bc. the bridgerton fake dating thing to attract a higher-status match gives me very china and skug vibes
especially the bit where they're like. bitching together about cressida and how cliche the prince is telling her her dress is pretty
and then he says exactly the same thing to daphne/china and simon/skug pulls a face and daphne/china just fucking explodes
and i just. have a lot of feelings about china disdaining the young man her family wants her to marry and lowkey using skug to a) rebel against her parents because he's on the wrong fucking side of the war and b) wade through the army of would-be suitors and try to find someone she actually likes who isnt easily intimidated
except whoops she actually likes skug this wasnt meant to happen
Fr tho like. I live for baby china discovering adolescent/YA rebellion and the absolute glee when she gets to glide into a ballroom in front of her parents and her intended suitor on the arm of a handsome heathen soldier with a more impressive title
And she falls for him and she believes he falls for her and she's got it very set in her head that he is Hers and of course one day he's gonna marry her and she'll get out from under her family's thumb for good! And they'll be happy
And maybe skug is still lowkey sleeping around with camp followers but thats okay! Her mother says all men go whoring. She'll just never bring it up and as long as he doesnt do it right under her nose and no servant girl brings a ginger bastard to China's doorstep, they'll work just as her mother and father did!
Except...skug gets hurt. And he meets Wifey, up to her elbows in blood in a field hospital, and he falls hard. And he detaches from china like she never meant anything bc skug is skug, and now she has to make her own way in the world because her family wont have her back after a heathen ruined her
And she plots and plots and plots revenge for years while they're fighting on opposite sides, she becomes fearsome and fiercely independent, gets in with mevolent and forms the diablerie and he rises through the ranks and becomes a general and a father and finally she springs her trap, thinking that with his wife and brat dead he'll be heartbroken and have nobody to turn to and she'll be there as a shoulder to cry on and he'll have to eat humble pie and come crawling back to her
And instead mevolent gives skug to serpine and she thought his friends wouldve come for him by now but he's getting weaker and she's never seen anyone survive injuries that bad and she cant intervene without risking her position and her life and finally she gets brave enough to sneak out to meet ghastly or ravel, tell them where they need to go and that it's urgent, hes dying
And then as she gets back to the castle she sees them fixing the bodies onto the pikes on the parapet and she knows they'll come too late and all she can think is what have i done
