a sex doll of her, which yeah, is gross as all hell), but he would also gladly die to protect her and Dawn, even without a soul.

And he loves Buffy so damn much. You can just tell. Every time I’m so struck by the scene where he’s in the elevator, Glory’s little demons about to attack, and he stands up strong, ready to fight. And then Buffy walks in, and all the fight goes out of him, and he just drops like a ragdoll, like he’s realised everything is finally okay, Buffy’s here, everything is going to be okay. It’s so beautiful and speaks so much to the bond they have, even just as friends, or “colleagues”.

And the whole, “This is real, and I won’t forget it” at the end??? UUUUUGH. I feel like in that moment, Spike realised that the real thing, even if it’s just platonic, or just him dying for her, is so worth it. The real thing is worth all of the pain and suffering he went through. And he was a fool for ever thinking he could manufacture it.

GAAAAAAAAHHHHH I LOVE THEM I LOVE THIS EPISODE.

[aphony-cree]

everyone rags on Jame's Spike accent, and rightly so, but there's a bit of context I think a lot of fans aren't aware of

He was cast 1 week before episode 1 started filming and his first appearance was episode 3, he only had 3 weeks to prepare

Joss originally wanted Spike to have a Cajun accent so that's what James worked on from the start

At some unspecified point in those 3 weeks Joss told him he wanted to change to a different southern accent, James suggested Texan and started working on that

At an even later date Joss changed his mind again and wanted cockney

James was doing a play with an actor from South London so he focused on copying that guy's accent, which is a good plan when you're that short on time but I don't know who the actor was or how long he'd been away from London, his accent could have shifted during his time in America

3 weeks to prepare and 3 accent changes during that time, it's a miracle he didn't end up sounding like David trying to be Irish

[desicat-writer]

I could live with Cajun Spike

I don't think i could survive possibly confederate Spike (but it'd be really funny if the southern food was his thing)

I'll just be mean about the british-accent-experience by James (because fun)

i also give vampires grace because accents change over decades, who knows what it sounded like back in the 1880s. Also he traveled across continents, so his accent would naturally shift

[o0psididitagain]

Not to mention Angel’s accent switch up, he was originally Irish and somehow ended up completely American. I give a little leeway for accents when you’ve been alive longer than a century 😭

[o0psididitagain]

I saw someone on tiktok say that people unfairly hate Xander for being a massive creep, and then excuse Spike’s creepiness. And I have some SERIOUS problems with this argument.

FIRST UP: SPIKE IS A SOULLESS DEMON?????? Like yeah, obviously he’s not the paragon of healthy relationships, HE LITERALLY DOESNT HAVE A SOUL. Let’s not forget what Angelus did without a soul…

Secondly: AT LEAST SPIKE HAS A CHARACTER ARC?!!! AT LEAST HE GROWS??????! Even without a soul, he takes care of her baby sister simply because she told him to, while Buffy is DEAD, the whole while expecting absolutely nothing in return (because she’s DEAD, and as far as he knew, there were exactly zero chances of her coming back). Then, of course, there’s a bit of backtracking, but ultimately the majority of their dynamic is him letting her take out her frustration on him, using him, making herself feel better at his expense. And from that, he grows- he goes out and gets himself a soul because he wants to be a better man.

However… Xander? You could put a clip from season 1 next to one from season 7 and I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. He’s the same guy the whole time. The development he does have is so incredibly minor that I don’t even want to call it development.

AND!!!! I don’t think we do excuse Spike’s creepiness? Everyone I know who is a Spuffy/Spike fan is well aware of how toxic the dynamic is, and how unhealthy Spike’s obsession was (especially in early s5). Part of the reason the ship works so well is because of how Spike changes, how he looks inwardly and chooses to be a better man because he knows that’s what Buffy deserves. And he never expects anything from her. Even in “The Gift” (5x22), he is more than willing to let Buffy keep up the barrier spell, even though he’s ready and willing to literally DIE for her, he still understands and respects her boundaries. Just completely loves her without expecting anything in return.

Now compare that with the scooby kick-out in “Empty Places” (7x19), and literally everyone blaming Buffy for simply being a leader… and making the hard choices in an IMPOSSIBLE fight… An actual quote from the episode from Xander’s fucking mouth is, “But not without a price. I’m trying to see your point here Buff, but it must be just a little to my left, ‘cause I just don’t.” - the problem with this is that a) Xander is blaming Buffy for his injury (which wasn’t even life threatening, keep that in mind), and b) He’s making it clear that this fight isn’t worth the risk - saving the fucking WORLD (again), isn’t worth the risk????

And I’ll be lenient when it comes to season 7, because we all know the writing was a bit weird at that point, but still. Xander through seasons 1, 2, and parts of 3, frequently makes it clear he thinks he’s entitled to Buffy’s affection and romantic interest, and even guilts her about it at times (albeit in a joking manner).

All this to say, is it really fair to compare a soulless demon to a human man? And, if we’re doing that, let’s at least acknowledge the demon’s growth, because for some reason, the man seems incapable of it.

[o0psididitagain]

Spuffy co-parenting Dawn (headcanons)

Dawn at age seventeen making a wedding collage (as you do), then asking Spike if he’d walk her down the aisle when she gets married. He says “Sure thing, nibblet,” and abruptly leaves the room before he starts crying.

Buffy and Dawn dragging Spike to Disney on ice every year, and every year he swears he hates every second (even though he can’t stop smiling the entire time).

Buffy and Spike getting into an argument over whether or not Dawn should be allowed to go to a big party for her senior year, so wrapped up in their fight that they don’t even realise she’s already snuck out and is halfway to Janice’s.

Spike re-learning maths just so he can help Dawn do her homework (which inevitably ends in him asking her to stake him, because “Why the bloody hell are there letters in it?”).

Spike crying harder than Buffy when they ship Dawn off to college. He makes her promise to come back every Sunday for Passions reruns, and a nice proper meal, because he saw what Buffy was eating during college (“And that’s completely unacceptable bit, you’re a growing girl, you need a proper feed.”)

Buffy being the one to do the whole “Hurt her and I kill you” speech with Dawn’s boyfriends, while Spike just smiles and plays nice. Once, one of the boyfriends gets Spike alone in the kitchen and makes a joke in poor taste, and very quickly discovers it’s not just Buffy who would kill for the youngest Summers’ woman (and he has the broken nose to show for it).

Dawn and Spike working together to organise Buffy’s birthday present one year, and the secrecy is so suspicious Buffy almost thinks there’s a new demon in town that has both of them under a mind-control spell.

Dracula coming back to Sunnydale and Dawn bullying him into returning Spike’s £11 (Dracula is almost embarrassed by how affected he is by her snide remarks, but seriously, she’s kind of terrifying). Spike secretly wishes Drac hadn’t paid him back (because it’s kind of cool to be owed by the man himself), but he won’t tell the nibblet that.

[o0psididitagain]

Spike saying “I don’t care what happens” and then proceeding to prove that Tara is human (hurting himself pretty bad in the process), and calling out her family for being sexist scum is SO Spike coded (“Family”, 5x06)

He’d so be the dad who didn’t want the family pet and swears he still doesn’t, but is caught cuddling with it and buying it little sweaters in the winter months.