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haeryna · 3 months

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the purest shade of white ↪ okkotsu yuuta x reader ⸙͎｡˚⋆ 𓋼

summary: yuuta looks almost like an angel, you think to yourself grimly, as you shift on the balls of your feet. you haven't seen your best friend in a couple years now, not since he left for africa. too bad he's attempting to kill the kouhai that you're trying to protect.

tw: manga spoilers! anime watchers, do not read. mild angst but happy ending. starts at the beginning of ch. 139. naoya zenin is here and he is his classic asshole self. reader is in the same grade as yuuta, both in age and in terms of cursed energy. swearing because reader is a bad bitch. mildly suggestive. unironic use of "senpai" and "kouhai." slight descriptions of blood and injury, everyone is subjected to the author's attempts at writing dialogue and fight scenes. not proofread but at this point that shouldn't be a surprise. it is blatantly obvious that the writer also does not know how to end stories

notes: thank you for 100 new friends! :) poll is technically still up but i'm impatient and yuuta was winning by a pretty decent margin so here it is lol. divider by @/saradika-graphics!

"Yuuji!" you yelp, slicing the head off a curse with a clean stroke of your katana. Purple ichor splatters to the ground as you whirl, searching for the familiar head of pink hair. "Stay close to me!"

Behind you, Choso grunts with exertion, sending out another bolt of Piercing Blood. Panting, you weave through the curses, letting their corpses fall behind you. Yuuji, where is Yuuji?

As the last body falls, you can't but let out an exasperated huff at the sheepish grin on Yuuji's face. "Don't scare me like that," you chide. "How am I supposed to protect you if I can't even find you?" Yuuji opens his mouth to protest but you shake your head. "I made a promise," you tell him, pain rippling through your heart dully. Gojo-sensei was long gone, stolen away by one of the people he had loved most in the world. Grimacing, you sheathe your katana, mindful of the blood that stains your palms, as you try to ignore the memory of his words all those months ago.

If anything happens, I need you to protect Itadori Yuuji. I know they're going to pull something on him once I'm not there to back him up.

"Senpai, what should-"

Yuuji immediately tenses as your hand flies to the grip of your katana. "I smell a rat," you mutter, nose wrinkling as you turn to face Naoya Zenin, standing atop a bridge. He bares his teeth at you in semblance of a smile. "How perceptive as always," he mocks.

"Cut the bullshit," you snap, hand still resting on the pommel. "What do you want?"

"Fushiguro Megumi," is his rather bland response, and you shift your feet into the opening steps of Flowing River.

"What do you want with Fushiguro?" Yuuji yells, and the way Naoya's face twists makes you want to vomit.

"I think I'll have him die."

Cursed energy fills your body as you leap. Naoya's resounding cackle burns through your ears as you swing, barely grazing his shoulder. Before you can push forward off your feet, a heavy presence rests on your shoulders, locking you in place. All four of you freeze. Yuuji and Choso look horrified, and Naoya looks as though he's broken out into a cold sweat. But you know this feeling, feel it settle back into your body as if it never left.

Okkotsu Yuuta steps out from the building ledge, dark eyes unreadable. Your body sings. Yuuta, Yuuta, Yuuta! His hair has grown longer, bangs sweeping over his forehead, eyebags a little darker than they used to be. You can feel Rika's presence, swirling around you in a mass of death and decay. You're used to it. You've grown to crave it, even. His eyes meet yours, and for a split second, his facade cracks. Confusion, fear, and...regret?

Yuuta leaps, slamming into concrete and sending shockwaves deep into your bones. "Who's with Itadori?" God, even his voice is different, so different from the boy who said goodbye to you so long ago. You open your mouth to speak, but Choso beats you to it, brows furrowed.

"So you're Yuuji's executioner."

Blood turns to ice in your veins, and you can tell by the pained expression Yuuta has that you aren't hiding your emotions as well as you think you are. Naoya laughs. "I was going to tell you that, but you were being too emotional like the bitch you are."

"Who're you?"

Yuuta's voice is cold, but as Naoya babbles on, you can feel the horror settle thickly into your chest. Choso and Yuuji are talking behind you but it feels like you're underwater, you're sinking, drowning, and Yuuta must have come to a conclusion because all of a sudden he's surging forward-

You move before you can even think, steel clashing against steel. "Yuuji," you say, through gritted teeth. "Run."

A horrible grating noise fills the air as you let cursed energy flow through your body, shoving Yuuta's sword away from yourself. "I won't let you kill him," you hiss, body already shifting into Jagged Bolt. Yuuta's eyes flash as you surge forward, katana in hand.

"How would you describe my cursed technique?" you had asked Gojo, mindlessly swinging your feet. Gojo hums.

"Have you ever heard of Newton's Law's of Motion?"

You had crinkled your nose at that. "No?"

"An object in motion, stays in motion. Except you are the object. And your cursed energy is the motion." You remember how Gojo's lips curved slightly. "In other words, once you start, nobody can stop you."

You're crying, you realize with a start, as you cut a line into Yuuta's chest. Moisture seeps from your eyes as you twist your forearm into a parry, katanas sparking with each strike. Belatedly, you sense that Yuuji, your foolish, stupid, loyal kouhai has stayed, trading strikes with his fists between the precise movements of your blade. Your heart drops as Yuuta reaches for the ring on his finger.

No. No!

He twists it, and Rika appears behind you. Claws sink into your shoulder and you let out a cry of pain as she flips you into the ground.

"Be nice, Rika," Yuuta chides, as you hit the concrete. Blood spurts from your mouth as you choke, fingers clawing at the ground desperately for your katana. A piece of scaffolding is practically crushing your legs; instinctively, you know that if you try to break through it, you'll tear your limbs right off.

As Rika holds Yuuji up, you lunge desperately, uncaring of what you have to sacrifice. Inumaki's arm, the way half of Nobara's face had been practically ripped out of her skull, the remains of Nanami-san, the way that you were the one to find Maki's charred body-

I can't lose anyone else.

You scream as Yuuta pierces Yuuji's chest with his katana, cursed energy building in your legs as you prepare to shoot forward. Yuuta turns, eyes filled with an unidentifiable emotion as he sees you about to tear yourself in half just to reach Yuuji.

With a wave of his hand, Rika dives for you, and everything goes dark.

Yuuta had known you were special from the day he'd first met you. That spring, when Gojo-sensei had dropped him (and Rika) into a class of unsuspecting first years, he remembers that out of the four of them, you had moved so gracefully that he hadn't processed the katana in your hand until you'd pressed it against your throat.

"Gojo-sensei," you'd hissed. "What is this?"

While Maki, Inumaki, and Panda had been subsequently bruised up by Rika, you had dodged every single one of her movements until Rika had been (barely) called back by Yuuta.

"Another Special Grade," Gojo had hummed. "Just like you, hm?"

Special Grade?

What he hadn't realized then, he realized later; you weren't just special to him, but to the entire rest of the Jujutsu World as well. Special Grade Sorcerers were rare, Maki had told him. "You only have it because of Rika," she'd scoffed, "but she deserves it."

You quickly became one of his closest friends. You were fast enough to dodge Rika's ire, even laughing whenever she tried. You'd shown Yuuta kindness that he didn't think he deserved. You broke him out of his shell enough so that when he left for Africa, he felt as though he was standing with his own strength. His first katana had been the sister blade of your own, forged from the same metal by the same hands. The way your eyes had lit up when you saw it was a memory he cherished.

Somberly, Yuuta eyes the chains encasing your wrists and ankles, each decorated with the slips of protective paper that would nullify your cursed energy. Most sorcerers required only one. You required at least twenty.

He knows you, knows the way you always take the strawberry daifuku, leaving him the red bean ones even though he knows you prefer the red bean. He knows that you push yourself hard, harder than he's ever seen anyone work. But most of all, he knows your loyalty, how once your heart finally lets someone in, you'll never let them go.

Did you miss him like he missed you?

The chains are more for your own protection. He needs you to hear him out before you attempt to end his life for a second time. Yuuta knows now that Gojo must have asked you the same thing he'd asked him; to keep Itadori Yuji safe from the whims of the higher ups. Gojo, being the forgetful bastard he was, probably didn't alert you to the fact that he'd gone to Yuuta for help as well. Crouching, Yuuta eyes your body with a sad tilt of his lips. The injuries you'd sustained were immense, and it had taken quite a bit of his own cursed energy to reverse.

Will you forgive him?

You're asleep, breath hitching every so often. Yuuta wonders what you're dreaming of, before pushing the thought away. Tenderly, he cups your face in the palm of his hand, calloused fingers stroking your cheek.

"You need to wake up now," he murmurs, as your eyes flutter open, first in dazed confusion, before sharpening into panic.

"I'll miss you!" you'd cried, as you clung to Yuuta under the shade of the large oak. You were the first person he had told about his departure to Africa, and you took it hard. Yuuta had stood frozen as the first of your tears had dripped down your cheeks. It was the first time he'd seen you cry.

"I'll be back before you know it," he'd murmured, pressing a featherlight kiss to the top of your head. You'd looked up to him, eyes teary.

"Promise?"

"I promise," he'd said, interlocking his pinky with your own. A love like Yuuta's is a dangerous thing, you know, but in this moment you feel nothing but safe.

The first sensation you feel upon awakening is the dull ache in your (miraculously still attached) legs. The second is the warmth on your cheek. Yuuta is standing above you, hand gently resting against your face. Immediately you lunge forward, teeth bared. The rattle of chains stops you, and you swear. Of course he would have taken precautions. Yuuta looks almost hurt as you violently shake off his touch.

"Don't touch me, I swear to god I'm going to rip you apart."

Yuuta says your name sadly, but you're practically trembling with rage.

"He was just a kid, with the kind of power we wield, why the fuck would you listen to the higher ups?"

Yuuta echoes your name a bit more firmly, but you ignore him, tears building in your eyes.

"You're no better than the rest of them are you, you're just-"

"Senpai!"

Your heart stops as Yuuji pokes his head out from around the corner. They must have brought you back to Jujutsu Tech, you think distractedly. Just how long were you out?

"Yuuji!" you cry out, scanning his body for any injuries. He seems to be uninjured, but most importantly, he's alive. Tears fall down your cheeks. "Are you alright?"

Yuuji appears horrified by the sudden outburst as he hastily holds up his hands. "I'm fine, senpai, really, I'm sorry for worrying you. Okkotsu-san is actually on our side, I swear! It was a binding vow, that's why he had to actually kill me, but he did some really cool Reverse Technique shit and I'm all good now!"

Warily, you eye Yuuta, whose expression resembles that of a kicked puppy. "Okkotsu Yuuta," you say, voice hard. "Let me out of these chains right fucking now."

With a wave of his hand, the papers attached to the chains fall to the floor. Yuuta looks dejected as he looks away from you. "I'm so sor-"

Before he can finish you immediate tackle him into a hug, knocking the both of you into the floor as you bury your face into the soft slope of his neck. "You're such an idiot," you sob, unable to hide the rush of emotions going through you. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Tentatively, Yuuta wraps his arms around you, and you melt, pressing yourself closer to his body. "To be honest, I think Gojo-sensei is to blame. I think he forgot to mention to either of us that he asked us to do the exact same thing."

You let out a hiccupping laugh. "Of course he did. That forgetful asshole."

The sigh Yuuta lets out is shaky as he nuzzles the top of your head. "I'm so, so sorry," he tells you earnestly. "I must have scared you, and Rika's mad at me for making me hurt you like that. I think she likes you, even though she pretends not to."

You look up at him, really look at him, and see the look of adoration in his eyes as he stares back down at you. Thankfully Yuuji's escaped long ago, most likely understanding that you two would need privacy. "You came back," you whisper, and Yuuta's resulting smile makes your heart skip a beat.

"I promised you, didn't I?"

Before you can stop yourself, you pull Yuuta down for a searing kiss. He's so soft, and you nip at the plush of his bottom lip teasingly, pulling a whine from his throat. His large hands grip your hips, and in retaliation, you grab a fistful of his hair and tug. The breathy noise he makes goes straight between your thighs. You know he can feel your smile against his lips.

"I missed you," you breathe, pulling away. Yuuta looks dazed, lips kiss swollen, pupils so dilated that you can barely see the soft brown of his eyes.

"I love you," he blurts out, and your resulting laugh is airy as you press another chaste kiss to his lips.

"I've always loved you, Yuuta," you admit. "During Shibuya, I thought I wasn't going to make it. You were the only thing keeping me going."

The look in his eyes is fierce as he tugs you back into him, enveloping you in his arms. "You'll never have to worry about that again. You have my entire life. Where you go, I'll follow, and if I die, not even Death would be able to separate me from your side."

"Those sound a lot like wedding vows, don't you think?"

Yuuta's blush covers his entire face and you grin, pressing one last kiss to his lips. "Come on now. We have kids we need to protect."

As Yuuta leads you to where the others have convened, even under the dark circumstances you're in, the warmth of his hand clutching yours fills you with a giddiness you hadn't experienced in months. The sentiment is quickly dashed as soon as Maki opens her mouth.

"Fucking finally. Inumaki owes me 3,000 yen."

#haerinwrites #jjk x reader #jjk x reader angst #jjk x reader fluff #jjk angst #jjk fluff #yuta x reader #yuuta x reader #yuta okkotsu x reader #yuuta okkotsu x reader #i'm actually maki with the fucking finally #i love friends to lovers !!

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the-devil-is-dead · 2 months

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(FOUR KNIGHTS OF THE APOCALYPSE CH. 139 SPOILERS!!)

My honest reaction when finding out Nasiens might not even be a guy and that Nakaba Suzuki could have managed to queerbait me:

#mokushiroku no yonkishi #four knights of the apocalypse #nasiens #have i been queerbaited???#4kota #4kota spoilers #i'm dropping the manga if suzuki is straightifying him 🙄

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thena0315 · 2 months

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I know that Hikaru is the main antagonist of Oshi no Ko, but the true root cause of everything was Airi. She was a pedophile that took advantage and molested an 11-year-old who would eventually become a psychopath and murder.

I've watched lots of crime shows, one of them specifically targets this subject. Where victims of sexual assault during their childhood aren't treated and provided care for their traumatic experience, it can mess up how they see things when they grow up into adulthood.

That includes becoming psychopaths, sociopaths, addicts....etc. They may even end up repeating what happened to them to someone else when they were at that age.

↓ Ch 139 & 140 Spoilers ↓

*[!] WARNING NON CHILD FRIENDLY IMAGES

#oshi no ko #onk spoilers #oshi no ko spoilers #hikaru kamiki #airi himekawa #onk

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butchgawain · 2 months

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CH 139 SPOILERS ///

MR NAKABA WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!!!?

#im so confused #is this you like a boy so must be a girl or youre trans?#regardless im so…#what #mr nakaba….#nasiens #4kota #four knights of the apocalypse #mokushiroku no yon kishi #4kota manga #4kota manga spoilers

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shoujomangathoughts · 10 months

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Chihayafuru Thoughts - Chihaya and Taichi in Ch.93 -139 (S3 events)

This is part one of a series where I plan to talk about Taichi and Chihaya. Here’s a spoiler warning for this section and some light spoilers about chapters after this point.

The stretch of chapters covered in season 3 feels like a fundamental shift in the series and by the end of this part it’s clear that the series will be quite different moving forward.

In regards to Taichi and Chihaya, this section of the series is where things start changing for them and I wanted to go over some moments that stuck out to me. A consistent plotline here is that Chihaya is actively trying to understand more about Taichi because she starts to feel anxious about their relationship. She actually admits “I don’t know anything yet, not even about Taichi”. We already know how Taichi feels about Chihaya, and there are actually many instances of him trying to grow and change on his own in this part.

This statement from Retro seems to rattle her because in her mind, she knows Taichi and his skills well. When she plays Taichi at the Fujisaki camp, she refers to him as “feeling like a stranger”, something she notes again at Yoshino. Yoshino in general is an important match for both of them (that others have analyzed more in depth than I ever could so check those out!). While Chihaya truly “saw” and acknowledged Taichi in this match, Taichi’s frustration over losing is directly opposite her enjoyment of the match. I feel like the difference in these feelings is why Chihaya is so confused by Taichi’s decision to skip the class trip for the Meijin qualifiers. Taichi, losing after working so hard on a strategy tailored to go against Chihaya, still sees himself as inadequate, and understanding the time he has left (as Desktomu tries to explain to Chihaya), pours himself into karuta more than before. After Kana’s explanation about “competing to stir hearts”, Chihaya seems to gain an inkling about the fact that Taichi may have left their match feeling somewhat unsatisfied and frustrated in contrast to how she left with both the satisfaction of winning and enjoying a match with someone who she has worked so hard with and values.

After Taichi is unsuccessful at the qualifiers and returns, there’s a moment when Chihaya regains her composure (after hearing the challengers were Harada and Arata) where she looks up and sees that Taichi isn’t in the hallway anymore. It’s a small moment but the look on her face suggests to me that she realizes she didn’t ask Taichi about his matches or why he went, let alone seeing if he seemed upset. It also becomes apparent to her that she doesn’t necessarily know how to comfort him and she starts noticing distance between them.

After this, when they practice in the clubroom, it becomes clear to Chihaya (and everyone else) that Taichi is in a slump after losing both Yoshino and the Meijin qualifiers, and the only thing Chihaya can think to do is continue to play him seriously out of fear he might quit. She once again starts feeling anxious that Taichi might be burning out and give up on karuta. She even seems to take his feelings into account when Porky brings up calling and congratulating Arata. She holds her phone up and Taichi is shown directly in the background, and she decides to call him later, as if she wants to be careful about congratulating Arata on accomplishing the very thing Taichi is dejected about (Taichi is right next to her when she calls him later, but the point is Chihaya is starting to be more aware of people and their emotions, not to mention that Dr. Harada fired them up a bit before). She notices Taichi’s apprehension about seeing Dr. Harada as well.

Arata’s confession also rattles her and she spends some time after in a daze. Taichi is too sharp and can read Chihaya too well to not essentially piece together what happened (confirming his suspicion later in his match with Arata). This puts Taichi in a tough position since he still doesn’t know how or when to tell Chihaya how he feels, most likely out of fear that their relationship will change.

When Taichi stays behind again and Chihaya gets visibly upset, Kana urges her to think about why he is acting the way he is. The whole “Why is Taichi always going off on his own?” thing has always been interesting to me (and I feel like I always overthink this or maybe I just don’t get it). The answer isn’t simply because he loves Chihaya. When he skips the class trip, it seems as though he wants to win as a result of his frustration over his loss at Yoshino. His loss against Chihaya, despite so much preparation probably made him think that he’s still not good enough to stand as Chihaya’s (and Arata’s) equal, so he pours himself into another tournament. Taichi even asks himself what he wants to be so bad that he’d miss his school trip, and that’s where a problem arises with his motivation. Among other reasons, it feels like part of why Taichi is trying so hard in karuta is to grow/find himself and change parts of himself that he isn’t satisfied with. However, that’s a vague benchmark and it’s hard to tell when you feel you’ve grown “enough”. Would he have been entirely satisfied had he won against Chihaya, even if they had played each other in an earlier round than the final? It’s hard to say, but maybe he needs the tangible proof that he’s grown because otherwise he may not believe he has (his victory over Arata later and his reaction makes this seem to be the case, if only partially). Taichi staying behind the second time specifically in hopes to play against Arata is also something he wouldn’t want Chihaya to know. Beyond more or less asking Arata about his confession, Taichi doing this feels like he’s trying to face Arata (a person who Taichi compares himself to, to a fault) and try to overcome his own insecurities - “How do I fight? Against Arata? Against myself?”. Despite his private nature and him not typically relying on others, to me there seems to be many reasons he can’t confide in Chihaya, one of which being that he loves her and that is often a part of why he feels insecure because he doesn't see the value in himself enough, so he isolates himself to try and find himself on his own (?). If anyone has a better read on this and its implications please tell me lol it feels pretty open to interpretation to me.

After losing to Arata, it’s incredibly clear that Taichi is feeling dejected and unmotivated in regards to karuta. At this point, Taichi has been on the way down; losing to both Chihaya and Arata, losing at the Meijin qualifiers, not having the drive to challenge Suou like Arata, and knowing Arata confessed despite Taichi not having the courage to be honest with Chihaya about his own feelings yet. The anxiety Chihaya feels about the distance between them and the fact that Taichi appears to be suffering is enough for her to break down. I’d consider this growth for Chihaya; she at times gets tunnel vision for her own goals or doesn’t notice people’s feelings because she herself is having fun. Yet here she so viscerally reacts to the fact that he is struggling, and very purely wishes for him to smile and enjoy the time with everyone like she has been. This desire is how the Taichi cup is born, which results in Taichi thinking about whether he feels he’s grown or not since the last genpei match they played as kids. It’s also sweet of Chihaya to pick genpei matches in part due to appealing to one of Taichi’s greatest assets in karuta, his memorization.

After Taichi confesses, the dynamic between them is different. We’re shown a montage of several days that follow, where they don’t seem to speak and while Taichi seems to be faking smiles, Chihaya can’t even seem to look at him. Whether or not she flatly turned him down isn’t known but there’s also no communication to erase any misunderstanding either.

Once the realization that Taichi is leaving the club fully hits Chihaya, that anxiousness about him slipping away is now a fear being realized, hence her act of desperation to bring him back. It comes across as a bit selfish and unintentionally cruel, that she doesn’t seem to recognize that while she’s been confused and trying to get her thoughts straight (or just waiting and hoping they go back to normal), he’s been suffocating in the atmosphere created after he spilled his most vulnerable feelings. I know the kiss rubs some people the wrong way, and while it may not have been the best option, it effectively translated Taichi’s heartbrokenness to Chihaya and made her understand him more clearly. The other thing that made his feelings clear was the karuta reference - that all 100 cards look pitch black to him. Virtually all of his karuta career has had Chihaya involved in some way, which combined with his dejection after all those losses, makes sense why he has no desire at all to continue. Not long after, he’s convinced that he doesn’t like karuta at all, which isn’t really true. The truth seems to be more along the lines of he was never playing because he liked it. He was playing to meet team expectations, help Chihaya achieve her dream, gain acknowledgement and battle his own issues, possibly even to reject the ideals his mother instilled in him, etc. and he eventually was crushed by that weight. He needs the space and time away from Chihaya and the club, even if it’d be considered selfish for him to do so.

//Sidenote// I always find it interesting when people compare Chihaya’s reaction to Arata’s confession to Taichi’s because the context and her actual relationships with each of them are inherently different. Chihaya has spent a good amount of time trying to figure out Taichi (and in general just knows him better) and for her to miss something so huge obviously stuns her, not to mention she starts feeling guilt that she may have been unintentionally causing some of the suffering she so desperately wanted to dissolve. She also doesn’t seem to know how she herself feels yet, hence the “I’m sorry” which feels pointed to other things rather than a flat out rejection (despite Taichi feeling completely rejected). She also recalls his confession and it depicts Taichi in a very pure and gentle way, which I’d interpret as being remembered in a positive way (even if she also remembers how broken down he was shortly after), and later refers to his words as being like a poem.

I also see people complain about Taichi’s timing in leaving the club. Honestly, it feels like the best time he could, rather than wait until there are new members to help and tournaments to worry about, and then just dip out. Was is it somewhat unfair that they weren’t told face to face (apart from Nishida and Komano)? Sure, but realistically it wouldn’t have gone over well any way it happened and I think Taichi just didn’t have any fight left to give. Apart from Chihaya (at first), everyone seems stunned but seem like they understand that he wouldn’t leave without reason. It’s been obvious that he cares a great deal about the club and its members.

Anyway, I’ll be making more of these that talk about these two after these events up to the end of the series soon. If you read this far, thanks and feel free to add your thoughts!

#chihayafuru #taichi x chihaya #mashima taichi #ayase chihaya #anime #manga

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flyinghome-againstthewind · 1 year

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I posted 1,381 times in 2022

That's 660 more posts than 2021!

33 posts created (2%)

1,348 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@theawkwardterrier

@walkinginland

@notenotenotenote

@frasersjamieclaire

@philtstone

I tagged 1,004 of my posts in 2022

Only 27% of my posts had no tags

#outlander - 429 posts

#jamie x claire - 314 posts

#outlander spoilers - 131 posts

#legends of tomorrow - 119 posts

#claire fraser - 66 posts

#avalance - 49 posts

#jamie fraser - 43 posts

#castle x beckett - 43 posts

#🥺🥺🥺 - 27 posts

#ofmd - 27 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#i also like to joke that i technically have a psych minor bc i met all of the requirements for it i had just transferred schools in between

My Top Posts in 2022:

Beside the Seaside: Ch 3

read on ao3

previous chapter

1944

Claire Randall had been to France when she was young, had seen the lush green countryside and walked the streets of Paris, but she had long since been unable to reconcile her memories of another world with this one. She stood in the heart of what had once been a bustling city but was now reduced to rubble. The British army had set up a field hospital within the ruins of a cathedral, and Claire had grown accustomed to the way the steady sound of distant gunfire echoed off of its remaining half-walls. She lifted her head from tending to a soldier to see one of her fellow nurses, Marion, shuffling a wounded man into the tent.

“Have you seen him out there?” Claire asked. Marion shook her head and turned her own attention to her patient.

“You looking for your boy?”

Her gaze returned to the soldier, who was grimacing through the question. Corporal Thompson would be alright, she thought, but there was little she could do for his pain while cleaning and stitching up his wound. Besides, perhaps, a bit of a distraction, which he seemed to be looking for. Claire gave in, though it was the last thing she wanted to talk about.

“He’s not my boy, he’s just…”

He was Fergus, eight-year-old charmer and perpetual pain in her arse. As soon as she got her hands on him, she was going to throttle him.

“Maybe not,” Thompson conceded, “but you look out for him, don’t you? Everyone always sees you two together, anyway.”

The man’s assessment of her and Fergus brought her up short. She paused in her treatment and stared at him, the urge to defend the young scamp rising steadily to the surface. “He needs a little looking after, whether he wants it or not. He doesn’t have anyone.”

There were few who came through this camp without learning Fergus’s story. The boy was already an orphan before war broke out, but when his city’s inhabitants evacuated, including the staff and wards of the Catholic orphanage where the boy was said to have been a resident, Fergus was left behind. Some said he stayed behind on purpose, for Fergus truly was the life of the camp and ran wild through it without the supervision of the nuns, but most believed he’d just been overlooked in the chaos. By Claire’s estimation, Fergus had been here with the army for at least two years now, moving with them in the encampment, and living off of the kindness of others. He’d been “stationed” here longer than Claire had, and even with the entire camp as his personal playground, she saw very quickly that no one was really caring for Fergus. Even the details of his story had become a bit muddied without someone there to safeguard it; for instance, she was never clear on whether this very city had been his home or if the army had picked him up on their way through to it. Fergus himself was squirrely on the details, in no hurry to return to the nuns.

“Funny kid, that Fergus,” Thompson went on, hissing on occasion but otherwise quietly bearing the pain. To some of the soldiers, Fergus was nothing more than a pet, a source of entertainment, as though they couldn’t see the humanity in a small, lonely child. Claire was starting to get the distinct impression that Thompson fell into that category and grit her teeth as she neared the end of her stitching. “I wonder what will happen to him when this ends. If this ever ends…”

Claire felt her stomach churn. Where would Fergus go when the army left and no one returned to the rubble of his former home? “There’s got to be another orphanage somewhere that would take him.” But even as she spoke the words ‒ for a perfectly reasonable solution ‒ she hated the thought.

A bomb blast echoed in the distance and Claire’s eyes shot to the entryway again.

“So where’d he run off to?”

Claire bit her cheek to keep from screaming. She could be sympathetic to the man’s need for distraction, but this conversation was starting to make her want to pull her hair out. She was already worried sick over Fergus, and Thompson’s careless questions weren’t helping.

Mercifully, she caught her name being spoken and her gaze flitted toward the voice. It was Sergeant Harris, whom she was friendly with. He was a bit older than the rest and one of the few men Claire didn’t feel like she needed to keep her guard up around to ward off unwanted advances ‒ apparently a wedding ring didn’t mean much in wartime to most people.

“Fergus?” she asked, unable to keep her voice from wobbling. Just yesterday the boy had said he wanted to be a real soldier, and when he’d gone missing this morning…

“Yes, come see, Nurse Randall. He’s alright, but he’s all shook up.”

She ran out of the medical tent, quickly scanning the area for him. And when her gaze rested on him, the vice grip on her heart finally slackened. “Fergus!”

He looked up as she approached him, his expression a little dazed, and he seemed at that moment so much younger than his eight years.

“Oh, Fergus, you little wretch!” She clasped the boy to her heart and heaved a sigh of relief. He became boneless in her embrace, sinking into her.

“Milady,” he murmured. It was Fergus’s teasing nickname for her ‒ after their introduction at the camp, she’d ruthlessly dressed down a soldier for not paying attention to her presentation on preventing trench foot and Fergus had witnessed it. He had said she’d looked the part of nobility in that moment for her command over the men, and so he’d called her Milady ever since, always with a devilish glint in his eyes ‒ or at times he said it sarcastically when she turned her attention to fussing over him.

But just then, he sounded so small, so lost in the dark, and Claire didn’t know what else to do but clutch him tighter to her. “Are you alright?”

She pulled back just enough to look at him, framing his dirt-smudged face in her hands. God, she hoped that was only dirt.

“I k‒ I killed a German soldier, Milady.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Don’t tell me that,” she said in a breathless whisper.

“H‒h‒he was not with the others. I thought he might be a spy. He didn’t see me and I‒ I had a knife. I struck him.”

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65 notes - Posted November 6, 2022

chapter 26: the best by far is you

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Summary: An exploration of Claire & Jamie’s story if their firstborn had lived and they had the chance to be parents together of wee Faith Fraser before the Battle of Culloden.

Chapter 26

“Do you think it’s strange,” Claire asked him while Brianna was tucked against her breast as she nursed, “that Murtagh hasn’t once held the baby?”

Her tone suggested that she did think it was strange, regardless of Jamie’s thoughts on the matter. “Och, I’ve told ye before, mo nighean, he’s scared o’ bairns when they’re that small. Thinks they’re too fragile and likely to fall apart in his arms.”

Claire’s brows furrowed together. “Well, sure, he didn’t go near Faith until she was at least seven months old, but I thought… I mean, he’s been wonderful with her ever since.”

“Aye, she’s no longer a wee babe now is she?”

Claire rolled her eyes. “So, he won’t go near Brianna until she’s hearty enough that he’s not scared to hold her? When she’s half a year old? Is that what you’re saying?”

He couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his lips. “Sassenach… he loves our bairns. He’d protect them with his life. Ye ken that well. And aye, someday when Brianna is hearty enough as ye say, I’m sure he’ll hold her, if that’s yer worry.”

She shook her head, exasperated by the notion, and glanced down at the baby in her arms. Brianna’s arms and legs flailed as soon as Claire looked at her, wriggling with joy. Jamie’s heart melted at the sight. Such a sweet wee thing, their Brianna.

Claire’s finger traced the contours of the babe’s soft, round face. “Well, that simply won’t do, will it, Bree?”

----------

Claire cornered Murtagh with the baby while he was in the sitting room, lounging in one of the chairs and none the wiser to her scheming. Jamie sat nearby and watched the event unfold with nothing short of amusement, as Claire simply lowered the baby into Murtagh’s lap before there was an opportunity for the older man to escape.

Murtagh went rigid with fear, his arms stiff and awkward around the baby. “Nay‒ I‒ Claire!”

“Don’t make such a fuss. She’s sleeping.” Claire straightened, settling her hands on her hips, surveying the two unlikely companions with a smile. “There, see? Nothing to be afraid of.”

Murtagh looked as though he might argue that point, still holding Brianna with a delicateness as though she were a loaded pistol, poised to go off at any moment.

And with that, Claire spun and walked to the other side of the room to help Fergus with his lessons. Murtagh turned sharp eyes on Jamie. “What the devil is all this about, then?”

Jamie’s gaze flitted over to Claire but she wasn’t looking. He suspected she would be stealing glances this way, though. “I think,” he began softly, “that she worries ye won’t… bond with Brianna, if ye dinna hold her.”

“Christ,” Murtagh muttered under his breath.

Jamie held a hand up placatingly to his godfather. “She sees how ye are wi’ Fergus and wee Faith, I think she just wants to make sure ye care the same way about the bairn, too.”

His godfather made a disgruntled sound. “If she thinks this is the way to do it…” he grumbled. “Fer Christ’s sake, of course I care about the bairn.”

“I ken that, but…” Jamie’s gaze dropped to the sleeping babe in Murtagh’s arms, so small and helpless, and his heart wrenched. He understood the deeper reason that Claire was so unsettled about Murtagh and the bairn. “Anything could happen, ye ken? We have three bairns now, and with all that happened in the last year, just trying to keep our family together… Claire cannae help thinking about the worst… what would happen to the wee ones if we weren’t‒” He swallowed roughly, shrugging a little. Claire wasn’t the only one who couldn’t help thinking about that. Any parent would.

“Aye, I ken yer meaning fine.” Murtagh looked down at the baby then too, still appearing stiff as a poker as he held her, but the older man’s expression softened. “Christ, though… did she think I would leave the bairn and keep the others?”

“I dinnae think she feels that way now, seeing as ye havenae tried to pass the baby off to me yet,” he said with a grin.

Murtagh grunted his displeasure. “I would if I wasnae so nervous she might roll out o’ my arms when I tried.”

Jamie huffed a laugh. “Ye’re doing fine, a ghoistidh. And while I have ye at my disposal,” he teased, earning another sharp look from Murtagh. “I’ve been meaning to ask ye… what yer plans are from here. If ye want to go back to Scotland or continue on wi’ us.”

Murtagh simply stared at him until Jamie was shifting in his seat under his gaze. “First Claire and now you? Och, ye wound me, Jamie.”

“I didnae want to presume. That’s why I asked.”

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67 notes - Posted March 9, 2022

Beside the Seaside: Ch 1

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Summary:

The Second World War has ended but returning to their lives from before the war proves difficult for many. For widower Jamie Fraser, the physical and psychological scars he now carries threaten the peaceful life he wants to provide for his young daughter. In an effort to start over fresh, he moves them to a coastal town in the Highlands and buys a seaside inn.

Claire Beauchamp returned from the war with an orphan in tow, intent on adopting the boy and starting the family she and her husband had longed for before the war interrupted their plans. But in gaining her son, she loses her marriage and now must cobble together some sort of life for just her and Fergus. To try and mend their fractured relationship, she takes her son on an extended stay in the Scottish Highlands.

November 1945

He had the car drop him off at the end of the lane rather than Lallybroch’s doorstep. Stood there for a minute with his bag thrown over one shoulder and his uniform growing damp under the steady rain.

It had been raining the day he left Lallybroch, and it gave Jamie a strange sense of no time having passed between that day and this one, even though everything about his life had changed in those five years. Yet Lallybroch looked the same. The heavy stone walls built by his ancestors had stood for two centuries and it heartened Jamie to see the place untouched by the destruction of war. The walls of it, at least.

His feet felt leaden with every step that brought him closer to his home. He wasn’t ready for who he would see. He wasn’t ready for who he wouldn’t see here ever again. And while he’d carried some of these losses for three years now, he hadn’t been home without them yet. It would be real, inescapable, the moment he stepped foot inside.

Jamie had hardly passed under the archway of Lallybroch before the bellowing of several dogs inside the house announced his presence. Ready or not, the front door flew open, and there was his ma. His throat constricted at the sight of her, and he’d all but blinked and she was in front of him, throwing her arms around his neck.

“Oh, my lad! My son,” she sobbed into his neck, her voice nearly drowned out by the heavy rain.

Ye’re a braw lad, son.

The words came to mind of their own volition, a memory triggered by his return. Not spoken by his mother, but his father on the day Jamie left for training. His da had driven him to the train station after Jamie had said goodbye to everyone else, giving Jamie a prolonged moment with Brian Fraser. But the entire drive and all through waiting for Jamie’s train, the two of them hardly spoke. What was there to say in such circumstances? Brian had fought in the Great War, and he’d hoped to spare his own sons from such a fate. That was no secret to Jamie, and he’d already witnessed Brian’s quiet grief when Willie left months before. Knew that his own leaving was twisting the knife further in Brian’s gut. So they’d stayed quiet. When the train pulled in and began to fill with soldiers, Brian had clapped Jamie on the shoulder and, when Jamie moved to hug his father, had kissed his cheek, something he hadn’t done since Jamie was a boy. “Ye’re a braw lad, son,” he had said, giving Jamie’s shoulder a wee shake. When his father spoke again, his voice was thick with emotion. “Make sure ye come back home.”

Jamie felt his chest tighten with the memory and his arms squeezed around his mother. He had done as Brian had told him ‒ he had come home. But not before he could see his father alive again, now dead and buried in the Lallybroch family cemetery. Those words became the last thing his da ever said to him, and among his long list of regrets in life was the hour that Jamie wasted in silence with him on that day.

“Oh, my Jamie,” his mother was saying now. She pulled back to look at him, framing his face in her cold, wet hands. His jaw tensed.

Ellen MacKenzie Fraser had always been the stubborn pillar of strength in their family but in the last six years, she’d had to weather more than a fair share of grief. She looked more frail than he’d ever seen her before, and that left a cold feeling in his chest.

“Jamie!”

His gaze lifted to the doorway to find Jenny rushing down the steps, clutching her round belly ‒ he hadn’t realized she was pregnant again, hadn’t seen word of it come through in any of his letters from home.

He opened one arm to embrace his sister, bringing the three of them together. The unwelcome thought came as he held them; they were the last three Frasers standing, their family gone by half in the space of a bloody war.

“Och, it’s pouring buckets out here!” Jenny fussed. “Come inside and get warm.”

He picked up his bag from the ground and followed Jenny in, his mother’s hand on his back the whole way, like she needed to touch him to know he was real.

Stepping inside Lallybroch felt like stepping back in time ‒ everything exactly as he remembered it from before. He half-expected to see his father and his brothers when he rounded the corner into the sitting room, so inseparable were they in his memories of this place.

Instead, he caught sight of another familiar face. “Ian!”

“Good to see ye, Jamie.” His best friend strode across the room, his gate completely changed from the confident ease with which Ian used to carry himself. Until he saw that, Jamie had almost forgotten. Ian’s prosthetic leg wasn’t visible under his trousers, but to anyone who had known him before, his uneven strides were a dead giveaway.

Jamie embraced his friend ‒ his brother-in-law now too, he reminded himself ‒ and noticed Jenny then corralling a small boy towards them. “This is our wee Jamie,” she introduced with a proud smile. “This is your uncle, mo cridhe,” she said to the boy, “the one you’re named after.”

Jenny and Ian’s son was scarcely more than 3 years old, and he smiled shyly up at Jamie. His namesake. He had known this; Jenny had written to him with news of his first nephew while Jamie was nearly on his deathbed. At the time, it had been a comfort. Another reason to make it home. But now, looking down at the wee boy, all Jamie could think was that if his nephew had been born a few months later, he would be Willie’s namesake instead, or their father’s ‒ as he ought to be. Not saddled with Jamie’s name. Not when Jamie had done nothing for this boy to be proud of.

“Hello, laddie,” he said with a slight nod.

There was a gentle touch at his elbow and he turned to find his mother at his side again. “Someone else would like to see ye.” She nodded towards the doorway opposite them, and Jamie’s gaze flitted over to see a girl of six years of age in place of where he had left a wee babe. His stomach twisted into knots. She looked so much like her mother, it gave Jamie the strange sense of seeing a memory come to life right before him.

He skirted slowly around the others and paused six feet away from where his daughter stood. And lowered himself slowly to one knee.

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76 notes - Posted October 4, 2022

the best by far is you: chapter 25

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Summary: An exploration of Claire & Jamie’s story if their firstborn had lived and they had the chance to be parents together of wee Faith Fraser before the Battle of Culloden.

Chapter 25

Jamie didn’t know what hour of night it was when Claire was finally given a chance to rest, after having been helped into a clean nightgown while the bed was stripped. The baby was bundled up and sleeping soundly in her cradle, the exhaustion from the last 24 hours having caught up with both mother and babe. He paused at the door, gaze flickering between the slumbering forms of his wife and their wee lass, heart in his throat.

Some small part of him was scared to step outside this room, to leave them even for a moment, lest he find out that the last several hours were nothing more than a dream.

But somewhere down the hall, there was someone waiting up for word of the baby, and Jamie wasn’t so cruel as to make him wait until sunrise.

So he slipped out into the hallway, vacant but still dimly lit with candles along the wall. Not long ago, there had been a flurry of activity in these halls. After the birth, a maid had spread word to the rest of the household that a baby girl had been safely delivered, including ‒ Jamie was sure ‒ to wherever Jared and Murtagh had settled in to drink their whiskey in the tense silence of men unsure of what to do with themselves while a woman labored. And just shortly before Jamie’s trek, another housemaid had helped Mother Hildegarde and Marie to their guest chambers for the night. But even while it was quiet now and the rest of the household seemed to sleep, Jamie knew one person was still up, who had been missed while the joyous news was spread.

They would’ve assumed the children were sleeping, but having been the boy on the other side of this conversation, Jamie was intimately acquainted with the fear that kept a son from sleeping no matter the hour. The relief and gratitude and joy that he got to deliver different news to his own son was almost enough to bring him to his knees there in the hallway. That he should be so fortunate to still have all of them with him…

He opened the door to Fergus’s room and the soft light from the hallway spilled into the pitch black room. Two small bodies were under the covers but only one stirred and bolted upright, expectant of a visitor.

The light caught the tracks of tears on Fergus’s face, his expression already taut with worry. “Maman?” he croaked.

His word landed like a punch in the gut. Jamie should’ve come sooner, should’ve found a way here immediately to put this boy’s fears to rest.

“She's alright. Oh, a balach, it’s alright,” he murmured, moving into the room as Fergus drew his knees up to his chest and buried his face, the sound of his smothered cries filling the room a moment later.

“Dinna fash yerself, laddie.” He perched on the edge of the bed, reaching over to rub Fergus’s back. “Dinna weep, mon fils, it’s alright,” he murmured soothingly, even as he knew Fergus needed the release of those tears for all the time he’d sat here in the dark fearing the worst. He cried for the relief of it all.

“Can I see Maman?”

“Aye, of course ye can. She’s sleeping just now though and we shouldnae disturb her. She’ll want to see ye when she wakes, so how about in the morning?” And maybe Fergus, with his fears put to rest, could find a few hours of sleep himself. The boy nodded half-heartedly and wiped his face with his palm before resting his cheek on one of his knees with a sigh.

“Ye’ve another baby sister,” Jamie told him softly.

“Oh,” Fergus startled, as if he’d forgotten for a moment what all of this was about. “And she’s alright?”

“Aye, she’s bonny,” Jamie beamed, and the corners of Fergus’s mouth curved upward. “She cannae wait tae meet ye.” He smoothed down some of Fergus’s short, riotous curls. “She’s so very wee and all worn out from making her appearance, though, so she’s getting some much needed rest as well,” he added, hoping it would be enough to convince Fergus that he might as well get his own precious few hours of sleep in the meantime.

He tucked Fergus back under the covers, murmuring reminders that he had a papa and maman who loved him very much and two wee sisters now who adored him, and he would see all of them when he woke up. Jamie sealed his words with a kiss to the boy’s head. His gaze went beyond Fergus to where Faith was still curled up under the blankets, snoring softly. A lump rose in his throat.

The greatest joys of his life…

His eyes burned with tears as he turned and quietly left the room, shutting the door behind him. And when he slipped back into the room he shared with Claire, he found her and the babe exactly as he left them. His waking dream was completely undisturbed.

He did fall to his knees then, and on his tongue was a quick and reverent prayer of gratitude to the Almighty that this should be the life that he was given, the life that was restored to him.

----------

They slept in fits and starts, fumbling through a once familiar rhythm but with a precious new life. Claire’s eyes squinted open against the early light of morning ‒ the realization that it was already morning had her sleep-addled brain rebelling against the thought ‒ and stared at the empty space in bed beside her.

Her first thought was the baby; she didn’t hear a thing, so why had she awoken?

She shifted in bed and felt every muscle in her body screaming at her in protest. God, it felt like she’d been hit by a car ‒ a thought she’d have to keep to herself when others asked her how she was feeling. Jamie had fetched the baby every time she woke during the night so that Claire wouldn’t have to get out of bed, but even with that consideration, she was still tired and sore all over. It was different than how it had gone with Faith, she realized. With Faith, it had been flashes of terror and a race to save them both. Hardly felt like the labor itself had lasted longer than a minute for all that Claire could remember of it. But with this baby, Claire had labored for almost a full day ‒ and both body and memory could remember every second of it.

Then she heard it ‒ the soft squeaking grunt of a newborn, not quite a cry. Her head lifted from the pillow and swiveled, but the baby wasn’t in her cradle. No, instead, her gaze settled on her bare-chested husband sitting up in a chair with the baby pillowed against him, hardly visible to Claire beneath her blanket. Jamie’s eyes were closed, his head resting on the back of the chair, and she would’ve thought he was asleep if not for the steady rhythm of his fingers gently tapping the baby’s back. He must’ve heard her movement as his eyes opened then and found hers.

A lump rose in her throat, for no other explanation than she couldn’t help the swell of affection for them both, the sight of them so perfect she could weep. “Why are you all the way over there?”

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77 notes - Posted January 29, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

the best by far is you: epilogue

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Summary: An exploration of Claire & Jamie’s story if their firstborn had lived and they had the chance to be parents together of wee Faith Fraser before the Battle of Culloden.

Epilogue

June 1750

His wife was still buried under the covers while Jamie moved about the room on quiet feet and got dressed in the soft light of dawn. He reached for his boots, the final article of dress, and caught sight of Claire’s hand rising out of the mess of blankets ‒ reaching out toward him in silent request.

He stopped in his tracks. Straightened back up.

“Don’t get up yet,” she said, her voice still heavy with sleep. “Stay in bed with me.”

His chest tightened and he let out a gentle sigh. “Aye.”

He crawled back onto the bed, fully-dressed save for his boots still, and molded his body against the curve of Claire’s. She let out a sleepy hum when he nuzzled into her wild hair and kissed the back of her neck. There was a time when he might’ve denied her request, felt the need to rush off to the responsibilities of farm life. But he knew now that all of that would keep ‒ for a little while at least ‒ but Claire and the bairns would not.

There was something in her touch, the way her hands clasped tightly over his, keeping his hold on her there, that told him her thoughts were running in tandem with his, reaching the same destination. He held her tighter still, turning his face into the crook of her neck and murmuring all that was in his heart to her, some bits in Gaelic but he thought she knew well enough now to understand his meaning if not the words themselves.

His eyes opened with the soft creak of their bedroom door opening. Of course, he could put off the work of the day for a bit, but the bairns didn’t always give them the same reprieve. “Sleep a little longer, Sassenach,” he whispered against her neck before leaving a parting kiss there. “I’ll get up wi’ her.”

When he rolled over and swung his feet out of bed, he caught sight of the impish wee lass in the doorway, bouncing on her toes already at the prospect of their recent morning routine together.

“Dood morning,” she sung to him, her eyes alight with joy, as he swiftly pulled on his boots and ushered her back through the doorway.

He swung Brianna up into his arms and closed the door behind them. “Good morning, m'annsachd.”

He stepped across the hall and poked his head into the nursery, knowing he would find Faith under the blankets still. Brianna was their only early riser now.

He let Faith be and knocked on Fergus’s door to get him up and moving for the day. Brianna was a warm weight against his chest, waiting patiently until Jamie headed down the stairs with her to the kitchen. A fire had already been started in the hearth, letting Jamie know Murtagh was up and about.

“I can make the parritch, Papa?”

Papa. That was who he was to Fergus, and to Faith, he was simply Da, but Brianna was growing up hearing both names for Jamie and used them interchangeably. Jamie didn’t mind — she’d likely settle on one or the other eventually, and it had never really mattered what his children called him, only that they were his to raise and love and guide.

“Aye, we’ll make it together.” He kissed her soft cheek still flushed from her sleep, and moved about with only one hand free to start on breakfast. His wee Brianna encumbered the process more than helped, but no one else in the household possessed Brianna’s early morning cheerfulness ‒ besides perhaps himself, as Claire often pointed out in mild annoyance ‒ so he got on just fine with the lass as meal preparations were started.

Jamie finally set her down just as Murtagh walked in through the kitchen backdoor.

“Murtagh!” the wee thing cheered and ran to him, throwing her arms around his legs. It was the kind of reaction that would make one think she hadn’t seen her beloved Murtagh in ages. It had been only a matter of hours, most of which she’d slept through. The older man grinned and reached down to smooth her hair, still wild from her sleep. She turned her face and kissed his trouser-clad knee before letting him go.

“Come eat yer parritch, Brianna, and let poor Murtagh come inside.”

“Och, she’s fine,” Murtagh protested, but still herded Brianna towards the table.

With a certain knack for timing his entrance at the moment food was ready, Fergus stumbled out into the kitchen then, silent and sullen and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He sunk into a chair at the table and Jamie wordlessly passed him a bowl, smothering a rueful smile. They’d learned not to engage Fergus too heavily in the morning during this season of his youth.

Claire appeared too, dressed and hair up in place, though a weariness beyond physical exhaustion still lingered in her eyes. She bent to kiss the top of Fergus’s head and then joined them at the table.

There was only one Fraser missing, so Jamie headed up the stairs for the nursery.

“Up ye get, Faith.”

She was still sleeping, but she’d stay in bed all day if they let her. So he scooped her up and carried her down to the kitchen. She was getting older ‒ six already ‒ but Faith was still such a slight thing that Jamie didn't think twice about carrying her around as he always had.

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87 notes - Posted May 19, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #considering i only started posting Beside the Seaside in Oct of this year #I'm v tender about the fact that 2 of the chapters are in my top 5 posts like you guys have been so supportive of my new fic baby 🥺🥺🥺#thank you friends! 💕#i love it here and i love all of you giving you all a lil forehead kiss MWAH #also screaming over the fact that ‘🥺🥺🥺’ is one of my top tags aksjdks #I really do resonate with that akskfjjsks

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alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer · 1 year

Text

I posted 425 times in 2022

73 posts created (17%)

352 posts reblogged (83%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@have-a-holly-jolly-angstmas

@flowersbloomuntiltheyrot

@when-wax-wings-melt

@cant-think-of-anything

@i-think-i-can-speak-here

I tagged 224 of my posts in 2022

Only 47% of my posts had no tags

#ask - 18 posts

#alastair carstairs - 14 posts

#the last hours - 9 posts

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#self reblog - 6 posts

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#anonymous - 5 posts

#toh spoilers - 4 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#this post is thanks to the 2 presentations we did in my 2 person class today &somehow we picked the same exact theme for both presentations

My Top Posts in 2022:

judging by how many wips I have where alastair is gravely injured, you would think I hate him or want him to get hurt. the opposite is true, in fact. I want him to be taken care of. doted on, even. my man needs a break. he does so much and is constantly taken for granted. if this is what it takes for people to realize that he might not always be there, well...

58 notes - Posted May 25, 2022

this is kind of a niche reference but I want a scene for cordelia like that scene in fhsy when adaine went into her sister's memories and saw all of the times that their parents were cruel to adaine and how her sister started to loathe herself for never saying anything. I want cordelia to look back on all of the times that elias treated her as a golden child, all of the times he berated alastair and praised her in the same breath, and feel guilty. I want her to regret never being able to protect him. I want her to feel angry that she was ever in that position in the first place. I want her to be able to accept that she was a child, and alastair was a child, and it's no one's fault except Elias'. I want her to realize that it was never her responsibility to protect Alastair and it was never Alastair's responsibility to protect her, but he did and she didn't and that's a guilt that she'll just need to learn to live with. I want her to realize that it's not too late and she can still repair her relationship with her brother. it might not be living in a bunk bed at the top of a wizard's tower but I need cordelia and alastair to be able to label what happened as abuse and heal from it together.

78 notes - Posted May 20, 2022

sometimes I remember how alastairs sole advice to his sister in her marriage was "being treated badly by someone doesn't make you love them more" ...and yet there are still people who defend ch*rles 😪

86 notes - Posted April 3, 2022

apparently it's now canon that the reason elias' death year is wrong on the family tree is because some bitch named esme hardcastle asked alastair when his father died and he was like "idk he's been dead to me since like 1894" and she said "okay bet"

93 notes - Posted July 18, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

the interaction between alastair and charles where charles tells him that barbara died and alastair asks if thomas is okay and charles goes "i thought you hated those fellows" and alastair simply says "no" despite saying to cordelia literally 15 minutes earlier "let's never talk to those terrible people ever again" is the alastair equivalent of lucie complaining that thomas wont let anyone see his tattoo and alastair saying "I'd like to see it" and thomas immediately rolling up his sleeve

309 notes - Posted March 3, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #I'm once again alastair trash #I haven't been too active this year

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rinseveryday · 1 year

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Ch 139 mystery man and a bonus Shima because I hate his new hairstyle

#spoilers #ch 139 #blue exorcist #ao no exorcist #rin okumura #okumura rin #renzou shima #my art #not chibi

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bunboxtoyou · 2 years

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a comforting teashop

had this idea in my head for a while but the writing inspo barely hit me now, sorry for typos, haven’t proofread cuz i want to sleep, will check when i wake, also sorry if it sounds like a ramble i was in a mood, thx for reading

tags: angst, comfort, minor spoilers, major? spoilers, idk it takes place after the war stuff, so i guess spoilers after ch. 139, alluding to pieck/porco and levi/erwin but its up to you its not fully stated, NOT levi/pieck but if you want it could be too, very much up to interpretation

the familiar atmosphere of freshly brewed tea alongside the smell of baked good has become a comforting source for our two veterans. they’ve become accustomed to working together after the war had ended. although they did fight alongside each other, they were not close. it wasn’t until years had gone by, where they were both trying to find what to do with themselves. after all, it was by a miracle that they even got to live longer than expected.

while they were recovering so was everyone else, some going back to the island and some choosing to stay. of course going back to ruins wasn’t easy but they all did what they could. staying back due to his injury and also needing some help to move around, levi found himself living among who once was the enemy. he also found himself in their care, often being led around by gabby and falco as they try to rebuild their lives together.

for pieck on the other hand, she was unsure where she would reside. in some ways she felt that she betrayed the goal, but also knew that they did the best they could in the end. it doesn’t mean the thoughts don’t eat her up at night, along with the images of her fallen comrade. just the one comrade in particular, the image of his face all bloodied as he gave himself up.

it haunts her, but she is not the only one with these nightmares. the stoic captain himself has seemingly grown used to seeing fallen soldiers, but all that is a façade he has forced himself to show outside. in truth, he is still haunted by the images of his family torn apart and his squad being thrown around. worst of all he is haunted by the moments of his commander taking his last breath. he knows he could have saved him, but did he really want his to suffer more than he already did. this was his way out, why would levi rob him of the freedom he finally had. the only freedom any soldier had.

as these two are plagued with these horrifying thoughts, there is also a small silver lining. a small shop that was run down in marley, had been restored as a gift to the ex-captain himself. a gift from his fellow comrades as their final goodbye, as they depart for new ventures back home. the home levi no longer calls home, it now seems so desolate after losing everything he had. having to start anew in the place he once fought against, but it feels awfully comforting in a way. it became his distraction, of course he had to have the occasional help of gabby and falco but he did not mind it at all. it was only when their parents intervened to also help out, it made him feel useless. even though it was for the better, they insisted he couldn’t handle running the whole shop himself so he needed to accept some sort of help. of course he could not hire a stranger, especially with the guilt he held so it seemed he wouldn’t be able to run this business fully.

that was until pieck had volunteered herself to help work around the shop. it was a shock for them all, mostly from the surprise of seeing she had stayed back in marley instead of leaving with the ex-scouts back to the island. of course she had thought about escaping her old home to join the island devils once more, but she decided to stay and work through her guilt towards her home.

at first levi was reluctant to let her join, but he felt he owed it to her. especially for having to lug him around so much during the war, but also for trusting hange and not killing them immediately. so with that, he no longer had to worry about the parents watching over him and no longer had to keep the kids away from living their own lives. it gave him a complete clear conscious, something he rarely felt.

at the start of their working together levi made it very clear on what he would handle on his own. pieck had no qualms about his choices, she agreed she would help only when needed as long as she got to do her own thing. while levi had his teas it came to a surprise that pieck had her baked goods, particularly scones and biscuits. it was the perfect mix of their hobbies that made their business become a nice little comfortable spot for the community, and at the same time they were finding the comfort they needed as well.

while it is true their nights are sometimes haunted with those traumatic incidents, it seems that they have gone down just a bit. only for a bit though, because sometimes the smell of a fresh brew reminds levi of those late night meetings he’d have with erwin. especially those nights before expeditions when they both thought it could be their last. sometimes pieck spills her mix because she sees porco asking when the scones will be done, she even swears she can her his voice calling out that her baking is burning right before the timer goes off.

all these memories play in their heads, but they’ve become bittersweet. when the day finally ends they take what’s left over and enjoy it themselves in silence. no words are needed, not even when they notice the other’s shaky hands or the single tear that falls down a tired face. they don’t need to be discussed because the feeling is mutual. the guilt they share will remain but the scones can make it taste a little sweeter and the tea can help wash away some of the fears they once had. this is their new way of living, this is their way of coping. this is what their peace looks like, for however long they manage. the small teashop in marley, a new home.

#aot #levi ackerman #fanfiction #aot fanfiction #pieck aot #levi aot #porco galliard #aot erwin #erwin smith #levi angst #aot angst #pieck x porco #levi x erwin #pieck finger #aot porco #angst #fanfic #attack on titan #shingeki no kyoujin fanfiction

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lunocura · 8 months

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This is a pretty surprising, yet at the same time obvious in hindsight way to bring back the Weapons, who I thought Fujimoto was trying to make us forget about. It's also nice to see the worldbuilding where there's apparently a sense of community for the weapons beyond just being Makima's lapdogs.

#chainsaw man #chainsaw man spoilers #chainsaw man ch 139 #chainsaw man manga #manga #denji chainsaw man #miri sugo #luno reads #luno reads chainsaw man

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synchronousemma · 2 years

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12th May (Old May Day Eve): The Crown Inn ball occurs at last

Read the post and comment on WordPress

Read: Vol. 3, ch. 2 [38]; pp. 207–216 (from "No misfortune occurred" to "'no, indeed'").

Context

This date is not definite. Jo Modert writes: “Events between the Crown Inn ball and the first of June show it occurs during the second week in May. No weekday is given, but I suggest Thursday the twelfth (Old May Day Eve) with Harriet’s encounter with the gypsies on Old May Day—Friday the thirteenth” (p. 57).

This occasion is the fifth of eight “major scenes” identified by Marcia Folsom (2004, pp. xxx-xxxi).

Note that this write-up contains spoilers.

Readings and Interpretations

General Benevolence, Specific Friendship

Emma, upon finding out that her reserved role of advance inspector has in fact been reserved for half the company, mentally chides Mr. Weston: “General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be.—She could fancy such a man” (vol. 3, ch. 2 [38]; p. 208). Critics generally point out that this remark shows Emma to be thinking, perhaps unconsciously, of Mr. Knightley. G. A. Wilkes cites it as evidence that “Mr Knightley [has become] for Emma a standard by which other men are measured,” writing that Mr Knightley seems to be by this point “Emma’s special preserve” (p. 83). Edward Neill similarly writes that “[I]n the light of the playing on the word [“fancy”] which takes place, the text seems to twit Emma here—she has no need to ‘fancy such a man’ because she already has an example to hand in the person of Mr Knightley” (p. 45). J. F. Burrows points out the change in Emma’s thinking which this represents: “This is scarcely the Emma who had allowed Mr. Elton’s agreeableness the advantage over “‘Mr. Knightley’s downright, decided, commanding sort of manner’” [vol. 1, ch. 4; p. 21] or who, on the evening of the snow, had taken as little notice of Mr. Knightley’s thoughtfulness as of Mr. Weston’s heartless sociability” (p. 102).1

Other commenters emphasize this passage’s implications for the novel’s themes over its psychological significance to its protagonist. Eugene Goodheart writes that Emma’s moral “seriousness,” to her credit, is occasionally “reflected in her own autonomous spirit”: “From time to time she does display a capacity for seeing her friends and neighbors with a cool discriminating eye, unaffected by any investment of her own ego. Her judgment of Mr. Weston’s character has the sharpness and the gravity of Austen herself: [Quotes from ‘Emma perceived that and felt’ to ‘She could fancy such a man’]. Austen herself is speaking through Emma” (pp. 592–3).

Sarah Emsley similarly argues that this passage mirrors Austen’s (/ the narrator’s) perspective. She writes that the distinction here drawn between “benevolence” and “friendship” has to do with the novel’s perspective on the virtue of charity:

It is not Emma’s vanity alone that is damaged by being considered “the favourite and intimate of a man who had so many intimates and confidantes”; although her vanity is hurt here, she is right to see the contradictions inherent in this way Mr.Weston has of treating everybody. […] Where is tolerance and where is charity, in the debate about the difference between benevolence and friendship? How does one determine who one’s friends are, and how treatment of a friend differs from treatment of everyone else? Does one merely tolerate all others, or does tolerance also require one to be amiable, charitable, and benevolent? Charity involves more than just the right attitude toward giving gifts and paying visits. In Emma, Austen suggests that an understanding of charity also involves careful judgments about friendships and intimate relationships. […] Austen suggests that while one may cultivate a charitable attitude and a healthy respect for other people, one need not treat everyone as a “favourite” or an “intimate.” (pp. 139–40)

Claudia Johnson cites Emma’s reflection as an example of “the novel’s tendentiousness on the ever-recurrent subject man,” writing that “[w]hat ‘true’ masculinity is like—what a ‘man’ is, how a man speaks and behaves, what a man really wants—is the subject of continual debate” in Emma. Emma is a novel that is consistently “concerned with gender transgression […] from the masculine, not the feminine side.” Ultimately, it seeks to distance its model of masculinity from the highly courtly, sentimental ideal popular in the eighteenth century: “it is engaged in the enterprise of purging masculine gender codes from the ostensible ‘excesses’ of sentimental gallantry and ‘feminized’ display, redefining English manhood instead as brisk, energetic, downright, ‘natural,’ unaffected, reserved, businesslike, plain-speaking; gentlemanly, to be sure, but not courtly” (pp. 201–2). Mr. Weston’s too “general friendship” thus marks him out (as, to a greater extent, Mr. Woodhouse is marked out) as given to such sentimental excess.

Mr. Frank Churchill So Extremely—

As the ball begins, a full page is given over to Miss Bates’s speech, with us being left to supply her auditors’ probable interjections and responses (an appropriate formatting choice, given that we are told upon her entrance that “every body’s words, were soon lost under the incessant flow of Miss Bates” (p. 209)). I have previously made mention of commenters who point out the plot-relevant content and “clues” riddled throughout Miss Bates’s speeches, precisely where they are most likely to be missed. Joe Bray quotes Miss Bates’s quasi-monologue from “‘Thank you, my mother is remarkably well’” to “‘Here’s Miss Woodhouse’” (p. 210), writing:

A number of crucial details are discernible here amidst what appears to be Miss Bates’s inconsequential rambling: the fact that Jane, along with Mr. Dixon, was involved in the choice of her friend Mrs. Dixon’s present to Mrs. Bates (presenting a view of the relationship between the three of them which is contrary to Emma’s wild supposition of a secret affair between Jane and Mr. Dixon); Frank’s solicitude for Miss Bates (which can by implication be extended to Jane too); and the fact that he is often talked of at their home. […] [A]n attentive reader can certainly pick up hints of [Frank and Jane’s] attachment in this and other similar examples of Miss Bates’s speech. (p. 170)

Indeed, Miss Bates’s speech does seem to imply that Frank escorted Jane in as well as Miss Bates (“‘My dear Jane, are you sure you did not wet your feet? […]—but Mr Frank Churchill was so extremely—and there was a mat to step upon’”); Lloyd Brown writes of this speech that “the recurrent minutiae about Frank Churchill imply a degree of intimacy that prepares for the eventual disclosure of his involvement with Jane Fairfax.”2 However, “with a totally unconscious touch of irony, Miss Bates disguises these hints by prefacing them with precisely the kind of irrelevant chitchat (about Jane and Mr. Dixon) which distracts Emma from the real truth” (p. 156). Ultimately, Brown argues,

the structure of Miss Bates’s conversation is a microcosm of Jane Austen’s narrative form. The innocent details about Frank Churchill are subtle pointers to facts of crucial importance; and the universal gratitude which recalls Mr. Dixon’s thoughtfulness is an ironic parallel to Emma’s reprehensible suspicions about Jane’s romantic misadventures. Moreover, the strategy whereby Jane Austen juxtaposes factual experience and Emma’s fantasies is reproduced by the effects of Miss Bates’s seemingly chaotic style: we are led from the misleading side issue of the Dixons, to the real drama represented by Frank Churchill, then, appropriately, to Emma Woodhouse herself. (pp. 135–6)

Here we may recall Mary Hong’s argument that Miss Bates’s syntax was in part responsible for giving rise to Emma’s suspicions regarding Jane and Mr. Dixon (see “An Animating Suspicion”).

Miss Bates’s speech also has the effect of causing Highbury to “seem a more densely populated place than we had conceived”: Deidre Lynch notes that

Miss Bates no sooner enters the Crown inn on the evening of the ball than she meets a ‘host of friends’ [p. 210]: in the elongated paragraph that records her salutations, Miss Woodhouse’s, Mr and Mrs Weston’s and Mr Churchill’s names—the names of our acquaintance—are items in a much longer list that also comprehends a Mrs Stokes, a Dr and Mrs Hughes, a Mr Richard, a Mrs Otway, a Mr Otway, two Misses Otways and their two brothers. But what Austen gives with one hand she takes away with another. Her narrative names names, but as a consequence of focalising the story through Emma, whose circle of acquaintance is a rather more exclusive and restricted one than Miss Bates’s, it programmatically does no more than that. (p. 196)3

Miss Bates’s conversation at other points in this section tells us more of the ball than the narrator does: J. F. Burrows notes through her we hear “of the matting in the passage and the lighting in the hall; of her being served soup and her mother’s being denied the Hartfield asparagus. Through her, in short, the ball grows real as we read of it. And, because she is so willing to chronicle small beer, the narrator proper is left free to comment more coolly and intelligently” (p. 102).

An Upright Figure

When the dancing begins, Emma is “more disturbed by Mr. Knightley’s not dancing” than by Mrs. Elton’s usurpation of her place at the head of the set: “His tall, firm, upright figure, among the bulky forms and stooping shoulders of the elderly men, was such as Emma felt must draw every body’s eyes” (p. 212). Critics of course largely feel that these reflections bespeak Emma’s sublimated sexual attraction to Mr. Knightley. Wilkes writes that Emma’s romantic vision of Mr. Knightley has been shaped by her earlier instinctual recoiling from the idea of his marrying Jane Fairfax: the passage from “There he was, among the standers-by” to “would he but take the trouble” (p. 212) is “clearly rendered from Emma’s point of view, and it is in her perception that Mr Knightley is ‘so young’, with his tall, firm, upright figure, standing out from the bulky forms and stooping shoulders of the standers-by. His role as mentor has here disappeared” (pp. 85–6). Juliet McMaster, who argues that sexual and sensual (that is, of the senses) detail is present throughout Austen’s oeuvre for those who “know how to read” (p. 42), writes:

Emma, who has sturdily resisted the evidence of how how much she cares for Knightley, has […] a sudden unexpected awakening to his physicality, when she sees him, as the song says, “across a crowded room” […]. She clearly experiences a frisson of desire. And when he presently performs his rescue, by leading Harriet to dance, Emma’s eyes still follow him: “His dancing proved to be just what she had believed it, extremely good; and Harriet would have seemed almost too lucky . . .” (328). We can catch Emma in her brief pang of sexual jealousy, but she doesn’t catch herself. (pp. 33–4)4

Some commenters use this scene to probe the novel’s perspective on age. William Deresiewicz writes that Austen uses this scene to tell us “[y]outh and age are not to be determined […] by the calendar” (p. 124); Emma keeps Mr. Knightley young “by retrieving [him] from the class of husbands and fathers and drawing him back into the mating dance” (p. 124). Stephanie Eddleman connects the scene to contemporary perspectives on aging and gender:

“Women were generally perceived to be ‘old’ before men throughout the early modern period,” Ottaway observes (35). “Rather than [being tied to] a loss of specific attractive features” as was true for women, the physical signs of aging for men were declining strength and a loss of physical abilities. Thus, men crossed the threshold of old age much later in life than women (34–35). On this point, Austen’s representation of Mr. Knightley reflects the general perceptions of the era. […] As she studies him, Emma focuses on his physique rather than his face […]. She judges George Knightley youthful and attractive because of his commanding, vigorous physical appearance, which is especially emphasized when contrasted with physical decline. (p. 130)

It is interesting to note that Emma is also spoken of as having “a firm and upright figure” (vol. 1, ch. 5; p. 24); and, when not speaking of physical bodies, phrases such as “upright integrity” (vol. 3, ch. 10 [46]; p. 261) and “upright justice” (vol. 3, ch. 12 [48]; p. 273) recur throughout the novel. John Wiltshire writes of Emma’s “upright” figure as something “other than [a] moral propert[y]” (p. 133); but I suspect that physical qualities almost become moral qualities here, as Mr. Knightley’s physical no less than his moral uprightness point him out as an appropriate marriage partner for Emma.5

I Could Have Danced All Night

Many scholars point out the important role balls and dancing play in Austen’s novels. As a socially sanctioned means of courtship, they paradoxically combine rules and regulations with invigorating physical movement, formality and organization with gaiety and the opportunity for choice. This particular ball has, of course, been engineered to allow Frank Churchill another opportunity of dancing with Jane Fairfax: Joseph Wiesenfarth writes that Frank Churchill’s “sexually induced madness and insanity for Jane Fairfax constantly leads him into schemes that allow them to be together,” including this “extravagantly public” one (p. 13). As such, the ball is an overthrow of the usual course of social life in Highbury, which David Monaghan points out has until now “been regulated to a pace and level of energy that suits Mr Woodhouse, and has therefore placed such an overwhelming emphasis on the familiar as to become almost static and extremely soporific”:

Dancing, however, while it operates within confined and well-regulated limits, is an activity which allows movement and scope for choosing and changing partners. As such it encourages a much more open and dynamic society than that over which Mr Woodhouse presides, and it is significant that while his needs are not ignored on this occasion, they cannot be met within the framework of the ball itself. Thus, while the community as a whole gathers at the Crown, Mr Woodhouse is left safe at home to enjoy ‘a vast deal of chat, and backgammon’ [p. 214] with Mrs Bates. (p. 133)

Mr. Elton violates one of the usual civilities of dancing when, rather than retreat to the card room to cover his unwillingness to dance with Harriet, he makes a point to “show his liberty” and engage those around her in conversation (p. 213). The ball’s significance both “as a courtship ritual and agent of change” (Monaghan, p. 133) is most notable when it calls on Mr. Knightley to “ensure the preservation of harmony” (p. 134) threatened by this slight:

Mr Knightley must now come forward and rescue Harriet by engaging her himself. This display of polite heroism, and the position into which it forces him amongst the young and eligible […] has a profound effect on Emma’s view of Mr Knightley. Thus, she does not find it strange that when they next meet he asks her to dance, and indeed replies in such a way as to indicate that she is on the verge of viewing him as a suitor: [quotes from “‘Will you?’” to “‘at all improper’”]. (p. 134)

Similarly, Wiesenfarth writes that “[t]he rules that govern conduct in dancing are meant as society’s way of introducing civility into sexual expression. The Eltons ignore such decorum in exhibiting their sexual rancor for Harriet Smith. Their violation of civility […] puts Mr. Knightley to dancing with Haniet and thereby continues Emma’s sharpening sexual perception of his person and manners” (p. 14).

No Indeed!

Emma’s and Knightley’s conversation at the close of the ball scene draws frequent critical comment as a turning point in their relationship. Paul Fry points out that Knightley’s statement contradicts an earlier comment of his: “Mr. Knightley is already equivocating with his feelings when he says of Emma that ‘Isabella does not seem any more my sister’ [vol. 1, ch. 6; p. 25]. The fraternal incubus arises to be expelled, not fostered [in the conversation at the ball]” (p. 136).6 For Joseph Duffy, the “incubus” arises in the first place due to Emma’s newfound sexual attraction: “[t]he fact that the question of propriety does arise at all is significant of Emma’s fear that there may really be something shocking in physical contact with Knightley” (FN 3, p. 44).

Emma and Knightley’s relationship is genuinely ambiguous, as Deresiewicz points out:

Emma and Knightley are not brother and sister, but then again, in the language of the day, they are [through Isabella’s and John’s marriage]. Emma, still oblivious to her sexual feelings, is undisturbed by the ambiguity. But Knightley, already alive to his, is very much disturbed. “Brother and sister! no, indeed,” he exclaims—to which the novel ultimately replies, “Brother and sister! yes, indeed.” The exchange concludes a chapter—concludes, indeed the whole long episode of the ball—and the effect of this pregnant placement is to make it into a signpost that points us toward Emma and Knightley’s climactic encounters. (p. 121)

Langdon Elsbree writes of this conversation:

Comment upon Mr. Knightley’s mature, quiet, good-natured love and Emma’s incipient passion is probably superfluous. It should be said, however, that this bit of dialogue, as well as others, this bit of dialogue, as well as others, gives the lie to the commonplace that Jane Austen is incapable of rendering love. Indeed, one of the main comic functions performed by the dance motif is the contrasting of Emma’s frivolous but viable affections and Frank’s capricious, vexatious devotion with Knightley’s steady, self-effacing, undeceived warmth. (p. 132)

A Hidden Plot

As with many other episodes in Emma, a rereading of this section with full knowledge of future events puts seemingly insignificant details into a new light. We may notice, for example, that Frank beginning to speak “vigorously” upon overhearing Mrs. Elton speak well of him to Jane Fairfax prevents us from overhearing Jane’s reply (p. 211). When Frank disapproves of Mrs. Elton’s habit of addressing “Miss Fairfax” as “Jane,” Emma catches on what this implies of his opinion of Mrs. Elton, rather than what it implies of his relationship with Jane. We may also understand better than Emma Frank’s “odd humour” and impatience to begin dancing (ibid.).

This episode also lays the groundwork, not only for Harriet’s infatuation with Mr. Knightley, but for Emma’s future belief in Knightley’s love for Harriet (“‘Harriet Smith has some first-rate qualities […]. An unpretending, single-minded, artless girl—infinitely to be preferred by any man of sense and taste to such a woman as Mrs. Elton’” (p. 216)). John Hagan points out the fact that “the beginning of [Knightley’s] change of attitude toward Harriet coincides exactly in time with the beginning of her infatuation with him” (p. 556), and argues that this coincidence may point to some ego in Mr. Knightley: “to assume that he perceives Harriet's great and obvious pleasure in his company, that he himself is pleased by her response, and that, accordingly, he begins to modify his attitude toward her would seem completely justified” (p. 557).

Footnotes

See also Monaghan (p. 133); Mooneyham (p. 132).

On Frank’s rushing to attend Miss Bates and company with umbrellas see Wiltshire, who writes that Frank uses health as a “pretext” (p. 112) when he “rushes out with umbrellas on the excuse that ‘Miss Bates must not be forgotten’ to welcome Jane to the ball” (p. 113); and Watson, who notes that Frank’s kindness tends, unlike Knightley’s to have “flourish” and “fuss” to it: “The fact that this action of Frank’s is immediately the subject of Mrs. Elton's approbation is a small detail of malicious irony on Jane Austen’s part” (p. 338).

On the evidence of social connectedness in this speech of Miss Bates’s see also Bromberg (p. 132); Burrows (pp. 101–2).

See also Mooneyham on the evidence of Emma’s “sexual interest” in this scene (p. 136). Contrast Korba, who argues that Emma never sexually responds to a man in the novel.

See Pallarés-García on the syntax of this passage (p. 178); also Folsom (p. 52); Roulston (p. 56).

On the “contrast” between these two statements see also Stovel (n.p.).

Discussion Questions

Does Emma (to any extent) morally condemn Mr. Weston’s temperament or behavior? To what end is he contrasted with Mr. Knightley?

What is the purpose of Miss Bates’s volubility in this section? Do you notice any details in her speech that have not been mentioned here?

What connections between dancing, civility, and sexuality become clear in this section?

How and why does Emma’s and Mr. Knightley’s relationship change over the course of the night?

Does anything else about this section become clearer upon rereading?

Bibliography

Austen, Jane. Emma (Norton Critical Edition). 3rd ed. Ed. Stephen M. Parrish. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, [1815] 2000.

Bray, Joe. The Language of Jane Austen. London: Palgrave Macmillan (2018).

Bromberg, Pamela S. “Learning to Listen: Teaching About the Talk of Miss Bates.” In Folsom (2004), pp. 127–33.

Brown, Lloyd W. Bits of Ivory: Narrative Techniques in Jane Austen’s Fiction. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press (1973).

Deresiewicz, William. “Emma: Ambiguous Relationships.” In Jane Austen and the Romantic Poets. New York: Columbia University Press (2004), pp. 86–126.

Duffy, Joseph M. “Emma: The Awakening from Innocence.” ELH 21.1 (March 1954), pp. 39–53. DOI: 10.2307/2871932.

Eddleman, Stephanie M. “Past the Bloom: Aging and Beauty in the Novels of Jane Austen.” Persuasions 37 (2015), pp. 119–33.

Elsbree, Langdon. “Jane Austen and the Dance of Fidelity and Complaisance.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 19.2 (September 1960), pp. 113–36.

Emsley, Sarah. “Learning the Art of Charity in Emma.” In Jane Austen’s Philosophy of the Virtues. New York: Palgrave Macmillan (2005), pp. 129–44.

Folsom, Marcia McClintock, ed. Approaches to Teaching Austen's Emma. New York: MLA (2004).

_____. “Emma: Knowing Her Mind.” Persuasions 38 (2016), pp. 41–55.

Fry, Paul H. “Georgic Comedy: The Fictive Territory of Jane Austen’s Emma.” Studies in the Novel 11.2 (Summer 1979), pp. 129–46.

Goodheart, Eugene. “Emma: Jane Austen’s Errant Heroine.” The Sewanee Review 116.4 (Fall 2008), pp. 589–604. DOI:10.1353/SEW.0.0087.

Hagan, John. “The Closure of Emma.” Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 15.4 (Autumn 1975), pp. 545-561. DOI: 10.2307/450010.

Hong, Mary. “‘A Great Talker upon Little Matters’: Trivializing the Everyday in Emma.” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 38.2/3 (Spring – Summer 2005), pp. 235–53. DOI: 10.1215/ddnov.038020235.

Korba, Susan M. “‘Improper and Dangerous Distinctions’: Female Relationships and Erotic Domination in Emma,” Studies in the Novel 29.2 (1997), pp. 139–63.

Lynch, Deidre Shauna. “Screen Versions.” In The Cambridge Companion to ‘Emma,’ ed. Peter Sabor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2015), pp. 186–203.

McMaster, Juliet. “Sex and the Senses.” Persuasions 34 (2012), pp. 42–56.

Monaghan, David. “Emma.” In Jane Austen: Structure and Social Vision. London: Macmillan (1980), pp. 115–42. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-04847-2_6.

Neill, Edward. The Politics of Jane Austen. New York: Palgrave Macmillan (1999).

Ottaway, Susannah R. The Decline of Life: Old Age in Eighteenth-Century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2004).

Pallarés-García, Elena. “Narrated Perception Revisited: The Case of Jane Austen’s Emma.” Language and Literature 21.2, pp. 170–88. DOI: 10.1177/0963947011435862.

Roulston, Christine. “Discourse, Gender, and Gossip: Some Reflections On Bakhtin and Emma.” In Ambiguous Discourse: Feminist Narratology and British Women Writers, ed. Kathy Mezei. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press (1996), pp. 40–65.

Stovel, Bruce. “The New Emma in Emma.” Persuasions On-Line 28.1 (Winter 2007).

Wilkes, G.A. “Unconscious Motives in Jane Austen’s Emma.” Sydney Studies 13 (1987), pp. 74–89.

Wiesenfarth, Joseph. “The Civility of Emma.” Persuasions 18 (1996), pp. 8–23.

Wiltshire, John. “Emma: The Picture of Health.” In Jane Austen and the Body. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1992), pp. 110–54. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511586248.005.

#Emma #Jane Austen #Emma Woodhouse #Mrs. Weston #Mr. Weston #Mr. Woodhouse #Mr. Elton #Mrs. Elton #Harriet Smith #Frank Churchill #Jane Fairfax #Miss Bates #Mrs. Bates #e

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