#maybe 6 if I feel like doing Isabella’s

[that-sarcastic-writer]

A Love Game

DI!Single!Dad!Leon S. Kennedy X F!Teacher!Reader

Summary: You hear a glimpse of Leon's relationship with his daughter. And later he makes you a proposal you just can't refuse

Warnings: mild sexual content, still minors dni, brief phone sex, allusions to sex, Leon has a mouth on his as always, bit of soft!dom leon, mostly Leon being a soft dad on this one, foul language (as always), no use of y/n

WC: 3k

A/N: so I'm totally in love with this dynamic! And yalls support was insane. I literally wrote two separate drafts of a continuation of these two and whichever I finished first was gonna be posted, so the light smut one won bc I'm tired atm and didn't feel like sitting in front of my computer for 6 hours🙃 so this short part will have a second part to it with full spicy time. And another standalone part with these two (coffee and other things) having some more spicy time is also in the works, so stay tuned. Besitos <3

Universe Masterlist

Leon blinked slowly, his eyes now starting to grow sore from staring at the bright computer screen for so long. But he just hadn't had time to finish this stupid report. Sure, he has had two whole days to get it done, but with a tiny human clinging to his arm every waking minute, it was a bit more complicated than he thought. But he couldn't possibly ignore his little girl when he barely had the time to be with her without having to worry about stopping some mad scientist with too much time in their hands. He didn't mind though. His little girl was more important than anything else. 

Still, he took advantage of the little window of time he had now. He had given Isabella dinner a little over an hour ago. Then left her in the dining room to finish her homework. She had always been a smart girl, responsible with her homework, she never fussed when he asked her to do it, so it didn't worry him in the slightest to leave her to do her own thing. She tended to get distracted when he was around anyway. 

Though, maybe an hour had gone by when he heard tiny feet pad bare through the wood floors and he saw a mess of chocolate brown strands sticking from its bun peek above his computer screen. He slowly lowered the screen until it was almost shut and he was met with a pair of sapphire eyes that were a replica of his own. He raised an eyebrow at her. 

"Daddy." She took a step closer to him, her eyes big like she wanted to ask him something. 

Leon sat up fully, setting his laptop aside and nodded at her, giving her his full attention now. "What's up bee?" 

"Can I.. uhm.. I can play with your switch now?" She asked, dark lashes batting as she fiddled with her hands. As if she had to give him puppy dog eyes for him to say yes. He kept his face serious though. 

"You wanna play on my switch?" She nodded. He ran his fingers over his light stubble as if he was thinking real hard, he pursed his lips in thought. "I dunno hun, did you finish your homework?" 

"How did you know I had homework?" She asked with an adorable frown on her face, it took Leon all of his willpower not to break then. 

"Well I do now." He slipped a smile and she pouted. He couldn't help but chuckle at his little girl. He took her in his arms and sat her on his lap. "Well I knew before. Wanna know how?" 

Her head perked up. "How?" 

Leon leaned into her ear with a smile, "'Cause dads know everything about their little girls." He pressed a kiss to the side of her hair and set her back on her feet. "But yeah, Miss Pretty Teacher told me." 

"That's cheating!" She whipped her head around with a gasp and glared at him. He again couldn't hide his laugh. 

"Yeah alright, you caught me," he raised his hands up at her in surrender. "You can play on the switch for a bit. Do you remember how to turn it on?" 

Izzy proudly nodded and skipped over to the large TV hooked up to the living room. The TV had been on, nothing playing, but just on, since Leon had intended to play some white noise in the background but never actually loaded up anything. He switched to the right input as he watched Izzy turn on the Switch. It took her a second to remember how, but she was happily skipping back to the couch with the controllers as the loading screen came up before Leon could get up to help. He shook his head to himself, but he puffed out a breath when Izzy jumped on his lap, rather hard, the little girl giggling when he groaned. 

"Jesus Christ, when did you get so big?" He chuckled, fixing her on his lap so she wouldn't fall and watched as she scrolled through the games until she found Mario Kart. 

"I turned seven in October, remember?" She piped up, genuinely reminding him of such an important date, as if he would ever forget. He nodded. 

"I know, Izzy. I took you to Dave and Busters with Amara, remember?" 

"Oh. Yeah, you're right. That was fun. We should go again sometime! Please daddy?" She turned her head to look at him with this smile on her face and her big blue eyes. 

God, what did he ever do to deserve this kid? 

He pressed his lips to her forehead and nodded. 

"'Course. I'll talk to Amara's mom, okay?" 

He watched as Izzy excitedly nodded and cheered happily before she got lost in the game in front of her. He didn't mind her having screen time. It wasn't like she had an iPad glued to her face twenty-four-seven. He let her play once or twice a week, and maybe a third if he was feeling like playing with her. And she was more than happy to spend that time with her dad. 

Tonight he wasn't really feeling playing, so he watched her do her best. To her, she was the biggest winner there ever was, throwing turtle shells and bombs at practically nothing and hitting the wall with every curve, but she had fun with it, so he let her be, cheering her on whenever she finished a race, even if it was in ninth or eighth place. 

Maybe thirty minutes had passed when he felt his phone buzz beside him. He took his eyes away from the colorful screen to look at his phone. It lit up with a text, and his smile grew wide at the name. 

My pretty teacher. 

He grabbed his phone and quickly opened the conversation. You had been texting back and forth all day, for days now, after what he considered a perfect first date, but he just hadn't gotten around to match your schedule to plan another date. So you had resorted to texting and maybe calling once here and there. But God, he was really missing you right about now.

My pretty teacher: sorry, I went to dinner with my mom and sister. And I just got home. Hru? 

He bit his lip as he attempted to type into his phone one handed. 

Me: It's fine. I'm ok. With izzy. 

My pretty teacher: awww🥰 

Me: Can you call? I'm texting with one hand at the moment. 

You saw the message, and he could see the three text bubbles appear and disappear. Until they didn't come back. He mentally grimaced at himself, maybe the idea of talking to him while Isabella was there made you uncomfortable? Shit. He hadn't thought about that. Christ, he hadn't dated in so long he had forgotten that being a single dad wasn't exactly the biggest turn on. No matter how much one liked kids. 

His anxiety riddled brain stopped racing when he saw your contact name pop up on his screen as his phone started ringing. He grinned to himself. He glanced at Izzy— her full attention was still on her game, he shrugged and answered the call. He set his phone down, still having one ear bud in from when he was working on his laptop. 

"Hey Miss." He spoke first, his heart racing in his chest a bit. 

"Hi Leon." He could hear the smile in your voice. That shy smile he thought was the prettiest thing. 

"You busy?" He asked, still a bit worried he was interrupting you in the middle of something. Though the indistinct sound of TV playing in the background let him know that maybe you weren't that busy. 

"Not really. I got home a little bit ago so I was just about to run myself a bath." You answered, walking back and forth between your bedroom and the bathroom connected to it. "You?"

Leon tried his hardest not to think about your words too much. Not right now. 

"Nah. Just watching Izzy play on my switch. She's kicking ass in Mario Kart." He heard you blurt out a giggle, which made him chuckle, but what made him actually laugh was Izzy shooting him a frown over her shoulder. 

"Daddy, that's a no-no word." 

Leon snapped his head down at Izzy and he frowned, not sure if he heard her correctly, "What's that bee?" 

"I said that's a bad word."

"What is?" 

"Ass." 

Leon almost snorted at the way she said the word. With a frown and her lips pursed. He didn't care if she said bad words or not. He sure as hell said them all the time, but he encouraged her not to repeat what he said, in front of other people, at least. He narrowed his eyes at her. 

"So don't say it. I'm an adult. I can say them." When she kept looking at him, he placed a hand on top of her head and —gently— turned her head back towards the TV screen, despite her protest. "Keep playing your game, Isabella. Or you can't sit on my lap anymore." 

All Leon could hear was you attempting to muffle your laughter, but he could hear your giggles loud and clear. He only rolled his eyes, but he had a tiny smile of his own. 

"C'mon don't laugh, being a parent is hard. Are you the one teaching her this no-no bull— B.S?" He caught himself, closing his eyes when you laughed even more, now not even bothering to hide it. 

"I have to! I have a swear jar, I'm sorry. I gotta set an example." 

He actually laughed at this, remembering the mouth you had on you when he had you on his bed. 

"Yeah, well, you weren't so pure and innocent when you were screaming—" He caught himself again, his own eyes widening when he remembered Isabella was right there and he sighed out softly. "Give me an hour and I'll give you the answer you deserve, Miss." 

You stayed quiet for a second, not because he offended you, but because you needed a second to breathe and control the heat that flashed between your legs at his insinuation. You exhaled deeply before responding. 

"You're what again? Playing Switch with Izzy? 

Leon hummed in response. "She is. She's sitting on my lap so I'm being forced to watch." 

"I'm not forcing you!"

"On your game, Isabella. Stop listening to my conversation." 

"Does she have her own Switch or something?" You asked, now sitting on the edge of your bathtub as hot water poured from the faucet. 

"No. It's my Switch. But I leave it in the living room so she can play sometimes." He answered you with a shrug you obviously couldn't see. 

You chuckled softly, "How old are you again?" 

"Thirty-eight, but that's besides the point. I barely have time to use the thing. I mostly bought it for Izzy." He wasn't lying— entirely. He sometimes played, late at night by himself when he wanted to drown himself in a bottle of whiskey. He would choose to play a game to blow off steam instead of getting drunk with his little girl sleeping in the next room or passing out drunk at some shitty bar. 

"I'm very convinced by that." You snorted, making him sigh out at you.

"Hmph. Whatever. You wouldn't understand how cathartic throwing green turtle shells at tiny cars can be." 

"Oh I bet." 

"Daddy?" You heard Isabella's voice through the phone and your heart warmed.

Leon looked down at Izzy, "Yeah?" 

"Who are you talking to?" She asked with genuine curiosity, her very glorious race tournament now over and her attention was on him. 

He heard you go silent, most likely having heard the little girl and he sighed out, his eyes landing up on the ceiling for a second as he thought of his answer. 

"Just a friend, bee." He ultimately decided on that answer. It wasn't that he was ashamed of being with you, not at all, but Izzy was still young, and even he knew there had to be a proper introduction of you outside of your teacher role. He actually wanted to do this the right way.

"You fuck my brains out last week and I'm just a friend now?" He heard you comment in his ear and he groaned out. 

"C'mon, that's not fair." He leaned back into the couch, his forearm over his eyes now as he basically had two women all over him, pressing him with way too many questions for his liking. 

"I'm just giving you a hard time, Leon. I get it." There was humor in your voice, lightheartedness and even though he couldn't see you, he had a feeling you had that gentle smile on your lips. That eased the pressure on his chest. 

"Listen sweetheart, it's almost Izzy's bedtime," His eyes were on Izzy now, and with his eyes he was nudging at her to start wrapping up her game. She pouted, but didn't otherwise fuss. "Call you in an hour?" 

You both had this dumb, lovesick smile on your face, if only you could see the other.

"I'll be up."

The warm water, the foaming body wash and the intoxicating smell of your favorite candle had done wonders to relax you. When you left the bathtub you felt like a whole new person. Though there still this tug of butterflies in your stomach as you anxiously waited for Leon to call you. 

You sat on the edge of the tub, warm and fluffy robe wrapped around your naked body as you mindlessly scrolled through your social media for a little while before you decided to check out for the night. You nearly slipped right off the tile when your phone buzzed and you felt a cold shiver run down your spine. 

"Hey, sorry about, y’know, earlier. Izzy and I are like that." You smiled at the sound of Leon's voice, now a bit hushed but more relaxed and carefree, like he now could say whatever the fuck he wanted. 

"It's okay. It was cute, hearing how you talk to her. You're sweet." You smiled to yourself, and you could hear him breathe out a soft laugh, most likely a bit flustered by your words, but he otherwise didn't show it. "You put her to sleep though?" 

"Yeah, I stayed with her 'til she fell asleep. I'm in my bedroom now, about to take a shower." He said the words slowly, with purpose, like he wanted you to think about it like he had been thinking about you, taking that bath. "So, you take your bath yet?" 

"Yeah, it was nice. I definitely needed it. I could've used some company though." You bit your lip, testing his reaction. There was silence, then he hummed. 

"Yeah? That so?" Now it was your turn to hum in agreement, your legs instinctively closing as you tried to soothe the ache between your thighs. "I'm sure you could've. Would've been nice to have someone hold you, right? Have someone leave kisses on your wet skin, say how good you're doing while getting your pretty pussy fingered?" 

You couldn't hold back the moan that left your throat at his words, and your free hand instantly traveled down, stopping at your belly. 

"Oh, that's a sound I'll never get tired of hearing. Fuck, you're already moaning for me and I'm not even there to give you a reason." He exhaled out a chuckle, his hardening cock starting to press against his sweatpants. 

"Fuck, I really wish you were here." You sighed out, your hand itching closer towards your already wet cunt, but you knew it wasn't your touch you ached for. It was Leon's. 

"Yeah? Why's that?" 

You whined softly, your phone almost slipping off your grip as your head fell to the side. "Leon…" 

"Tell me." 

"Because… I really, really, need you to touch me, hold me, ugh— I just need you to fuck me, Leon." 

Leon clenched his fist as his side, teeth digging into his bottom lip as he listened to your desperate words, and the sound shot straight to his cock. Fuck, he'd be lying if he said he didn't need you, too. 

"Goddamn baby," He grunted softly, his hand now brushing the front of his sweats, where his cock strained against the material, and he tried to muffle the sound between his teeth, but you heard it anyway. "You have no fucking idea how much I've been wanting to ruin that pussy of yours again. It's actually driving me crazy." 

You shuddered, the ache between your legs starting to become unbearable. "I really want to see you too, baby." 

Leon closed his eyes, biting his lip raw as he thought fuck it. He could explain in the morning. 

"Fuck it, just fuck it. Wanna take the drive here? I swear I'll give you exactly what you need and it'll be so worth it." 

You'd like to think you were a rational person, you always thought things through twice, three times if necessary. You didn't take risks, much less acted in a way that could be considered immoral, but for Leon? Fuck, for that man you would become the biggest whore in this world if it meant he would take you just one more time. 

"Be there in thirty." 

Fuck it. 

Sneak peek of A Love Game Part II, coming soon

His lips were hard on your own, messy on your jaw, like he didn't know which part he wanted to kiss more. Your fingers were entangled in his perfectly soft honey brown strands, already melting under his touch. His hand came up under your jaw to grip your face in place, long fingers sprawled out over your neck. He pulled you back by your face and his eyes were hard on you, with this mixture of authority and utter need to fuck you. He could be both. 

"This is how this is gonna be. I'm going to throw you on that bed and fuck you the way you deserve. But I better not hear a single fucking sound leave those pretty lips of yours. Not tonight. Got it?"

Stay tuned for upcoming parts lovelies. Besitos<3

#leon s kennedy #leon s kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy smut #leon s kennedy x fem!reader #leon kennedy #leon kennedy x reader #leon kennedy x fem reader #leon kennedy x you #leon kennedy smut #single!dad!leon #di!leon #single!dad!leon universe

[dollfaceksj]

you said you want to keep toapp going for as long as you can so i have a feeling it’s clearly not their last time. plus, where’s yoongi?!?

yoongi has been summoned. #19 lets go ↓

warnings: i wanted to add more stuff to the camping trip like a hiking scene and whatnot but honestly im so over the camping trip arc i just wanna get it over with so this is pretty rushed 😭

taste of a poison paradise | jjk (m) #19

masterlist

<- previous ; next ->

you stir

and awaken

why are you so? warm?

oh

you are

cuddled up into jungkook

your back into his chest

his arm around your waist

his nose buried in your hair

you glance over your shoulder

jungkook is still sound asleep

he looks

cute :(

you glance at your phone, it’s 7am. it you and jungkook’s turn to prepare breakfast

you gently shake him

“jungkook,” you say, “wake up.”

he stirs and then turns on his back

rubbing his face

he mumbles, “sorry.”

you shake your head. “it’s okay, i just want to wake you up for breakfast. it’s our turn to prepare.”

he nods his head and sits up, running a hand through his disheveled hair

you crawl out of the tent and stretch your limbs, yawning loudly before you go wash up

he slowly follows you out and you both start preparing breakfast in silence

the air is

tense?

awkward?

weird?

you don’t know what it is

but you don’t really speak to jungkook and he doesn’t speak to you while you both prepare

maybe it’s for the best

:/

about half an hour later, breakfast is ready and you take your time gathering your clothes to head into the bathhouse about 20 mins further

you have to wait for everyone to finish eating cause you can’t drive and someone needs to bring you

you watch as the seats around the table starts filling up

and you take your seat next to yoongi

he pours orange juice into your cup and rubs your shoulder. “how’d you sleep?”

you smile at the question. “i slept pretty well. you?”

“hoseok only punched me once in the mouth so i’d say i slept better too.”

you giggle at his joke and slap his thigh under the table

“hey uh,” he starts, “when we get back home..”

you tilt your head once he trails off, he sounds hesitant

he continues, “will you let me take you out?”

wow

ah

AAAAA

need him rn.

you smile. “like? on a date?”

he chuckles and shakes his head at your silliness. “yeah, like on a date.”

you pretend to hum in thought. “i thought we weren’t anything serious,” you tease.

he nods his head. “you’re right, but i think it’s proper manners to buy a lady a meal before we,” he pauses and glances at you, “get to the not-serious stuff.”

oh

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

okay!

well.

you lick your lips and chew on the loose flesh on your lips.

“so? what do you say?” he asks without even looking at you as he pours himself orange juice and reaches across the table for something to eat

he’s so

nonchalant

fuck

“i say that i’d like that.”

a smile tugs on his lips as he listens to your words, still not looking at you and it makes him look so fucking cocky

he asks; “do you have class tomorrow?”

“until 12pm.”

“good. i’ll pick you up at 6.”

ah

ahhhh

AHHHHHHH

so

….

he’s so….

hmmmm

you sheepishly reply, “okay.”

he keeps his hand respectfully on your knee, not moving it an inch toward your thigh

but it still raises goosebumps on your skin

his big hand

he’s so perfect wow

you bring your attention back to your plate and raise your cup to your lips

you hum in content

you let your eyes roam over the rim of your cup

only to make eye contact

with jungkook.

you feel a bit

uncomfortable.

he’s staring very… intensely.

did he hear everything?

it almost makes you choke on your juice

ugh it’s just breakfast and the days already wearing down on you

just… make the most of it

hours have passed, you’ve done a few more activities with the group

it’s time to head home

you’ve been hanging with yoongi, getting to know him better

isabella and hyunjoo have been stuck to jungkook since breakfast

not that you care

as long as he gets that affection he so desperately seeks

joon begins, “so we’ve decided to just send everyones luggage back home in seokjins car. we’re gonna need an extra person with him cause we can’t trust seokjin too much.”

“hey! i’m responsible,” seokjin replies in a disapproving tone

everyone just ignores seokjin’s outburst. “who’s gonna drive back home with seokjin-hyung?” joon asks as everyone disassembles their tents

everyones looking around

but you suddenly hear

an all too familiar voice

speak up

“i think yoongi-hyung should go.”

what the fuck jungkook

OH GOD

yoongi turns surprised to jungkook and jungkook is just staring back head-on

this damn junior and his lack of respects for seniors!!!

“i just think he’s the most responsible of us all.” he says as he shrugs his shoulders.

you glare at the side of jungkook’s face but it seems like people are starting to agree with him

“alright, i’ll go.” yoongi doesn’t make a fuss and without hesitation starts loading the bags into seokjin’s trunk

you keep glaring at jungkook’s cheek until he turns to look at you

he stares at you without a word on his lips for you and then turns on his heels and walks away from you

walking to go disassemble his tent

you snatch your suitcase and head towards yoongi, handing it to him

“you gonna be fine without me?” yoongi asks as he takes your suitcase and stuffs it in the trunk

you shake your head. “how will i live?”

he chuckles at your joke and then turns to you, reaching out to smooth out the scrunch between your brows with his thumb

“you’re too pretty to walk around with a frown like that.”

ugh

pretty

pretty.

now another’s man’s words keep clouding your mind

playing on a repeat

the image of his black eyes staring into your soul flashing vividly in your mind

‘you can take it, pretty. can’t you?’

‘that’s it, pretty. look at you.’

‘fuck yourself on my dick, pretty. just like that.’

ughhhh

that damn junior corrupted your brains. you need to be cleansed.

“that’s because i’m actually serious. i was looking forward to the train ride back with you.” you continue to pout

he chuckles and reaches out to rub your bottom lip with his thumb

“don’t look at me like that,” he quietly says

again…

something jungkook has said to you too

:///

“like what?”

“like you want me to kiss you.”

he’s

so

you reply, “that’s because i do.”

he licks his lips and rolls his tongue against the inside of his cheek

he respectfully places his hand on your waist and pulls you closer to him, closing the distance

your hands instantly meet his arms, squeezing his biceps

he cups the back of your head and inches closer to your face until he’s pressed his lips against yours

and you fucking melt

his lips are so damn soft like you could write a novel about it

you move your hands to his chest and rub it gently, wanting to feel more of him

he parts from your lips and brings his thumb up to stroke over your bottom lip

“pout is gone.”

and with that, he turns his attention back to loading the car

fuck

ah fuck

he’s not gonna make it easier for you

you turn on your heels to head back to the rest but you bump into something

that something being

jungkook’s chest

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

for fucks sake!!!

these coincidences are getting ANNOYING

“ow,” you mumble as you stumble back but two hands on your waist from the back and two hands on your waist from the front keep you from tumbling to the ground

oh

yoongi

and

jungkook

are both holding you

:))))

“are you okay?” yoongi immediately asks with a soothing hand still on your back

you nod your head. “yeah.”

jungkook’s hands linger on your waist and he doesn’t take them off until you shoot him a look

he slowly peels his hands off you and then stuffs his own bag in the trunk

you walk past him and gather with the others

you wave goodbye to seokjin and yoongi once they’re finished

you hope they don’t notice anything in the car you’d die of embarrassment 😭

and they could

quickly make the connection

and if word got out

and it reached taehyung…..

he’s already brought up home……

you know

where the both of u are from

fuck

just calm down

they won’t notice anything

you’re walking back to the train station with the rest

“jungkook! what are your plans for when we get back home?”

you hear isabella talking to him

but you’re walking ahead of them

walking with tae and jimin

he replies, “probably gonna play, haven’t been online in awhile. you?”

ugh

“oh! i have no plans. can i come over and watch you play?”

watch him play?

eye roll

like what does that even do

i mean sure theres a big audience for gamers that stream playing games because people enjoy watching others play

but jungkook? be serious

“oh. sure, why not?”

tae nudges you with his arm. “have you talked to him yet?” he whispers

you frown. “to who?”

he rolls his eyes. “jungkook,” he mouths.

you shake your head in response and watch him quietly sigh

ugh

you made it a whole lot more fucking complicated than it needed to be dude

why did you have to fuck him

the rest of the walk there is filled with quiet small talk and taehyung telling you about the skins he got in fortnite

once you reach the train station, hoseok checks to make sure everyone has everything in order

a few minutes later you board the train

and right

when you want to

go sit down

with jimin and tae

you’re tapped on your shoulder

by tae

“go sit with jungkook.”

????

what the hell?

“and why would i?” you question with a neutral tone to your voice

“did you forget our talk yesterday? if he only interacts with girls that he sleeps with, it’ll always stay the same for him. go talk to him.”

YOU’VE ALSO SLEPT WITH JUNGKOOK SO IT WOULDNT BE ANY FUCKING DIFFERENT!!!!

but of course you can’t tell tae that :))

because you were stupid :)

and horny :)

ugh. not to be harsh but how is jungkook’s mental state your problem?

girl.. you were the one that wanted to cuddle him yesterday. clearly you care about his mental wellbeing

you sigh and get up

and make your way to jungkook’s booth

where he’s seated

with hyunjoo and isabella

:)

jungkook’s sitting by the window

isabella is next to him

hyunjoo is across from him

so you take your seat next to hyunjoo

the girls welcome you with a kind smile and small talk

but that little shit is staring you down with such a bratty look in his eyes

what a little CUNT

what is his problem?

you need a way to get rid of the girls

you lie, “i’m here to talk about … the thing.”

jungkook frowns at you for a moment before he realizes what you’re trying to do. “oh, right. that.”

you glance at hyunjoo and isabella and then turn to jungkook. “shall we talk about it in private?”

he licks his lips and you KNOW he wants to push your buttons and tell you that you can just say it here

but to your surprise, he rises to his feet

and starts heading to another booth

you excuse yourself from the girls but they don’t seem to mind, engaging in convo on their own

you follow jungkook and sit across from him in the empty booth

you both just sit there in silence

quiet

you blink at him

and the silence drags on

for

what seems like forever

and he’s finally had enough. “is there something you want to say?”

you cross your arms over your shoulders and shrug your shoulders. “not really.”

if you tell him tae wants you to bond with jk after he always told him to stay away from you, he’ll know something is going on

he’ll know tae told you his private matters

so you just need tae to believe you’re talking w jk

he narrows his eyes at you for a moment but doesn’t question anything and then glances out the window, eyes scanning the trees that zoom by

you both sit there in silence, sometimes stealing glances at each other

it’s already been an hour

pure silence

somewhere during the trip, about an hour into it, jungkook holds his hand out

you frown

??

his hand

why is he giving you his hand

you slowly place your hand in his, back of your hand facing up

he glances at your hand and then at you, a quiet chuckle leaving his lips

he brings your hand to his mouth and gently kisses your knuckles before placing your hand back on your knee

“that was cute but i meant your phone.”

oh

OH

well how the hell!!! were u!!! supposed to know!!

you narrow your eyes at him in suspicion. “why the hell do you want my phone?”

he rolls his eyes. “stop making a fuss about every little thing and just give it to me.”

this

damn

junior

SO DISRESPECTFUL!!!!

(its kinda hot)

but he needs to be punched!!!

you dig into your pocket and pull it out

unlock it

and hand it to him

he ticks away on your phone and you just stare at him in anticipation

then he hands you back his phone

when you wrap your fingers around it and pull back, there’s resistance

jungkook won’t let your phone go

you glance up from your phone

you cock an eyebrow at him

and he’s just staring at ou

then he leans forwards

winks at you

lets go of your phone

gets up

and heads back to the booth with isabella and hyunjoo

leaving you all alone

hes so

fucking

cocky

jerk.

you look down at your phone

it’s open on instagram

??

did he just…?

‘You accepted @.jungkook97’s follow request!’

to be continued

<- previous ; next ->

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[leclerc-s]

(daphne's version)

series masterlist

february 11, 2021

liked by danielricciardo, alex_albon, nataliaruiz, and others

daphnejones i’m thrilled to tell you that my new version of fearless (daphne’s version) is done and will be with you soon. it has 26 songs including 6 never before released songs from the vault. love story (daphne’s version) will be out tonight.

view all comments

danielricciardo LET'S FUCKING GO!!!

georgerussell63 to quote the great kevin maggnussen, “suck my balls mate!”

↳ isabellaperez don’t be shy, tag him. scooterbraun how do you feel knowing daphne's releasing her versions and you'll stop earning money for her hard work?

alex_albon mr.perfectly fine, your time has come

↳ isabellaperez tag him...joejonas you're up first.

sebastianvettel glad you’re finally taking back your music daphne.

lewishamilton sebastian and i can be normal in our congratulations, unlike some people. so, congrats on taking this step daph!

freyavettel YOU BELONG WITH ME (TAYLOR'S VERSION) IS FINALLY GOING TO BE HERE!!! AHHHHH

mickschumacher i apologize for them. they're all drunk.

↳ charles_leclerc you are too micky

rickybobby3🔒 SUPER FUCKING PROUD OF YOU. I LOVE YOU!

liked by daphnejones

↳ user53 is this the boyfriend? his account is private

↳ user45 did you think he'd expose their relationship? they want privacy, let them have it.

↳ user53 maybe he shouldn't comment on a public instagram post?

↳ nataliaruiz maybe people should stop being so nosy and focus on daphne re-releasing her music? that’s the real accomplishment here.

june 18, 2021

liked by danielricciardo, maejones, charles_leclerc

daphnejones the next album that i’ll be releasing is my version of red, which will be out on november 19. this will be the first time you hear all 30 songs that were meant to go on red. and hey, one of them is even ten minutes long🧣

view all comments

danielricciardo FULLY PREPARED TO CRY MY FUCKING HEART OUT!!!!

isabellaperez COUNT YOUR FUCKING DAYS JAKEGYLLENHAAL

↳ arthurleclerc you gotta stop tagging them isa

↳ isabellaperez no.

maejones AND MAYBE WE GOT LOST IN TRANSLATION

↳ danielricciardo MAYBE I ASKED FOR TOO MUCH

↳ charles_leclerc BUT MAYBE THIS THINGS WAS A MASTERPIECE 'TIL YOU TORE IT ALL UP

↳ maxverstappen33 RUNNING SCARED, I WAS THERE

↳ pierregasly I REMEMBER IT ALL TOO WELL

↳ nataliaruiz AND YOU CALL ME UP AGAIN JUST TO BREAK ME LIKE A PROMISE

↳ rowantodd SO CASUALLY CRUEL IN THE NAME OF BEING HONEST

↳ carlossainz55 I'M A CRUMPLED UP PIECE OF PAPER LYING HERE

↳ penelopetrevino 'CAUSE I REMEMBER IT ALL, ALL, ALL TOO WELL

isabellaperez jakegyllenhaal, this one’s for you. but also the kennedy kid, we haven’t forgotten about him. he was a saint compared to you.

↳ georgerussell63 how can someone fuck up so bad that he gets a 10 minute song written about him?

↳ isabellaperez i don't know lets ask him 🎤 jakegyllenhaal what did you do?

user71 isabella is so unhinged, i bet that she’s drunk

↳ penelopetrevino she is. most of us are, but it feels like one of those nights we won’t be sleeping

user26 i can only imagine the pr mess this is going to create

rickybobby3🔒 so fucking proud of you sweetheart! can’t wait to drive around and scream this album with you. (i’ll be screaming and you’ll be singing)

liked by daphnejones

↳ user04 the mystery of ricky bobby continues. who is this man? is he daph’s boyfriend?

↳ user93 honestly, if he is love that for daph. he's seems like he's supportive of her and her career and if it's the same person, the they've been together since at least 2016, when daph let it slip that she was dating someone.

may 5, 2023

liked by danieljonesricciardo, maxverstappen1, isabellaperez and others

daphnejonesricciardo it fills me with such pride and joy to announce that my version of speak now will be out july 7 (just in time for july 9th, iykyk 😆) i first made speak now, completely self-written, between the ages of 18 and 20. the songs that came from this time in my life were marked by their brutal honesty, unfiltered diaristic confessions and wild wistfulness. i love this album because it tells a tale of growing up, flailing, flying and crashing… and living to speak about it. with six extra songs I’ve sprung loose from the vault, i absolutely cannot wait to celebrate speak now (daphne’s version) with you on july 7th.

view all comments

danieljonesricciardo I FUCKING LOVE YOU!

↳ danieljonesricciardo I'M SO PROUD OF YOU! AHH!!!!

↳ danieljonesricciardo THAT'S MY FUCKING WIFE PEOPLE!!!

danieljonesricciardo YOU ARE AN EXPERT AT SORRY

↳ baileywinters AND KEEPING LINES BLURRY

↳ nataliaruiz NEVER IMPRESSED BY ME ACING YOUR TESTS

↳ charles_leclerc ALL THE GIRLS THAT YOU'VE RUN DRY HAVE TIRED LIFELESS EYES

↳ landonorris 'CAUSE YOU BURNED THEM OUT

↳ freyavettel BUT I TOOK YOUR MATCHES BEFORE FIRE COULD CATCH ME

↳ pierregasly SO DON'T LOOK NOW

↳ yukitsunoda I'M SHINING LIKE FIREWORKS OVER YOUR SAD EMPTY TOOOWWWWNNN

↳ isabellaperez does this seem like cheap writting johnmayer??? (message approved by max verstappen)

user29 mother said we had to be nice but her own friends are calling j*hn out? does that mean we're allowed too?

↳ daphnejonesricciardo nothing i said would've gotten them to stop. i think the same can be said for my fans.

↳ user29 digging my grave rn

georgerussell63 count your days j*hn

lewishamilton do any of you have any idea about what kind of pr mess you're about to create?

↳ isabellaperez what is fia going to do to me? give me a grid penalty?

↳ oscarpiastri i'm adding your name to my long list of traitors lewis

↳ maxverstappen1 you know damn well the original group chat name was daphne jones defense squad

↳ user13 that's iconic

alex_albon SHE WAS NINETEEN WHEN SHE DANCED WITH THE DEVIL! I'M COMING FOR YOU JOHN!!

↳ lilymhe do you ever think about the consequences off your actions alexander?

↳ alex_albon when it comes to defending daphne, no.

mickschumacher i feel like it's my job to inform everyone that they are all extremely drunk except for daph, lily, and lewis. i am bordering on drunk and sober.

↳ user19 love that they all always end up drunk when one of the girls announces a new album

↳ logansargeant it's called celebrating achievements

↳ zoyatorres no, it's called using any small excuse to drink

user30 everytime she releases an album these guys come for her exes throats, and i just know she scolds them but they just don't give a fuck

↳ baileywinters she does but we must protect mother.

↳ isabellaperez father also agrees with bullying. one parent's consent is enough for us.

user89 daniel lurking and being the supportive husband we know he is

user12 dan's so in love with her he might stop breathing

↳ danieljonesricciardo OF COURSE I AM! HAVE YOU SEEN HER! I FUCKING LOVE HER! THAT’S MY FUCKING WIFE PEOPLE!

august 9, 2023

liked by danieljonesricciardo, lewishamilton, baileywinters and others

daphnejonesricciardo surprise!! 1989 (daphne’s version) is on its way to you 🔜! the 1989 album changed my life in countless ways, and it fills me with such excitement to announce that my version of it will be out october 27th. to be perfectly honest, this is my most FAVORITE re-record i've ever done because the 5 from the vault tracks are so insane. i can’t believe they were ever left behind. but not for long!

view all comments

danieljonesricciardo I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE! THAT’S MY FUCKING WIFE!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!

↳ daphnejonesricciardo love you too, you kangaroo

↳ danieljonesricciardo I AM A HONEY BADGER!!!

baileywinters GIVE IT UP FOR DAPHNE JONES DOING THE UNTHINKABLE AND BREAKING RECORDS LEFT AND RIGHT!!!

maxverstappen1 probably our favorite re-record you’ve done because it was after this one you and mae came into our lives.

↳ user87 stop that’s literally the sweetest thing max could ever say

↳ user91 max is such a sweet brother-in-law (they’re not married yet people!!) my brother-in-law usually tells me i’m an annoying fatass

↳ maxverstappen1 throw him away

carlossainz55 THIS ONE IS INSANE!

penelopetrevino DIDN’T THEY TELL US “DON’T RUSH INTO THING?”

↳ maejones DIDN’T YOU FLASH YOUR GREEN EYES AT ME?

↳ isabellaperez DIDN’T YOU CALM MY FEARS WITH A CHESHIRE CAT SMILE?

↳ zoyatorres OOH, DIDN’T IT ALL SEEM NEW AND EXCITING?

↳ dulceperez I FELT YOUR ARMS TWISTIN’ AROUND ME

↳ freyavettel IT’S ALL FUN AND GAMES ‘TIL SOMEBODY LOSES THEIR MIND

↳ nataliaruiz BUT DARLING

↳ charles_leclerc WE FOUND WONDERLAND, YOU AND I GOT LOST IN IT

↳ arthur_leclerc AND WE PRETENDED IT COULD LAST FOREVER (EH, EH)

↳ oscarpiastri WE FOUND WONDERLAND, YOU AND I GOT LOST IN IT

↳ danieljonesricciardo AND LIFE WAS NEVER WORSE BUT NEVER BETTER (EH, EH)

logansargeant the vault tracks on this are 🔛🔝

user56 THERE IS NOT A DOUBT IN MY MIND THAT THE PADDOCK FAMILY ARE THE FIRST ONES TO HERE EVERY NEW ALBUM AND SONG

↳ aussiegrit they are. oscar’s been singing a vault track for over 2 months.

↳ fernandoalo_oficial you were present for the listening party because daniel insisted you be there. jensen and seb were there too.

↳ user82 there was a dilf reunion and we missed it? where was kimi?

↳ landonorris he “couldn’t” make it.

↳ nicorosberg i guess my invite got lost in the mail or something

↳ isabellaperez no, we just haven’t forgotten brocedes and the silver war.

↳ dulceperez we picked uncle lewis over you

lewishamilton this one is amazing daphne

↳ daphnejricciardo thanks lewis!

user03 everyday i think this friend group can’t get more unhinged and they prove me wrong time and time again.

↳ landonorris we live to disappoint expectations of us

¡leclerc-s speaks! in honor of 1989 (taylor's version) i give you this. i genuinely don't what this is but i knew i wanted to do something for oct 27th and this is the result of that. have y'all heard 1989 (taylor's version) and if so what's your favorite vault track, personally is it over now? has been on repeat all day.

¡disclaimer! this is in no way making assumptions about the people involved in this story, this is all fake. it is a fanfiction please don't take any of what is said seriously. this is all for entertainment purposes and as a creative outlet for me. enjoy!

#leclerc-s #the honest series #daniel ricciardo #daniel ricciardo x female oc #formula 1 #formula 1 fic #fanfic #fanfiction #f1 #f1 smau #f1 social media au #f1 instagram au #f1 fic

[deancasbigbang]

Title: Ungod

Author: AmberXBoone

Artist: Rezal

Rating: Explicit

Pairings: Dean Winchester/Castiel, Dean Winchester/Lisa Braeden (past-mentioned), Castiel/Kelly Kline (past-mentioned), Sam Winchester/Eileen Leahy

Length: 40000

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply; Minor Character Death

Tags: Lawyer Dean Winchester; Priest Castiel; Explicit Sexual Content; Castiel is Jack Kline's Father; Religious Rebellion; Church Corruption; Alternative Universe; John & Mary are alive; Lawyer Sam Winchester; Sexual Content in public/semi-public places

Posting Date: November 6, 2023

Summary: Dean Winchester, Esq. never really wanted to be part of the family business. But, here he is, working at his father's NYC law firm, being told to represent some church whose head priest allegedly stole thousands of donated dollars from parishioners. One day, lost and confused, Dean wanders into the church confessional, finding solace in a faceless voice. Later that night, Dean wanders out of a bar with a lonely stranger - only to wake up and realize that the body that spent the night in his bed was the same shadowy figure behind the confessional screen. Dean soon learns that Father Castiel Novak knows all the church’s secrets and wants to expose Father Chuck Shurley and everyone else there – but after one of the nuns, Sister Isabella, is found dead after knowing too much, Castiel and Dean have to figure out how to lose this case for the church while making sure Castiel isn’t the next victim of the truth.

Excerpt: To the shadow on the other side of the hazy screen, Dean says, “Bless me father, for I have sinned.” There’s nothing but silence at first, but it’s followed by the sound of a body shifting on the other side of the divider, of breathing that’s unsure and unsteady. “Tell me—” Castiel’s voice is low, breaking as he speaks. Dean moves closer to the screen, pressing his fingers against it. “Last night, I was with someone I wasn’t supposed to be with. Or more like, someone who wasn’t supposed to be with me.” “And you feel—guilt because of this?” Castiel is still just an outline in the barely-there light. “Guilt?” Dean leans forward now, pressing his forehead into the screen. “No. I don’t know what I feel, but it isn’t guilt. Maybe regret.” “You regret being with this person?” Castiel’s shadow has grown closer now, and just the presence of his body reminds Dean of last night, of the way Castiel was all over him. “No.” Dean can feel Castiel’s fingertips press against his own, through aluminum mesh that separates them. “I regret that I’m not someone else. I regret that he left because of who I am. Because he found how who I am.” “Why?” Castiel sighs against the screen, and Dean closes his eyes, remembers the way it felt when Castiel exhaled into his mouth last night, the way it felt when Castiel kissed him. Dean isn’t sure how to answer that question. He isn’t sure he really wants to admit to last night being something different, something more than what he was used to lately. “I just wanted him to stay—or come back—I don’t know.” Castiel leans into the mesh, fingers still running along Dean’s. “I panicked. I realized who you are—and I didn’t know what to do, or what to say. I told you that you didn’t do anything wrong.” “I mean, I did, right? At least, you believe we did something wrong? You ran out on me.” Dean doesn’t even know what he’s saying. He shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be doing any of this. But, right now, he can’t bring himself to care. “No. Nothing you did was wrong. You were—perfect.” Castiel’s words trail off. “And I haven’t stopped thinking about you since I walked out of your apartment.” Dean knows that’s a lie. No one has ever told him he’s perfect. Maybe his mother, once or twice. “Did you make up all that stuff about having a kid? About it being his birthday? Didn’t you take a vow of celibacy, or whatever it’s called?” “No, that was the truth. I have a son. You aren’t my first indiscretion,” Castiel says. “That’s all I am.” Dean backs up in the darkness, further from Castiel. So many times, he’s been the drunken lapse in judgment, the starting point of a long walk of shame. But he’s never felt like a sin until now.

DCBB 2023 Posting Schedule

#dcbb 2023 #fic preview #2023 promo #deancas #destiel

[ash-arts-a-thing]

Chapter 6 event notes are finally here.

Sorry this took so long, it seems this was the chapter people were most excited for, but it’s finally finished. I didn’t have a beta reader this time so I hope they’re still okay.

[Character Notes] [Chapters 1-3] [Chapters 4&5]

Specter Carlo AU Chapter 6

• Upon entering Rosa Isabella Street in a lie playthrough Gemini will still have his regular dialogue, but there will also now be new dialogue with Carlo.

Carlo: “The Opera House, huh? My… friend, loved the Opera House. He was big into theatre.”

Gemini: “He was? Did you two ever go there together? What were the shows like?!”

Carlo: “We… We never got the chance to go.”

Gemini: “Oh. I’m sorry.”

Carlo: “Don’t worry about it. Please.”

• The White Lady will not be aware of Carlo.

• Upon the White Lady’s death Carlo will comment: “What a waste. She had such a beautiful voice when she was still able to sing.”

• Julien will not be aware of Carlo.

• Carlo will have different dialogue depending on whether Julien was lied to or not:

Truth: “Would it have killed you to show the guy a little compassion? Puppet or not, he seemed to really love his wife.”

Lie: “Do you think a human and a puppet can really have a relationship like that? Hmm… whatever makes them happy.”

• Carlo will be unable to comment while Pinocchio travels up the road toward the Opera House due to the over abundance of fire.

• Upon entering the Opera House, Carlo will be as active as he was at Krat Grand Central Station in the floors reflections, though the inconsistencies from Chapter 1 will be far more obvious rather than subtle

• The first thing Carlo will say, when he gets the chance to, is about the Mad Clown that Pinocchio had just defeated, “I don’t know what was going through their heads when they designed that because that is NOT child friendly.”

• Once Pinocchio is first inflicted with disrupt Carlo will comment: “Be more cautious with the puppets around here, a lot of them have ergo disrupting attacks. Getting hit with those feels… bad, to say the least.”

• After defeating the first opera spider Carlo will comment: “I think this might be my least favourite puppet design.” If it’s a truth playthrough he will add: “Hmmm… maybe my second least favourite.”

• Adelina is not aware of Carlo, her dialogue remains unchanged, thought he will comment on her both after talking to her the first time and if she is given the apple.

• After the first conversation Carlo will say “Isn’t… this who the White Lady was talking about? She thought Adelina…”

• If Adelina was given the apple Carlo will say, “Hope she enjoys that. I don’t think there’s another apple left in all of Krat at this point.”

• If Adelina is not given the apple Carlo will say, “I’m pretty sure you don’t eat so what on earth are you saving that for. Just give her the damn fruit.”

• Carlo will have new dialogue options before fighting Romeo

These dialogue options are:

“Would you ever go to a show here?”

Carlo: “If that’s what my friend wanted, and we had the money to, I would’ve gone with him without hesitation.”

“How can disruption hurt so much?”

Carlo: “Something to do with you ergo, I’m not the best when it comes to explaining this stuff. I just know that whatever was disrupting you could disrupt me too and it did not feel good.”

“Tell me about this boss.” (He will have multiple responses to this.)

1. [Truth] “Not sure what you expect me to tell you that you don’t already know because I don’t know jack about this thing.”

2. [Lies] “Your guess is as good as mine, so keep your guard up.”

3. [Truth] “It’s bigger than you, I’m sure.”

4. [Lies] “it’s probably going to try to throw you around like that giant cop puppet. Make sure your healed up before we go in.”

5. [Lies] “I wish this wasn’t the reason I was able to visit here for the first time.”

Battle dialogue for phase 1: King of Puppets:

1. “I didn’t like the look of that play. [Lies] It felt like a threat… or a warning.”

2. “That voice…”

3. “Wait- No I have to be hearing things.”

4. “No it can’t be him-!”

Battle dialogue for phase 2: Romeo:

• Note that Carlo will refuse to fight during phase 2, if Romeo targets him Carlo will only block.

1. “Romeo!”

2. “Please, you have to stop this- we’re not the enemy!”

3. “Don’t hurt him!” (Whether he’s talking to Romeo or P can be taken either way depending on the playthrough)

4. “Romeo you can’t keep this up, please I can’t lose you again!”

• Upon defeating Romeo a short in game cutscene will play, Romeo will drop to his knees and Carlo will rush to his side. They will then have the following dialogue:

Romeo: “You’re just as strong as I remember you being, my heart. A truly unstoppable force, you and your new puppet friend. I’m sorry it took me this long to come to my senses.”

Carlo: “Did you see yourself? You were quite literally on fire. (Carlo forces a laugh) Now let’s just… let’s get you back to the hotel. We can get you fixed up there.”

Romeo: “Oh Carlo, I don’t know if I can make it that far, you might have to- ugh- put me out of my misery.”

Carlo: “Don’t talk like that! As long as he helps us we’ll make it! He has to help us- I- please. He’s all I have left.”

• Pinocchio will now have the option to either spare or kill Romeo.

• This choice will have the most drastic consequences of the playthrough as it will cement the way Carlo views Pinocchio for the rest of the game.

• Depending on the choice a different cutscene will play out for both scenarios.

[Kill]

Pinocchio will approach the duo, blade at the ready to strike Romeo down. The tip of Pinocchio’s blade will be raised to rest upon the center of his chest, the light ‘tink’ of metal against metal could be heard for miles in the quiet of the room. Carlo will exclaim, “No! What’re you doing?! We can make it back to the Hotel, just help me get him there, please! Please!!!”

Carlo will then attempt to push Pinocchio’s blade away, but since he is the Specter his hand will harmlessly pass through the blade.

Romeo will place his hand on Carlo’s shoulder before calmly saying, “My heart, it’s okay, it’s better this way. I’ve already hurt both you and your friend, I don’t know what I’d do if I some how… killed you again.”

Carlo will then spit back, “Screw this puppet! If he kills you he’ll never be considered my ‘friend’! In fact, I’d go as far to call him a dead man!”

Romeo will get serious, his face stern as he firmly replies, “Do not hold it against him. You and I both know this is for the best.”

Carlo won’t reply, instead choosing to firmly press his lips to his boyfriends one last time. The kiss will hold for a few seconds before Romeo gasps, Pinocchio’s blade sinking into his chest far enough to pierce through his back.

Romeo will quickly go slack, sliding lifelessly off the blade before hitting the floor with a loud metallic thunk. Carlo will stare in stunned silence for a few seconds before a scream of ‘no’ will be ripped from him. If he were human, the scream would’ve caused enough strain on his vocals to draw blood. Rather than throwing himself on Romeo’s body before he vanishes, Carlo will snap to look up at Pinocchio, eyes red and waves of energy flaring off his body as he stands.

Carlo’s hands will be shaking at his sides as he hisses through clenched teeth, “You. I’ll KILL you!!”

As he lunges for Pinocchio, hands raised and aiming for the puppets neck, Carlo will vanish just as the tips of his fingers would make an attempt at contact at fair skin.

Pinocchio is then left alone as the scream of fury rings through theatre.

[Spare]

Pinocchio will approach the duo, blade at his side as he kneels in front of Romeo. His gaze will snap to Carlo as the Specter speaks, “Please. I don’t know if it will even mean anything to you, but I-,” Carlo will look to Romeo briefly before looking back, face certain and voice confident, “I love him more than life itself.”

At that Pinocchio will blink and tilt his head slightly before his gaze once again lands on Romeo. A beat will pass before he repositions his weapon in his hand, holding the majority of its handle out to Carlo. Carlo will look between him and blade before hesitantly taking it from Pinocchio’s hand.

Pinocchio will then position himself to help the other puppet up, using his legion arm to throw Romeo’s arm over his shoulders and positioning his human arm around the others waist to steady him.

Clenching his teeth and grunting in pain, Romeo will finally speak up, “Are you sure you can do this? I don’t want to slow you two down.”

Pinocchio will remain unfazed, having more than enough strength to flat out just carry Romeo. In response to the question he will nod.

Another hiss of pain, “Alright. Thank you.”

Carlo will release a shaky exhale, taking the lead in front of the two in order to fend off anything that might get in their way. Romeo will strain a laugh, saying, “I know he’ll say it later, but he’s very grateful, trust me. That’s the most emotion I’ve seen from in… quite some time.”

The scene will fade as they make their way out of the theatre doors.

From here notes will be more heavily separated between lie and truth playthroughs as the dialogue differences and interactions between Pinocchio and Carlo will be much more numerous.

[Truth]

• If Pinocchio has chosen to kill Romeo, the rest of the chapter will play out as normal. Carlo will not comment again until returning to the hotel.

• Dialogue from Gepetto, as well as everyone else in the Hotel, will remain unchanged.

• Carlo will have new, and much more hostile dialogue, when spoken to at the mirror.

These dialogue options are:

“Are you okay?“

Carlo: “Don’t you dare ask me if I’m okay. You’re lucky I can’t get my hands on you because if I could I would rip that heart right out of your chest and watch as the light leaves those glass eyes of yours.”

“I’m sorry.”

Carlo: “No. You arent. You’re programmed to think you are and even if you were actually sorry… it isn’t going to bring back the one thing that made my life worth living.”

“What are you thinking about?”

1. “Im thinking about how great it would be if you got the hell away from me.”

2. “Why do you care? Why don’t you go suck up to that bag of dust you call a ‘father’ instead of pestering me.”

3. “You’re going to get what’s coming to you. Just you wait.”

4. “I wanted it to rain again but… whatever. Leave me alone.”

[Lies]

[Optional]

•There is an optional moment where the player will play as Carlo, he will help lead Pinocchio and Romeo through Krat to reach the hotel.

• Pinocchio and Romeo will act as followers in this scenario and will have seperate walking animations depending on speed.

Walking: Romeo will walk while leaning against Pinocchio.

Jogging: Pinocchio will be stabilizing Romeo as he leans more heavily against P.

Sprinting: Pinocchio will have no choice but to just pick Romeo up and carry him to keep up.

• Since Carlo does not have a legion arm himself using the legion button will cause Pinocchio to use whatever arm he has equipped to help if needed.

• There will not be any mini bosses, but there will be more minor enemies than when passed through with Pinocchio

• Upong returning to the hotel, with Carlo and Romeo in Pinocchio’s company, the next time he talks to Gepetto will be more of a confrontation between him and Carlo

• The father and son will bicker back and forth while Romeo and Pinocchio watch

Gepetto: “Ah, my son, you’ve returned. I trust that… you…”

Carlo: “Hello, ‘father’.

Gepetto: “Carlo? How can you-“

Carlo: “The better question is: how can YOU? How can you go around calling that puppet your son? How can you suddenly act like you care even the SLIGHTEST bit about me OR him?!

Gepetto: “Just let me-“

Carlo: “No! I don’t want to hear it! All you’ve done is use him to do your dirty work and what’s worse, you tried to have him kill Romeo! You knew how much he meant to me and you STILL tried to have him killed and on top of that you… Look at what you did to him.”

Gepetto: “Destroying him would have been for the greater good-“

Carlo: “The greater good? My ass for the greater good! You only chose killing him over any other option because you knew how close we were.”

Gepetto: “You don’t know-“

Carlo: “I know enough. I’m out of here.”

Carlo will then storm off, the sound of him stomping down the hall and finishing with the sound of Pinoccchio’s bedroom door slamming shut.

• Carlo can be found in Pinocchio’s room until the next time P leaves Hotel Krat.

• Romeo will be taken to Eugénie where he will recieve repairs throughout the rest of game.

Talking to Carlo again before leaving will yield more dialogue options:

“Are you okay?”

Carlo: “… I’m fine. Don’t worry about me, I’ll get over it. Shrugging off my father has become second nature to me at this point.”

“Gepetto is your father?”

Carlo: “I should’ve told you sooner, but can you blame me? You were pretty much made to be my replacement or something. All those years I was left to rot in that hole… at least two good things came from it though. Something about Sophia is… off though.”

“Will Romeo be okay?”

Carlo: “Romeo is stronger than he looks. I bet by this time tomorrow he’ll be walking around like nothing happened, heheh… At least, I hope he is.”

“What are you thinking about?”

1. “It’s… really good to have Romeo back. I wasn’t expecting to ever see him again.”

2. “Sophia is going to be surprised to see Romeo and I again, it’ll be nice to talk to her.”

3. “I wonder if can play the piano with this body, maybe I can finally give you that show I promised.”

4. “I my favourite book is still downstairs. I never get tired of reading the story of Pinocchio, you should read it sometime.”

Most of the Hotel residents will also have something to say about Romeo and Carlo:

Antonia: “It’s been so long since I’ve seen those boys. It’s good to be able to see them again, even in the states they’re currently in.”

Eugénie: “Don’t worry, Romeo is in good hands with me and Venigni, we’ll make sure he gets patched up. His friend is welcome to come oversee his repairs anytime. Carlo was his name, right?”

Gepetto: “Please, leave me be, son. You have much more work to do in Krat.”

Venigni: “Ah, so good to see young Carlo and his ‘friend’ again. He deserved so much better than what happened to him, it’s good to see he’ll have a second chance.”

Polendena: “Master Carlo has changed in many ways since we’ve last met and yet, he’s stayed the same in some ways as well. I’m sure he and Romeo will fit in nicely at the Hotel.”

Sophia: “They’ve both changed so much, but I suppose I have too. It will be nice to have a chance to talk to them again, thank you for bringing them both back.”

• Even if Carlo isn’t spoken to before P leaves he can be recruited as a follower, a prompt will ask if P wants to bring him along.

• Carlo will head back to the hotel before his health can hit zero, once he heads back he’ll have to be recruited again.

• He will act pretty much the same as he does in boss fights, but he will only attack something that is actively trying to harm P rather than running off to fight whatever he sees.

• If P doesn’t see an item Carlo has a chance to point it out to him or he will ask to get it himself to which he will either stay with P or run off the grab it.

• Carlo will have his own weapon that will change every chapter like with regular boss fights, but if he is acting as a follower it’s possible to change it through P’s inventory.

#Specter Carlo AU #lies of p #carmeo #pinocchio #Carlo #Romeo #gepetto #lorenzini venigni #eugenie #Sophia #pulcinella #Polendina #Antonia

[burningvelvet]

A very long analysis on Heathcliff, his relationships, and his origins: or, how Wuthering Heights drove me insane :)

Links to my previous WH analysis (which aren't required to read this post!): 1) my post analyzing heathcliff & his relationships with cathy2.0/isabella/hareton / 2) smaller post analyzing heathcliff & the earnshaws in relation to theories about his parentage / 3) misc. heathcliff/cathy analysis

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On Heathcliff's origins, his mysteriousness, and his arrival to Wuthering Heights:

As I mention in that 2nd link, I think the theory of Heathcliff being Mr. Earnshaw's son is an interesting theory of conjecture because even if not true (and it probably isn't) it allows us to more deeply explore the generally accepted basis of the canon, which is that Heathcliff is not related to them, but nevertheless is still caught between the labels of "family" and "outsider," just like he would have been if he had indeed been a bastard, a step-child, or even more formally adopted. Under Mr. Earnshaw's wishes Heathcliff shares a room with the children, he is given equal gifts and clothes as them, and he is preferred over Hindley. And while he may not be in line to inherit legally, he ends up inheriting anyway, an idea which lends itself to the novels Joseph-approved theme of predeterminism/fate.

So I'm not dead-set on any singular interpretation or theory as to Heathcliff's role in the story or the details of his background. Much of his character is inherently mysterious: his race and age are unknown, his family history and origins are unknown, what he was doing for 3 years of Cathy's marriage and how he acquired his wealth are unknown, some of his feelings and motives are highly debatable (as I discussed in my post about his odd dynamics with Cathy 2.0, Isabella, & Hareton: https://www.tumblr.com/burningvelvet/738901817580290048/my-analysis-on-heathcliff-and-his-relationships), & whether English was his first language is also questioned (many people including myself have wondered at the line where we're told he "repeated over and over again some gibberish that nobody could understand," though it could have just been panicked child's speech).

Many academics have noted how Wuthering Heights follows various testaments of the Gothic literary tradition, not only by the involvement of death, violence, ghosts, etc., but also in the use of incestuous themes (whether literal or metaphorical) and the use of the Other in Heathcliff, aided by the mysteries of his origins and his racial ambiguity.

As for Heathcliff not revealing much about his childhood, I believe this part of it could be due to trauma as well as regular childhood amnesia. He may not remember anything. A lot of people don't have many memories from before the age of ~6 anyway — and I just looked it up— his real age is never given but he is believed to be around the same age than Cathy who was described as "hardly six years old." I had thought they were a little older for some reason. He's also said to have been "speaking gibberish" which I once considered may have been indicative of a foreign language and/or accent but now, because of his age and probable low background, it may have been due to his just being very young and maybe unsocialized and shy. It actually makes my heart ache when Nelly describes him :(

Here's an excerpt from chapter 3 describing Heathcliff's childhood:

"He threw himself into a chair, laughing and groaning, and bid them all stand off, for he was nearly killed—he would not have such another walk for the three kingdoms.

'And at the end of it to be flighted to death!' he said, opening his great-coat, which he held bundled up in his arms. 'See here, wife! I was never so beaten with anything in my life: but you must 'en take it as a gift of God; though it's as dark almost as if it came from the devil.'"

We crowded round, and over Miss Cathy's head I had d peep at a dirty, ragged, black-haired child; big enough both to walk and talk: indeed, its face looked older than Catherine's; yet when it was set on its feet, it only stared round, and repeated over and over again some gibberish that nobody could understand. I was frightened, and Mrs. Earnshaw was ready to fling it out of doors: she did fly up, asking how he could fashion to bring that gipsy brat into the house, when they had their own bairns to feed and fend for? What he meant to do with it, and whether he were mad? The master tried to explain the matter; but he was really half dead with fatigue, and all that I could make out, amongst her scolding, was a tale of his seeing it starving, and houseless, and as good as dumb, in the streets of Liverpool, where he picked it up and inquired for its owner. Not a soul knew to whom it belonged, he said; and his money and time being both limited, he thought it better to take it home with him at once, than run into vain expenses there: because he was determined he would not leave it as he found it. Well, the conclusion was, that my mistress grumbled herself calm; and Mr. Earnshaw told me to wash it, and give it clean things, and let it sleep with the children.

Hindley and Cathy contented themselves with looking and listening till peace was restored: then, both began searching their father's pockets for the presents he had promised them. The former was a boy of fourteen, but when he drew out what had been a fiddle, erushed to morsels in the great-coat, he blubbered aloud; and Cathy, when she learned the master had lost her whip in attending on the stranger, showed her humour by grinning and spitting at the stupid little thing; earning for her pains a sound blow from her father, to teach her cleaner manners. They entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or even in their room; and I had no more sense, so I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it might be gone on the morrow. By chance, or else attracted by hearing his voice, it crept to Mr. Earnshaw's door, and there he found it on quitting his chamber. Inquiries were made as to how it got there; I was obliged to confess, and in recompense for my cowardice and inhumanity was sent out of the house.

This was Heathcliff's first introduction to the family. On coming back a few days afterwards (for I did not consider my banishment perpetual), I found they had christened him 'Heathcliff': it was the name of a son who died in child-hood, and it has served him ever since, both for Christian and surname. Miss Cathy and he were now very thick; but Hindley hated him: and to say the truth I did the same; and we plagued and went on with him shamefully: for I wasn't reasonable enough to feel my injustice, and the mistress never put in a word on his behalf when she saw him wronged.

He seemed a sullen, patient child; hardened, perhaps, to ill-treatment: he would stand Hindley's blows without winking or shedding a tear, and my pinches moved him only to draw in a breath and open his eyes, as if he had hurt himself by accident, and nobody was to blame. This endurance made old Earnshaw furious, when he discovered his son persecuting the poor fatherless child, as he called him. He took to Heathcliff strangely, believing all he said (for that matter, he said precious little, and generally the truth), and petting him up far above Cathy, who was too mischievous and wayward for a favourite.

So, from the very beginning, he bred bad feeling in the house; and at Mrs. Earnshaw's death, which happened in less than two years after, the young master had learned to regard his father as an oppressor rather than a friend, and Heathcliff as a usurper of his paren's affections and his privileges; and he grew bitter with brooding over these injuries. I sympathised a while; but when the children fell ill of the measles, and I had to tend them, and take on me the cares of a woman at once, I changed my idea. Heathcliff was dangerously sick; and while he lay at the worst he would have me constantly by his pillow: I suppose he felt I did a good deal for him, and he hadn't wit to guess that I was compelled to do it. However, I will say this, he was the quietest child that ever nurse watched over. The difference between him and the others forced me to be less partial. Cathy and her brother harassed me terribly: he was as uncomplaining as a lamb; though hardness, not gentleness, made him give little trouble."

From this excerpt we see that Earnshaw 1) despite being racist toward Heathcliff, is also wildly protective of him - so much so that he kicks Nelly out of the house FOR DAYS for initially not allowing Heathcliff to sleep in his childrens room 2) Earnshaw doesn't like Cathy that much, and prefers Heathcliff over her; later when he dies he has a nice moment with her, but still asks her why she can't be a better child (lol) 3) Earnshaw did not name Heathcliff on his own accord but Heathcliff is named after Earnshaw's own son that died!!! And that says a lot; we're also never really told how Mrs. Earnshaw felt about him being named after her dead kid, or if she had a part in it or not, or if she grew to like Heathcliff too — she just dies soon after - however, I think we can all assume she always favored Hindley over Heathcliff, since we're told Hindley's jealousy grew after her death 4) Heathcliff is described by Earnshaw as a "gift from God" which I find kind of suspicious because Earnshaw struggled so much just to get him home... um, God had no part in that, Mr. - unless he's referring to the kids existence imo. At any rate, if Heathcliff isn't biologically related to Earnshaw, we're still led to have the sense that Heathcliff is sort of predestined to be there 5) Heathcliff was indeed a bit scraggly/unkempt when he arrived, but imo that doesn't mean he was necessarily a homeless orphan; if he did have a mother/family, they probably would have been living in harsh conditions anyway just by being impoverished, and if not, maybe he was just a bit dirty from wandering outside like normal kids do, and like he's so fond of doing anyway on the Moors later on - he could have just been playing outside when this white guy comes along and takes him under his coat! 6) Earnshaw says he asked around for the kids parents and felt obligated to take him on, though the kid was struggling... so yeah, regardless of if he's omitting other info or if he's his father or not, we can infer that he essentially kidnapped Heathcliff.

After re-reading this excerpt, I don't think it's as likely that Earnshaw had seen/known Heathcliff personally prior to his taking him home, but I still don't think any of this totally disproves the theory that Earnshaw could have been lying to Mrs. Earnshaw/omitting certain information.

Why was Mr. Earnshaw in Liverpool to begin with? I and many others often assume it was some sort of a business trip, and it probably was, but after re-reading the part where he leaves, I can't actually find anything to definitively confirm what he was actually there for. He could have been in Liverpool specifically to take Heathcliff with him. Another thing that doesn't make any sense is the fact that he walked all the way there alone: "I’m going to Liverpool today, what shall I bring you? You may choose what you like: only let it be little, for I shall walk there and back: sixty miles each way, that is a long spell!’"

He's then gone for 3 whole days. Meaning according to him, he walked 120 miles in 3 days, half of that while carrying/dragging a struggling small child, who he says he took because it would be his easiest option: "his money and time being both limited, he thought it better to take it home with him at once, than run into vain expenses there."

He's contradicting himself, because if he was so concerned about finances then he never would have taken on another child, as Mrs. Earnshaw immediately supplies (meaning if he was on a mission to retrieve Heathcliff, he didn't tell her): "Mrs. Earnshaw was ready to fling it out of doors: she did fly up, asking how he could fashion to bring that gipsy brat into the house, when they had their own bairns to feed and fend for? What he meant to do with it, and whether he were mad?" Ummmm you're telling me there isn't something a little suspicious or weird about any of this?!

And why would he be walking in the first place when he has horses — was he really so tight on money as to not want to support/feed them on a journey, or did he just not want to be recognized or attract attention, or did he not want to deal with a child riding on a horse for the first time? I assume carriages/wagons were out of the question for costs, and I know people walked a lot back then, especially in rural farmlands, but that is a very long journey as he himself says. What was so important? Did he even go to Liverpool at all? And why did he bundle Heathcliff up as if to hide him? To avoid suspicions about having a bastard child, etc.? And we're told Mrs. Earnshaw was expecting him home earlier, and we get no indication if she knew Mr. Earnshaw's plans or whereabouts.

And why does Mr. Earnshaw act so upbeat and nonchalant about all of this, when we're told he's usually really stern? Ie he supposedly treats Nelly well eg, telling her he'll bring her back fruits on his journey, but then he LOCKS HER OUT OF THE HOUSE FOR MULTIPLE DAYS for not following his orders about putting Heathcliff in the children's room on his first night there.

Where tf did she even go lol? Am I forgetting some part about her family having a nearby house? How far did she have to walk to get there, alone and unaccompanied as a young woman? Probably less than 120 miles in 3 days, but still! He's known Nelly her whole life, and he's supposedly known Heathcliff for a day (in which time Heathcliff has already led him into physical exhaustion), and yet he already prefers Heathcliff over her as well as his own children.

Even excusing Nelly being a narrator of debatable reliability, and being sometimes contradictory & biased against Heathcliff, Mr. Earnshaw's behavior still seems a bit outlandish and it makes sense that Mrs. Earnshaw would ask him if he had gone mad. I course, I may be looking too far into this, but how can I not?

Heathcliff's trauma, his relationship with Mr. Earnshaw, Earnshaw as kidnapper, and race:

I think Heathcliff is certainly severely traumatized. I'm not a psychologist but Nelly's line "hardness, not gentleness, made him give little trouble" is textbook childhood CPTSD, and it is partly due to Earnshaw indeed being a kidnapper with a white saviour/"white man's burden" complex.

I think the following quote by Nelly supports this kidnap view, in that she actually refers to him being kidnapped; Emily may also be encouraging us to speculate on even the most outlandish theories of his origins like Nelly does:

"‘A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad,’ I continued, ‘if you were a regular black; and a bad one will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly. And now that we've done washing, and combing, and sulking—tell me whether you don’t think yourself rather handsome? I'll tell you, I do. You're fit for a prince in disguise. Who knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen, each of them able to buy up, with one week’s income, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange together? And you were kidnapped by wicked sailors and brought to England. Were I in your place, I would frame high notions of my birth; and the thoughts of what I was should give me courage and dignity to support the oppressions of a little farmer!'"

Like in Charlotte's Jane Eyre, Emily also borrows taboo Romantic and Orientalist imagery and racializes the gothic Other figure, because this idea of the foreign/non-white body was a source of anxiety to a lot of white British Victorian readers. This is a popular concept in Gothic literary studies & a lot has been written on it, so I won't go into it too much.

Like Charlotte's Bertha Mason, Linton Heathcliff's identity as being mixed race is essential to his character — in the narrative, him being white-passing is supposed to relate to his identity being more Isabella/Linton (as also evidenced by his name) and less Heathcliff's, who is disappointed not to see his own resemblance in his son.

Since we seriously don't know Heathcliff's true origins, we can't ascertain his ethnicity (given his descriptions/epithets/Nelly's speculations, he is likely fully or part Roma, South-Asian, or African), and we can't tell if he or his family/mother were highborn, enslaved, or simply free, but we do know that slavery was still very active in England in the late 1700s when Heathcliff is a child, and his hometown Liverpool was the center of the slave trade, so connections to slavery either ancestrally or during his hiatus (a popular theory, explored in the book Heathcliff: the Lost Years by David Drum) are possible.

More evidence for the theory of Heathcliff having a previous history of child abuse and unknown early trauma, possibly relating to the slave trade (which doesn't necessarily discount the Earnshaw parentage theory either imo, and if anything may make it more likely if his reasoning for taking Heathcliff was that he wouldn't want his biological son enslaved) — is the portion where Nelly describes Heathcliff and how he initially took Hindley's abuse stoically:

". . . a sullen, patient child; hardened, perhaps, to ill-treatment: he would stand Hindley's blows without winking or shedding a tear, and my pinches moved him only to draw in a breath and open his eyes, as if he had hurt himself by accident, and nobody was to blame. This endurance made old Earnshaw furious, when he discovered his son persecuting the poor fatherless child, as he called him. He took to Heathcliff strangely . . ."

When Nelly adds that Earnshaw called Heathcliff "poor fatherless child," I see this as ironic whether Earnshaw is his biological father or not, since he is still the closest thing he has to any sort of "father figure" nominally, and symbolically in line with the view of Earnshaw as flawed micro-colonizer. In the act of standing up for Heathcliff over his own teenage son and future master of the house, he is basically acting as a pseudo-father preferring one son over another; for Hindley, the blow is deepened by Heathcliff not being Earnshaw's son in name.

For clarity's sake, whenever I refer to Mr. Earnshaw as Heathcliff's unofficially adoptive father or father figre, I do so sort of hesitatingly. Mr. Earnshaw/Heathcliff do not have a regular father/son dynamic; we're told that Heathcliff did not embrace but rather fought Mr. Earnshaw the entire 60 miles back to the Heights.

Surely the above may be hyperbole, but we must keep in mind that Mr. Earnshaw's gifts for Cathy/Hindley/Nelly were lost or destroyed in the process: most symbolically, Mr. Earnshaw's struggle to obtain Heathcliff led to Hindley's fiddle being broken, Cathy's whip being lost, and we're never told what happened to Nelly's gift of fruit, but we can assume it was lost or never got to be obtained as a result of his preoccupation.

Heathcliff's relationship with Mr. Earnshaw is complicated because of the racial power imbalance & as I said, Earnshaw having a white saviour complex & basically kidnapping Heathcliff despite (or so we're told) not fully knowing if Heathcliff had a family or not. Most important are Heathcliff's own feelings about the situation; Earnshaw's wild affection is clear.

We're told by Nelly's observations that Heathcliff clearly did not have a great love for Earnshaw: "I wondered often what my master saw to admire so much in the sullen boy; who never, to my recollection, repaid his indulgence by any sign of gratitude. He was not insolent to his benefactor, he was simply insensible; though knowing perfectly the hold he had on his heart, and conscious he had only to speak and all the house would be obliged to bend to his wishes."

When Mr. Earnshaw was dying, Heathcliff was sitting with Cathy who was singing to Earnshaw. When they realize Earnshaw has finally passed, Heathcliff seems to genuinely grieve as equally as Cathy (Hindley is at college at this time):

"The poor thing discovered her loss directly — she screamed out — 'Oh, he's dead, Heathcliff! he's dead!' And they both set up a heart-breaking cry." Later when Nelly returns from getting help: "I ran to the children's room: their door was ajar, I saw they had never lain down, though it was past midnight; but they were calmer, and did not need me to console them. The little souls were comforting each other with better thoughts than I could have hit on: no parson in the world ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they did, in their innocent talk . . ."

Yet we also know by Heathcliff's odd dynamics with Nelly and Hareton, and even by some of his behavior around Catherine I (who is the only person that most of us can agree he really loves), we can see that, probably due to trauma, Heathcliff does not know how to show affection "normally."

By his earlier disconnected reactions to Hindley's abuse, we can see that early on he had trouble reacting to negative emotions as well, which probably led him to his later emotional dysregulation & bursts of rage/frustration, which make complete sense in his situation and are why we can still often sympathize with him in his path of vengeance, even despite his abusiveness.

So we do not know the full extent of Heathcliff's feelings toward Mr. Earnshaw, and whether he truly had deep affection for him or somewhat resented him, but whatever his feelings were, they were clearly complex. As we all know, Heathcliff is capable of feeling very strongly, and when he does, he is usually vocal about it (see: literally most of his dialogue). He can't go 30 seconds without roasting someone lol. But he is oddly ambivalent and quiet about Earnshaw.

You could also (& countless academics have) argue that Earnshaw/the Earnshaw family is essentially a microcosm of colonization, Heathcliff is symbolically captured/enslaved by Mr. Earnshaw (which highlights how white saviourism is oxymoronic), and then actually becomes almost literally enslaved by Hindley later on.

On Heathcliff and Hindley:

Both are extremely flawed. Both are wildly in love with women who die from labor, both become abusive single fathers, both are defined by their grief and feelings of revenge, both want to kill each other all throughout the story, both actually try to do so to varying extents. Heathcliff saves Hareton from Hindley's negligence by catching him, Hindley saves Isabella from Heathcliff's abuse by tackling the latter (in what I think is one of the novels best sequences, Isabella's narration of the period of Heathcliff and Hindley's fighting and her escape). Heathcliff's bond with Hareton, like Hindley's bond with Isabella, is both manipulative and touching in turns. Ditto for their bonds to Nelly.

Many people believe Heathcliff had a role to play, directly or indirectly, in Hindley's death. Evidence for this: 1) teen Heathcliff wishes Hindley could drink himself to death but acknowledges doctor Kenneth says he won't: "‘It’s a pity he cannot kill himself with drink,’ observed Heathcliff, muttering an echo of curses back when the door was shut. ‘He’s doing his very utmost; but his constitution defies him. Mr. Kenneth says he would wager his mare that he’ll outlive any man on this side Gimmerton, and go to the grave a hoary sinner; unless some happy chance out of the common course befall him.’" 2) later, Kenneth remarks to Nelly that "He's barely twenty-seven, it seems; that's your own age: who would have thought you were born in one year?'" 3) Joseph once accused Heathcliff of attempting to murder Hindley during their fight ("And so ye've been murthering on him?") - in which Isabella said Heathcliff had to barely restrain himself from not killing Hindley. Joseph later adds suspicion to Hindley's death when, after Heathcliff explains to Nelly how Hindley had been suffering from the effects of alcoholism but died suddenly in the morning, Joseph "confirmed this statement, but muttered: "I'd rayther he'd goan hisseln for t' doctor! I sud ha' taen tent o' t' maister better nor him—and he warn't deead when I left, naught o' t' soart!'" (trans. from WH Reader's Guide site: "'I'd rather he'd gone himself for the doctor! I would have taken care of the master better than him—and he wasn't dead when I left, nothing of the sort!'"). So Heathcliff told Joseph to fetch Kenneth which left Heathcliff alone with Hindley, who was then dead when Joseph/Kenneth arrived.

My own theory is that Hindley probably choked on his own vomit (a common form of death by addiction) because of Heathcliff's description of he and Joseph finding Hindley "snorting like a horse; and there he was, laid over the settle: flaying and scalping would not have wakened him." It is after this that Heathcliff is alone with Hindley and he dies. Heathcliff can be seen as guilty through inaction imo, though he would justify it by saying he was letting nature take its course.

Heathcliff and Hindley take turns enslaving each other throughout the story. Hindley's seniority, legitimacy, and race give him advantages, while Heathcliff's early favoritism by Mr. Earnshaw and his later accrual of wealth, wit, and strength give him some advantages. We're told by Nelly (and she's biased, but she's the main source we have) that Hindley bullied Heathcliff immediately, to which Heathcliff weaponized Mr. Earnshaw in his favor, as evidenced by the horse scene.

If, when Hindley returned to become master of Wuthering Heights after Mr. Earnshaw's death, his wife Frances had taken a liking to Heathcliff, or if Hindley had simply matured in his time away — in other words, if Hindley had decided to grow up and let bygones be bygones — I wonder if Heathcliff would have done the same, and decided to be peaceful & not to continue their childhood rivalry.

The bulk of Heathcliff's lust for revenge really stems from Hindley's treatment of him after Mr. Earnshaw's death, when Hindley, as the new Mr. Earnshaw, really does follow through on that childhood promise during the horse scene to use his wealth/power/independence to render Heathcliff miserable, and to turn him out or keep him enslaved. Possibly at the beckoning of Frances (which I mention later,) Hindley succeeds in fulfilling this childish power fantasy, and this is partly what inspires Heathcliff to obtain the means of flipping the script and later rendering Hindley a weakened dependent.

Although Hindley is racist/absorbed his parents racism, note that Catherine was not/did not, and so Hindley's true hatred of Heathcliff imo is more motivated by jealousy/envy for his father's affection than it is anything else, & his own feelings of inadequacy & self-hatred which likely would have existed anyway & were just fuelled by being "usurped" in his father's affection.

I really blame Mr. (& Mrs., though we sadly have so little insight into her character) Earnshaw for Hindley/Heathcliff's rivalry, because I feel like we can assume Mrs. Earnshaw must have favored Hindley more when Mr. Earnshaw started favoring Heathcliff, considering Hindley's hatred increased after the grief from his mother's death, — and this favoritism & parental split is bound to deepen the split between their favorites.

Hindley's hatred of Heathcliff really increased after his father & then his wife's deaths (meaning he had prolonged complex grief), which I'm assuming compounded & brought back his feelings of his original grief for his mother, resulting in further hatred of Heathcliff who had nothing to do with any of it but whose arrival Hindley just subconsciously associated with his mother's illness/death & his father's emotional abandonment (which we could consider a mental death which took place before his physical death; imo Hindley's whole character is defined by grief).

To enhance their pseudo-brotherly rivalry, which some may say is reminiscent of Abel/Cain (especially if you believe the theory/opinion that Heathcliff murdered Hindley or was otherwise in any part to blame for his death), we again have the fact that Heathcliff was named after Hindley's dead brother.

Heathcliff is actually Heathcliff 2.0, and maybe it was Mr. Earnshaw's grief that led him to use Heathcliff 2.0 as a replacement child the way Hindley uses Mrs. Earnshaw 2.0 as a replacement mother.

All throughout the story we have people being named after each other and taking on each other's roles, ie the whole 1st/2nd generation parallels (we could extend it to be 1st/2nd/3rd since I've highlighted the narrative importance of Mr./Mrs. Earnshaw), Linton Heathcliff, Cathy 1.0/2.0. — but we know nothing about Heathcliff 1.0 other than that he died in childhood.

Was he Catherine's age, younger, or older? Did Catherine see Heathcliff as a replacement brother? Did Heathcliff 1.0 die before Catherine was born? Was he Hindley's age? Did Hindley already have grief/trauma from Heathcliff 1.0's death and resent Heathcliff 2.0 for usurping not only him, but his dead brother's place?

We're told that "the family" gave Heathcliff 2.0 his name, but I assume Mrs. Earnshaw and Hindley may not have been involved due to us never seeing that they care for him — and Joseph may have had a role in it, but he's also rarely thoughtful, and Nelly was gone — so could Cathy have suggested the name Heathcliff? (which brings to my mind Edward Rochester telling Jane Eyre to "give him his name" when he proposes to her, asking her to call him "Edward" — this would be poetic of Catherine/Heathcliff's relationship).

The meaning of the names Heathcliff/Hindley are very similar; they also share the same initials, syllable count, and the "ee" sound. Heathcliff is a combination of "heath" (a synonym for "moor"; what he and Cathy love to roave on) and "cliff." In meaning, apparently (according to some sources on Ancestry.com) Hindley is a habitational name from hind 'hind, female deer' and lēah 'woodland clearing' — which is basically another way of saying heath/moor. So there is a lot of similarity in their names, and this tainted brotherly theme, both of which must have been intentional.

Regardless of whether Heathcliff & Hindley are foster brothers or half-brothers, this naming choice is still a sign that Heathcliff was predestined to be part of the family, and lends itself to the other themes of predeterminism in that Heathcliff ends up becoming the master of the Heights after Hindley the way he would have if he were his biological brother.

Mr. Earnshaw telling Hindley he'd bring him back any gift he chose, and then returning with that gift having been broken by Heathcliff, are ample reasons to explain the hatred that moody 14-year-old Hindley immediately feels for him, who was about half his age and therefore an impractical playmate. He is more like a new sibling, and like an older sibling, Hindley is horrified at being overshadowed by the family's new addition. Since we don't know whether Hindley knew or was close to Heathcliff 1.0, we can hesitantly assume he may have been upset by the naming.

On Heathcliff, Hindley, and Frances:

I would like to briefly touch more on Hindley's wife's death (so closely followed by his fathers death) bringing up feelings of his mothers death. Hindley's wife Frances Earnshaw is the second Mrs. Earnshaw and she only comes to the house right after Mr. Earnshaw dies. I believe Hindley parallels his father, Frances parallels his mother (so like many men, he metaphorically "married his mother"), and that Frances also has some similarities to Heathcliff.

Frances has an unknown origin story and Hindley keeps her background from his father on purpose, and this could have been intended to parallel the first Mr. Earnshaw from possibly keeping Heathcliff's origins vague: "What she was, and where she was born, he never informed us: probably, she had neither money nor name to recommend her, or he would scarcely have kept the union from his father."

Frances also immediately dislikes Heathcliff... just like Hindley's mother, the first Mrs. Earnshaw, did: "Mrs. Earnshaw was ready to fling it out of doors: she did fly up, asking how he could fashion to bring that gipsy brat into the house, when they had their own bairns to feed and fend for? What he meant to do with it, and whether he were mad?"

We don't know why Frances dislikes Heathcliff, but it wouldn't be a stretch to assume it has to do with his race & status, because it is only after her disapproval that Hindley banishes Heathcliff to the role of a servant/slave, we can assume. We can also assume Frances disliked Heathcliff from the beginning, since we're never told that she took a liking to him like she initially does with Catherine; we are only ever told she dislikes him:

"She expressed pleasure, too, at finding a sister among her new acquaintance; and she prattled to Catherine, and kissed her, and ran about with her, and gave her quantities of presents, at the beginning. Her affection tired very soon, however, and when she grew peevish, Hindley became tyrannical. A few words from her, evincing a dislike to Heathcliff, were enough to rouse in him all his old hatred of the boy. He drove him from their company to the servants, deprived him of the instructions of the curate, and insisted that he should labour out of doors instead; compelling him to do so as hard as any other lad on the farm."

It is after the last quote that we learn Cathy and Heathcliff become increasingly "feral" outdoors, as Heathcliff is forced to toil in outdoor labor, and Cathy insists on keeping him company while he's at it. At this point they are both essentially orphaned, and then neglected and abandoned by Hindley and Frances, the new Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw, who take on the roles of the former Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw, who were similarly neglectful and emotionally abandoning to their children.

On Cathy and Heathcliff:

In the beginning, Lockwood reads this diary entry from Catherine I which proves the prior analysis in that she compares Mr. Earnshaw 1.0 to Mr. Earnshaw 2.0 (Hindley):

""An awful Sunday,' commenced the paragraph beneath. 'I wish my father were back again. Hindley is a detestable substitute — his conduct to Heathcliff is atrocious – H. and I are going to rebel — we took our initiatory step this evening."

Notice how in the death of Mr. Earnshaw and then under the tyranny of Hindley (Mr. Earnshaw 2.0), Cathy and Heathcliff are often sharing each other's emotions, and their bond is very twin-like. They both cry & grieve in their room in unison after Earnshaw dies, and although Heathcliff is the one primarily sentenced to torment by Hindley, Cathy doesn't abandon him to it and instead often keeps him company in his punishment, recalling when she was younger and her father would try to keep Heathcliff away from her to punish her.

Even when Cathy does sort of abandon Heathcliff to marry Edgar, in her speech after Heathcliff leaves, she says that her plan was to use her control over Edgar to benefit Heathcliff, so she really never intended to abandon him at all. Abandonment, attachment issues, separation, loss, grief, being torn away from someone/somewhere/something, are all major themes in this story, often expressed by familial and more often filial experiences.

Cathy and Heathcliff's relationship basically embodies all these themes the most poignantly, in that Heathcliff abandons her because he thinks she's abandoning him and he can't bear it and would rather leave than be left; then as soon as he returns, Cathy ends up actually physically abandoning him by dying! And later on, her ghost taunts him (I believe most of us can take the ghost plot as canon & not hallucinatory considering how many characters attest to it), and he once again returns to her like he did before.

Their whole relationship is about overcoming obstacles to separation, and being determined to retain their attachment as an act of defiance (even if it means defying life, death, physics, etc.) — this is why they're considered the most romantic couple in literature even despite their awful behavior most of the time, because in writing/literary pedagogy as a general rule it is almost always the goal of romantic leads to overcome obstacles which separate them from their lover, – and Heathcliff and Cathy take this goal to a new level by overcoming not only their childhood punishments of separation from one another, but overcoming the impossible obstacles of LIFE AND DEATH to reunite in the spirit realm where no one can separate them again — not even God.

Both Catherine and Heathcliff say that they know they won't go to heaven; God literally doesn't want them, and he has abandoned them, and this is the ultimate abandonment/seperation. Thus, all they have in the universe is each other — and if their relationship didn't work in life, they're determined to make it work in death!

Some final thoughts on Mr. Earnshaw and the making of Heathcliff:

Due to all of my previous explanations, I consider Mr. Earnshaw a possibly well-intentioned man but who ultimately failed all of his children (along with Mrs. Earnshaw) by 1) emotionally neglecting/abandoning Catherine because she was a "bad child" & acted more boyish than Hindley, 2) emotionally neglecting/abandoning Hindley in favor of Heathcliff (and maybe it was partly because Hindley was becoming a moody teenager and Heathcliff was comparatively younger/easier to handle bc of his trauma-induced subdued nature, but whatever his reasoning, it had disastrous consequences), 3) emotionally neglecting Heathcliff too by not being involved enough in his integration with the family & not checking in on him and Hindley, 4) straight up just not being that involved to begin with and not seeming to teach his children anything, hence why they're all bratty and grow up to be deeply maladjusted.

Notice how Nelly's motivational speeches to Heathcliff, and her taking care of him when he was sick, have an extraordinary affect on him, meaning Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw probably didn't show him even half as much attention or real affection. Like most English fathers at the time, Earnshaw thought his job as father/master was to merely provide provisions, leave the children with the women to be actually raised, and be done with it. The most unique thing he does in his life, and indeed his whole role in the story, is bringing home Heathcliff.

Maybe most importantly, I also just realized that Earnshaw kidnapping Heathcliff parallels Heathcliff kidnapping his own son after Isabella dies (and also him kidnapping his daughter-in-law Cathy II), and while this narrative parallel works if Earnshaw is merely Heathcliff's adoptive father, it also could be working to suggest that Earnshaw was his biological father, knew Heathcliff's mother had died, and so went back for him and took him by force. If Heathcliff's mother had recently died (or been separated from him), this would have compounded his trauma of being taken by Earnshaw, and this would have furthered his childhood memory loss, which could be another reason why I don't think Heathcliff remembers very much about his origins.

Heathcliff has much in common with Frankenstein's creaure. Yet, he is essentially a self-made man, his own creator and creature. We are even led to think of him as inhuman, as Isabella suggests with her referring to him as such and even calling him vampiric. And he does bear a lot of similarity to John Polidori's Lord Ruthven, from the first vampire novel The Vampyre (a Byronic tale, based on Byron's short story Augustus Darvell). Heathcliff's canonically mysterious origins and mysterious hiatus are necessary to his character; like Isabella and Nelly, we're supposed to question him and form our own opinions on the matter.

#wuthering heights #emily brontë #literature #english literature #victorian #gothic literature #media analysis #literary analysis #analysis #criticism #theories #fandom #heathcliff #heathcliff wuthering heights #character analysis #catherine earnshaw #hindley earnshaw #the brontës #novels #books #book thoughts #book analysis #book opinions #me #my writing #my analysis #dark academia #writing #my essays #classic literature

[goldiipond]

ray tpn is autistic and i'm gonna tell you why now

ray is one of the most heavily autistic-coded characters i can think of, and i've been wanting to write up a post going over as many of his autistic mannerisms as i can because there is a lot. this will probably be long because i am also autistic and i am especially autistic about ray, so please enjoy while i psychoanalyze this anime boy with way more scrutiny than anyone would consider healthy <3

body language

perhaps one of the strongest arguments for ray's autism can be made by looking at his body language. ray tries to keep a stoic, neutral expression and voice the majority of the time (though he's often quite. bad at that too) but he is always extremely expressive through his movements and gestures, the most noticeable of which being the use of his hands. pretty much every character uses hand gestures, but ray is ridiculously excessive. it'd take frankly way too long to compile every instance of this (or even half) throughout the manga, so here's a small collection of gestures from s1 of the anime to give an idea:

note that this is not even close to all of them and that he's exactly like this in the manga as well, though the animation and its use of snappy, exaggerated movements does help to make these much more noticeable.

moving away from his hands there's also just a lot of really expressive full-body language as well, such as this friendly chokehold:

this dramatic shrug:

and this even more dramatic flop:

just to name a few. basically, ray has a thing for grand unnecessary movements and no one is surprised.

poor emotional regulation and masking

as i mentioned before, ray tries really really hard to bottle up his emotions and keep a sort of stoic persona during his time at gracefield. he's also really really bad at doing this. not terrible, as he was able to keep up a believable enough front that none of the other kids saw anything odd about his behavior for 6 years, but that's also because he deals with so much more stress once the events of the escape arc actually get going. there is a stark difference between his quiet and detached demeanor while emma and norman are still in the dark about the house, and him nearly having a meltdown every time something strays from his meticulously crafted plans while they actually begin making their preparations to escape over the course of the arc.

just a few examples of this include him nearly having a breakdown when emma insists on taking everyone:

or one of my favorite anime exclusive moments where he strains his voice while yelling at isabella to the point he breaks into a coughing fit:

and it's not just big flashy meltdowns, but little bursts of anger as well. shoutout to this moment in particular where he launches this bucket with enough force to tear up a bit of the damn ground:

this emotional instability can be seen after the escape as well, the most glaring example being how he interacts with yuugo:

their dynamic in general really does a good job of showing ray’s mental state after the escape, because pre-goldy pond yuugo is An Asshole. and ray is so, so easy to piss off and quite frankly tired from bottling up his emotions for so long that every interaction with said asshole is a massive struggle to keep himself from physically attacking him.

as for the topic of masking, that’s what ray’s attempts to hide his emotions feel like to me. ray is constantly in danger of losing isabella’s trust, whether that be by revealing he may be a little more attached to the other kids than he lets on or by showing too much emotion that the other kids start to wonder what the hell’s going on. ray has to constantly hide and cover up his emotions with more palatable ones for others out of fear of looking out of place or being seriously hurt, and well if that doesn’t just describe autistic masking to a tee i don’t know what does.

maybe one of the things that gets me the most about that is that he's essentially been masking for about half of his life, and doing that for any extended period of time is extremely draining. ray has been drained to the point that he will have full meltdowns when put under any sort of stress and when you take into account the fact that he already has pretty severe anger issues as a result of his trauma, it's really no wonder he has such a short fuse.

lack of a filter when speaking

ray is a very blunt person. he speaks matter-of-factly and he wastes no time in getting straight to his point, sometimes with only a single sentence:

the way he talks is also pretty significant, as he generally has a more monotone way of speaking. he really only yells when he gets really worked up which like i said, happens a lot, but there’s almost no inbetween for him. pre-escape, he tries to show as little emotion in his voice as possible outside of his outbursts.

as for post-escape ray, he does seem to show much more emotion in the way he speaks. its a bit harder to judge, as nothing past the escape arc was ever adapted into the anime (s2 isnt real it cant hurt you) but his facial expressions become much more varied and it’s easy to say his vocal inflections likely do as well. however, what we can say for sure is that he remains just as blunt as ever:

no matter how comfortable he becomes with expressing himself, this aspect of his speech never seems to change.

while we’re on the topic of his speaking mannerisms please also direct your attention to these panels:

these need no explanation.

sensory issues. so many sensory issues

briefly moving back to the subject of ray’s hands, i couldn’t help but notice during my countless s1 rewatches that they are almost never just resting at his sides. if he's not using his hands for unnecessary gestures they are either shoved into his pockets, or he's crossing his arms. it's very likely his arms default to these positions because they offer a sort of sense of security, the former keeping his hands covered and the latter keeping him more closed off, almost like he's constantly hugging himself. basically, ray is a 'likes to feel covered and secure' autistic and if he was buried in weighted blankets he'd probably love it.

also tying into the ‘likes to feel covered’ aspect of ray’s autism is this scarf he acquires sometime during the volume 12 timeskip:

it’s a well known autistic thing to get attached to articles of clothing and wear them as much as possible, and boy does ray get attached to this scarf. i can count 2 post-timeskip scenes off the top of my head that have him not wearing this scarf, and the image on the right takes place a full 2 years after the left one in canon. he has no explicitly stated emotional attachment to this scarf and we don’t even know how he got it, just that he almost never takes it off. it could easily be seen as a comfort item, maybe he just likes the way the fabric feels or the extra coverage it offers him. there is post-canon content that depicts him without it, but the fact that he wore it almost nonstop for at least 2 years straight is still pretty significant.

another sensory thing i feel is worth mentioning is that ray seems to have a very specific tolerance threshold for physical contact. he seems fine initiating touch himself, and touches from emma and norman are generally alright, likely because they are the only people he has openly allowed himself to be close with his entire life. sudden touches from others however, are a different story. the one that immediately comes to mind is this interaction with don:

don in particular is someone ray becomes pretty close to, and i would say that besides the obvious growth with emma and norman, don is likely the person we see the most development with with in terms of their relationship. him having this reaction to a hug from someone he’s so close to seems indicative of some issues with unexpected contact.

and finally one of my absolute favorite things the anime added, which is ray experiencing what looks a lot like sensory overload:

this takes place right after the argument with isabella, which ended with him being knocked to the floor and locked up in a room by himself, so its needless to say that he’s pretty shaken up. he gets so overwhelmed that all he can do is yell and desperately reach for any sort of stimulation to keep him grounded, curling in on himself and aggressively ruffling up his hair. i genuinely cannot think of an allistic explanation for this scene.

and basically, he is just so autistic

all in all, theres some pretty damn solid evidence for ray being autistic and whether it was intentional or not, the sheer amount of autism-coding present in ray’s writing is almost impossible to ignore. i love some good projection but i don’t even need to do that much, hes just doing this all on his own. in conclusion:

#skye's ramblings #WELL. IT TOOK ABT AN ENTIRE DAY BUT HERE IT IS. READ MY ESSAY BOY #thank god for tublrs extended image limit am i right. had to switch to my laptop a third of the way through so it would let me add more <3 #and small shoutout to @fullscoreshenanigans for telling me how to make the gifs HGFGKJD #anywyay i had fun w this ray is so dear to me didyou know i love ray. ray #i am going to do something wild (putting a non-art post in the main tags) so hi tpn fandom i talk a lot. here's autism #the promised neverland #tpn #yakusoku no neverland #tpn ray

[523rdrebel]

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5, Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Chapter Summary: Omega and Wrecker's plan unfolds. The family wanders the Life Day Festival and feelings are brought to a head.

This chapter is mostly from Crosshair's POV. His internal thoughts will be identified by Italics without quotation marks.

Rating: T, SFW

Warnings: None

Crosshair divider by Snotbuggle, Star and Moon Dividers by Saradika

Desi and Isabella had intended to have a leisurely morning with brunch and preparations for the upcoming Life Day Festival. But things rarely go to plan.

They instead got caught up in the frustrating intricacies that came with romantic relationships, and had yet to leave Desi and Taayo’s sitting room. Desi was thoroughly enjoying Isabella’s recounting of her encounter with Wrecker and Omega, “Clever girl!” She laughed boisterously, clapping her hands together in delight, “I’ve had half a mind myself to lock the two of you in a room until this little issue is solved!”

“These things aren’t that simple and you know it, Desi.”

“I wouldn’t mind a chance to clock him one in that smug face of his, though…For hurting you.”

“Desi, he didn’t… It wasn’t his fault.”

“I’m not talking about the chip.”

Isabella sighed, running a hand over her face, “I don’t blame him for wanting space. I just– I wish he would talk to me.”

“I’m still not convinced he can talk…”

“Desi!” She let out a startled laugh but recovered quickly, “I just think, maybe I shouldn’t go at all. I’m not convinced Omega and Wrecker haven’t devised some scheme to force Crosshair and I to be alone…”

“You’re blushing.” Desi waggled her eyebrows, then wrapped her arm around Isabella’s shoulders, giving a soft, reassuring squeeze, “Look, Izzy– I don’t see the problem here. Just wear the dress and go to the Festival! If the man can’t handle you being at an event that will span a majority of the bottom two levels of the city…”

Isabella rolled her eyes, “I don’t want to push him further away, Desi. Besides– maybe he’s right. Maybe I did treat him like a project– What if I was wrong?”

“Stars and Skies, Izzy! You are going to the Festival and if that man doesn’t kiss you like some holo-period-drama protagonist I will wring his neck myself!” Her tone left no room for protest and she stood, grabbing Isabella’s hand and dragging her towards the door. “Come on! We’ve got preparations to make and then I’ll help you get ready!” Desi paused, shouting across the house, “Taayo! We’re leaving!”

“See you later, darling! Don’t get Izzy into too much trouble…again!” He had a gentle voice that always sounded like he was on the verge of laughing.

“Spoil sport!”

They spent most of the day running around frantically to and fro with Desi barking orders like a military sergeant, and Isabella happily assisting. It was a wonderful distraction, she had no time to worry about the coming evening or what to do about a certain grumpy someone, instead her thoughts involved how best to place decorations for maximum festivity and keeping Desi from injuring herself in her dramatic rushing.

Now that Desi and Isabella were in her home, they’d taken turns in the ‘fresher, washing off the sweat, dust and dirt from their day. The quiet calm of a full day was hanging over them with an undercurrent of nervous excitement.

“Alright Izzy, which dress did you say was his favorite?”

“Wrecker said the blue–”

“Well? Put it on!”

“Desi–”

“Nope! No second guessing! Go–”

She loosed a fond, if exasperated sigh, Desi hadn’t steered her wrong yet so she put on the dress. It was a lovely cornflower blue embroidered with stylized golden stars that sparkled when she moved. It had long flowing sleeves and a rather daring neckline, a sharp v that ended just below the bust. She twirled in front of the mirror and couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face. The last time she’d worn it, she’d been wandering the market with Desi and Taayo and had run into Omega and her brothers. She tried to recall if Crosshair had shown any sort of outward reaction to signal that he’d liked the dress, but failed. He was too good at hiding and she was too afraid she’d been wrong.

“Oh! At least he’s got taste… Brings out your eyes.” Desi hugged her shoulders from behind, “If this doesn’t knock that scowl off his face– then he doesn’t deserve you.”

Isabella reached up and squeezed her friend’s hand gently, “Thank you.”

She returned the soft smile, winked, and whispered, “Now, lets go catch you a stubborn-ass sniper!”

Wrecker didn’t bother knocking, Tech had already deactivated the lock so he burst into Crosshair’s home with a wall-shaking bellow, “CROSSHAIR!”

He groaned in response. He stood uselessly before his meager clothing options, still in just his comfortable lounge pants, his recently grown out white curls mussed from running his hands nervously over his head. A toothpick sat securely in the corner of his mouth, which he chewed absentmindedly.

Wrecker continued to bellow as he entered, followed quickly after by Tech, “Happy Life Day!” They were both dressed in the nicest clothes they owned, comfortable and light, but certainly better than what Crosshair felt he had to offer. Why does it matter what I wear? I’ll just sneak away at the first opportunity…

“You are not dressed.” Tech remarked flatly.

“Figured that out by yourself, did you?” Crosshair snarked, rolling his eyes.

“It was a simple observation.”

“Come on Cross! Omega and Hunter are waiting for us!” Wrecker looked quickly over Crosshair’s clothing options, humming loudly to himself and wiggling his fingers as he made his selections. “AHA!” He tossed the items at his brother, who caught them mid-air with a scowl, “Put those on and let’s go!”

It was a simple outfit, a loose black shirt of comfortable, breathable cloth, and a pair of dark patterned pants. Crosshair shrugged and began to dress. At least it’ll be comfortable. He added on his simple boots and grabbed his gundark leather jacket he’d filched on a supply run– nights got cool on Pabu. He sighed, schooled his face into an unaffected mask, and followed his excitable siblings out the door.

“Izzy! Izzy! Izzy! Are you ready?” Omega was bouncing up and down, blond curls bouncing wildly. Hunter leaned against the wall outside, amused smile and soft gaze trained on the energetic little girl.

“I’m coming, ‘Mega!” Isabella called, voice bright with laughter. She took a moment at the door, taking a few steadying breaths and steeled herself for what was sure to be an interesting night. Omega’s eyes sparkled and she gasped, “You wore the dress!!” She clapped her hands excitedly and Hunter chuckled, a deep amused rumble. Isabella could’ve sworn she heard him mumble, “Cross is a goner…” But she chose to ignore it.

“Of course I did! You asked me to.”

“Come on! I told Wrecker to meet us here–” Omega beamed at her then grabbed her hand and started pulling her toward the street. Hunter followed quietly after.

Only moments later they heard the bellowing, joyful laughter of Wrecker, then saw the trio rounding the corner towards them. Wrecker had one arm around Crosshair’s hunched shoulders, practically dragging him along as they walked. Crosshair’s scowl was deep but there was the tiniest hint of humor in his eyes. He stopped short, eyes locking onto Isabella like a target. His scowl deepened and the whites of his eyes flashed with something, but it passed too quickly to identify.

He looked good. Really good. Isabella couldn’t deny that fact anymore than she could deny the warm blush growing on her face nor the painful clenching in her chest. She sighed, took a deep breath, and plastered a smile on her face, for Omega, she reasoned.

“Crosshair!” Omega exclaimed, full of mirth, then grabbed his hand and pulled him along towards the lower levels of Pabu. Crosshair grumbled, “What’s the rush, shortstack?” Hunter tried and failed to hide his chuckle at the sight.

It was a long and awkward walk, at least where two of the group were concerned, Isabella kept trying to sneak looks at Crosshair, attempting to gauge if she’d made things worse by agreeing to come with them.

Crosshair scrunched his face, trying to hide away from everyone but being in too public of a place to hide. He couldn’t keep the tiniest curve of his lips from showing at Omega’s bright enthusiasm, though he rolled his eyes and made snide remarks.

Omega led the charge into the festival running towards the bright lights and festively decorated tables, then raced back towards the group to chatter in wonder and excitement. There were colored lights everywhere, booths were filled to the brim with handmade goods and decorated with a festive, Life Day flare. It hurt Crosshair’s eyes, all the gaudy, colorful items, the whimsical recreations of historical figures in fanciful Life Day garb, the happy, wide toothed grins of the towns-people. Ugh… 

Omega grabbed Crosshair’s hand and pulled him towards a table, “Look Crosshair!” She pointed at a wooden carving of a Tooka wearing a red festive hat. He rolled his eyes, but she had already run off to the next booth, excitedly exclaiming about a holopicture projector of a snowy planet. He sighed, picking up the Tooka figurine and placing credits on the table with a scowl. The merchant raised an eyebrow but, wisely, kept silent. After nearly an hour of this, Crosshair’s hands were full of items Omega had pointed out before running off to the next shiny thing that caught her eye.

“Those will look great in your home, Cross. Goes great with the decor.” Hunter elbowed his side, a self-satisfied smile on his face.

“Keep it up, Hunter. All these are going to your place. And at least half of them are noise-makers.”

Hunter’s smile faltered every so slightly, then walked quickly off after Omega, “No more gifts!”

Echo joined the group for a while, wandering the festival with them and chatting with Hunter while the others browsed the tables. There were game booths set up periodically, which Echo and Wrecker took turns doing with Omega. They had some sort of competition going, but Crosshair didn't pay enough attention to know what it was.

Crosshair tried not to stare as Isabella wandered the stalls, making small talk and surveying the items.

“You look stunning this evening, Izzy!”

“Thank you! Omega picked it out for me.”

“Oh! Smart girl!”

Hunter chuckled, “You could just talk to her, you know…”

“Stay out of it, Hunter.”

“Maybe if you weren’t staring at her like a love-sick Akk-pup, I would.”

Crosshair made a disgusted noise, pushing past Hunter with a forceful push with his shoulder, and stalked away. He pointedly ignored Hunter’s laughter.

Eventually, Wrecker stopped at Daisy’s stall, full of all manner of baked goods and scenting the area with the comforting aroma of fresh bread. He stayed there, grinning happily, as Daisy regaled him with a story and he listened with rapt attention. Echo had wandered off at some point, speaking animatedly with someone about his work with Rex. Next was Tech, getting into a rousing debate with Phee and a few other history and culture enthusiasts at a stand promoting different cultural holidays similar to Life Day. He’d be busy for the reminder of the evening. And finally, Omega dragged Hunter away, his arms now laden with the gifts Crosshair had acquired, to play with Lyana and Shep, leaving Isabella and Crosshair alone.

Crosshair scowled, he knew that Wrecker and Omega had set this up, knew that they expected there to be some sort of resolution, but he felt too lost. Adrift in the swirling emotions he’d been trying to force into containment under the shell of anger and fear. He had tried to keep his distance, tried to ignore that she’d chosen to wear the dress he felt most closely fit her. She was beautiful, he wouldn’t deny that. He groaned inwardly, This shouldn’t be this hard! Just stay away. She’s just a person.You’ve never liked people anyway.

They walk slowly and in silence, observing everything, neither willing to break the ice quite yet. Crosshair’s eyes land on the constructed bar area, where they were serving festive spiced drinks. To him, that looked like an escape. He wasn’t prepared to face Bells yet, wasn’t ready to see the hurt in her eyes again, wasn’t ready to remember the guilt and the anger. He was quite content to wallow, thank you.

The bar had been prepared with four specialty Life Day drinks: the Fuzzy Tauntaun, Jedi Mind Trick, Outer Rim, and Yub Nub. He scoffed at the silly names, but grabbed one that looked the least festive and most appealing and found a silent spot in the corner against the bar.

Isabella followed him, but kept her distance, she was at a loss at what to do. It seemed obvious that Crosshair didn’t want her here and she didn’t think that a productive conversation would be had in such a public setting. She couldn’t hide her disappointment, she had hoped, perhaps foolishly, that Desi would be right– "Ugh, it’s not a holo-film Izzy! Don’t be so stupid!" She whispered under her breath. She grabbed a drink as well and took a healthy swallow, taking comfort in the burn. She was too antsy to sit still so she ambled around the area, sipping her drink and ignoring the swirling emotions and the intense presence at the corner of the bar. She walked, she mingled, doing little more than greetings and small talk, some small part of her wishing she’d just stayed home, despite the eager insistence of her friends.

Crosshair watched as Isabella wandered the area, talking and drinking, she was a natural in a social setting but he couldn’t shake the feeling that her smiles were dimmer and her eyes did not carry that familiar warmth. What would you know about it anyway? He chided himself internally, You didn’t want her around, you don’t actually think she misses you? The alcohol did little to improve his mood, but he sipped at it anyway.

Now Isabella was chatting with some tall man with a sickly sweet smile, Crosshair tried not to listen.

“Izzy! Or is it Bells now? I’ve heard someone calling you that now, I think.”

“Oh, that’s Crosshair’s nickname for me actually.” Was that regret he was hearing?

“What, he too good to call you Izzy?” Try me, Di’kut…

“Uh- He’s a little stubborn. But I don’t mind, actually, I like it.” 

“Should I start calling you Bells too, then?” I shouldn’t be jealous. You aren’t even mine.

“That’s alright. Izzy will do.” Kriff… I need to leave.

“He gets a special nickname? What if I called you…Bella?”

“Absolutely not.” That’s interesting. Is she mad? “You can call me Isabella or Izzy–”

“What’s wrong with Bella?”

“Call me Bella one more time, Mr. Keis.” Damn, Bells…

He found himself standing and crossing the distance between himself and the pair, standing behind her glaring menacingly before he’d really registered he’s moved.

“Uh–Maybe I should go…” Mr. Keis cleared his throat, gave a half hearted smile, and practically ran away, “Later, Be–Izzy!”

Crosshair’s heart was racing, the pounding loud in his ears when Bells turned around, her face flashing with shock and relief?

“Crosshair–” The way she breathed his name broke something in him and he panicked, turned on his heels and walked away, seeking shadows, desperately searching for a place to be alone. The eyes of everyone he passed burned against his back, ears ringing and pounding, drowning out any other sounds. He was oblivious to the figure that followed him.

He finally stopped in a small decorative garden area, it was shadowed and quiet, without a soul in sight. He stood rigid, breathing heavily, with his head leaned back facing the starry night sky.

A soft voice tentatively called his name and he squeezed his eyes shut, he wasn’t ready to face her. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be.

“Cross– You don’t have to say anything, but I just, I need you to listen.” He stays silent and doesn’t move. “I don’t blame you for what happened.”

He turned to face her, face stuck in a pained expression. She reached out a hand, but stopped short of touching him, “Wait– Just listen. Please.” Isabella took a deep breath, then words started spilling out, “You didn’t hurt me. It was the inhibitor chip. I watched you fight it, and I was terrified– not of you but for you. And then when you woke up, you shut me out and I was hurt and confused and angry. I thought…” She stops, voice shaking and eyes full of emotion.

Crosshair couldn’t look away. He wanted to run, wanted to shut the world out again, like he always did, push the feelings down where no one can touch them. I thought if I’d pretended not to care, then I wouldn’t.

Isabella shivered, the night had taken on a sharp chill, and she crossed her arms over her chest for warmth. She continued, speaking softly, “My brother joined the Empire, you know…They bombed our city, our parents died, and he joined them.” She laughed, an empty humorless sound, it was not a sound he associated with Bells. “I was…away when it happened. I didn’t even know about it until nearly four cycles after the funeral. He was changed. He tried to get me to join them too, but I refused. He got angry and…we both said things we shouldn’t have and I ran. What I wouldn’t give for a chance to talk to him again.” Tears flowed freely down her face and Crosshair ached to wipe them away. Her eyes pleaded at him and she whispered, “What I wouldn’t give to talk to you again.”

He sighed, his fists clenching and unclenching, and he started to pace, “You don’t understand. You don’t know what it’s like to lose control of your body–your mind– Two voices and both of them feel right and both of them are me. One says Follow orders! Eliminate the threat the other says, This is wrong.” He stopped pacing, shook his head, then pointed one finger painfully against his chest, “My brothers left me behind because I chose it. But I hated them for it. The choice… it was right. I knew it was. The Empire was going to fix things, to fix me.” He ignored the tears streaming down his face, grimacing against the emotions that were finally being released, “But it was a lie. Everything I thought, everything I believed was a lie.” He faced Bells straight on, meeting her eyes finally, “Now you look at me and tell me how I’m supposed to know what part was the chip and what part was me? How am I supposed to trust myself? How am I supposed to–”

She took a chance, closing the distance between them and taking his hands in hers, he did not pull away, “Crosshair– You are not to blame for the actions of the people who made you.” The silence spurred her onward, “Here’s how I see you: strong and capable, and a bit of an ass.” He chuckled despite himself, and she continued, “You care deeply, even if you hide it behind harsh words and sarcasm, and you’re incredibly smart. You are more than what they made you.”

The earnest feeling behind her words slammed against his heart painfully, “Don’t you ever get tired of being so fucking nice?”

She shook her head, “You want me to be mean? To yell at you? To hate you?”

He growled, all his frustration bubbling to the surface, “Why? Why can’t you just give up on me?”

“Believe it or not, Crosshair– and brace yourself, this may come as a shock– I actually like you. Specifically you.”

“You like everybody…”

“Not everybody, but most people, yes.” She places one gentle hand on the side of his face, “Is it so hard to believe that I care about you?”

He leans into her hand, eyes falling shut, but the silence stretches, so she speaks again, desperation clear in her words, “I will respect your wishes if you don’t want to see me again after this, but I–I miss you. Maybe I’m naive. Maybe I’m soft. And maybe I shouldn’t, but I did think that kiss meant something…”

“I…don’t know how to be what you want, Bells.”

“And if I said you already are?”

Silence. Hesitance. A knowing sense that this will change everything.

"What do you want from me? I wasn’t made for this…" Crosshair was confused, uncertain, never before had he been faced with such a strange and intimate challenge.

"Because it's not what you want or because you're a clone?"

He sighed, groaning inwardly, Leave it to Bells to read between the lines so clearly.

She placed her other hand on his face, pulling him down to look at her directly, "I don't give a damn what your makers claimed your purpose was. They made you, but they're gone now. You're here. You're alive. You can choose!"

"And how the kriff am I supposed to know how to do that!?" He pulled away, the feeling of her hands on his face burning the shape of her fingers into his memory. He turned his back to her, breathing heavily, "My whole damn life has been orders and structure, fighting and surviving!" He turned back towards her sharply, "And what about you, huh? You talk about freedom and choice–" His tone was sharp, accusatory, "What do you want?"

This shocked her, her eyes darting around in confusion, "Me? It-It doesn't matter what I want, Crosshair!"

"Wrong answer, BELLS."

"Cross–"

"No! Stop trying to be nice. I want you to be selfish!" His long strides brought him back to her space, leaning over her, begging her, daring her to answer, "What about you? What do you want?"

She let out a string of curses, of which Crosshair would later be impressed, anxiously shaking her hands at her sides, "I–" she started pacing back and forth, then comes to an abrupt stop once again in front of Crosshair, "I want you." It was a simple admission. No frills, no questions.  Crosshair was silent, unsure what to say, frozen in place. Bells started speaking again, a rush of words spilling out, "I’m drawn to you, Crosshair. In a way that I’ve never been drawn to anyone before. I want to spend all of my time with you.  I want to make you smile, or better yet, make you laugh. I want to paint and hear you snark that I've gotten more paint on myself than on the actual canvas. I want to kiss you– Damn, I want to have you kiss me senseless and to quiet your past when I can… hold you when I can't. I want you safe," She closes her eyes briefly, "even if it isn't with me." 

He slowly gets closer then gently reaches his hand up to cradle the side of her face. He laughs, deep and rough, "Kriff, woman! Even when you're being selfish you can't help but worry over someone else." He paused, feeling her lean into the palm of his hand and in that moment he decided to try to stop running, if this was where he got to stay. "Kiss you senseless, huh?" His mouth curled upward in a challenging smirk.

"Please…" He needed no further encouragement and his mouth crashed into hers, finding it blessedly soft and eager. His tongue runs over her lips and she whines, opening her lips to allow entrance. He grabbed her firmly around her waist, pulling her close and running his fingernails across her back. He pulled away from the kiss, smirking down at Bells, taking in her hooded eyes and kiss-swollen lips, "Begging already?"

"I could always yell at you instead," she smiled then leaned up on her toes to catch his bottom lip between her teeth. 

"Maybe later." He leaned back in, capturing her lips once more, taking his time with slow, languid kisses.

Bells responded eagerly, hungrily, kissing him back with a fervor he never would have expected. Her hands explored his back with soft, gentle touches, caressing his form with reverence. It mesmerized him and he nearly lost himself in the moment. He pressed kisses along her jaw, eliciting bubbling, joyous laughter.

“I KNEW IT!” Wrecker’s voice boomed from behind them and Crosshair’s head shot up, fixing his boisterous brother with a withering glare. Wrecker laughed loudly, and started typing on his wrist com unit. The pair separated reluctantly, standing side by side, with Bells leaning into his side. Crosshair wordlessly removed his jacket and draped it over her shoulders.

Moments later, all three of their com units began dinging with notifications.

GETWRECKERED: <3 Found Crosshair! Aaaand Izzy! <3

BanDADna: Ugh Finally!

Echoohc3: You all owe me 50 credits!

TECH-nically: I will mark this day on the calendar.

CrissCross: I will kill you all.

DrSunshine: No he wont. <3

Ye Olde taglist:

@anxiouspineapple99 @wings-and-beskar @starrylothcat @secondaryrealm @arctrooper69 @sev-on-kamino @littlemissmanga @wolffegirlsunite @dystopicjumpsuit @idontgetanysleep @clonemedickix @sunshinesdaydream @followthepurrgil @yubnubhub @jediknightjana @dangraccoon @wizardofrozz @mythical-illustrator @echoxbuggs @trixie2023 @ezras-left-thumb

#rebelwrites #Suflowers & Blasters #Crosshair x OC #OC - Dr. Isabella Ramót #Grumpy & Sunshine #star wars fanfic #star wars fanfiction #Rebel Writes #Sunflowers & Blasters #Sunflowers and Blasters #crosshair x oc #Crosshair x “Bells” #Crosshair x Dr. Isabella Ramot #Star War AU #star wars #the bad batch #tbb #tbb crosshair #tbb Omega #Slow Burn #Sibling Meddling #tbb wrecker #chapter 9

[omgkatherine01]

A New Sun: Chapter 5 - Father's Friend

Series Masterlist

Chapter 4, Chapter 6

Pairing: Lo'ak x female reader

Please comment, like and share

"So, do you really think there are 10-foot-tall, blue-skinned, sapient humanoids that live at that planet?" Daniel asked a few days before they were leaving Earth with their Moms. He was lying on Isabella's bed while the girl was sitting behind her desk, looking at her laptop.

"I don't know," Isabella said with a shrug, "It's what our Moms say. And your Mom was there years ago."

"Pandora," Daniel scoffed, "Sounds like--"

"Like the one from the Greek mythology," Isabella muttered with a sigh, "Yes."

Daniel raised an eyebrow, "Well, I was going to say weird name for a weird planet."

Isabella rolled her eyes and turned back to her laptop, "Whatever," she muttered, "I think that the planet sounds intriguing."

"Almost everything is intriguing for you," Daniel said as he watched her with a small found smile, "You're a nerd."

Isabella paused at her typing but then continued, pretending it didn't bother her that he was thinking that about her. "Thanks, I prefer that than been a moron."

"Are you calling me a moron?"

"Yes," Isabella answered.

"Ouch," Daniel said with a small smirk. "So!" He sat up completely. "Since we are now leaving Earth in three days, did you set your 'affairs' in order?"

"I did," Isabella said and turned to raise an eyebrow, "It's not like I'm close to anyone at school or anything."

"You close to me," Daniel pointed out.

"You coming with me," Isabella pointed out as she turned back around, "I'm sure I would have been fine if you would have stayed here, or if I would." She looked at the framed picture of her father. "I'm surprised my mother didn't want to leave me behind, I thought she forgot she has a daughter."

"Your mother loves you," Daniel said, "So, cut the shity attitude. Let's have some fun in that planet." Isabella resisted a sigh and shook her head lightly.

Isabella opened her eyes and frowned a little before she remembered where she was. She slowly sat up when she heard a knock on the door. She looked over to see the human boy, Spider opening the glass door.

He gave her a small smile as she leaned her back on the pillow, "Hey." She noticed he was holding her sketch book. He walked in and held it forward, "Uh, Lo'ak asked me to bring it to you. Said it was yours."

Isabella took it and looked at it, "Thanks," she muttered.

"How you feeling?" he asked.

"I've been better," she muttered, looking back at her sketch book. She glanced at him to see he was looking over his shoulder. "What?"

Spider looked at her and cleared his throat, "Jake wants to speak to you."

Isabella looked back at her sketch book before she took a deep breath. "Fine. Where is he?" she asked.

Spider was a little surprised but quickly covered it up, "Uh, he's here, talking to Norm." Isabella pulled the blanket away and slowly got up. Spider moved to grab her arm, "Wow, wow, easy."

"I'm good," she said quietly, "I'm good."

Spider helped her out of the room and to the main room where they saw Jake, Norm, Lo'ak and Neteyam speaking.

"Anything?" Jake asked Norm.

"No, it shows she's normal as she can be," Norm said, "Look, all she said was that that a doctor injected something into her, and maybe this was what helped her breath the air outside."

"Can she still breath the air?" Neteyam asked.

"I don't know," Norm answered. "I let her rest until she will recover fully."

"How long has it been?" Isabella asked, making the males look at her and Spider. She raised an eyebrow, waiting for an answer.

"Uh, it's been two days now," Norm answered.

Isabella nodded numbly, "Guess it's out of the system by now. And, the next time you want my blood, how about ask me first? Since, you know, it's my blood."

"Right, sorry," Norm apologized.

Lo'ak opened his mouth but his father spoke first, "How are you feeling now?"

"I'm fine," Isabella said, "Now that I'm pretty sure I won't be able to breath without an oxygen mask, what is going to happen to me?"

"Nothing's going to happen to you, you're safe," Jake said, "Things turned bad before, and I am sorry."

"Good, then we need to talk," Isabella said, "Privately will be great."

Jake raised an eyebrow but agreed. They both walked to Isabella's guest room and the girl turned to look up at him. "My mother won't take our people and leave, you and I both know that," Isabella said, "The only way is for both sides will call a truce, I can talk to my Mom about this."

Jake shook his head, "I'm afraid that won't work."

"You guys live with a few sky people," Isabella pointed out.

"Those people are good friends that I know," Jake said, "They've been allies of the Na'vies since the first war years ago."

"So what now?" Isabella asked, "Continue on fighting in a war that can go on for years?"

"No," Jake said and kneeled down to look at her better. "Look, Isabella, years ago, when I was an avatar and fell in love with my mate, Neytiri, I tried to stop this war. I wanted to find a way to be with her, and save both sides. I lost a really good friend of mine, that's when it all truly started. I wish it didn't have to be this way now, and I do respect your thought to end this second war without anymore bloodshed, but it won't work."

"My Dad would have thought differently," Isabella muttered. She looked at Jake, "I want to see his friend. My father told me he was one of his best friend and he stayed here."

Jake frowned a little, surprised, "He's here?"

"It's what my Dad said," Isabella said, "I remember he said his friend's name was Jake Sully."

Jake looked at her now surprised. Her father's friend? He didn't had a friend with the last name Ardmore. Unless-- "What was your father's last name?"

Isabella blinked her tears away from mentioning her father, and cleared her throat before speaking, "Keller." Jake's eyes grew wide at that. "Tr--"

"Travis Keller," Jake finished softly. Isabella stared at him. Jake breathed out before asking softly as he placed his large hands on her arms, "You're Trav's daughter?"

Isabella opened her mouth a little and blinked back her tears before nodding quickly. Jake looked at her in a different light now; she was not just a kid, that was the daughter of his friend from his life back at Earth.

"That makes you--" Isabella started softly.

"My name is Jake Sully," Jake confirmed and nodded a little.

Isabella nodded a little and finally let a tear slip, "Then since my father thought of you as someone like a family, and as a friend, you should know he died six years ago."

Jake let out a breath and darted his eyes down before closing them. His eyebrows frowned in sadness and he opened his eyes to look at her. "I'm sorry," he said softly.

Isabella gave a small nod but didn't say anything as she looked down.

I should have asked him to come, Jake thought, maybe if he and Isabella's mother would have come along, things would have been different.

Jake stood up, "Come with me," he said. Isabella looked at him before turning to the bed. She moved and grabbed her sketch book before letting Jake lead her out of the room.

Taglist:

@dioriez, @crookednighttragedy, @satsuri3su, @novalies, @ernernn, @lwesodra, @mara-brekker, @id-rather-be-in-middle-earth, @hellowibu, @mrsbrxkkxr, @emvebee, @esposadomd, @ihave500hubbiez, @whos3rn, @ivexoxojangku, @gosusu123, @honeym0chi, @ellielovesrobinarellano, @harharharrysblog, @jaythequeerdisaster, @anlqq, @soobinsrose, @kirikuki, @simp-erformarvelwomen, @jasontoddorjasongrace, @lainyelain, @dumb-fawkin-bitch, @bxnnywriting, @avadakadabra93, @lhir02, @alwaysdaydreamingoffiction, @mandumpiings

#avatar #lo'ak x oc #lo'ak x reader #lo'ak sully #lo'ak x human reader #avatar series #lo'ak imagine #lo'ak fic #neytiri imagine #neteyam imagine #jake sully imagine #kiri imagine #tuktirey sully

[fullscoreshenanigans]

You know, at the beginning of the story, Connie says that she has probably a total bad score to the exams "like always". If she had very bad (or the worse) results since a while, then his shippement days was decided for a while, since she has been shipped two weeks after her birthday. And Isabella knews who will be the next shippement three or four months before it happens. She knew that Connie was the next. She knew, when Connie reached 6, that she had only 2 weeks to live. And then, she took the time to make a plushie for Connie's birthday. And Little Bunny isn't a little plushie, it is kinda big. Isabella created a big toy for a kid who was going to enjoy it for only 15 days.

She wanted to make her happy, to give her joy for the little time that she still had. She wanted Connie to live those days in happiness. And i'm sure that she did that for any kids who was going to be shipped. (a lot of kids receive a gift for their 6 years old, the goods as the bads but maybe it's for cover why the bad scores kids has spoiled this famous day)

It's the biggest proof that she loves all her kids (even Ray, even if she has more mixed feelings toward him). She can't do anything to save them or she would be the next dinner and with no garantee that the woman who will replace her will be as loving then her. She is as much captive than the kids (even more, because she knows and she has the cheap in her heart.)

She had to see them die every time. Clearly she is still here after Connie's death so she has witnessed everything. She has seen so much of her kids diying while being unable to protect them because nothing could have been do, except make their too short lifes as much happy than possible.

(I'm sure that she was suffering with the idea to shipp the Full Score Trio soon (very soon for Ray, some months for Norman and in a little more of half a year for Emma), even Ray, and she was probably in denial about her son)

I think that Norman and Emma were too betrayed and angry to really understand that her affection was geniune and real. It's only thank to the distance, during 2 years, that they were able to think about it. For Ray, i think that a part of him knew that she really loved them but still sees her as the ones who sacrified his siblings. A part of him must have been in denial for a while about it too (like mother, like son).

The distance was good for everyone. The kids were able to understand that Isabella loved them for real, Ray was able to be willing to forgive her and eventually start over (realizing that he loved her too), Isabella realized that she loved her son.

And then came that asshole demon

Obnoxious pedantry but Conny's birthday is the third of September (@just-like-playing-tag put together an invaluable birthday chart here. September is one of the busier months with five birthdays in it.) So she had a bit more time with Little Bunny, but it's negligible in the grand scheme of things. There were two years' worth of low scores sealing her fate.

Based on that, this answer in the mystic code book, and all the toys we see in her hidden office in chapter 17/S1 episode 6, it's a safe bet she either made or had gifts delivered from headquarters for each of the children. The demons wouldn't question it as an easily justifiable and paltry expense to further cultivate a positive environment for the children's development, and with them not caring what became of the presents afterward even if a child packed it with them in their suitcase when they were shipped out, Isabella could keep them as mementos of all the children she raised.

It's the biggest proof that she loves all her kids

This I think depends on an individual's definition of love though, and whether Isabella could truly, fully love her children in such an oppressive framework.

(S1 Episode 8 | S1 Episode 10)

I will always come back to and obsess over the sequences of Isabella silently smiling as Ray struggles against her before locking him in Krone's old room and Ray looking completely disillusioned and despondent as Isabella walks off and smirks that they added into the anime. No one else is around who would be cognizant enough to notice. She doesn't have to put up an act to maintain a sense of calm and normalcy for anyone.

Yet here she is, quietly relishing in having seemingly defeated the children's plan to upset the status quo and her lifestyle. It's entirely for herself.

During this era of the story, she loves the children in her charge, but only to the point that they don’t inconvenience her; only to the point where they don’t impede her goal of survival ("longer than anyone"). It's impossible to live under such an oppressive, violent, monotonous, stagnating system and not have it fundamentally alter your perception of the world around you and how you interact with it to some degree. She even makes the distinction herself in one of her most memorable quotes.

(Chapter 37)

To love them normally, as opposed to the love that would always be tainted as long as it was within the confines of the farm system where she justified walking at least sixty children to their deaths over the course of her tenure to maintain her sense of cognitive dissonance.

To quote @nullaby, who phrases it very poignantly in this post:

 for  as  much  as  isabella   did   love  her  kids,      as  nice  as  it  would’ve  been  to  just  raise  them  all  like  a  normal  mother  should,       the  backbone  of  her  character  journey     &.    ultimate  redemption  was  laid  out  plain  and  clear  right  to  ray’s  face  that  everything,     including  his  birth,      was  all  just  collateral  damage  of  isabella’s  desire  to  survive  in  this  world  as  according  to  the  demon’s  rules,        longer  than  most  ever  could,        and  find  some  sort  of   meaning   to  all  this  sacrifice  in  the  only  option  that’d  ever  been  available  to  cattle  like  them.      the  tragedy  is  that  the  prioritizing  of  her  own  position  trumps  that  love  of  a  mother  more  times  that  it  ever  didn’t,        and   that’s   the  mom  that  ray  was  left  with.  

(Chapter 7 | Chapter 16)

Even if she found herself slipping into the illusion that had been crafted throughout the rest of the day, on days where there were no shipments and everything was fine, maybe even great, every night she would be reminded of reality. That she was ultimately a pawn. A caged, useful dog, if you want to have what she says to Ray in chapter 24/S1 episode 8 be her projecting her self-loathing of what she's stooped to onto him (and then going further, making his affirmation of his humanity in choosing his death an incensed retort back at her as much as the demons).

Ray is the living, breathing reminder of one of the worst acts of violence the farm system inflected on her. For a six years, she may have been able to push aside any memories and thoughts of the child she bore, but on his sixth birthday (his false birthday; if she doesn't think of it in the moment, then surely afterward when they're celebrating it at the house), he "robbed Isabella of that easy, blissful delusion," to again quote nullaby. Such potent, aggrieved anger mixed with relishing her dominance over him bleeding into her tone and body language and tinging the framework of this scene; I really love how Cloverworks adapted it with their budgetary constraints.

I think that Norman and Emma were too betrayed and angry to really understand that her affection was genuine and real. It's only thank to the distance, during 2 years, that they were able to think about it. For Ray, i think that a part of him knew that she really loved them but still sees her as the ones who sacrificed his siblings. A part of him must have been in denial for a while about it too (like mother, like son). The distance was good for everyone. The kids were able to understand that Isabella loved them for real, Ray was able to be willing to forgive her and eventually start over (realizing that he loved her too), Isabella realized that she loved her son.

I do agree that being free of the suffocating environment of Grace Field would give everyone different perspectives on their relationship with their mother, with Emma being the most understanding of Isabella's circumstances and accepting her in her totality; the kindness and love she was always capable of just as much as the violence and cruelties she inflicted to maintain the status quo.

For Norman, the utter chaos his nervous system was in as he was walking to the gate, fully believing he was about to die only to be handed off to another cage and subjected to experiments as his mother sent him off with one last gentle hug, would heighten his senses and emotions and in turn make this a visceral core memory for him.

(S2 Episode 8)

He undoubtedly dwelled on it during his fifteen months at Lambda, grappling with coming to logically understanding her circumstances more over time with that distance, his stark morality, and, no matter how much he might try to squash down his feelings to avoid confronting his own vulnerability during such a precarious period, how deeply her betrayal hurt him. I don't know if he'd ever be able to fully let that go, even if his immediate reaction to her death was one of sadness due to how sudden it was and being robbed of the chance to see what kind of relationship with her would be possible.

Similar to Norman, Ray can logically understand her circumstances, and I do believe deep down there was a part of him that desperately desired a normal, loving relationship with her, as much as he also tried to squash it down. It's part of why he's so confident she wouldn't throw him away, why he looks so devastated when she cuts him off,

(S1 Episode 5 | S1 Episode 8)

I was doing a good job. To you, I’m…

(Even after all this time…you still can't find it in your heart to love me as the child you gave birth to. | Chapter 181.1)

and why even after all of that pain and loss, he still hums the lullaby she sang to him in the womb as a way of consoling himself before his attempted suicide (because it's the only way he believes he can atone for what he's done).

Ray's vast library of knowledge comes from his research. His memory is one of his most powerful assets; his blessing and his burden. Isabella had proven time and time again to him that she was willing to sacrifice children for her own survival.

And yet there was still some selfish part of him that hoped maybe, just maybe, she would have carved out a little niche in her heart for him after spending all that time together, after sharing the burden of the secret of the house with him, after finding out about their shared blood. That all of that had to mean something to her.

But tragically all they shared engendered a unique ire toward him instead, born from a deep self-loathing that, once she replaced her own mother as Grandma, she allowed herself to reflect upon more thoroughly and came to deeply regret.

(TPN Light Novel 2: Moms’ Song of Remembrance - “The Starry Sky and Leslie’s List” Chapter 9; Isabella being an unreliable narrator and forcing a mental wedge between her and Ray as both a child in her charge in general and specifically as her biological son. She "held no particular maternal feelings for Ray" being as much a denial of any love for him as being a moment where she tries to place herself above the petty anger and resentment she has for him | Chapter 181.3; the framing of the bottom right panel confirming she did view all the birthday gifts she gave her children as treasures)

The damage was done though, between that and losing Norman, one of the two most precious people in his life he spent six years bearing the pain of loneliness and sorrow for. Even with Norman proving to be alive, like him I think it would be hard for Ray to untangle logically, pragmatically understanding Isabella's circumstances from the abuse he endured.

(Chapter 169; the conflicting feelings he held for her even two years after escaping Grace Field)

People aren't their trauma, but it would be disingenuous to say it didn't shape him. A learned response and association with her etched into his mind that I don't believe would be shed so easily. He wasn't by Isabella's side as she made her two-year journey of redemption as Grandma. He only saw the final result weighed against years of memories of her calculating iron woman persona, of every happy one his siblings had tinged with the knowledge that she would eventually set them up for slaughter.

(Chapter 174)

To quote nullaby for a third time:

there’s  a  whole  big  thing  about  late  story  isabella,     how  she  interprets  ray’s  address  as  forgiveness,      but    .    .    .         it’s  maybe  just  more  speaking  to  how  their  worst  qualities  are  the  ones  that  they  share.     not  as  much  a      “  you’re  my  mom  and  i  forgive  you   ”         as  it  is  a         “   i  get  it,     i’m   there  too,     it  doesn’t  matter  anymore  anyway,    stop  feeling  sorry  for  yourself    ”        and  it  just.     tapers  off  into  something  impersonal,      something  more  like just  a  person  speaking  to  a  person  than  a  son  to  his  mother.

He can acknowledge the love she held for her children, acknowledge that she changed and wanted to do better by them, but that doesn't equate to reconciliation and letting go of all those painful memories at the drop of a hat.

(Chapter 177 | Sunny's post)

The mental scars she left on him would be with him for years—potentially forever—and had she lived I don’t think he’d ever have a relationship with her in the way Emma might, but in that moment, he desperately wished for just the opportunity to try, even if it ended in failure or an impasse. And yet again fate left him without any say or control in the situation to determine his own path of healing.

#naehja #were you the anon in that linked post about this from last March dsfjlsdj #The Promised Neverland #Yakusoku no Neverland #TPN #TPN S1 #Full Score Trio #FSS Asks #FSS Chatter #Grace Field Kids #TPN Isabella #TPN Conny #TPN Norman #TPN Emma #TPN Ray #Isabella #Ray #Isabella and Ray's Incredibly Fraught and Complicated Relationship Tag #Conny #Norman #Emma #the tragedy that is Norman's relationship with Isabella receiving the least amount of focus out of the trio in canon and fandom #even if I understand why and am also guilty of this #what with having the Isabella and Ray's Incredibly Fraught and Complicated Relationship Tag on this blog #but not a separate one for Emma and Norman kdljfs #Long Post

[feels-of-a-fangirl]

so I finally watched Encanto. cue Madrigal feels bc what am I, if not on brand.

also please note, I’m a white, Slavic girl living in Central Europe so I probably didn’t get a lot of the Latinx subtext in the movie.

man, first of all, all of the Bruno feels.

Bruno must have had it so hard all his life. the only man in the family, he must have felt the pressure of supporting everyone. and the triplets presumably received their gifts at the same time and it must’ve been scary for each of them in different ways. Pepa obviously, because how do you ask a five-year-old to control their moods because a tantrum can cause a hurricane? Julieta is a different case because cooking is not an obvious gift, so maybe for a while she thought that her siblings got gifts but she didn’t?

and Bruno got future vision. at age 5. it must have been terrifying. no wonder he’s one bundle of anxiety.

I was wondering why Pepa and Julieta were rather late mothers, but now that I think of it, they must have been scared that their kids would get gifts as well. and these gifts would be just as scary.

Dolores and Isabela are both 21 which means Pepa and Julieta were both 29 when they had them. and man, while Isabella’s gift is innocent enough, Dolores’s is also kinda terrifying because imagine hearing all sorts of stuff at age 5. no wonder Julieta had her second child two years later (Luisa is 19) but Pepa waited 6 years (Camilo is 15) and then another 10 (Antonio is 5).

because Camilo’s gift is also kinda scary. Julieta’s daughters got off easy. Prow’s children? not so much.

and then Mirabel got no gift at all. and she saw it as a bad thing, as did Alma, but you can’t tell me the triplets weren’t secretly a little grateful. Pepa and Bruno at least.

Antonio’s gift is scary too, when you think about it. I bet he is gonna convince everyone to become vegan, isn’t he?

but back to Bruno.

Alma’s trauma response was the expectation of perfection from her family. but man, what expectations she must have had from Bruno, who could never replace her Pedro but who must have felt like he should. like he should be the man of the family. on top of his scary visions. I kinda think his invention of Hernando and Jorge was a little bit trying to find a version of himself that was good enough for everyone when he felt he wasn’t.

think about how everyone thinks Bruno was mischievous, when in reality he was a nervous goofball.

his disappearance… one doesn’t make such a decision hastily. I can’t imagine him hiding in the walls on a whim. I can see him finding the hidden room and hiding out there as a child… and then, after admirable doesn’t get a gift and he has his last vision, he goes to his safe place and just… never leaves. the family has another Madrigal man with a gift in Camilo.

for some reason I don’t think Bruno got along well with either of his sisters’ husbands. Felix and Agustin are clearly in love with their wives and happy to take on a more supportive role in the family whereas Bruno probably think he ought to be the patriarch… when he’s anything but. he must’ve felt lonely.

#encanto #bruno madrigal #alma madrigal #pepa madrigal #julieta madrigal #dolores madrigal #isabela madrigal #camilo madrigal #antonio madrigal #mirabel madrigal #luisa madrigal #madrigal feels #encanto meta

[gaygryffindorgal]

A Christmas Prince; The Royal Wedding

Chapter 6: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Summary: Dawn is missing and Quincey and Evander both face challenges of their own.

A/N: It's the customary Quincey chapter! This time with a little Evander twist... It's way past Christmas at this point but this is the second to last chapter and I'm hoping to post the last one as soon as I'm able. This story had a lot of moving parts and I've had to leave many things out simply because I haven't had the time to write. If you're sick of Christmas stuff already, I acknowledge your suffering but I do not apologize😂

Words: 2.8k

Characters:

Dawn Harvelle, Rosa Yaxley, and Evander Alderly by @potionboy3

Quincey, Olympia, and Isabella Alderly, Tess Brandon

Rocky Weasley by @magicallymalted

Pandora Lovelace by@gcldensnitch

Beginning | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Want to read the first fic in the series, A Christmas Prince? Click here!

Chapter 6: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Quincey

Quincey could safely say that he was not having a good day. Of course, he understood that Dawn wasn’t used to the kind of rigorous protocol that life at court demanded but what he couldn’t understand was why he had insisted on going out on some crazy adventure the previous night. Anything could have happened. After the unpleasant meeting at Pince’s office, Quincey went through the notes his mother had made to his speech and resolved to deal with it later. He really had to talk to Dawn. Nothing had gone according to plan ever since Dawn had arrived. He came to the smaller sitting room, holding out hope that Dawn would be there when he heard Olympia’s voice.

“Still at it?” she was asking.

“Silence, cousin,” came Evander’s voice as a reply. “I’m getting there.”

“Are all those coffee mugs yours?”

“And mine,” said Dawn’s aunt Tess.

“Anything I can do?” Olympia asked.

“Develop malware for me to drop into their RDP…” said Evander and that was when Quincey decided to stop eavesdropping and enter the room.

“Good morning,” he said, and all three people suddenly jumped, like there’d been an explosion.

“Quincey!” said Olympia. “How lovely to see you.”

Quincey frowned. “What are you doing?”

“Oh,” said Evander. “I was just introducing your dear sister and Miss Brandon to the intricacies of cryptocurrency so maybe we could all come together and save the kingdom.”

Quincey ignored the sarcasm in his voice. “Have any of you seen Dawn?”

“Not since last night,” said Tess.

“Well, damn,” said Quincey.

“Is everything alright?” Olympia asked.

“I don’t know…”

That’s when the double doors were pulled open with haste and Miss Pince came in, Miss Yaxley in tow.

“Has anyone seen Mr. Harvelle?”

“That’s what I was wondering,” mused Quincey.

“You mean to tell me he’s not here?” asked Pince.

“Well, I’m not hiding him in my pocket,” said Evander but Pince did not find this amusing.

“He has to be found,” said Rosa. “The queen is going ballistic over the wedding preparations.”

“I’m half of the equation, maybe I can help,” Quincey offered.

“No, the queen said Mr. Harvelle must be there,” said Pince.

“It’s almost like it would be her wedding…” said Quincey with a sigh.

~

Quincey found his mother in the room reserved for wedding planning, outfitting, and all those other things that his mother seemed to think she had some sort of control over. The outfit Quincey assumed Dawn was supposed to wear was on a mannequin. It was very traditional, nothing like he’d imagine Dawn would pick for himself. He realized he hadn’t the foggiest idea what his mother, Miss Yaxley, and Dawn had been up to with the wedding preparations. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.

“Dawn’s missing?” he asked his mother as he entered. There was nobody else in the room but them.

“He did not show up for his fitting.”

“I’ll call him,” said Quincey.

“His phone is offline.”

That was worrying. Quincey tried it anyway, but true enough, he only got a message saying the phone had been turned off.

“Well,” said the queen. “I sincerely hope we won't have to cancel the wedding.”

“Stop,” said Quincey.

“Maybe he has finally realized that the pressures of court are too much for him,” said Isabella, forlornly.

“You’re certainly not helping,” Quincey sighed. “Is that what he’s supposed to wear?”

“Yes. I had a hand in its design.”

“I’ll ask Flitwick to look into Dawn’s whereabouts,” said Quincey. “And mother?”

“Yes?”

“You can forget about that costume. I’ll have a word with Miss Yaxley. I sincerely hope that it’s not too late to make this wedding mine and Dawn’s, and not whatever you’ve been doing behind my back.”

Isabella looked shocked. “Quentin, I’ve only been trying to help you.”

“I know, and I truly appreciate the help,” he said. “Especially when it comes to the financial situation. But I never asked your help in this.”

“Alright,” said Isabella. “I admit, I did get a little carried away.”

“A little?”

“Fine,” said Isabella. “A lot.”

“But you can help me find Dawn now,” said Quincey.

“I would be glad to.”

~

The palace had its fair share of hiding places and so, a lot of the staff were requested to keep an eye out for the run-away groom, but Quincey had an idea of his own of where to look. He headed to the courtyard.

“Dawn!” he called out between the hedges.

“No such luck,” said Olympia, dressed up against the cold in her light pink winter coat. “I figured I might also look here.”

“Oh, hey,” said Quincey but his spirits were immediately lowered.

“Don’t worry, we’ll find him.”

“I’ve been such a fool,” said Quincey.

Olympia walked up to him and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“I screwed up,” he said, miserably.

“What happened?” asked Olympia.

“Dawn’s been having a hard time adjusting to everything here and I’ve been too invested in my duties as king to be supportive.”

“You’ve had a falling out?”

“Just when he needed me most, I caved in to the crown.”

Olympia sighed, seemed to think about something for a while, and then said: “After father died, and you left us to go soul-searching, I was so angry with you…”

“O, I…”

“…At first. But then I realized this life we find ourselves in, the titles and responsibilities we bear, can overwhelm any person, especially a good-hearted one.”

“I've allowed it to happen,” said Quincey.

“You accepted your title with eyes wide open, with the best intent. And that's the brother I love.”

“I've made such a mess of everything.”

“Thanks to Dawn, and I can’t believe I have to say this, Evander, I think we have an actual shot at fixing the country’s problems,” Olympia said.

“What?”

“I’ll explain later,” Olympia said. “Just trust me. All you should focus on right now is finding your fiancé.”

Quincey thought about it. The thing was that he did trust Olympia with his life, but this wasn’t just about him. He had been the one to swear an oath to serve and protect all of his subjects and right now he was doing a piss-poor job of it.

“Please, Q,” said Olympia.

Quincey sighed. “There is one more place he could be in.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to need Archimedes.”

~

His father’s old hunting cabin’s windows were lit when Quincey and Archimedes arrived. He stabled the horse and entered the cabin, finding Dawn sat in front of a small fire, drinking hot chocolate.

“Dawn,” he said when Dawn didn’t make a move at the sound of the door.

“I'm so sorry,” he tried again. “Talk to me.”

Finally, Dawn turned around, demanding: “Now you want to talk? You had nothing to say when I needed you in Pince's office.”

“I know.”

“They want me to give up everything, Quincey. My voice, my career.”

“I thought you didn’t want to be a journalist anymore,” said Quincey.

“That’s not the point!” said Dawn. “The point is that I’m supposed to act like a goddamn ornament in one of your over-the-top Christmas trees and that’s not me!”

“Forget about everyone else,” said Quincey. “This should be about you and me.”

Dawn got up from the armchair. He didn’t look pleased. “I always thought that you would support me, and this week has just been so tough.”

“Dawn, please…”

“Just let me finish, okay?” said Dawn and Quincey shut up. “Everything is changing. I feel like I'm losing control and… I'm not used to living like this. This fishbowl, this distance between us,” he finished, taking a deep breath.

“I know it's hard,” said Quincey. “Trust me, I know.”

“It’s not the same for us, though,” said Dawn.

“Everything is changing. For both of us,” said Quincey, stepping closer to Dawn. When Dawn didn’t pull away, he took his hands. “But there is one thing that will never change: My love for you.”

“Shut up,” said Dawn. “You’re not sweet-talking your way out of this one.”

“I don’t want you to have to sacrifice anything to be with me,” Quincey continued. “Your talent, your creativity, your determination… But some things are out of my control.”

“Like my little mission last night?” Dawn asked.

“You could have been hurt,” said Quincey. “The country isn’t exactly approving of us at the moment.”

“That might have been a miscalculation on my part.”

“But I need you,” said Quincey. “And Alderly needs you, too.”

“Well, it has a funny way of showing it,” Dawn said. “I’ve been nothing but a glorified wedding planner–, no not even that. I’ve been standing in the sidelines while our wedding has been planned for us.”

“Yes,” said Quincey. “About that. I had a chat with mother. The wedding’s going to see some changes.”

“What?” asked Dawn. “You did?”

“Well, it all got a bit much, don’t you think?”

“I very much do think that, yeah,” said Dawn.

“How come you came here?” asked Quincey. They hadn’t been back together since the snowstorm last year, though Quincey had visited on his own.

“I just wanted something to feel Christmassy,” Dawn explained. “So I stole some of the biscuits meant for our wedding and came here.”

Quincey laughed. “Okay, that’s actually fair enough.”

“It hasn’t really felt too festive here, recently.”

“I know.”

Dawn bit his lip. “I’d like to have an active role in the family. I don’t want to be just an ornament.”

“You won’t be. I don’t want that either.”

Dawn sighed and reached to touch Quincey’s face. He hadn’t entirely forgiven him; Quincey wasn't foolish enough to believe that. But at least he hadn’t told him to fuck off, so he considered it a start. “Alright, we need to get back to the palace, now and see if Evander has saved the country.”

Quincey decided not to question it, for now.

~

Evander

Evander had commandeered a couch after his back began to protest, sitting at the table. Dawn’s little laptop was putting in the works and Evander sincerely hoped it wouldn’t give out now. He decided to give Dawn a proper laptop as a wedding present, until he remembered he was pretty much broke. Maybe he could sell the ugly cabin in the mountains his mother had gotten him one Christmas. Evander looked up when he heard someone enter the room, but it was just Tess, bringing another round of coffee. The table was starting to fill with mugs.

“Here,” she said, handing the other to him.

Evander took it. “Oh, thanks…”

Tess was pretty much the only person who had been nice to him this entire time, which was odd, since she had no reason to. Unless she was secretly adding poison to his coffee, or that weird herbal tea she had made him the other night. He had slept like a baby the first time in months after it but that had only made him doubly suspicious. He sniffed the coffee, cautiously.

“No herbs,” said Tess. “Just coffee.”

“So just like the previous three.”

Tess nodded. “Just like them.”

Evander eyes her and then the coffee. “Okay.”

“How are you doing?” she asked, still standing up.

“I found a promising lead, but I can’t crack it,” said Evander. “At least, not yet.”

“Damn.”

Evander resolved that the coffee probably wasn’t poisoned. He took a sip. “You make surprisingly good coffee.” Considering the tea tasted like shit, but he didn’t say that part out loud.

Tess chuckled, quietly. “Thanks, though I think it’s probably just that you people have quality coffee here. I don’t normally drink it an awful lot.”

“Could be,” said Evander. “You should consider adding coffee to your selection.”

Just as a suggestion. For all the other people who didn’t like suspicious herbs. He didn’t know much about Tess’s business, other than that he found all the herbal teas horrid but for some reason it was relatively successful.

“I’ll consider it,” said Tess. “If we don’t go to jail for this.”

She motioned vaguely at the computer on Evander’s lap.

“Don’t worry, if I get caught, I won’t bust you.”

“I appreciate that,” Tess mused. “But I think we’re sort of in this together, now.”

Evander didn’t say anything while Tess sat next to him, pulling a blanket on her legs. He thought she was pretty but pretty in a way his mother wouldn’t approve of. Kind of like Rosa was but somehow, he had a feeling like his mother would approve of Tess even less. The only person he could conceive of his mother approving was Diana Somerset but that had been doomed from the start, and Evander was happy she’d turned down his proposal.

He hadn’t spoken to his mother in months and in a way, he missed her a little. It had been about time to cut the cord, though. To find out what he actually wanted for himself. One thing he had learned was that it sucked to be poor and lonely. He missed his family. Especially his entitled royal cousins who he’d never even really liked before. And he knew that he couldn’t trust the country to Quincey’s hands alone when the man had gone to a fucking liberal arts school. Deep down he felt bad, too. Bad about what he had done to him and how he’d left things. He had put himself first and not Alderly, as he should have done. The right thing to do would have been to be there for Quincey and help him, instead of listening to his mother, but that was a lesson learned.

Tess leaned in closer so she could see the computer screen better. Evander was pretty sure she didn’t have experience on the hacking front, but he appreciated another pair of eyes, and maybe he also appreciated her presence. She smelled nice. He felt immensely tired. It had been almost ten hours and they still had pretty much nothing. He felt his focus drift and drank more coffee. He wasn’t exactly sure how much time passed, when Tess suddenly grabbed his wrist and pointed at the screen.

“What’s that?” she asked.

Evander examined the piece of code. “If I just follow this strand…” he said quietly.

Tess let go of his hand so he could continue typing.

“Is this…” he started as the computer did exactly as he had wanted it to.

“Oh my god,” said Tess.

“I think I’m in!” said Evander and jumped up from the couch in excitement. He had almost given up hope so he couldn’t quite believe this plan might actually stand a chance in hell at working.

Tess got up as well and said: “Holy crap,” with a delighted laugh. She did a little jump and clapped her hands together. Evander, high off of his achievement, kissed her cheek before thinking better off it. The pair looked at each other for a fraction of a second. Then Evander cleared his throat and sat back down, grabbing the computer.

“It’s not over yet,” he said, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “This is pretty time sensitive.”

“Right, yeah, of course,” said Tess. She also sat back down, and Evander was careful not to look at her. Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe his mother would like her. Tess was pretty smart, after all.

~

Half an hour later Olympia, Rocky, and Pandora returned, presumably from searching for a certain run-away groom.

“We're in,” Evander said.

“What?” asked Pandora. “Seriously?”

“I honestly didn’t think you had it in you,” said Rocky with a yawn. It seemed Evander and Tess weren’t the only ones in need of a nap.

“Shut up and come see,” he said, and the newcomers gathered around the couch Evander and Tess had occupied, to see the screen. All the information pertaining to the companies was there for them to see. Silently Evander echoed Rocky’s sentiment though. After almost ten hours he’d begun to think that maybe he had overestimated his abilities.

“What does it say about those three companies?” asked Rocky.

“Each are listed as a division of this... Glockenspiel Consortium,” said Evander.

“Glockenspiel?” wondered Olympia. “What's that?”

“It could be a parent company, or a shell, used to funnel the money to a foreign entity,” Evander said. It would make sense why neither he nor Olympia had ever heard of it, despite being Alderlian.

“You have a disturbing knowledge of underhanded activities,” Olympia said but there was distinctly less venom in her voice than there had been before, so Evander didn’t take it too personally.

“That would explain why so little of the money's staying in Alderly,” said Tess, who had a much more comprehensive grasp of how businesses worked than dear cousin Olympia.

“Perhaps if we dig a little bit deeper into Glockenspiel…” said Evander, clicking further into the files. “Oh, shit…”

Everyone had seen it; Evander could tell from their shocked expressions.

“I can’t believe it,” said Olympia.

“What are we going to do now?” asked Pandora.

“Quincey’s gone to look for Dawn. He might be a while,” said Olympia.

“We’re going to wait for the king to get back,” said Evander. “He needs to hear this before we do anything.”

tag list: @lifeofkaze, @gcldensnitch, @endlessly-cursed, @cursed-herbalist, @magicallymalted

(ask if you want to be included or removed)

#evander is the best thing to come out of this fic and i love him #in the next chapter we get a whooole bunch of cameos so get ready for that lol #fic: the royal wedding #a christmas prince au #dawn harvelle #quincey alderly #dawncey #evander alderly #tess brandon #tessvander #*mine #*my writing

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Watching a documentary on Edward II while I work and in this doc:

1. They repeatedly call Piers Gaveston Edward's "best mate" and "close friend", then have one seven-second acknowledgement that they were probably lovers before immediately returning to calling them pals, buds, just mates being dudes, my guys, just bros like bros will be, totally normal friendship here

2. Piers is not depicted as half so pretty as he likely was. He is handsome, yes, but very... dirty compared to everyone else? And also, dude, brush your hair. Come on. Piers Gaveston was famously not only arrogant but vain!

3. The actor playing Edward is playing this documentary dramatization like he is going for the motherfucking Oscar, he is amazing. I love him, my God someone give this man jobs and money!

4. They speak French! Just like everyone actually did!

5. Hugh Despenser has perfect hair, which seems in character

6. The documentary definitely doesn't admit the simple truth that Hugh Despenser the Younger was almost certainly Pretty Man Bait to get Edward II to give the Despensers power.

7. The doc DOES do a great job of showing what an absolute disaster Edward II was at basically everything forever

8. It does contain the most excellent line, "To the people of the time, Edward could have been bedding his priest, his page boy, and his horse, so long as he was governing the kingdom properly."

9. Isabella's actress is also incredible. That woman does some impeccable face-acting.

10. Man. The moral of this documentary - and of his life - should be "This man did not deserve the wild glory inherent in his amazing wife."

11. Now Hugh Despenser needs to brush his hair! Maybe Edward just likes 'em grungy.

12. Edward is the epitome of being shown exactly what he needs to do and then doing the opposite.

13. I am genuinely impressed at how carefully they dance around admitting that Edward was definitely up in Hugh Despenser's business, too. His manly business.

14. Wait, I take it back. The real moral of this story is "take a woman's children from her arms and she will burn you to the ground and spit on your ashes."

15. Honestly, I don't blame her.

16. THEY CALLED HER THE SHE-WOLF FOR A REASON, MOTHERFUCKERS.

17. Also, hell yeah for Isabella's brother the King of France working with her on this. He absolutely knew Isabella was being underestimated and he made sure he never did.

18. Oh, so we can admit Isabella and Roger Mortimer were sleeping together, huh? We can admit that? I mean as long as it's decently hetero, sure, let's have a whole sex scene. But God forbid we admit Edward and Piers might have held hands under a tree even once.

19. THEY PUT A SEX NOISE IN EVEN

20. Honestly now I'm mad.

21. "She has a number of men closer to a moderate house party than an invading force." Okay, that line redeems you somewhat.

22. Awwwww puppies hunting the disgraced king, sweet. I love when dogs are clearly checking for cues from their trainers just off screen.

23. A FIFTY FOOT GALLOWS SEEMS EXCESSIVE. Oh holy shit they hung him without quite killing him, then de-genitaled and- god damn, Isabella. This seems like a bit much.

24. SHE MADE A POINT OF EATING WHEN THEY CUT HIS DICK OFF.

25. Isabella is terrifying. I am in wild irrational love.

26. I'm sorry they put WHAT up Edward's ass. A red hot WHAT

27. I feel like that probably didn't actually happen but honestly, I don't doubt Isabella is capable of it. And also, um, these deaths seem... To send a message.

28. "Edward's wife and her lover-" oh, are you sure they're not just best mates? Buddies? Pals? Like Edward and Gaveston?

29. Oh he probably just like... was smothered. That makes way more sense. He could be "found dead" then and it could be claimed to be natural causes.

30. Underestimate pissed off French women at your peril, English kings.

#edward ii #ash rambles #history #english history #piers gaveston #king edward II #this shit is WILD #royal history #gay history #JUST BROS BEING PALS #isabella of France #the motherfucking she wolf #documentaries

[scifimagpie]

Writeblr Q&A

So, both @palebdot and @dyrewrites were kind enough to tag me, and I finally had a minute to answer this!

1) What motivates you to write?

It's more of a compulsion, really. Things get stuck in my head; characters stroll in and start saying stuff, or going through scenes, and then I get that electric buzz that makes me absolutely have to scramble for either my notebook or my laptop.

2) A line/short snippet of your writing that you are most proud/happy of. If not maybe share a line of someone else's work you love (just please credit them)

From a recently completed work, the Prairie Weather trilogy, which I want to shop around and see if I can get published traditionally:

Before him gaped the yawning gulf of his own fuckup. It was dizzying. He’d heard of staring into the abyss, and the abyss staring back, but he hadn’t expected it to be quite so mortifying.

I tend to be at least a bit more poetic usually, but this line just kicks so hard.

3) Which OC makes you smile every time you think/talk about them and what are they like?

Right now, probably Isabella from the Hell Saga - she's just so good-natured, down for anything, and fundamentally kind and hopeful. She really goes through the ringer in book 2, which I'm working on now with my coauthor, though. This is another series we're hoping to go trad on, so cross your fingers for this irrepressible, bisexual Latina and Hispanic counsellor with a strong socialist streak!

4) What process of writing do you enjoy the most?

The first draft can be really fun, but there's something to be said for that second-draft, "all the pieces are in place, now I just have to tweak them" experience. Finishing a book is also a hell of a rush. But that real, fixated feeling of being in the thick of it, often while listening to a playlist I've made specially for the project - that's definitely the good stuff, too.

5) What part of writing do you think you are the best at? (Yes stroke your own ego it's okay)

Characters, dialogue, worldbuilding, and description - in no particular order. I'm really good at making up little people, making them friends and lovers, and then putting 'em through the wringer.

6) What is something in the writeblr community is most enjoyable?

The community and enthusiasm are really winning me over, and I've been pleasantly surprised by the relative skill of my friends, too!

7) A writing tool/device you use that helps you with writing? (It could be speech to text, a writing program etc)

My Youtube playlists are absolutely required tools for my writing, a lot of the time. Sometimes I can write without them, but boy do they help. Some of them are also related to my D&D campaigns, but I'd like to think all of them are pretty well-curated.

8) A piece of worldbuilding that you like in your own story? (It could be the magic system, a particular place in the story, a law etc)

The Underlighters series' underground city setting is probably one of the coolest things I've ever come up with. I was somewhat inspired by The City of Ember, but that book frustrated me so much that I vowed to write a much better version. Hopefully, I did. I tried to make it reasonably cohesive and somewhat scientifically justifiable.

However, I always tell a story about Underlighters - when I was trying to figure out the pollination situation for crops, I was doing research at about 2 in the morning one day on various pollinators and getting nowhere. Can bees live underground??? Some bees and wasps nest in the dirt, but that's not necessarily helpful. What about solitary bees and pollinators?

Startling my then-boyfriend (now husband) from his game, I threw my arms in the air and yelled, "Fuck it - cave bees!"

And so I decided that underground apiculture was an acceptable solution.

9) What piece of advice would you say to encourage others to write if they are having a rough patch?

Try some different strategies and don't be afraid to rotate between projects. Try writing in point form, using different software, doing voice dictation - it can take a long time to figure out the exact right hacks to make your story flow.

10) Tag some people whose works you love/have been your biggest supporters:

Well, that's easy!

@pinkchaosart @nattheauthor and the chaps above have been wonderful; also tagging (in no particular order): @ventela1 @omokers @nethilia @whalleyrulz @chicorybones @zillanovikov @sabotabby @nic0thecreat0r @chiefwritesbook @eldritch-selachii @holdmyteaplease @koala2all

#writeblr #writers of tumblr #writing #community #indie author #independent #scifimagpie #q&a #WIPs #quotes #how to #indie #books #books rec #writer #queer #sci fi #tumblr #booklr

[blarrghe]

fanfic writer asks

tagged in this by @plisuu and @dreadfutures , thanks guys! Tagging @rosella-writes @melisusthewee @sulky-valkyrie

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 37

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 803,377

3. What fandoms do you write for? Just Dragon Age.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Matchsies, All Hail West Thedas, Strange Feelings in the Party Camp, A Complicated Match, Twelve Nights

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes! I tend to give long answers to longer comments, but I try to make sure I get to everyone with at least a thank you <3

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Um. The Purge Of Wycome I guess, though it's ok in the end. And then there's...currently... one in progress.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Most of my fics have at least mostly-happy endings, but I think Twelve Nights is the most syrupy.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Haven't yet!

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Yes, sometimes. Usually buried in the plot of longfic and very character-driven, very few just-smut oneshot things. Most of it also gay and at least a little Bondagey.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? I haven't, but I might one day if the right mood and media strike my fancy.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Not that I know of.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? No.

14. What's your all time favorite ship? Pavellan. Isabella x Merrill is also very good.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Maybe The Merrill Sessions. I kinda abandoned it but I had ideas.

16. What are your writing strengths? Dialogue and grounded character writing, silly jokes and bits of lightness, AU worldbuilding.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I can get pretty longwinded and have been really honing my editing.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I use bits of "elvhen" by basically mashing stuff together from the canon words, but mostly I try to imply things are in other languages through the narration rather than writing in it, like through the "translation convention" .

19. First fandom you wrote for? Dragon Age!

20. Favorite fic you've written? The currently ongoing The Hunter, the Snake, and the Fox, by far!

blank form below:

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

3. What fandoms do you write for?

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

5. Do you respond to comments?

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

16. What are your writing strengths?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

19. First fandom you wrote for?

20. Favorite fic you've written?

#fic writer asks #tag games

[chidoroki]

182 Days of TPN - Day 43

Chapter 43: “81194”

I never really paid too much attention to the chapter titles until I started doing this, so naturally I was unaware one title was simply Ray’s farm identifier. Yeah I noticed the titles when I first read the manga and when new chapters released way back, but I obviously don’t remember any of them now! I have a hard enough time trying to remember the id’s of the other GF kids. (honestly, I dunno any of them aside from the fullscore trio and Isabella’s).

One of the big reasons why this scene feels so short in anime is, of course, the lack of internal dialogue. We even get a moment of hearing the pursuer’s thoughts later on too, as it tries to figure out if it cornered 16194 (Don) or 81194. Yet another loss because we don’t get to see how hard Ray is pushing his brain into overdrive trying to think of a way out of this mess.

The house didn’t have knives but it had a pair of scissors? Unless it’s also from the infirmary..? I know Krone mentioned the room had a scalpel (which the kids do still have as Ray used it to get water from the anemones two chapters ago) but I don’t remember anything about there being scissors anywhere. Eh, whatever.

My boy is so smart. With one less thing to worry about, he can now focus on his own survival. I love that cocky grin of his. He even seems proud that everyone else managed to stay safe so far.

Damn right you gotta to live! Your family needs you! Better yet, they truly want him in their lives as well! Aaahhh he’s so devoted to Emma & the others (as if he wasn’t for his entire life already) and I just love him so very much.

I am grateful that he was thinking ahead if the worst does happen, but the chances of any of the kids finding this small carved message on this exact tree is so darn slim. This forest is massive and they surely can’t waste any time backtracking with demons lurking.

Though Emma can still hear out of her left ear, we occasionally see her rely on her right a bit more, such as now when the kids react to the pursuer whistling to signal its allies. (She uses a similar method to both ears in ch100 and puts her right ear straight to the ground in ch67.)

Mhhhmm she believes in him so much aahh. Also, head pat! Though the anime changes Chris to Jemima here.

Her wound and all this anxiety certainly isn’t doing wonders for her health. Anndd yet another head pat. (I’m like..so tempted to make a whole post dedicated to all the head pats. maybe. eventually..if I remember.)

She was, indeed, not okay. And I know I shouldn’t be impressed that she lasted this long but.. I am. On top of all the blood loss and her whole body heating up, she’s been running for her damn life, while also keeping everyone else safe, and now she’s panicking that one of her best friends could potentially be captured and eaten.. that’s just a lot to handle at once. This girl has been suffering physically, mentally and emotionally for way longer than necessary.

Can’t deny the anime made the whole forest look real pretty though.

Favorite panel/moment:

When a moment is so good we get three variations of it! HELL YEAH! (goes without saying but the cover to volume 6 is one of my favorites).

End of volume 5.

#the promised neverland #tpn manga #182daysoftpn #chidoroki used chatter