#all six of austen's novels

[sailforvalinor]

My character flaw is that if I’m writing a fic and the characters are in a universe that has Austen novels they must at some point encounter Austen

#I swear I don’t think about it it just happens #and it has to be done with the parallels of course #with a Narnia fic I had the mc read all of her novels in the span of six weeks and made as many references and parallels as possible #oh these two characters were once in love but have been estranged for awhile? better have one of them encounter wentworth’s love letter #the love interests can’t communicate? #‘if I loved you less I might be able to talk about it more’ WILL show up #a character’s name is Edmund? #you get the gist #austen #jane austen #writing

[bethanydelleman]

Ranking Jane Austen heroines/women on how good of a mother they’d be?

As with the men, I think they would all be good mothers, though in different ways.

Elizabeth Bennet: Soccer mom, she wasn't given the opportunity to have a structured education herself, it will be different for her kids. She's hiring the best governess she can find (after Darcy does a full background check), she's encouraging her kids to do extracurriculars, they will speak six languages that she doesn't understand or else! Has a minor panic attack if she says anything that sounds even remotely like something either of her parents would say.

Jane Bennet: Gentle mom, she cannot imagine punishing her children, she just has a killer disappointed face (she is unaware of this). Encourages her children to always try to understand both sides of the story. Will eventually fall for a lie one of her children tells and be devastated when she figures out the truth.

Anne Elliot: Perfect mother, there is indeed no one so proper, so capable as Anne. She has also watched her sister do everything wrong and she knows exactly how to do it right.

Emma Woodhouse: Scatterbrained mom, makes a resolution to teach her daughter fancy work but then gets distracted and the sampler is left half finished. Promised to read with her son but they only make it halfway through the novel. Good thing she hired an excellent "Miss Taylor" to pick up the slack! And despite her occasional screw-ups, her kids love her to pieces. They just better be on guard when they hit 18 and she starts trying to marry them off.

Marianne Dashwood: Crunchy mom, or whatever the Regency period equivalent would be. She wants her kids to feel the dead leaves between their toes, she encourages them to write poetry and play moving ballads. Otherwise, a lot like her own mother (they have very similar personalities)

Elinor Dashwood: I-Say-I-Love-You-With-Food Mom, she may not be exactly emotionally available, but she orders her daughter's favourite meal when she's sad and there are tiny hearts in the stiches of her son's clothes. She makes sure her kids are provided for, educated, and healthy. When she asks if they are hungry, they know she's saying, "I love you."

Fanny Price: Nurturing mom, she will be everything for those children that Edmund and William were to her, but nothing like Sir Thomas, Lady Bertram, Mrs. Norris or her own parents. She has a good deal of experience from nursing her own siblings so it's a pretty smooth beginning.

Catherine Morland: Overconfident mom, Catherine has been there and done that, she has six younger brothers and sisters after all, she's READY! This will be easy! All you have to do is make sure the baby is fed, washed, changed, and napped... oh... it's a lot harder to do this when you have only slept for 2.5 hours last night... (I know she would have servants, but still, being a new mother is tough!)

Bonus: Jane Fairfax tries to keep Frank from spoiling the kids, but it is literally impossible. He keeps buying them huge presents and then she would be the bad guy for saying no. Also, she knows that Frank lost their child in Kensington Gardens (twice), that's why she always insists he take a footman now.

Bonus bonus: Harriet Smith has a special box where she keeps all the 'treasures' her kids collect. It is her most precious possession.

#question response #jane austen #austen moms #emma #emma woodhouse #pride and prejudice #elizabeth bennet #jane bennet #sense and sensibility #marianne dashwood #elinor dashwood #persuasion #anne elliot #northanger abbey #catherine morland #mansfield park #fanny price #jane fairfax #harriet smith

[perpetual-stories]

Six Ways To End Your Story

Hi, everyone! Someone kindly asked for advice on how to end a story so here it is for everyone!

Six Types of Story Endings

While every story has to end its own way, there are six general types of ending. Which one you go for will depend, of course, on the story you’re telling, and maybe also on the tropes or conventions of the genre you’re working within (if you’re working within a genre at all).

The six types of story endings include:

Resolved ending

Unresolved ending

Expanded ending

Unexpected ending

Ambiguous ending

Tied ending

What Is a Resolved Ending?

A resolved ending leaves the reader with no lingering questions or loose ends A resolved ending is part of most classic fairy tales (“And they all lived happily ever after…”), but also of countless classic novels.

Consider the ending of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, a classic of literary fiction and the inspiration for countless romance novels. At the end of the book, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy marry, and we’re led to believe that their marriage will be long and happy. Not only that, but the rest of Mr. Bennet’s marriageable daughters have settled down in matches appropriate to their characters. In other words, there are no lingering questions or tensions.

Remember, a resolved ending isn’t necessarily a happy ending. Think of any of Shakespeare’s tragedies, in which the protagonist and most of the other major characters usually wind up stabbed, poisoned, or executed.

What matters most in a resolved ending is that all of the threads of the novel have been clearly and satisfying resolved.

What Is an Unresolved Ending?

Sometimes, the end is not really the end. That’s the case with an unresolved ending. This is the kind of ending that leaves the reader with more questions than answers. Ending on a cliffhanger has the potential to be a frustrating experience, but that frustration can also be satisfying if the story calls for it.

Unresolved endings are popular choices for books in a series, because it leads the reader to the next book.

What Is an Expanded Ending?

An expanded ending often takes the form of an epilogue. As the name implies, it expands the world of the story beyond the events of the narrative itself. That usually involves a jump forward in time, and occasionally a change in perspective as well. (Dostoevsky’s classic Crime and Punishment ends on just such a note, as does Tolstoy’s War and Peace.) Like an unexpected ending, an expanded ending may reframe the way the reader has been thinking about the story.

One advantage of an epilogue is that it allows the writer to answer questions that might not be possible to answer in the space of the main narrative (for instance, how things turned out a decade or more after the main events of the story).

What Is an Unexpected Ending?

An unexpected ending is one the reader likely didn’t see coming. The twist ending can be earth-shattering, or clever and subtle. The trick to pulling off a great surprise is that it should seem inevitable in hindsight. Very few readers are likely to be on board for an ending that seems to truly come from nowhere, but if the ending makes sense they’re more likely to appreciate the subtle machinations and plot twists it took to get there.

A good ending avoids deus ex machina, a Latin expression meaning “god from a machine.” In the context of fiction, a deus ex machina is a heavy-handed device that abruptly and definitively resolves all the story’s problems in a way that doesn’t feel natural to the story.

For instance, a previously unknown rich uncle appearing from nowhere to give the poor striving protagonist a vast fortune may certainly be a surprise, but it’s not likely to satisfy your readers. Remember, a good twist is one that the writer has left clues for all along.

What Is an Ambiguous Ending?

An ambiguous ending is one that’s open to interpretation. While an unresolved ending doesn’t give the reader enough information to say what’s going to happen next, and an ambiguous ending might allow two different readers to come to two completely different conclusions. Of all the endings, the ambiguous one demands the most involvement from the reader, since they are actively invited to think about the significance of events for themselves.

Take a quick look at the ending to Charles Dickens’ classic Great Expectations. In the last lines of the novel, the main character Pip takes the hand of the widow Estrella and says he sees “no shadow of another parting from her.” But is Pip’s vision reliable? Do they stay together or is another parting in the future? The novel leaves the reader with both tantalizing possibilities.

What Is a Tied Ending?

A tied ending is on that brings the story full circle—it ends where it begins. This type of ending follows the classic Hero’s Journey, which is common to many myths and folktales from around the world, but it’s also a popular choice for many works of literary fiction trying to capture the cyclical nature of time. James Joyce’s famously beguiling Finnegan’s Wake even ends on a sentence fragment that literally completes the very first sentence of the novel.

As a writer, you’ll need to make sure that the journey to this point felt worthwhile. Ending up right where you started can feel pointless if the journey there and back wasn’t meaningful.

There you have it folks, and kind ask, I hope this helps anyone who is struggling with their story endings!

Follow, reblog and comment if you find these helpful!

#writing #writing advice #writing tips #original writing #writers on tumblr #writersconnection #writerscommunity #short story #storytelling #writersupportingwriters

[themalhambird]

Thinking about how Jane Austen's six novels taken together (in writing order, not publication order) become an increasingly scathing criticism of social class, i.e:

Northanger Abbey: Individual members of the gentry (General Tilney, chiefly) come in for some criticism, but mostly on a personal level: General Tilney is a grasping, tyrannical father to be sure but we hear little (though we might easily infer) of what he is like as the resident landholder. The final crisis of the novel, General Tilney's refusal to sanction Henry and Catherine's marriage, is resolved by Eleanor's marriage to a Viscount.

Sense and Sensibility: The "correctness" and "elegance" of the fashionable members of society- the Dashwoods, Robert Ferras, Lady Middleton- are negatively contrasted to the warmness and frankness of Mrs Jennings- whose kind-heartedness makes her more attractive, in spite of her lower-class origins and perceived vulgarity, than Fanny, Lady Middleton or Mrs Ferras (snr).

Pride and Prejudice: The aristocratic Lady Catherine de Bourgh is an interfearing busy body whose title and money only excuse her officiousness and rudeness. Darcy's pride in his superior situation to the Bennets leads him to act wrongly with regard to Bingley and Jane. Aunt and Uncle Gardiner, in trade, are more respectable- certainly better parental figures- than the gentleman Mr Bennet (and Mrs Bennet too). At the same time - Darcy's strengths are displayed in his undertakings as the resident landholder of the Pemberly estates- he supports the poor, and his situation allows him to shield the more vulnerable when he his spurred to act (Georgiana, to a less successful extent Lydia). Wickham's circumstances - debt, etc- could easily be read as the consequences of his wanting to step out of his place- his desire to be the oldest, or at least the second, son of a Mr Darcy- rather than what he 'is'- the son of Mr. Darcy's steward

Mansfield Park: Hey. HEY. look at the shitshow of a baronetcy. Lady Bertram is functionally useless. Sir Thomas is such a bad father that his daughters marry idiots just to get away from him. Also, having money can't give you intelligence or a personality. Most of "fashionable society" are actually miserable and mercenary and also probably immoralistic. The Church is clouded by corruption and isn't actively benefiting the local parish the way it should. The whole thing is underpinned by slavery, and the hardworking Price Children are ultimatley more deserving than the flighty Bertram ones. THAT BEING SAID: the portrait of Mr. Price is hardly better than the one of Sir Thomas, and Mansfield Park does stabilise- indeed, begins grows stronger with the reformation of its heir, and the implication that Fanny and Edmund go on to have children of their own. There is less of a quarrel with establishment, and more of a quarrel with the people who fill it.

Emma: "Gentility is inherent one can sense it in a person-" no you can't lmao shut up. There is literally no inherent difference marking out a gentleman's daughter and a farmer's daughter. Emma's snobbery as to class leaves her, at various times, both isolated and into some *serious* missteps. Emma and Frank Churchill both have a tendency to treat others as playthings, as their money allows them to do so.

Persuasion: The peerage/nobility are patently ridiculous throw them out in favour of [relative] meritocracy and hard workers. Sure, the resident landowners are supposed to be of benefit to those beneath them but they're not, actually, they take all of the privileges and fulfil non of the responsibilities and are pretty much uniformly selfish and our heroine Casts Them Off.

#jane austen #class #its late okay i haven't neccessarily thought about it *thoroughly* but. y'know. #i thought #northanger abbey #sense and sensibility #pride and prejudice #mansfield park #emma #persuasion

[19burstraat]

when existence or when hope is gone : soc jane austen / regency au

"And have you made this entire call without once vexing or offending poor Miss Ghafa?” Captain Rietveld looked coolly at him. Inej bent her head over her sewing to hide her smiling, since she was not sure she would not laugh outright. She had not thought that Wylan would deliberately provoke the Captain, but perhaps his deference to his father did not reach anyone else. “I am sure that is not for me to decide,” said the Captain, “But I own I have been perfectly well behaved.” “Does he lie, Miss Ghafa?” “No— he has been quite tolerable company,” said Inej. “If not quite a perfect gentleman.” “You wound me, Miss Ghafa.” “I suspect I do not, Captain.”

contextual and explanatory notes about regency literary and social conventions are below the cut if you have questions during/after reading! plus some trivia for fun :)

The redacting of certain place names (—shire, — Street) is accurate to lots of old novels, where you will see it from time to time. I think it was a deliberate omission to avoid libel accusations if they accidentally invoked somewhere or someone real, or to also avoid confusing people if it contradicted real life. I used it here both to mimic the style, and also because that way didn't have to pick streets or regions lol.

The 'cut direct' was a social nuke and Kaz has balls of steel for using it on an older man who is his social superior 💀 if you very deliberately stared at and then blanked a previous acquaintance who had greeted you, it severed a relationship or acquaintance forever and could also make people turn on the person being cut. Pekka could have challenged him to a duel for it, but sensibly I think he saw the lapse in logic in giving a pistol to a soldier who holds you responsible for his brother's death and letting him shoot at you

A reticule is one of those dumb tiny handbags that regency ladies had

Governesses were in a uniquely vulnerable position. Not genteel enough for the family while not technically a servant, they tended to be isolated. While they were ofc not comparable to what Inej canonically goes through, many were abused by the families they worked for, rivalled the mothers for their children's affection, and some were harassed and abused by husbands or male visitors. There's a reason Jane Fairfax does not want to be one in Emma.

The navy lists are a publication that, unsurprisingly, list all the men, their ranks, and their ships currently trundling around on campaign. Kaz checks them to see who is still alive and to backseat drive campaigns (what's new!) and Wylan waits on tenterhooks for him to find Jesper. Which he always does because he was already looking for him.

Married couples did not tend to call one another by their given names, at least not in company; Nina and Matthias do it because they have a fond disrespect for one another. Or Nina does anyway and it's rubbed off on Matthias.

Although Kaz and Inej are comparatively very young, twenty six is pushing it for the 'marriageability' of young women; Anne Elliot was twenty seven and was considered to have lost the 'bloom' of her youth, so she is being bourne down upon a bit.

The money concerns in Persuasion— landed gentry losing money and soldiers becoming 'new' money in the war via prize money, but still being looked down upon by the old nobility— are kinda reflected through Kaz and Jesper.

(to be so honest I do not quite understand how the regency economy worked but I figured that like, no one else reading this does either, unless ur a regency specialist. if you are, sorry. how's academia?)

I think we're actually not quite yet at the peak of the 'scandal sheet' Bridgerton-Lady-Whistledown craze, but I couldn't possibly deprive Kaz and Inej of their fishmarket wife gossip habit in any universe.

I also hate Lord Byron. Next!

Nina, Matthias, and Inej are not at the Wesper wedding because regency weddings were super tiny affairs that only had v close / local family and friends at them

I think the circumstances of Kaz and Jordie having been minor landed gentry having to join the navy out of necessity may be a bit of a stretch but... Well I had to think of something to replicate Kaz's backstory with. The easier solution would have been for them to marry rich but I can see Jordie thinking that trying to marry Kaz 'Cut Direct' Rietveld off to a Duchess might be a bit tough

A trousseau was the collection of clothes that women bought before they were married; it was an expected thing, to send brides off with new clothes. Nina and Mrs Ghafa (and Jesper) are a lot more interested in this than poor Inej is lol.

The made up house names are entirely inside jokes with myself. Geldings references horses but is actually a play on the Geldstraat, Crawley means 'clearing frequented by crows', Stavewell is a play on the Stave where Tante Heleen and the Menagerie are, and I think Trasselwood is fairly obvious lol.

#the edit's wonky ik. shhhh #six of crows #soc #soc fic #my fics #kanej #six of crows fic #my post #austen au

[belle-keys]

My Hogwarts House book recs

Okay, ever since some of my favorite booktubers made posts like these many a year ago, I always wanted to make a book rec list like this because I still genuinely do like the Hogwarts Houses. Enjoy!

Gryffindor

Graceling by Kristen Cashore - she walked so these new fantasy girlies could run, fantasy kingdom with assassin main character, the original ya high fantasy killer girlboss imo

A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin - all of the sympathetic leads are classic heroes (dany, jon, arya), adventure and politics and battle and dragons, nuanced outlooks on honor

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah - ww2 novel, deals with the french resistance during the occupation, hit every spot in my cold black heart, emphasis on sisterhood and endurance

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - what is bravery if not a broke woman telling a rich man to get a grip, og strong female lead overcoming many challenges, criticisms of polite society

Hufflepuff

Crave by Tracy Wolff - big on found family, paranormal romance shenanigans in a boarding school, somewhat satire, unserious and just very wholesome, steeped in nostalgia uwu

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir - unapologetically written to heal and explore trauma, cathartic, wholesome and pure relationships, emphasis on self-growth and overcoming abuse and pain

The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali - historical, about the value of relationships in war and hardship, themes of growth and acceptance and promises, beautiful story

The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic - what happens when you let a bunch of mentally ill kids play a made up sport, angsty but feels like a big hug, contemporary fiction, just genius ok

Ravenclaw

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake - very slytherclaw, philosophy and physics as the basis, dark academia urban fantasy, character-driven, multiple POVs, morally grey academics

Babel by RF Kuang - this book has been likened to a history textbook, by a nerd girlie for the nerd girlies, linguistics and languages, super well-researched, condemns colonization

Disorientation by Elain Hsieh Chou - witty and sharp narration and dialogue, set in academia and deals with east asian literature, satire and black comedy, explores racial fetishization

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov - only a ravenclaw could appreciation its complexity, so many literary references, stylistically immaculate, lots of room to debate its message and themes

Slytherin

Vicious by VE Schwab - perfect moral quandaries demonstrated here, everyone is morally dark grey, supervillains, very angsty and also profound at times, dark academia

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - my man makes a deal with the devil for eternal youth and beauty, everyone here is morally dubious, murder and orgies and philosophy

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn - exhausted woman does what she needs to do, female rage book, does some interesting things with pov, justified evil, amy dunne is insane and it's great

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao - tired chinese woman does what she needs to do and kills men, very unhinged queen behavior, ambition and god complexes, pacific rim but in china

#book recs #book recommendations #hogwarts houses #gryffindor #slytherin #hufflepuff #ravenclaw #the picture of dorian gray #asoiaf #all my rage #the foxhole court #the atlas six #babel an arcane history #iron widow #graceling #books and literature #book blog #ya books #dark academia #dark academia books #books #slytherclaw

[i-who-has-never-had-a-name]

Books I think the crows would enjoy:

Kaz: Frankenstein, One flew over the cuckoo's nest, The catcher in the Rye, The secret history, Crime and Punishment, No Longer Human, The silence of the lambs, Demon Copperhead, Eileen, Trainspotting, Hesse's and Cormac McCarthy's works, Antigone, Hamlet, The Stranger, Sherlock Holmes (when he was a child), Attack on Titan & Vinland Saga (manga)

Inej: The color purple, all of Toni Morrison's books, Pride and Prejudice, Little Women, Jane Eyre, Love in the Time of cholera, Mrs. Dalloway, The Bell Jar, a lot of Shakespeare's work, Antigone, Medea, White Nights, Wuthering Heights, Valley of the dolls, Play it as it lays, On earth we're briefly gorgeous, Sex and Rage

Wylan (he'd listen to audiobooks): Giovanni's Room, The picture of Dorian Gray, also the secret history, The great gatsby, The song of achilles, The Illiad, Shakespeare, Letters to a Young Poet, Demian, also Jane Austen's works and Wuthering Heights, Confession's of a Mask, Joan Didion's works

Jesper: That man doesn't read for shit nor does he have the patience to listen to most audiobooks but he'd like to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Harry Potter, definitely a lot of fantasy partly ya, On the Road and also The Great Gatsby.

Nina: Let's be honest she would probably read a lot of trashy romance novels or fun, lighthearted stuff, not that there's anything wrong with it she has endured enough. Would enjoy tropes like enemies to lovers, smut and ya. I have a feeling that she'd like Sarah J. Maas' stuff. I think she would also like Daisy Jones and the six and the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo.

Matthias: He doesn't care.

Feel free to leave suggestions.

#Kaz would be the biggest bookworm of them all #he prefers classics and stories about the human condition but the more morbid ones #he would also be a bit elitist about it and would definitely judge nina for her taste #Inej would also like profound books but rather ones that showcase different perspectives and that are more bittersweet #Matthias would have to endure Nina's talk about her trashy books #she still likes her heroines to be “girlbosses” though #Matthias would still gladly listen to her #Wylan would also talk like a fountain about his favorite books and later be embarrassed #but jesper would still try his best to understand even if he doesn't #six of crows #crooked kingdom #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #jesper fahey #wylan van eck #nina zenik #matthias helvar

[firawren]

Darcy is not a grump

Darcy gets a bad rap as being glum and cranky, and while he does certainly have those moments, and he has a serious personality overall, he actually smiles a lot in the book, and all but one of those times are before his "transformation" from a dick to a nice guy!

So who is actually the most glum Austen hero? I searched the online texts of each of the six novels to find out, then made this chart:

Things I found interesting in my research:

Darcy is actually more cheerful than most Austen heroes!

Darcy is described as expressing cheer twice as much as Bingley. In fact, Bingley is described as explicitly smiling zero times!

Knightley, who I always think of as being pretty serious, is actually the second most cheerful guy out of the whole lot

Edmund, who deserves to be sad because he sucks, is far and away the happiest hero, damn it

Only Bingley, Henry, Knightley, and Edmund laugh

Now obviously, the length of each book and the amount of time each character appears greatly affects this. For instance, Bingley gets far less page-time than Darcy, so it makes sense that we hear about his emotions far less—of course I am not suggesting that Bingley's temperament is actually more serious than Darcy's. I'm also certain that Henry Tilney would have won out over Edmund as the most cheerful hero if Northanger Abbey was as long as Mansfield Park is; NA is only about 77k words, while MP is twice as long at 159k words. Plus, MP spends a lot more time in the man's POV than most of the novels do. If I was a statistician, I would find a way to adjust for these factors, but even I am not that nerdy.

My full notes are under the cut, if you're a complete Janeite nerd like me and want to dig into my non-scientific data.

Edward: 1 smile, 1 description of surroundings that "exceedingly pleased him", 1 "heard with pleasure", 2 cheerful; total 5

Bingley: 0 smiles!!!, 1 "expression of half-laughing alarm," 1 laugh, 1 pleased, 1 "expressed great pleasure" but might be polite figure of speech, 1 "looking both pleased and embarrassed," 1 "ease and cheerfulness", 1 "was all grateful pleasure" but not sure if accurate/sincere; total 6

Wentworth: 2 smiles, 1 "little smile," 1 "half smiling," 1 "almost a smile," 1 "artificial" smile, 1 "smiles reined in" which I think applies to both W and Anne, 1 assumed laughing as part of a group, 1 joined a walk with pleasure; total 7

Brandon: 1 "faint smile," 1 "tried to smile", part of 1 "every body laugh", 1 pleased, 1 received civilities with pleasure, 1 pleasure "will be very great", 1 "his open pleasure in meeting her", 1 "engaged with pleasure", 2 cheerful; total 8

Darcy: 8 smiles, 1 "a sort of smile," 1 "smile of affected incredulity" when E's talking about Wickham during the proposal, 1 "expression of heartfelt delight", 1 "delighted with their engagement", 1 meditating with pleasure on fine eyes, 1 thinking cheerfully; total 13

Henry: 8 smiles, 1 "endeavouring not to smile," 1 "set smile" but he's trying to be funny, part of 1 "everybody smiled", 1 laugh, 1 "you are laughing" said by C directed at H but the narrator doesn't say he's laughing or smiling but he certainly is teasing, part of 1 group laugh, 2 times being amused, 2 delighted with C, 1 "pleasure of finding nothing to detain me" but unsure if polite figure of speech: total 19

Knightley: 14 smiles, 1 "reproachful smile," 1 "trying not to smile and succeeded without difficulty," 1 "she forced him to smile," 1 "trying not to smile," 1 laugh, 2 pleased, 1 amused, 1 feeling of "delightful assurance", 1 pleasure, 1 "pleasure always" re: being with Jane, 1 "chat of pleasure", 1 cheerful: total 23

Edmund: 10 smiles, 1 "you may smile" said by Mary directed at E, 1 "serious smile," 1 smile by "the three others" but I can't tell if E is one of those three, 1 "smile that did not sit easy," 1 smile that seems to be from E but might be from F, part of 1 group laugh but F thinks E is struggling to be cheerful but is successful, part of 1 group laugh off-page, 1 laugh, 1 pleased, 1 amused, 2 delighted, 1 "delightful happiness", 4 pleasure, part of 2 group pleasure, part of 3 cheerful groups, 3 cheerful: total 32

I counted every mention of a smile, laugh, or looking amused or pleased, or having delight or pleasure, or being cheerful. If there was a mention of everybody or a group smiling or laughing, and the guy was part of the group, I counted it. "Faint smiles" and the like are counted, as are instances where the guy is trying to not smile, but I did not count any time the narrator said the guy tried to smile, forced a smile, laughed bitterly, etc.—only genuine cheer, however small, counts! I also did not count any instance of the guy expressing "his pleasure" when it was clear it was just a polite figure of speech.

Searched for: smile/ing, laugh, amuse, pleased, pleasure, delight, cheerful, happy countenance, happy face, happy look, happy expression, look of happiness, expression of happiness

Did not search: gay, gaiety, joy, felicity, merry, merriment, or happy/happiness without modifiers, because this already took way too many hours (yes, hours) as it was!

#we deserve a smiling darcy #jane austen characters #jane austen men #jane austen #mr darcy #pride and prejudice #mr bingley #mr knightley #emma #edward ferrars #colonel brandon #sense and sensibility #captain wentworth #persuasion #mr tilney #northanger abbey #edmund bertram #mansfield park #literary analysis #chart #my stuff

[esta-elavaris]

Part Thirteen [4,751 words] ~ James Norrington/OC

An AU of my completed, 400k+ word fanfic Catch the Wind [AO3], in which Elizabeth, not James, is the one to discover Theodora Byrne after she crash-lands into the world of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Page breaks by cafekitsune.

Also now on AO3 and FF.net.

Masterpost - Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five - Part Six - Part Seven - Part Eight - Part Nine - Part Ten - Part Eleven - Part Twelve - *Part Thirteen* [you're here!]

Tag list [let me know if you want to be added!]: @teawithshakespeare @missfronkensteen @dancerinthestorm

A/N: At this point, my approach to this fic is “what if POTC was an Austen novel?” and we just need to live with the consequences xoxo

“Is this not a bit much?” Theo asked doubtfully, scrutinising her reflection.

“My dearest darling Theodora, that is the point,” Elizabeth replied simply.

Both of them had already been dressed by the maids, and now they were resorting to a bit of primping as they waited for the appropriate time to head downstairs.

“I’m not opposed to a bit of glam, but this is…you’ve got me looking like Marie Antoinette.”

“Who?”

Whoops. At least making slips like that with Elizabeth wasn’t quite as disastrous as it might’ve been with anybody else.

“An extravagant French queen.”

“The goal was more fierce ancient warrior goddess attends a ball in her free time.”

“You need your head examined.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“I expect you’re rather more affectionate towards our dear captain, to have captivated him so.”

“Ugh.”

“Then again, perhaps it’s the muttered fieriness that has captured his heart so.”

“Ugh.”

“I heard that the first time.”

“And you’ll hear it again, at this rate.”

“Too right, save your charm for its most fervent applicant.”

Theo then unleashed a third, hearty ugh at her friend – but Elizabeth anticipated it and uttered a matching one in unison at the exact same time, and both of them dissolved into very immature laughter. It was much too difficult to get too annoyed at her friend. Mostly because she seemed to delight in it.

Their looks were not quite matching, but certainly themed alongside one another, and it had all started when Theo gave Elizabeth her gift.

Having never been one for big heartfelt emotional gestures, she felt like her insides were eating themselves as she sat with Elizabeth in the drawing room after dinner. It wasn’t like she never did anything nice for people, she wasn’t a feral animal, but…well. The Irish had a way of doing these things. Usually by offering forth whatever the warm gesture was, along with a (loving) insult and a refusal to make a big deal about it after the fact. That, she suspected, wasn’t the way of things here. And to be honest, she didn’t even consider that fact a bad thing – she certainly wouldn’t judge Elizabeth for being warm and sincere, but she just had little idea of how to respond to it. Maybe it wasn’t even just an Irish thing, maybe it was a product of being raised by a guy, amongst guys.

Combined with the time period disparity, she was left with hopelessly little idea of how to be a woman in the expected manner in these parts. Usually, Elizabeth found that equal parts amusing and charming, likely because Theo didn’t eschew traditionally “girly” stuff. She wasn’t about to stamp her feet at the sight of anything pink and frilly. But the fact remained, that she didn’t want this to be amusing or awkward, or whatever else it was she managed to be here. The last thing she wanted was to put a dampener on this.

So, resisting the strong urge to simply chuck necklace into Elizabeth’s lap and call it a day, she cleared her throat and straightened, taking a sip of her wine in an attempt to appear casual.

“So…I have a present for you,” she began.

Elizabeth’s dark eyes lit up with curiosity and excitement both, one eyebrow arching a little. That was fair. Not because Theo was the ungenerous sort, but because she didn’t exactly have a whole lot to be generous with around here, other than her time. And she had that in spades, which made it lose its lustre a bit.

“I know how much you like my necklace,” she said, reaching up to tug at it where it sat between her collarbones, “and I was half-tempted to just give you it, because it’s the only thing I really can offer, with the way things are right here. Y’know, other than my dazzling personality.”

Huffing a laugh at her remark, Elizabeth’s brow furrowed as she shook her head.

“Theo, I could never accept such a gift-”

“Which was why I didn’t try,” she nodded, “Bit of a crap gift if it just makes you feel bad. But…well. I worked my wiles, and I got a bit of advice, and then I found just the right craftsman for the job.”

Something glimmered in her eyes, and Theo knew then that she’d caught the hint of who exactly had been involved in the making of the necklace.

Presenting the pouch, she pinched the drawstrings between her thumb and forefinger, and then offered it to Elizabeth. Finally, she did a passable job at not appearing as awkward as she felt while she watched her open it, tipping the contents out into her palm. That awkwardness disappeared the moment Elizabeth grinned, and was forgotten entirely when she dragged her into a hug that was more tight than she would’ve thought the younger woman capable of.

If there’d been any small doubt in her mind that she was only pretending to like the necklace – which had been a real fear, given the many fine jewels that she had in her jewellery boxes upstairs – it would’ve been erased by Elizabeth’s sunny disposition in the following days. In fact, whenever they encountered others, servants or friends both, she began each conversation with ‘have you seen what Theodora has given me?’ while Theo flushed under the sheer weight of her enthusiasm.

Yes, she’d done well. She’d have to thank Norrington. Although she suspected he’d have the same dislike for accepting profuse thanks that she did, but that might double the fun. Still, Elizabeth had decided that the necklace should be the focal point of her get-up for the men’s going-away dinner, so no doubt he’d see that, and the hand he’d had in it, as thanks enough – at least once he saw her enthusiasm for it.

“I have to wear silver to accentuate my lovely new necklace, so it only makes sense that you wear gold.”

“My necklace also silver, so shouldn’t we both be wearing that colour?”

“Heavens, no. There’s a fine line that separates what we’re doing, and being a couple of strange old spinsters who wear identical garb and speak in tongues.”

“I already do the latter, depending on who you ask.”

“All the more reason not to partake in the former,” Elizabeth teased. “In any case, that is why you shall borrow one of my necklaces tonight.”

She might’ve disliked being dressed up like a doll, were Elizabeth’s tastes not so damn good. That was the thing with Elizabeth, she never tried to dress her up like her. Everything she flung at her managed to have Theo’s own feel to it, and the garments that did not were artfully styled so that they would once the look was complete. And how many modern women ever had a chance like this? It was like being on a period drama set, without the ordeal of having to learn lines. Fibs about her origins aside…and more concerns over potential lead poisoning. But Elizabeth wasn’t one for powdered faces, however much she was determined to induce a powdered wig fetish in Theo.

Her hair had been wrestled into a voluminous updo, with swooping curls defying gravity pinned up at the back, and one lone crimson ringlet left to fall at her collarbone, ending a good few inches above where the neckline of the gown began.

The necklines here took a bit of getting used to. The way the gowns shoved whatever a woman had in the chest department entirely up, and making even one like herself who was rather un-blessed in the chest suddenly appear busty. Sure, she hadn’t been averse to showing off her figure back home, but it turned out she’d thought the Georgians distinctly less free with that kind of thing than they actually were. For a time that she’d gone into thinking of as very buttoned up, she’d quickly realised how wrong she was when Elizabeth had giggled at her (albeit kindly) for asking if putting so much chest on display wasn’t a bit scandalous.  

It turned out she’d arrived a bit early, if she expected people to faint over the notion of a woman having breasts.

And anyway, the gown was gorgeous. Gleaming gold damask that caught the light of any and every candle in the room, making it appear almost liquid rather than just mere fabric. The sleeves ended with ruffles at her elbows, and there was a minimal amount of bows and frills and lace, so there was no worry that she’d feel like she’d be better suited atop a wedding cake than sitting having drinks with her new friends, and…uh…”friends”.

The sad fact of this impending departure that it was taking half of her allies with it, and Elizabeth had proven the only woman around here who was inclined to take a shine to her. Unless they could start dragging the maids along with them to afternoon tea.

Elizabeth’s gown was similar to hers, although not quite an exact replica. It had more of a floral motif, in shades of silver and dotted here and there with pearls. She looked like some sort of wintry queen when all was said and done – although the coldness of the look ended the moment she smiled. As breathtaking as she was, it was a wonder the other women didn’t hate her and not just Theodora. But in their minds, any positive attributes Elizabeth held were likely just expected. They were correct.

In truth, Theo didn’t envy her. When she met expectations, she’d receive little recognition for it. When Theo showed any fine qualities, it was a pleasant surprise to those inclined to like her, and infuriating for those who did not. The former was nice enough, the latter was funny.

Which made Amelia’s impression of a bulldog chewing a wasp while Elizabeth delighted over her gift during the gathering downright hysterical.

Theo couldn’t tell if the brunette knew she could hear her or not. She stood some ways away, speaking in a little circle with Norrington, Lieutenant Groves, and a handful of other ladies, while Theo mingled with those who had not chosen to snub her. That number was growing, she noted, but there was still something about their smiles that disconcerted her. A tenseness, and an analytical look hidden in their eyes, like they were turning over and over every word she spoke to find some hidden meaning.

She wished them luck with it – for while she had her secrets, there’d be no guessing them for any folk here. It was amidst one of Mrs Spencer’s speeches, during which she listed every fish known to man and whether she liked it or not, and which was the best cooking method if she did, that she caught wind of Amelia’s snide comments, floating airily across the room.

“I confess, she could personally hand me the Crown Jewels and it still would give me no notion of what she’s attempting to say when she speaks, more often than not. It seems a strange consolation prize for Miss Swann.”

Theo stifled an eyeroll, for fear that Mrs Spencer would think she was levelling it at her.

“I find Miss Byrne’s manner of speaking charming. It’s clever,” Groves said, visibly uncaring that Amelia very much did not want to hear that.

“In its own way, no doubt,” she replied boredly.

“No, in the true sense of the term.”

A break in Mrs Spencer’s list (during which she debated whether she preferred crab or lobster) allowed Theo to chime in. Mostly because she couldn’t help herself.

“I’m very beautiful, too – talk about that next,” Theo called over, leaving no doubt as to the fact that she’d heard every word.

Groves grinned and then laughed, “What was it you said the other day? About an old colleague of your father’s – a lanky fellow? Built like a…”

“Built like the side of a bank note.”

“Yes! That’s the one. I confess, I’ve been laughing at that ever since you said it.”

Beside him, Norrington’s lips thinned, and he gazed down into his wine glass as if in disapproval.

Was Groves being inappropriate, or did he just disagree with his opinion? Considering she couldn’t much imagine the former, that only left the latter. Didn’t it?

“Well, to your discerning ear, Lieutenant,” she offered a smile and raised her glass.

Groves mirrored the gesture, and even Mrs Spencer gave a trickling laugh and sipped from her own, but Amelia scoffed. And Norrington? Norrington took a long drink from his own glass that seemed to have little to do with the toast. All while not looking at her.

At some point as the night wore on, Theo excused herself to seek the night air. It was a cloudy night, which kept the stifling heat of the day trapped down upon them, and with all of the bodies and the revelry inside, it soon grew stifling. The saving grace – out here, at least – was that it had begun to drizzle. It was refreshing, even if it would work a few questionable waves into her carefully primped hair.

That didn’t bother her, though. Everybody here was even drunker than she was, and those who gave a toss about what her hair looked like were those who already searched for reasons to dislike her. They could crack on. Walking quietly over to a stone bench in the middle of the patio, she sank down upon it and breathed deeply. She’d need to sober up a little before going back in. All right, she wasn’t exactly shit-faced – there’d be no risk of her climbing up onto a table and belting out ABBA’s greatest hits – but she didn’t like to be much beyond mildly tipsy around this lot.

Most of this lot.

It wouldn’t do to grow too comfortable, but she was at least pleased to find that the list of those she didn’t feel like she had to be permanently on her complete and total guard around had grown more than she ever could’ve hoped. Elizabeth had been the first to occupy it. Then Governor Swann, even if she was never destined to be the best of friends with him. Then Groves, and now – most surprisingly, and in the biggest U-turn of all – Captain Norrington.

“I see we both had the same idea.”

Norrington’s voice was distinct and instantly recognisable from where it sounded behind her. Maybe she’s summoned him with her thoughts.

“Would I be imposing if I joined you?” he hedged.

“Not at all,” she offered a smile, “but I haven’t got any books on me for us to discuss, so we’ll need to find another way to play nice.”

He offered a low huff of a laugh. “I’m optimistic about our changes.”

To her relief, his earlier questionable mood seemed a thing of the past. As he spoke, she scooted along to the left side of the bench and he took a seat to her right, uncaring for the raindrops that had gathered atop it.

“Mm. We’re the capable sort, I think,” she replied. “Speaking of, I’d ask you if you’re prepared for tomorrow, but I’m worried you’d take it as an insult.”

“Once, from you, perhaps. But no longer.”

Was she mistaken, or was humour creeping into his tone? He continued before she could dwell on it – and this time, he was definitely teasing her.

“I am well prepared, or else I should not be here. Shall you miss me?” he asked drily.

“Mm. If, on a scale from one to ten, one is being delighted to see the back of you and hoping you never return-”

“I rather regret asking now.”

“Let me finish - and if ten is I won’t eat or sleep ‘til he’s back, I’d give you…a solid…seven.”

“Seven?” he seemed surprised.

“And a half. Maybe even an eight, in your warm and fuzzy moments.”

“I’m not sure I have any warm and fuzzy moments.”

“I don’t believe that. You’re not half as scary as you’d have people think.”

“Scary?” he echoed with a snort. “Did you find me so fearsome when we first met?”

“On a scale of one to ten?”

“No. Truly.”

When she realised how sincere his question was, she gave it the thought it deserved before answering.

“Okay, scary was the wrong word. Not just because I don’t frighten that easily.”

He chuckled quietly, “I can believe that.”

“But…intimidating, maybe that’s the word. That’s your job, though, isn’t it?”

“And we did not have the most harmonious of introductions.”

“Memorable, though.”

That earned her another laugh.

“Certainly memorable, yes,” he hesitated then for a moment and then finally asked. “I must ask – do I intimidate you now, still?”

“No,” she admitted. “If I’m being honest, and I’m only being honest because of the Governor’s very good, very strong, wine…I’ve never been so happy to be so wrong about a first impression.”

Before they could linger too long on something that was just a touch too close to sincerity – and before she could overthink the way his entire face seemed to soften in response to her words – she pressed on.

“What about you? Do you still think I’m the mad malevolent influence I appeared to be in the beginning?”

“Mad, perhaps,” he teased drily. “But not malevolent.”

“However…?” she sensed the continuation in his tone.

“However,” he conceded, “I do think there is much you are not telling me.”

“Well. Have to save something for my biography.”

He didn’t appear to find that as amusing as she’d hoped.

“Look…anything I’m not telling you…it can’t harm anybody here. Truly. If it would, I’d leave.”

“I believe that. Once I may not have, but I do now.”

“Good.”

“Could it harm you?”

Theo didn’t respond.

“Miss Byrne- Theodora. You can tell me.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters a great deal!”

“I don’t understand how we got here,” she fretted with a tired laugh, “we were just joking on.”

“We were just about to discuss something frankly, for perhaps the first time.”

“For the first time? What are you talking about, we speak all the time. Are you…are you saying you think I’m usually lying?”

“No, I do not, but we have never gotten anywhere before now.”

The words hit some alarming note deep within her.

“Gotten anywhere? What do you mean gotten anywhere? I don’t…”

Theo trailed off. Because she’d been about to say that she didn’t understand, but as her mind worked through the fog of the alcohol, the heat, and the panic, she suddenly found herself understanding all too well.

Whether her dawning realisation showed on her face, or Norrington could simply guess the natural route her thoughts were taking, she didn’t know – but he quickly tried to intercede.

“Theodora, I did not mean-”

“Have you…” the prospect seemed too ridiculous to be true – to voice – and it had her feeling sick to her stomach, but it was all that made sense, and the panic in his widening eyes only seemed to confirm it.

Because James Norrington did not panic.

“Have you only been speaking to me to try to get somewhere?” she asked. “The books, the lunches, the long conversations…has it…has it all been to get me to lower my guard? Have you just been biding your time, the whole time, hoping I might slip up? And…and what? Admit that I’m secretly a pirate? That I’m here to rob everybody and run?”

“Of course not,” he insisted intently, eyes boring into hers as though force of eye contact alone could force her to believe him. “I said I believe you mean no harm, and I spoke truly. I have come to believe that.”

Theo did not respond. Because there was more he wasn’t saying.

“I…I merely hoped that if you came to trust me, that you might…be willing to reveal whatever it is you have not.”

She felt sick. Physically sick. Or like she’d been punched in the chest. Both at once, really. This whole time. This whole time. Every conversation, every book, every lunch, every joke, every smile…it had never been because he’d just wanted to spend time with her, or even wanted to make things right. He’d been playing the long game.

And sure, she hadn’t thought the sudden U-turn had been a miraculous change in his opinion of her. She thought it had started off as a desire to keep Elizabeth happy by being amicable with her friend, but…but that it had morphed into…

God, she was an idiot. Exactly what she thought it had morphed into, or was morphing into, hadn’t been clear to her until now, upon being shown how wrong she was. Christ, she’d watched three very long movies of the guy mooning over Elizabeth, and she’d really thought that a couple of jokes and a fucking sandwich from her would change that? Even a little bit?

How many of their conversations had he endured rather that enjoyed? Listening to her prattle on the same way she listened to Mrs Spencer, waiting either for her to slip up, or shut up, only presence out of duty? Out of protectiveness towards the Swanns?

How stupid could she get?

Several half-baked words of parting flitted through her mind. Some of them were even vaguely clever. But she had neither the heart nor voice to actually say any of them. So instead, she rose to her feet – though she could hardly feel them beneath her.

“Theodora,” he faltered and tried to reach for her hand, but she yanked it back and took her leave.

Amelia was at the piano when she moved inside. That was good. Not just because she was a fantastic player – which she was – but because Theo knew by now that the night would soon draw to a close. A few more would play, the drinks would be finished, and the guests would trickle out.

While there was nothing she wanted to do more than race upstairs, get into her nightgown and hide from the world beneath the covers, she refused to do that. Not just out of pride, but because she felt numb, bereft, and mortified, all in one. And that was paralysing.

The song drew to a close as she walked in and moved to stand at the side of the room, but Amelia’s dark eyes found her the moment she was finished playing.

“Miss Byrne! You next!”

Norrington returned to the room as she spoke, but Theo didn’t look at him.

“I can’t play,” she said.

“Oh, but you must be able to play something. Anything! We aren’t snobs here,” no, just vipers, “we’ll admire a good effort if nothing else.”

“I agree,” Norrington intoned.

If Amelia looked delighted at that, Theo felt the exact opposite – and she saw her own horror reflected in Elizabeth’s reaction, from where she sat by her father.

“I will take a tu-” the blonde’s attempt to rescue her was interceded by her father.

The Governor, deep in his cups by the flush on his face, chuckled and interrupted Elizabeth.

“Come now, Elizabeth, you’ve already played twice. Give Miss Byrne her chance to shine – I’m sure you know something worthwhile, my girl, and none of us here are renowned composers. It is for novelty only, I assure you! You are among friends.”

He wouldn’t have insisted, had Norrington not encouraged Amelia’s spite.

And she couldn’t refuse, could she? Not now that the man who was housing her had bid it. He’d meant no harm, he had no way of knowing about the wound he was in the process of packing salt into, but Theo felt her nausea increase tenfold.

The drizzle outside had set into her hair and set it askew, and what remained of the damp on her skin and dress both quickly warmed in the head of the room until she felt like she was stepping into a sauna. It was suffocating, and only added to her discomfort.

Walking numbly to the piano felt like being trapped in a nightmare – the sort where you turned up to an exam you hadn’t studied for. Naked. She knew some things. Mostly from pissing about on friends’ keyboards, or from music classes in high school – a decade ago. Nothing compared to what people here knew. And nothing well. Chopsticks, the first two seconds of Für Elise, and the song from the sodding Titanic movie.

The final option was the one she knew the most, but that only spoke for how little she knew the others.

Sitting down at the piano, she didn’t meet Elizabeth’s gaze – because she knew the sympathy she’d see there would crack whatever composure she’d plastered on as she left the gardens. It took a bit of plodding to find the first note she was looking for (the ones in her old music classroom had the keys labelled with stickers and/or sharpie, but there was no such help here), and even that drew a muffled snicker from somewhere behind her.

The rest was no better. Halting and awkward, as she hit wrong notes and either had to muddle through it, or pause and find the right key. At first, she thought nothing could be worse than the silence behind her – because she’d never heard such a large crowd be so, so silent. But then another snicker followed. As well as a few coughs, whether from second-hand embarrassment or as an attempt to disguise yet more laughter.

And she didn’t take herself seriously. Anybody who met her knew that. Back home, this wouldn’t be embarrassing at all. Among friends. How many times had she sat in a friend’s bedroom, a joint between her lips as she muddled through Paint It Black, laughing at her own mistakes and leaning into it before handing the instrument to someone who actually knew what they were doing? But she was not among friends here. The conversation she’d just had proved that to her.

It was all she could think of, and it had her wanting to crawl out of her skin.

She ended after the first verse, utterly unable to bear trying to go on (ironic, considering the song choice), and the Governor began to clap. To give him credit, he wasn’t even being an ass.

“A valiant effort, Miss Byrne! A valiant effort!”

A few murmurs joined in, Groves insisting he should go next – no doubt a kind-hearted attempt to make whatever she’d just tried to play look good in comparison. Theo brushed by him, and then took her leave of the room entirely. That meant going by Norrington, but the night couldn’t get any worse anyway. And if she didn’t leave soon, she’d cry in front of everybody. She refused to do that.

She made it as far as the stairs before he caught up to her.

“Theo- Miss Byrne, I did not mean to-”

Whirling, she found he did indeed look horrified. Apparently his victory had not tasted as sweet as he’d thought. Something about that only made it worse.

“Do you realise, Captain, that every time you’re kind to me, it only lasts so long as it takes my guard to drop, and then you’re cruel again? Then you embarrass me, again?” her voice came perilously close to breaking and she took a moment, inhaled deeply and fixed her eyes at some point above his head rather than at him. “So, at what point do I become the idiot for falling for it?”

“I did not-”

“Just leave me alone. That’s all I ask. Leave me be. You’ll be rid of me soon enough.”

She turned and began to ascend the stairs before he could reply, but he – thankfully – made no move to call after her.

James watched Theodora ascend the stairs in the Governor’s mansion feeling positively nauseous with regret. Not only at what had transpired in the gardens, but at how gloriously his half-baked in-the-moment plan had backfired thereafter.

She was out of sight by the time he was aware of Groves’ approach, his lieutenant moving silently to stand by him.

“May I ask you a question from one man to another, and not as a Lieutenant to his superior?” he asked quietly.

“Fine,” James replied flatly.

“…What was your thought process behind that? Back there in the sitting room?”

The question cut more deeply than any admonishment might’ve.  

#catch the wind #ctw #james/theodora #fallen through time esta-elavaris #ftt #james norrington/oc #james norrington x oc #pirates of the caribbean fanfiction #pirates of the caribbean fanfic #potcfic #james norrington fanfiction #james norrington fanfic

[road2nf]

I thought this story was worth sharing, and whether it is read by none or one or twenty five, I’m glad I wrote it down, and I’m glad my brother read DFTBA from a bumper sticker on the highway. I hope someone smiles at the words on this page, before they are swallowed by the deluge of love and care sent by people all over the world with stories just like my own.

To be up front about it, your videos saved my relationship with my brother, Donovan.

He was my absolute best friend growing up, the person that everyone else had to live up to in order to be even considered a decent person.

He was my hero.

He’s three years older than me, and he was a protector as I went through the struggles that “high potential” kids have which aren’t always understood by those in authority positions.

All my teachers wanted to move me up a grade, which ruined the friendships I had cherished as ten-year-olds do. Fast forward six years, and my brother and I grew apart pretty quickly.

I was president of a couple of clubs at school and he was off to Vanderbilt that fall. We stopped telling each other everything, and I didn’t know what to do to keep talking.

We were driving to visit our grandmother who lived an hour away, and it was getting late.

We were keeping each other awake, blaring music and singing at the top of our lungs.

It was one of the best memories I had with him, and then it got better.

As a car passed us on the highway, my brother (pointing, reading a bumper sticker) yelled, “DFTBA!” And looked at me expectantly. I thought he was crazy, and he just kept repeating,

“Don’t forget to be awesome!...Vlogbrothers...John... Hank...none of this rings a bell?”

When I still didn’t understand, he just told me to go on YouTube on my phone and search “John Green pennies” because he couldn’t remember any specific title.

That was it.

Three minutes and fifty seven seconds, and I was hooked. We sat in my grandma’s living room until past 2:30 that morning watching any video that came up.

The most popular, related to the current one playing, and all of Hank’s songs. Since that day, we would run into each other’s room and talk about the videos for hours.

I also have a (totally healthy) obsession with Jane Austen, and watching all the Pemberly Digital projects with him has been second only to reading them in the first place.

We have read John’s novels together, and cried for hours.

This Christmas, my brother made a donation in my name for the P4A and it was the most amazing thing anyone could have ever done for me.

Without ever watching a video, our parents soon picked up on who we were speaking about when ‘John and Hank’ were mentioned, which is astonishing when they can’t even remember the names of our closest friends. I could list off one hundred other things about being a Nerdfighter, but most importantly is saying thank you.

Thank you for doing this and putting yourself out there which is so difficult to do.

Thank you for leaving your children something to be proud of when so many are left with nothing.

Thank you for turning Nerdfighters into Nerdfighters by decreasing world-suck.

And thank you to your wives and families who support you as you change lives on a daily basis.

Thank you for inspiring me personally, and showing me how easy it is to be passionate about writing and words. I thought this story was worth sharing, and whether it is read by none or one or twenty five, I’m glad I wrote it down, and I’m glad my brother read DFTBA from a bumper sticker on the highway.

I hope someone smiles at the words on this page, before they are swallowed by the deluge of love and care sent by people all over the world with stories just like my own.

Many good wishes and blessings.

-Kate Elizabeth

#nfstories #nerdfighters #vlogbrothers #nerdfighteria #dftba #awesome #community #brother #brotherhood #family #hero #connection #friendship #travel #car singin #reading #DFTBA #P4A #project for awesome #kindness #gratitude #thank you #proud #legacy #generosity #change #writing

[that-within]

That’s not how Jane Austen works…

There’s something deeply amusing to me about how fundamentally wrong Aziraphale is regarding the function of balls in Jane Austen’s novels:

“People would gather and do some formal dancing and then realize they had misunderstood each other and were actually deeply in love.”

No ball in any Austen novel works like this. Not one. You know how they actually work? They build tension (dramatic, romantic, sexual, and/or other). But in all of her six novels, there is not a single ball where everything suddenly clicks between two characters, all misunderstandings are cleared up with just a glance and a touch of a gloved hand, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Since Pride and Prejudice is the novel repeatedly cited in the show, let’s analyze the functions of its two main balls:

The first ball is where our protagonists meet. They lock eyes, they get introduced—and almost immediately he calls her a 5/10 and she runs off to drag him with her gal pals. Rough start. We haven’t even gotten to the plot’s true misunderstandings yet (“I meant you were tolerable in a nice way!”), but this ball is the crucial setup for how those misunderstandings will develop throughout their relationship. Tension established.

So far we’re 0/3 for dancing, clearing up misunderstandings, and deep love realizations. Bummer.

The second ball is The Big One. So how do our protagonists come together to reconcile in the candlelight? Spoiler: they don't. Instead, Darcy musters up all his introverted mettle to grind out a dance proposal and Lizzy only says yes because she can't think of a polite way to say “I’d rather eat glass.” 

And not only does the dance itself not clear up their misunderstandings, it actually cements those misunderstandings through a series of progressively passive aggressive barbs. It’s wonderfully charged, but in a HIGH-VOLTAGE FENCE: DO NOT TOUCH kind of way. 

(For those keeping score, we’re 1/6 because they did actually manage to dance this time. Woot)

And that’s it. No, literally. There are no more balls in the whole novel (at least attended by our protagonists). So how doth our heroes fall in love without the eldritch horrors making them do it delicate pluck of a fiddle in a crowded room?

Well, first there’s the catastrophic marriage proposal where Darcy basically negs Lizzy for a solid minute before Lizzy spends a solid five minutes telling him where to stick it. Divine. 

Crucially though, this is where the “realize they had misunderstood each other” stuff actually begins. It’s only when one of them is pouring their heart out to the other that the giant gaps in information, misinterpreted actions, and fundamental differences in worldviews start to make themselves known (anything here ringing a cathedral-sized bell?).

And of course, this still doesn’t magically make everything better. They both go off to lick their respective wounds for a while, but, slowly, they begin to process this paradigm shift and change their thoughts and actions accordingly. 

There are many reasons why Pride and Prejudice has lasted the test of time, and a big one is that it never pulled a “ball” deus ex machina. Lizzy and Darcy both put in actual work to improve themselves and to reconcile their differences. It’s slow, it’s imperfect, it’s messy. And, very importantly, it takes them being brutally honest with themselves and each other.

It's only after all of this that they finally get to the "were actually deeply in love" part.

Aziraphale must know this. He’s read Austen. Hell, he probably read Pride and Prejudice the year it was published. So where is he getting this bizarre idea about balls being a magical cure-all for everything? 

Maybe it's as simple as an angel who's spent 6000 years teetering on the edge of something with a demon devising a cunning plan to teeter them just a little bit closer. 

Maybe it’s as complicated as an angel who can convince himself that if a human relationship might be “fixed” by a ball, maybe a cosmic relationship might be “fixed” by undoing a fall. 

And, to quote Crowley, “now, that’s unbelievable."

#good omens #good omens season two #aziraphale #crowley #ineffible husbands #this is not an aziraphale bash post so get thee behind me with that shit #bleh I hate that the last paragraph rhymes but I’m too lazy to change it

[bethanydelleman]

Northanger Abbey Readthrough Ch 31

Whew, I have reached the end. That was a lot of work. We'll see if I do another one of these...

but as nothing, after all, could be more natural than Catherine’s being beloved

Awwwww...

Also, the Morlands 🤝Jane Bennet, believing that their beloved person will obviously be beloved by others:

Miss Bennet’s astonishment was soon lessened by the strong sisterly partiality which made any admiration of Elizabeth appear perfectly natural -Pride & Prejudice, Ch 40 (This is when Elizabeth tells Jane about Darcy's first proposal)

having never heard evil of him, it was not their way to suppose any evil could be told.

This becomes a really big deal in Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice, and Persuasion, Elinor is constantly asking for more information about Willoughby, Meryton's not knowing about Wickham's character causes havoc, and Mr. Elliot is another case of hidden information revealing his character. Fortunately for Catherine, Henry is perfect.

Now, Henry may have been cut off from his father, but he's by no means poor, Of a very considerable fortune, his son was, by marriage settlements, eventually secure; his present income was an income of independence and comfort, and under every pecuniary view, it was a match beyond the claims of their daughter. It sounds like Woodston is a very good living, probably similar to Edmund's £800/year, so Henry is fully independent without any help from his father. It sounds like he will also inherit a portion of his mother's dowry when his father dies. Catherine bagged a catch! (without knowing it)

Henry returned to what was now his only home, to watch over his young plantations, and extend his improvements for her sake, to whose share in them he looked anxiously forward; and Catherine remained at Fullerton to cry. Whether the torments of absence were softened by a clandestine correspondence, let us not inquire. Mr. and Mrs. Morland never did—they had been too kind to exact any promise; and whenever Catherine received a letter, as, at that time, happened pretty often, they always looked another way.

Oh it's so cute. I can't even. But also, I WANT TO READ THOSE LETTERS!!!! Cruel Authoress, Jane Austen, giving me that tease. I want to read Henry Tilney sending little Gothic stories to Catherine with subtle sexual undertones...

Anyway

Then the narrator is like, "It's obviously the end of the novel, so you know this will resolve soon." Ah yes, so we do. Excellent observation.

Eleanor marries Lord Laundry List and paves the way for Catherine to get her man. This explanation of it is just so good:

I have only to add—aware that the rules of composition forbid the introduction of a character not connected with my fable—that this was the very gentleman whose negligent servant left behind him that collection of washing-bills, resulting from a long visit at Northanger, by which my heroine was involved in one of her most alarming adventures.

To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen is to do pretty well

The narrator really comes back in this last chapter and teases us with this immoral "moral" message:

and professing myself moreover convinced that the General’s unjust interference, so far from being really injurious to their felicity, was perhaps rather conducive to it, by improving their knowledge of each other, and adding strength to their attachment, I leave it to be settled, by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.

Lady Catherine plays this same role in Pride & Prejudice, as an aside. But yes, is the moral of this story that parental tyrants are good for love, or that being a rebellious son is rewarded? Either way, not the sort of moral a good, upstanding citizen should want.

What more can I say? I love this novel. It's so relatable, it's so human, the characters are so well drawn even though they are parodies! I want to be Catherine's best friend but I also want to steal her husband. General Tilney needs to fall down a staircase (a recently renovated one).

#jane austen #northanger abbey #northanger abbey readthrough #now I need to make a masterpost...

[acesincomics]

New Graphic Novels!

The Dog Knight, the first of the graphic novel series by demisexual creators Jeremy Whitley @jeremywhitley and Bre Indigo @breindigo, with colors by Melissa Capriglione @mcapriglione-art, is out now!

Available from Macmillan

Frankie knows who they are. They’re a drummer, they’re nonbinary, and they���re… the Dog Knight? One day Frankie is a relatively normal middle schooler, with relatively normal challenges, like finding the perfect outfit to wear during their drum solo during the upcoming band concert. The next, they save a friendly golden retriever from bullies and suddenly find themselves in a giant magical doghouse, with a funny looking helmet, talking to a group of dog superheroes called the Pawtheon about a job offer. If Frankie can prove that they possess the six dog virtues of loyalty, kindness, honesty, justice, stubbornness, and smell, they will be named the Dog Knight and be given the power to fight alongside the Pawtheon and save the world from the forces of chaos. Maybe there is more to Frankie than they thought?

Nadia from The Dog Knight is ace.

Bre Indigo's second recently released graphic novel, Northranger with Rey Tercier, is a teen summer gothic romance.

Available from HarperCollins

Cade has always loved to escape into the world of a good horror movie. After all, horror movies are scary—but to Cade, a closeted queer Latino teen growing up in rural Texas—real life can be way scarier. When Cade is sent to spend the summer working as a ranch hand to help earn extra money for his family, he is horrified. Cade hates everything about the ranch, from the early mornings to the mountains of horse poop he has to clean up. The only silver lining is the company of the two teens who live there—in particular, the ruggedly handsome and enigmatic Henry. But as unexpected sparks begin to fly between Cade and Henry, things get…complicated. Henry is reluctant to share the details of his mother’s death, and Cade begins to wonder what else he might be hiding. Inspired by the gothic romance of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and perfect for fans of Heartstopper and Bloom comes a modern love story so romantic it’s scary.

Both are great reads for Pride Month!

#The Dog Knight #Northranger #graphic novel #lgbtqia+ comics #queer comics #ace creators #acespec creators #demisexual creators #ace characters #asexual characters

[fictionadventurer]

Reasons to read The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower

They're written in the style of the great light classic novels. The promo material says people have compared them to Austen, L.M. Montgomery and Jean Webster, and they're right, though the strongest comparisons I see are Oscar Wilde, P.G. Wodehouse, and Georgette Heyer.

They're (as the title indicates) presented as a series of journals by Emma M. Lion, a twenty(?) year old orphan who has recently come to live at Lapis Lazuli House in the quirky London neighborhood of St. Crispian's where she meets all kinds of colorful characters and gets into wild scrapes.

So far, there are six books in the series, with a seventh on the way, and a plan to have lots and lots more. Each book covers two months and kind of reads like episodes of a television show or an ongoing serial.

And that's basically all I knew before starting, and part of the joy of this series is uncovering the surprises along the way, so if you don't want to read any further, that's okay, but I'm still going to talk about more details under the cut.

More Plot Details

Lapis Lazuli House is technically Emma's, because it's been willed to her, along with a living that should allow her to live at a modest but respectable level of comfort. Unfortunately, she hasn't reached her majority yet, and for now, the house comes with a horrid Cousin Archibald who resents Emma after the incident that gave him The Scar, so he forces her to live in a garret bedroom and refuses to provide her allowance. Emma's money troubles have a lot of twists and turns that lead to lots of different adventures that I won't spoil here.

Emma has an ongoing quest to build up her personal library. She had to sell off her father's books to pay for her education, and she can't use libraries because she wants to scribble in her books, so getting books is VERY important. (As all the best people understand). She's constantly engaging with different books, and adding books to her library provides some of the best moments of the series. (Each volume ends with a list of the books Emma now owns).

Those are the biggest (and least spoilery) overarching plot points of the series, but the true draw is Emma's interaction with

The Characters

Emma interacts with a sprawling cast of oddballs, including:

Cousin Archibald, previously mentioned Horrid Person, obsessed with clothes and with assuming Emma is the Personification of All Evil

Arabella, her beautiful, wealthy cousin who is expected to make a good match in The Season

Aunt Eugenia, her wealthy aunt who talks exactly like Wilde's Lady Bracknell, and who recruits Emma to attend high society social events as The Foil to make Arabella look good in comparison

Mary, a School Chum who makes a living as a typist

Jack, the con man Mary has hired to pretend to be her cousin so she can get free time away from her strict "respectable" boarding house

Young Hawkes, the handsome, fashionable, mysterious vicar who spends half his sermons reading poetry

The Redoubtable Ten, a group of Hawkes' rowdy Cambridge buddies (Hawkes is technically the tenth) who heckle him during most of his sermons and admire Emma for getting into scrapes even wilder than their own

The Tenant, also known as Niall Pierce, who rents the garret on the other side of Emma's bedroom wall. They pass notes through a crack in the wall and share a cat. He has a mysterious past, which includes years living in America even though he is Not An American.

The Duke of Islington, St. Crispian's only resident nobleman, who is Very Proper and Disapproves of Emma's wilder scrapes, but who secretly has a very poetic soul

Roland Sutherland, Emma's childhood nemesis who has grown up into a handsome, charming, and wealthy Sun God

Saffronia March, a thirty-something spinster artist who knew Emma's parents and brings Emma in contact with the art world

Mrs. Penury, the wife of Emma's banker, who hasn't spoken for ten years because she decided she had said everything she wanted to say

The other draw of the series is

St. Crispian's

A quirky London neighborhood with many oddball traditions and magical-realism happenings.

There's an ancient Roman ghost that the inhabitants are very fond of.

A yearly tradition of a highly-competitive scavenger hunt to score tickets to the local production of Julius Caesar.

A phenomenon where items go "wandering" from houses, only to be found in random places in the neighborhood (and a local cafe where people can bring found items to be picked up).

Among many others

All these oddities are presented as a normal part of life, no matter how strange outsiders might find them. Though, be warned, St. Crispian's is very fond of its traditions, and its odd rules can cause problems.

Other Thoughts

This series strings you along with book after book of Witty Banter and Silly Misadventures, until suddenly it sucker-punches you with moments of Sadness and Deep Emotions

These characters, even when they're comic archetypes, have deeper layers of complexity and history.

Emma's friendships, especially with the men of her neighborhood, develop into really strong bonds.

There are threads of romance, but they're overshadowed by the platonic relationships.

They take place in what's supposed to be 1883, and take advantage of some actual historical events, but it mostly feels like a light history-flavored fantasy because people don't really act much like historical people. Like, the amount of time that Emma spends alone in the company of unmarried men late at night is scandalous. But it's okay, because you don't expect realism here any more than you expect realism from P.G. Wodehouse.

Aside from some mild cursing from one character (and the stuff in the next bullet point) there's literally no objectionable content in this series.

The series has a really weird relationship with spirituality. Characters are technically Christian, but they take it casually and don't seem to know much about their faith. Hawkes is the Worst Vicar Ever who doesn't give any actual Christian advice (I'm still waiting for a reveal that he's not a real vicar). The magical realism parts are taken more seriously than actual religion. Yet there are some parts that do interact with actual Christian ideas. I'm not crazy about it, which you'd think would be a reason not to recommend it, but I don't think it overrides the good parts of the series, and I need to discuss it with someone, because it's an issue with a lot to explore.

These are some of my favorite books I've read this year, with several of my favorite characters and moments, and I need to have someone to talk to about them.

#books #the unselected journals of emma m. lion

[leojfitz]

six sentence sunday

yes, it's still saturday. but it's sunday in a couple of hours anyway (and it's sunday already in oceania and asia, right?), and i got a busy day tomorrow so I won't be able to post so i'm doing it now.

this is from a fic that i started ages ago, it's my baby and i love it sm and one day i will be able to brave through these 30k words and finally finish it.

Henry can't sleep, scenes from a few years earlier playing in his head like a movie, like they belong to someone else's life: the first time he held Alex's hand in a dark movie theatre, his heart racing so fast he thought he would've never been able to survive more intimate physical touches and the months that followed with Pez making fun of him because he said “it feels like a Jane Austen novel unfolding before my very own eyes. What's with all these fingers touching hand holding. How do you spend a whole evening bloody cuddling on the couch and never kissing?” and when they finally did it was on a cold January day, months before his dad's diagnosis. Chapped lips meeting on the steps in front of Henry's house, freezing fingers combing through Alex's hair, the world stopping around them. He had been waiting for this for so long at that point that he reacted like an idiot, saying that he had to go and ran inside the house, slamming the door. Alex had texted not long after, didn't know I was such a terrible kisser. 

tagging @firenati0n @songliili @ssmtskw @hgejfmw-hgejhsf @gayrootvegetable @anincompletelist @user-anakin @affectionatelyrs @inexplicablymine @happiness-of-the-pursuit @matherines @littlemisskittentoes

#marta writes #six sentence sunday #rwrb #rwrb fanfic #i opened the doc after a while and there are #so many parts i wrote on my phone that have so many sentences starting in lowercase #why do i do that #fic: sad shit au #(yes i don't know about real titles for my fics until i publish them)

[npcemi]

Welcome to my Meet Cute where Jason is a hopeless romantic whose inner voice is essentially a Jane Austen novel.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/47612662/chapters/120002992

Jason was forced to dress up in a suit to attend a Wayne family gala for the Wayne Foundation scholarship. Jazz and Danny are scholarship students. Sam is forced by her parents to attend. Jason falls in love at first sight, sadly someone dressed like a spoiled trust fund brat is not Jazz's type.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However, it is well known by those who know the Wayne family intimately, know that they exist in direct contradiction to this truth. Yet, those who attend these grand galas are so fixed on the idea that they are the pillars of this truth. Jason had come to find their shared delusion quite comical.

The mass appeal of allowing them such beliefs of a grandiose nature has made it so they can live their nightlife with ease. Even if it is nothing more than a fabrication. Bruce, the inevitable end of the man with a great fortune marked the start of a man of a generous heart with six children, five of whom were wards. A loving patriarch was a far more tasteful fabrication than that of a single bachelor with more adventurous tendencies.

Unfortunately being brought back into the fold meant that even as a rogue, Jason's presence would be required. In order to avoid the committee of vultures that is the Gotham socialite scene, Jason made his way toward the rear of the hall. Once he arrived at his destination after avoiding several greetings from overly ambitious social climbers, Jason found himself in the company of two rather odd individuals.

One, a young man, who if he was being honest with himself. Looks like a spitting image of Jason and the majority of his brothers. Jason really hoped this one does not come from a background comparable to his own or any of his siblings for that matter. Lest he has another sibling before the night is out.

The other is a young woman dressed in all black with bold black makeup and purple coloring on her lips. The two teens' mutual scowls of displeasure meant the three of them were of a similar opinion when it came to having their presence at the gala be forced upon them.

"I take it you two don't want to be here either?" Jason asks, watching the young woman begin to visibly shake with laughter. It's peculiar how the boy rolls his eyes as if Jason's intelligence was lacking for asking such a mundane and obvious question. If anything it shows him to have a rather crass and sardonic disposition. Jason was sure they could get along quite well.

"No, my parents dragged me here and I dragged Danny." The girl gestured to the boy, Danny, who nodded and voiced his descent only agreeing to come because of the intimate relationship between the two.

"Hey, we're in the same shitty boat. My adoptive dad made me come here too, the name's Jason." Jason said with a smile, happy he found some kindred spirits at this rather taxing spectacle. The girl introduces herself as Sam Manson. Having unfortunately grown up in these circles despite his rather humble beginnings. he has heard of the Manson family.

They are a family that is well known and has a humble fortune. One they owed to being descendants of the inventor of the deli toothpick cellophane-twirling device. They were more social climbers than committee vultures. Belonging to the group only by a small margin in comparison to the likes of the Wayne, Queen, Luthor, or Masters families. If Jason was being honest, the Mansons would fit in better with a group of mockingbirds, regardless of their own desires.

"Anything fun to do around here besides stand and talk?" Sam asked and Danny looked like he watched the last of the poor girl's brain cells leave her head.

"Sam, this is an event for rich fruit loops to kiss ass and your parents to try to find you a 'more appropriate' boyfriend." Jason couldn't help but snort at the way the boy mocked the elder Mansons. It was as unbecoming as it was necessary. It was well known the Mansons would consistently and continuously make an attempt to pair their daughter with any potential suitor. It doesn't surprise him that they would do so even when their daughter was clearly courting a boy the spitting image of any Wayne child.

Before Jason would be able to respond, a voice that sounded rather pleasant on the ear despite its exasperation, bellowed from nearby.

"Danny, Sam there you are, I have someone I need you to meet!" The woman had cerulean eyes and red-orange hair that fell to her shoulders like fine silk. She was in an emerald green dress that aggrandized her small athletic frame. However, any personal reverie Jason was engaged in was cut short by the woman and the man she had brought over for introductions.

"Danny, this is Bruce Wayne. He's the one who sponsors both of our scholarships." The girl was bright with glee not even noticing Jason's own downward turn. Something he was rather thankful for at the moment.

Bruce Wayne is as complex as he is simple. The mask of a loving patriarch, the mask of promiscuity, or the mask of the Bat. It never mattered because, in the end, no one knows which is Bruce's truth. It couldn't be the loving patriarch no matter the attempts to persuade otherwise. Those in the family knew his adventurous spirit had waned in the past years, now he preferred to spend his personal hours exclusively with Selina Kyle. If asked, Bruce would say it was the Bat that was his truest self, however, it didn't take a psychiatry degree and a stint at Arkham to know that the Bat was just another mask to hide his childhood traumas behind.

Bruce, Danny, and Sam all greet each other rather amicably. Though Danny whispers something hushed about being beholden to another rich froot loop who probably has a secret lair in his basement.

Jason's joyous laughter at Danny's correct assertion is cut off by a rather pointed glare from Bruce. It is however easy for Bruce and Jason to fall into a familiar rhythm as they do at these functions. They're able to maintain the facade of a happy family with polite conversation and occasional jabs. The woman, Danny, and Sam are surprised to learn Jason by all counts, is a Wayne. He was hopeful they can tell that he didn't quite fit with the usual Wayne pedigree. He denied the opportunity to encourage the notion when Bruce re-enforces the fabrication they used as coverage for their lesser-known activities. This is all in spite of what Jason was attempting to relay.

Jason never had the opportunity to correct such misconceptions. It was his fate to be cut off at the first utterance of his attempt by Mrs. Manson. Who decided that was the moment to come barreling into our conversation, much to the disdain of everyone in attendance.

“Sammy-Kins, I see you’ve met Bruce Wayne. Hello Mr. Wayne!” Her remarkable boldness and enthusiasm are truly something to behold, considering she found a way to strategically place herself so as to exclude Danny, the angel Jason had yet to know the name of, and himself from the conversation.

“Mrs. Manson It’s nice to see you, I’d love for you to meet my son Jason Todd-Wayne and two of the Wayne Scholarship students, Jasmine and Daniel Fenton.” Bruce repositioned himself, escorting the rest of us back into the engagement.

“Actually I go by Danny.”

“And I go by Jazz.” Jazz, that was this enchanting woman’s name. A woman who changed the very rhythm of Jason's heart. Whether that was for the best or not, will be an adventure all its own.

“I didn’t think Daniel had the grades for any scholarship, let alone one this prestigious.” Mrs. Manson tilted her head in an obvious slight on Danny’s intelligence. It is a shame the poor woman is under the delusion of her own over-estimated intellect. Any who managed to spend more than a few spare moments with the woman would see the fact clear as day.

“Oh my son Tim looked at Danny’s submission for aerospace engineering personally and was very impressed,” Bruce said with a smile that seemed to see through the slight the woman intended. The woman's scowl was soon becoming a source of joy, never in his life had he met someone so disagreeable and so desperate. Social climbers like her usually were better at being more subtle and significantly more polite.

“While grades do play a part, the Wayne Foundation is very understanding of exigent circumstances that may hinder a student’s grades,” Bruce added to the conversation. Bruce took great pride in his understanding and charitable reputation. This is one area Jason, unfortunately, can’t find fault in, after all, he was a common thief when he was taken in by Bruce.

“Well, that is very kind of you, Mr. Wayne. Sammy-Kins why don’t you and Jason go find a spot to talk, or maybe we can arrange another time you two can…” Bruce correctly guessed the group's collective discomfort with what Mrs. Manson was trying to accomplish.

“I’m sure my son can arrange his time how he sees fit Mrs. Manson,” Jason had to admit he was relieved that Bruce stepped in when needed. However, any future heroics on Bruce’s end when he received a notification on his phone. He gave Jason a familiar nod before making a quick exit. Mrs. Manson deterred from further advances by Bruce’s exodus from our conversation, also made her leave. Unfortunately, that meant Jason also had to take his leave. The other side of the Wayne family duality calling.

“I’m sorry to leave you guys hanging, but I gotta go, although before I clear out, Jazz, did you wanna grab coffee tomorrow, if you're still in Gotham that is?” Jazz’s sheepish reply to his advance was adorable as it was heartbreaking.

“I’m sorry I can’t.” In his heartbreak, Jason clearly lost any and all ability to form an intelligent thought. The only word that came out of his mouth was “oh.” Her brother took the opportunity to further his pain by rubbing salt in the crevice forming in Jason's heart.

“Sorry my dude, you’re just not her type. She’s into bad boys who wear leather Jackets, ride motorcycles, and are likely to commit a violent felony.” Sam continued Danny’s malice upon his emotions, “Jazz really isn’t into spoiled rich kids with daddy issues.”

#jason todd #jazz fenton #dpxdc #dpxdc au #Jason Todd can be a little dramatic