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thebenjiblackwoodexpress · 1 day

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Snow Drop Part. 7

Jacaerys Velaryon x Reader

Description: After Y/N's rejection, Jaecerys fears he has lost his love forever unaware of the true nature of her feelings. Meanwhile Y/N struggles to stay away from The Prince she secretly loves, having faced heartbreak before. Can an overheard conversation get Jace to fight for her love?

Warnings: female reader.

Writer's note: Sorry it's been a while. I had this written ages ago but work and just life in general got in the way of me posting it. Hope you enjoy reading it.

Jacaerys became a ghostly shell of himself in the days that followed his disastrous profession of love to his lady. He rebuked himself for having believed that she could have returned his feelings, having clearly only viewed him as a friend. She was far too beautiful, too sweet, too incomparable. By imposing his affections upon her he had spoiled any chance of remaining in her orbit, even if only in the capacity of a friend. He felt her absence like a cold shard of ice through his heart and sometimes convinced himself that he saw her, as if she were a ghost of a memory dancing in his periphery. Dark circles formed purple bruises under his eyes from lack of sleep and he was unable to lift the feeling of a pressing weight on his heart at all times, as if the wound to it from her rejection was a palpable thing he carried with him always. The pain he felt at the loss of her, both as a friend and as the Princess of his heart would not cause him to intrude upon the distance she had imposed upon him. Nevertheless, he could not resist from leaving snowdrops in books he thought might interest her in the library, leaving them placed on the open pages for her to find. He told himself that such a gesture should not displease her, even if she knew that if was he who left them. She did so love those flowers and he would much rather imagine her delicate fingers brushing the petals of them, than the flowers lying in a forest, unseen by her. He never stayed to see if she would come across his gifts. He had enough strength yet to allow her space away from him, though it pained him to acquiesce to it. The absence of the flower from the page on the morrow was an intimation that she had been there and had cared for his gift, even if she did not care for the sentiments it expressed. Whilst the thought of her touching the flower and being pleased by it gladdened his heart, almost as if she were touching his hand with her own, it also saddened him. His lady disappeared with the morning light just as the flower did; as if she had never existed, except in his mind.

It was with these painful thoughts oppressing him that Jacaerys pressed a kiss to his fingertips and then to the flower he had left open on a book on the history of Targaryen dragons for his lady. The hour was late and he knew he should leave on the chance that she would enter the library and be disturbed at the sight of him, so he turned to leave. He had only begun to walk back to his chambers from the library when, turning the corner, he was met with the at once welcome and alarming sight of his lady. Only too welcome, given how long he had been deprived of the sight of her beauty and sweet presence, but alarming as he noted the tears glistening on her cheeks. Without any forethought, he immediately reached out to her, raising one hand to cup her face, and another to take hold of her elbow, gazing into her eyes with concern.

"My dearest love, what is the cause of your distress? Are you unwell or hurt?"

To his surprise and concern, she only closed her eyes, wincing as if in pain, before attempting to push him away from her. Believing her to be injured, he maintained his hold on her, wrapping an arm around her waist, determined to assess the cause of her pain before he released her.

"I know, I know," he hushed her, "I will release you as soon as you tell me where the pain is. I can only help you if I know what has befallen you."

She pushed his chest halfheartedly with her palms, as if unsure whether she wanted him to release his hold on her or melt into his embrace. Her head fell to rest on his chest, as if in spite of herself, and she mumbled into the velvet fabric of his tunic.

"I hate you for this," tightening her grip on his tunic as she said so, pressing her head more forcefully into his chest.

Jacaerys closed his eyes, wincing himself, as he drew in a sharp breath, her words lancing through him like a knife. It pained him immeasurably to know that she not only did not, and would never, return his love for her, but also that his very presence was so hateful to her. Her tight grip on him, however, convinced him that she still required comfort, so he wrapped her in his arms more securely, rubbing her back up and down tentatively.

He lowered his head to rest upon hers, whispering disconsolately, "I know, I am sorry for it, I will leave you as soon as you are calmer."

To his surprise, she only tightened her grip on him further, crying harder into his chest, so that he began to grow really alarmed. Raising one hand to gently cup her head, he pulled her away from him slightly to look into her eyes.

"Darling, you begin to really alarm me. What can have distressed you so much and how can I remedy it?" he asked frantically. "Has someone harmed you?" he added, his eyes darkening and his voice growing steely as he mentally prepared to dispatch the offender who had upset his Love. When she only shook her head, after returning it to rest against his chest, he tentatively enquired, in a softer voice, conveying his trepidation at her answer, "Is it me that distresses you so, my Love?"

He received his painful confirmation when she released a sob, which caused an acute pain in his chest, believing himself to be the cause, before she forcefully pushed him away from her and ran from him before he could stop her.

Unbeknownst to Jacaerys, his lady was suffering his own absence as acutely as he was hers. Believing that she was doing what was best for them both, she had forced herself to push away the only man she could ever imagine opening her heart to, locking away her own love for him as she did so. Her days had been as equally listless, her nights as sleepless as Jacaerys, overwhelmed by a feeling of loss that his absence filled her with. She was determined, however, to maintain her distance from him, even if the flowers she knew he left for her had her almost breaking her resolve. Each night she would take the flower he had left on the open pages of books he knew would interest her, her heart warming painfully at the thought of his kindness and attentiveness towards her and her interests. She carefully pressed each flower into a book of stories her mother had given her as a child, preserving them as memories of her lost love, telling herself that she could allow herself this one foible. It was the questioning of a maid she had grown friendly with that had caused her to break down into tears. She had good naturedly teased Y/N for her interest in the Price, asking her why she had been avoiding him of late when she had previously seemed so taken with him. Y/N could only take so much of her teasing before her repressed pain brimmed forth in her tears, and she made to seek out the repose of the library, where she could at least feel close to him in remembering the time they had spent together there. She was alarmed to practically run into the arms of the Prince, but found herself unable to release her hold on him as he tried to ascertain the cause for her distress. His tender concern and genuine alarm at her distress only made it that much harder for her to reject his tender touch, as he tried to comfort her, and she found herself unable to release her grip on him. His tentative suggestion that he was the cause of her distress, although not in the way he imagined, and that he should leave her, led her to give into desperate tears, as she held onto him like a lifeline. It was only at his unintentional reminder to herself that it was the impossibility of her being able to return his feelings that led her to push him away from her, though it hurt her to do so. She was pained at the thought that her repeated rejections of his advances caused him discomfort, but she reminded herself that men's love was fleeting and he would recover from them to rule over the Seven Kingdoms, where she could lose all if she gave in.

Several more days had passed, though not without Jacaerys attempting to catch his Love when he passed her down the hallway on his way to the Council room one day. She had quickly sidestepped him when he had attempted to enquire into her wellbeing, and he had forced himself to allow her to walk past him, without any further enquiry on his part. His internal turmoil at the loss of his love and over her own evident distress, which he could not remedy, being the cause of it, continued to manifest itself in outward signs. His mother even began to grow concerned for the state of his health, though he was quick to assure her on the point and to brush away her concern.

Jacaerys now made his way to the library, earlier than he was wont to do, planning on retiring early that evening, if only because the only sight he could now have of his love was in his dreams. He turned behind a book case filled with books on natural history, searching for a book on flowers that his lady had not read, raising his hand to reach for one volume, before the sound of two voices arrested his motion. He stood, frozen in place, as he heard the voice of his Love.

"I won't be long, Margery, I only wanted to find a book I was interested in reading."

A feeling of contentment washed over him at the sound of her voice, although he also knew that the sight of him might startle her from her search, so he resolved to remain where he was until she had collected her book.

"I don't know how you can read so many, it's that Prince of yours whose responsible. You think of nothing else but him."

Jacaerys felt his heart stop at the sound of the maid referring to him as Y/N's Prince. His own heart already belonged to her, but the thought that she might view him as hers had a spark of hope alighting in his heart.

"He is not my Prince, Margery. Don't say such things out loud, someone might hear you and misunderstand. I don't think of him all the time."

He felt the spark of hope diminish as his lady spoke, turning into cinders.

"I'm no fool, Y/N. I've seen the way you both look at each other, like you're the only other person in that one's world. I used to find it difficult to get you to shut up about him and now you won't speak of him at all and avoid him as if you were afraid of him. Did he do something to you?"

"No! He would never harm me, he is a gentleman and a true Prince."

The other maid's words had caused him to grip onto the shelf opposite him in restrained pain. The thought that he would ever harm his love was horrifying to him. However, his lady's impassioned defence of him had his heart soaring. That she should think so well of him still filled him with hope that he could hope to renew his friendship with her if he was careful not to let his true devotion to her run away with him.

"Why do you avoid him so then? You'd think you hated him."

His lady's next words had his heart stopping altogether before it continued to beat urgently, the sound of it resounding in his ears as his breathing quickened and a smile upturned his lips.

"I don't hate him! I love him!"

A moment of silence passed before Margery responded.

"You...love him?"

Y/N responded in so quiet and soft a voice he had to strain to hear her, holding onto her words like a lifeline.

"I do, and it is precisely because I love him that I have to avoid him. He is a Prince of the Realm, the Heir to the Iron Throne, and I am only a lowly servant girl. It could never work. It is for the best that I avoid him."

He closed his eyes tightly shut, rebuking himself for not realising that his lady did return his feelings and that it was really only her fears regarding his intentions that were preventing her from telling him so. He should have been more assiduous in urging the seriousness of them.

"Has he made any improper advances towards you, Y/N?"

"He would never do such a thing, I do not wish for you to view him so harshly. He told me he loved me and that he wanted me to marry me."

"What?! And you said no to a Prince's proposal!? Are you mad?"

"Don't goad me, Margery. Yes, he did everything properly, but he is still a man and a Prince no-less. It would not be the first time a man has professed his love for me, only to retract it later. I have already told you of this. I thought Christopher loved me, that he would marry me, but he only wanted one thing and when I would not give it to him he proved just how foolish I was to trust in the word of a man."

Hearing his Love speak of her fears and her experience of her love being misplaced in that bastard, he wished that he could hold her to him and reassure her that he would never be so careless with her heart. His promise of love to her was solemn and unbreakable, he would never love another. He struggled to repress his anger with the man she spoke of for breaking her heart and making such demands of her. He resolved that he would kill him if he ever encountered him, his hand clenching around the book shelf he had been holding.

"I know, Y/N, but not all men are like that braggart. You have spoken to me often enough of how honourable and gallant the Prince is. Have I not sworn that if I hear 'Prince Jacaerys is a true prince in every manner of the word' one more time I will have to have an intervention with you?"

Jacaerys found himself smiling again at this, delighting that his lady should think so highly of him. He only hoped that she would see him as her Prince too, not just a stately figure she admired from a distance. He would close that distance entirely if he could.

"Yes, yes, I know it and I will not deny that the Prince could not be further from Christopher. I do believe he is in earnest about his intentions towards me, but I cannot trust that he will remain earnest. More than that, how could I claim to love him if I would willingly jeopardize his claim to the Iron Throne by tying him to a lowly servant girl? I love him far too much to do that, even if it pains me to reject his love. Do you not think it hurts me to avoid him, when I would much rather be with him always?"

He felt the wind taken out of his lungs from her declaration. His heart swelled with even more love than he felt possible for a human being to contain within themselves at her selfless concealment of her love for him, in her desire not to hinder his passage to the throne. She could not know that he could only imagine ruling with her at his side. It pained him to know that she thought so lowly of herself, when he thought she was the epitome of perfection, the most beautiful girl in the world, the Princess of his heart. At the same, he was filled with new found determination to convince her that he would never waver from his love for her. He had already resolved to love her forever, if only in silent resignation at her indifference. Now that he knew she felt the same way about him, that she wanted him too, he would not rest until he had succeeded in assuring her that he was hers and hers alone, if she would have him.

"You are more selfless than I would be in the same position, Y/N. I don't envy you. I must ready the Princess Rhaena for bed now, so I will leave you to it. Don't stay up too late, I worry about you. You haven't been sleeping or eating much. If you are to reject the Prince, can you not also neglect your own health."

Margery's words felt like a sharp rebuke to him, as he cursed himself for not having realised the true cause for his lady's distress. His concern for her wellbeing was only surpassed by his determination to ensure that he was never so careless again, not now that he knew she loved him. He would assiduously care for her all the rest of their lives together, if she would permit it. He grew restless for Margery to depart so that he could convince her that such was the case.

"I won't, don't worry. Thank you for worrying about me Margery, you are a good friend."

Jacaerys waited until he heard Margery's retreating footsteps and her close the library door, before he emerged from his hiding place, making enough noise in the hope of not startling his Love too much. She looked up from the book she had opened before her in alarm, as she met his gaze.

"My Prince! How much did you...what did you hear?!"

"Everything, my Love. I am sorry for listening to your conversation but I could not help overhearing."

As he spoke, in a gentle voice, communicating the tenderness he felt for her within it, he took slow, measured steps towards her.

"I am only sorry that it took me overhearing your conversation to understand the reason for your distress. I hope that you will forgive me for my carelessness in not realising before and that you will allow me to renew my proposal of marriage once again. I urgently entreat you to believe that I am most ardent in my love for you and in my hope that you will consent to be my lady wife and my Princess."

He had nearly approached her, reaching out towards her with his arms, as if to embrace her, before she ran from him behind a nearby table. He could not altogether repress a smile at her antics, as she moved to the other side of the table when he moved to walk around it.

"You needn't run from me, my Love." Smirking, he continued in a teasing tone. "Did you not say that you thought me gallant and a Prince in every sense of the word?" He inwardly rejoiced at the blush which arose on her cheeks as her mouth parted in shock at his words, and he took the opportunity of her surprise to move further round the table towards her. Reaching to clasp her hand in his, he added, "I would be your Prince, if you would only have me."

Coming back to her senses, she quickly withdrew her hand and Jacaerys' face fell as she turned and ran from him. He would not stand by, this time, as the only woman he would ever love fled from him again, not when he knew that she loved him too, that she wanted him, if she would only allow herself to put her faith in him. He was determined that if she wanted him, she would have him. With renewed determination, he ran after her, quickly catching up with her. Wrapping his arm around her waist, he turned her towards him. As she raised a palm to push against his chest, he pressed his own hand firmly against her hand, sliding her hand up to rest against the place where his heart beat frantically against his chest.

"Do you not feel how my heart beats for you and only you, my Love. It has only ever been you. My feelings for you are unalterable, as unshakable as the foundations of Dragonstone. I would lay my life down for yours, hold you in my arms when you are happy or sad, care for you when you will not care for yourself, and protect your heart as I would do your person. You are the Princess of my heart and I would have you be the Princess of the Realm too. Please believe me when I say that nothing would bring me greater happiness than for you to accept me as your husband who only wishes to adore you for the rest of our lives." Seeing that she was relaxing in his hold, gazing up at him as he spoke, he continued determinedly, in the hope that she was really beginning to believe in his earnestness.

He spoke even more softly now, as he approached the next sensitive issue he was urgent to address. "I know that that blaggard was unfaithful to you and careless with your heart, when to me it is the most precious thing in the world." He looked into her eyes intently, urging, willing her to believe in him. To put her faith in his love for her. "I vow to protect your heart. It is the only prize I covet. No throne could compare to your love. I believe that I would have found and loved you had we met in any other life. We would always have found each other. I feel as if there were a string tethering your heart to mine. It can never be broken on my end, but I will release you now if you believe that you cannot place your faith in me or my love for you."

He pressed her hand more firmly to his heart as he finished speaking, praying and willing that he had said enough to convince her of his love for her.

He was foolish not to have seen that he would need to convince her that he had always viewed her as an equal. Whilst proud of his noble House and fiercely loyal to it, Jacaerys saw all members of the Queen's household, whether noble or not, as deserving of the respect owing to those loyally serving the true Queen in whatever capacity they could. His own insecurities about the nature of his birth and place within House Targaryen aside, he did not believe that those who were not from noble Houses were therefore inferior. Though unconventional, he did not anticipate any strong objection to his match with Y/N from anyone who mattered to him. It distressed him to think that his lady may have believed his intentions to have been different to those he would have had towards a noble lady, but he was determined to prove to her that this could not be further from the case. She was always a Lady to him, noble or not, and he would find a way to make her believe this.

He watched in anguished anticipation as several emotions flickered across his lady's face, before she looked up to meet his gaze. He momentarily stopped breathing as she slowly raised her other hand to his chest, before sliding both hands from his chest to rest upon his shoulders.

"You earnestly mean to say that you love me and want to marry me? Even though I am no Lady, just a lowly servant girl?"

He placed both hands on either side of head, lowering his forehead to rest against hers.

"You are, and have always been a Lady to me. You have never been lowly, nor do I consider any other soul under this roof to be who serves the true Queen. We each have our role to play in service to the Queen, and you have performed yours admirably. Though, I would have you give up that role for a new one as my Princess, should you assent to it. I earnestly entreat you to believe that I mean what I say when I say that I love you more than words can say and that your assent to my proposal of marriage would make me the happiest man alive."

His eyes were closed, fearing that he had not done enough to convince her, that she would still reject him. He let out a shuddering breath when he heard her next words, music to his ears he had scarcely have imagined hearing.

"I will put my faith in your love and your promise then. You already know that I love you too, and I think too highly of your honour to believe you would not safeguard my heart if you say that you really mean to do so."

He was so elated at her words, so grateful for the trust she had placed in him, when he now knew that she had been wounded in the past by misplacing her trust that he wasted no time in pulling her head and waist towards him. Wrapping his arms around her, he attempted to remove any physical distance between them, to enwrap her in an embrace that would signal to her how carefully he intended to safeguard her person and her heart. Breaking away from her slightly, he bent his face towards hers, placing a gentle kiss on the side of her jaw, watching her reaction carefully to see if his affections should displease her. Watching her eyes close in contentment, as she tilted her jaw towards his lips, he continued to place tender kisses to her jaw, before looking into her eyes for the permission he sought, glancing at her lips. As she wrapped her arms around his neck and lowered her gaze to his lips, he crashed their lips together, pulling her, with one hand on her waist and another cupping her head, towards him. He could hardly contain the joy he felt at being able to finally hold the girl he loved in his arms, to feel her soft lips moulding with his, and her arms around his neck. Breaking the kiss so that she could catch her breath, he placed one more tender kiss to her throat. He panicked, however, when he felt her arms loosen around his neck and her weight sag, wrapping his arms around her back and waist to support her weight against his.

"My darling, are you not feeling well?"

To his relief, she only pressed her head against his chest and mumbled into his tunic.

"I am well. I just felt a little lightheaded, I don't think I was breathing."

Seeing that she was not fainting, and noticing a blush creeping onto her cheeks, as she once again buried her face in his chest, he could not repress a slight smile. He directed his gaze away from her so as not to embarrass her, as he said his next words.

"Do you think you can walk, my Love?"

When she shook her head against his torso, he placed an arm on the small of her back and another underneath her knees as he swept her up in his arms, delighting at the little cry of shock his love emitted at his sudden gesture. She quickly wrapped her arms around his neck, even as she scolded him.

"What are you doing, my Prince?"

Smiling indulgently down at her, he pressed his forehead to hers for a moment before saying in a teasing tone, "your Prince is carrying his Princess, since you have owned that you cannot walk yourself. If I had known that kissing you would have you swooning in my arms I might have attempted it sooner." He laughed in amusement as she covered her hands with her face and pressed it against his shoulder.

"There is no need for embarrassment, my Love. You have the same effect on me." He dropped his teasing tone, investing his words with the tenderness he really felt towards her, as he pressed a soft kiss to the crown of her head, and began to walk her back towards the library. Holding his love in his arms, he felt that he could scarcely contain his joy, having never believed it to be a possibility. The Prince and his Princess spent many long hours afterwards, catching up on the time they had spent apart. As they talked and laughed through the evening, Prince Jacaerys did not for a moment let go of his Princess, continuing to hold her against him on his lap. Now that he had won her heart to him, he was reluctant to release her from his embrace, still fearing that this would all prove to be but a dream. Happily, Y/N seemed as reluctant as the Prince to leave his embrace, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, placing her head close to his heart.

#house of the dragon #house of the dragon x reader #hotd #jacaerys velaryon x reader #jacaerys velaryon #hotd jacaerys #jacaerys x reader #prince jacaerys #jacaerys velaryon oneshot #jacaerys velaryon imagine

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respectthepetty · 9 hours

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Rose's Day of Asks - the sequel

Hello dear Petty. So I'm sure this is gonna sound like a silly question but it did occur to me so I'm asking it anyway even if I make a fool of myself. Are there are colour combos that just wouldn't work for a ql couple? Or would take an extra amount of effort to make a relationship work, so to speak?

Rose💛

I LOVE YOUR ASKS! They always make my brain spin in the best ways! But, as usual, instead of answering your question about color combos that don't work, I'm going to answer about the most difficult color to be in a relationship with because there is only one:

Brown Boys/Brown Beauties

Everything that makes a Brown Boy/Brown Beauty great is the same exact stuff that makes them so fucking awful.

Brown (and dark oranges) represent the earth, so Earth signs in astrology (Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn) and Brown Boys/Brown Beauties share a lot of qualities with the earth, like being grounded and dependable, but it also means they are stubborn and predictable.

They are hard-workers, and it can become their priority over everything else. They are comforting, but only when they deem the issue isn't trivial because they are practical and conservative in ways that make sense to them.

So that's why even in his heartbreak, Tae in The Trainee didn't waste his meal reservation and invited Pah and Pie in Mee's place. He is practical. Money can't go to waste.

And that's why he ignored his girlfriend because work was more important.

We saw the same issue with Shin Da On in Light On Me as he gave everything to student council but put his love life on the back burner.

They are always so concerned with working and being practical, that they are often difficult to love because there is no room for spontaneity or whimsy, and they just don't see the point in all the theatrics like Ter in Wandee Goodday.

And because they are stubborn, they think what they do is right, no matter how wrong it might be like Phupha in The Promise!

So they go really well with Blue Boys since they are just a more elite and self-sacrificing version of them like Achi and Karan in the Thai version of Cherry Magic.

But we often see them paired with someone more playful and childish like a Purple Person like Kongkwan and Fon in Secret Crush on You.

Or a Pink Person.

Or even someone who is sky/sun-coded to counteract their earth-coding.

They are loyal, smart, and hard-working, which is why they are good partners.

But frustrating as hell because they abide by some ridiculous code based on self-imposed reasons that ONLY MAKES SENSE TO THEM!

And it's just not the boys who do this. The Brown Beauties are exactly the same level of stubborn and hard-working, but we don't see them as often in QLs.

But we see them in straight romances.

And they are usually paired with a Black Brooder.

(In any version)

So it takes an extra effort to love them because they aren't great at first impressions and can come across as a stick-in-the-mud, but once won over, there is nobody who will work harder to maintain a relationship.

#the colors mean things #color coded people in love #brown boys and brown beauties #they are stubborn like a bull #and just as comforting #they are the hardest workers #but also the hardest to love

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physalian · 2 days

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Narrative Framing Devices

This is a long one…

A story need not be told chronologically, nor does it have to be only one layer deep. There’s a ton of different ways to frame your narrative, I’m just picking a couple today, some I thought worked and some I thought didn’t, and my personal favorite.

Most people think of framing devices in terms of time travel stories or fairytales, where it may start in the present or the future and work backwards, giving up the ending before telling how we all got here. Or by chopping up the chronology and letting the audience try to puzzle out the order.

There are also those that break the fourth wall, with the narrator beginning the story directly addressing the audience but never doing so again, or the narrator opening the story telling their own story to a present audience, so we’re the audience behind the fictional audience.

The other obligatory framing device is the time-skip, a la “6 years later” or “8 months later”. I’ve already talked about those. Or the preface/preamble/prologue that may spoil some important event later in the story, or is simply an important moment or montage of moments to catch the reader up on “how did we get here”. Shoutout to Castlevania for the most efficient pilot episode I have ever seen, with a 1 year timeskip.

Also honorable mention to the “A Life in the Day” montage from Magicians, speedrunning decades of a life together between two characters stuck in a Situation, maybe 60 years? Key moments between the two having a whole romance, with a kid and grandkids, over the course of one beautiful bit of soundtrack. One of the best episodes in the show, for a sequence that only lasted a little over 5 minutes.

—

Story within a Story | Princess Bride, "Ember Island Players"

Best example I can think of, specifically the film, which is based on a book that already incepts itself. The movie opens with a regular kid being read the book The Princess Bride by his grandfather, and occasionally cutting between the kid’s reactions and the fantasy story with the actors.

There’s several moments where the grandfather either loses his place and rereads a scene that replays the same dialogue, or skips a scene in the “kissing book” because his grandson gets squirmy, and moments where the grandfather narrates over a couple montages.

Princess Bride is one of those movies that knows exactly what it is and isn’t trying to be something it’s not. It’s self-aware and loudly and proudly sincere, with one of the best revenge arcs ever put to film.

Recap episodes can either be clipshows or get really creative like ATLA, telling the series recap through the medium of a propagandized play about the Avatar's journey, performed by actors of the Fire Nation. The Gaang sits there in vague states of discomfort, horror, or in Toph and Sokka's case, thrilling enjoyment, watching their hardships and heartbreaks played for laughs. That it's the story we know, but also with the added filter of it being enemy propaganda takes what could have been just a clipshow and still told multiple layers of a story with it.

The Fourth-Wall Break | Riordan-verse, Deadpool

“Look, I didn’t want to be a half-blood” defined a generation. It’s one of those fourth wall breaks that opens up the story and never appears again, though occasionally Percy will get slightly self-aware, saying things like “I didn’t know it then, but I’d never come back here”. But for PJO it almost doesn’t count.

Kane Chronicles on the other hand chose a bizarre framing device, having the two leads pretend to host a radio show, or a podcast—something where they were recording themselves and I don’t think it worked very well whenever it popped up and stopped the plot.

Shoutout to Tangled, too, for having a fairytale style fourth-wall break at the end, much like KC, where Flynn reveals that Rapunzel has been listening to him tell their story the entire time. Many fairytale stories open up with the physical book flipping open to the story, like Shrek and Shrek 2, but I don’t think those are translatable to the written medium very well.

The big one, though, is of course Deadpool. Have not seen the second one, and while ‘breaking the fourth wall’ isn’t by itself a framing device, DP & Wolverine absolutely makes it one, fast forwarding and jumbling up the sequence of events to deliver a “how did we get here?” during the opening credits.

Chronology Salad | Memento, Predestination

Have not actually seen Memento but I know the premise, working backwards as the protagonist recovers his memory of “how did we get here?” Predestination is a batshit insane time travel story that I don’t think most people have even heard of and detailing the plot at all is giving spoilers but it is the most “how the fuck did we get here??” movie I have ever seen.

Then you have stories like Twilight that open with “I’ve never given much thought to how I would die” that spoils (kind of) the ending, with the goal of the story not detailing if something bad will happen, but how. Twilight’s prologue reminds me of The Bachelor, where they’ll tease the audience with *shocking* moments completely out of context from later in the season that are way less cool when they actually come to pass (from the one time I watched with relatives out of morbid curiosity).

The point of these chronological mixups is how all the random puzzle pieces fit together, despite essentially spoiling themselves constantly, they’re so random, so out of place, meant to keep you constantly guessing until the big reveal of the picture on the box—and are extremely tricky to do well without completely losing your audience. You’d have to have a very thorough outline to not confuse yourself while trying to write it.

Honorary mention here for Inception, one of my favorite sci-fi movies, because the plot is crazy, but still told chronologically, just across different dream levels. However, the movie does open with the ending scene (though you don’t know that on your first watch). And Tenet, but I don’t know anyone who likes or cares about that movie.

Dual Timelines | Outlander

There are others I just cannot think of them at this moment. Dual timelines tell two stories simultaneously across two different eras, either decades apart or mere hours, with some relation between the two. Sometimes one timeline’s protagonist is the ancestor of the present timeline, for example.

Dual Timelines happen in sequential order, making them distinct from a flashback arc (more below) essentially two chronological plots running in tandem squished into the same book, episode, or film. They carry equal weight and try not to overshadow each other in flair or importance.

In Outlander, Protagonist Claire is already a time traveler, in a time travel story whose rules are “whatever happened, happened, and you end up causing whatever you tried to prevent”. Season 2 opens with her returning to the present, leaving the entire rest of the season with a foreboding sense of dread, wondering what will get her back to that moment.

Season 3 dangles the carrot on the stick, randomly cutting between Claire in the 60s and trying to move on with her life for… I think 20 years, while Jaime, her love interest from the past, just keeps getting kicked while he’s down. It takes forever to get these two back on screen together. And the dual timelines continue taking up screen time when Claire and Jaime’s adult daughter also eventually makes a trip to the past. Points off for being blatantly manipulative storytelling with its cliffhangers, but season 1 is still worth the watch.

Flashbacks, Flash-Forwards, and Flash-Sideways | Lost

This show’s earlier seasons were heavily framed with this device. In The first 3 seasons (up to the last episode) the framing device was exclusively flashbacks, focusing on one of the main 13 heroes for an episode, particularly in season 1.

They didn’t always answer “how did we get here” but told some story relevant to the character in the present, either a challenge they had to face or parallel relationship drama or ghosts come back to haunt them. Usually, these little flashbacks were told in sequential order, but they could hop months or years ahead at a time depending on the episode.

The flash-forwards began in season 4 and closed the gap between the “Oceanic 6” escaping the island and all the missing time while they were gone, before the infamous “We have to go back” line.

The show also had flash-sideways, which featured the main cast, many of whom had been dead for a few seasons, reprising their roles to show what could have been their lives if they never crashed. To… mixed reception.

The show also also had a time-traveling character who in-universe experienced flashes of the future and got mentally temporally displaced between two timelines for a hot minute.

Lost was… a show that demanded a dedicated following. I still love it.

Flashback Arcs | My own personal soapbox

This right here is the whole reason for this post. First you have flashback episodes and I can name a lot of those—ATLA has a couple, “The Storm” & “The Avatar and the Firelord” but both are technically “stories within a story” with characters either around a campfire telling it or reading about it. The alternate timeline takes up a majority of the runtime, only occasionally cutting back to the present characters for a reaction.

In TFP there’s an offbeat flashback episode “Out of the Past”, framed, again, as a character telling this backstory stuff to another character. Many, many vampire stories will have flashbacks to some degree, since their characters live for so long. Vampire Diaries, especially in the earlier seasons, had dozens of them filling in all the blanks back during the Civil War when the two leads, Stefan and Damon, were competing for the affections of the main villain, all leading up to how they were turned, and how she allegedly died. Once the Originals were introduced, the show then had flashbacks to a thousand years ago, when they were human, and various eras in between.

True flashback episodes don’t waste precious minutes setting up a framing device, they just dump the audience in an alternate timeline and let them figure it out on their own that something isn’t right.

But none of that comes close to the full-on Flashback Arc. I. Love. This. Trope.

I actually first saw it when Arrow was good in its earliest seasons, cutting fairly equally between a present-day Oliver back home and starting his hero journey, and him learning combat back in the past, over several episodes like a series within the series.

What you end up with is a happy medium between a full dual timeline and a random grab-bag of flashbacks as they become necessary to the plot. A flashback arc relies entirely on the existence of the A-plot to make sense, as opposed to a dual timeline where it’s essentially two self-sufficient stories rolled into one big narrative. This arc is substantially shorter than the rest of the plot, cutting the story it’s telling down to the absolute need-to-know moments and cutting all transitions between the two. These arcs tend to cover weeks, at minimum, and decades of a long life at most.

I think they're best implimented after the first book, film, or season. Not something you want to throw at your audience who barely knows or cares about these characters, so if you're stuck with ideas for a sequel, consider the Flashback Arc.

My favorite thing that I have ever written (sans ENNS) was for my sci-fi WIP, a C-plot flashback arc in 13 parts. They started out as in-universe nightmares to give credibility to when these flasbacks started occuring, framed around the character's reaction to the scene, but then took off independently to avoid redundancy.

This arc covered his time as a POW, telling the reader how he came to be the living weapon he was, and the first detail it opened with was the reveal that he wasn’t the only one of his kind, he’d lied and shouldered the blame of every atrocity to protect the others, as their numbers dwindled and it all fell into place. A truth he wouldn't tell with a gun to his head.

Because you already knew he lived, because he’s right there in the present A-plot, the arc wasn’t telling you if he’d survive the war, but what he’d do to survive, and how it all fell apart. Because it was framed up with the existing narrative, I had a lot more leeway in omitting details and dropping the reader weeks or months ahead as opposed to this being a completely fresh story with new characters. You knew immediately based on the tone that this POV was the C-plot flashback POV, and you knew the only person who could narrate it was my poor character.

Over 13 POVS, 34k words (of a total whopping 202k), I told a whole love story, established and killed off 10 characters, and gave heaps of worldbuilding lore and exposition to fill in all the blanks in the present and answer questions that this character would never, and revealed just how much he lied about and why.

All of this tied in with the A-plot, staggering the physical placement of POVS within the book to hit at the right moments tonally and as the character’s condition kept deteriorating because he refused to talk about What Happened. His reason was that he’d done all of this and suffered so much to keep their legacies pure. If he gave it up now, he would have done all this for nothing.

And this was some heavy shit. There was murder, suicide, death by giant alien super robots fond of ripping people apart, assault, mercy killing, torture, gaslighting, and psychological horror. One of my magic systems let magicians regrow limbs alchemically, which meant they could endure a shit ton of pain and just get reset to do it all over again.

It was a lot.

But because it was just in flashbacks, I gave you just enough dark shit before cutting back to something marginally lighter, not just one long slog of misery. There was also the unknown of how quickly it would end. The book would end when you hit the last page, but you had no idea which flashback POV would be the last.

And also.

I got to flex my writing skills to the fullest, writing this character’s flashback POV in a completely different tone and style to make it that much more distinct from the rest of the present book.

ENNS’ sequel is very much under construction, but the one thing already polished is a flashback episode packed into one chapter for one of my characters. It’s perfectly knife-twisty and I can't wait for people to read it.

—

There’s dozens of framing devices out there. Most important thing, I think, is not sacrificing audience understanding for the sake of something ‘cool’. Doesn’t matter how amazing the story is if your audience gets completely lost and confused trying to keep up with what’s going on.

If you'd like to check out my book, Eternal Night of the Northern Sky is available now!

#writing #writeblr #writing a book #writing advice #writing resources #writing tools #literary devices #flashback #narrative structure

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choccy-milky · 2 months

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finally drew clora and seb's kids!!🙌🙌

Celeste Sallow: OK THIS IS THE NAME IM SUPER PROUD OF BAHAHA because not only does the name celeste relate to the stars (in typical ravenclaw fashion...clora picked the name) but celeste sallow is also an alliteration. BUT, its an alliteration that begins with a C, which means clora gets to match with celeste in the form of both of their names starting with a C, whereas sebastian gets to match with celeste because both of their names are an alliteration/they're alliteration allies🥹ITS THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS!🥳

Lewis Sallow: as for lewis, if you've read my fic then you know that seb has a vendetta against names that start with an L bahaha, but 'lewis' was actually HIS idea. when celeste was born, seb wanted to find a muggle story to read to her, since clora's favourite story is ALSO a muggle one (sherlock), and he wanted to stick with tradition. so he ended up finding alice in wonderland, which he loved because of how adventurous and clever alice was and of how much she reminded him of clora and celeste (both personality and looks wise). it became his favourite for those reasons, to the point that when they had lewis, sebastian overcame his L-name hatred by naming their son after lewis carroll.

Houses: celeste could have been sorted into either gryffindor or slytherin, but ultimately ends up in slytherin because she wants to be like seb. kinda like how clora also probably could have been in gryffindor, tbh. as for lewis.....him being 10000% in ravenclaw doesnt need any explanation BAHA, just look at him.

Appearance: since clora has a tiny bit of veela blood in her, thats obvs passed down to their kids, too, and so they mostly take after her as a result of it. but there's still little bits of seb that shine through in each of the kids: for lewis its his brown curly hair, and for celeste its her complexion/freckles. and the fact that celeste looks so similar to clora only doubles up sebastian's stress/protective instincts when he watches her BAHAH. he's ofc still proud that she takes after him so closely, but seb also cant deny that he wishes it had been their SON that had taken after him instead, to keep her out of danger.

Celeste & Lewis: for celeste and lewis’ relationship, celeste is a super proud big sister, and treats lewis kinda like how seb treats clora. if there's anything that needs to be done, she offers to do it for him. and although she doesn’t have the patience to read stories herself, she loves playing outside and having lewis read to her in the background, and loves to act out/use his stories to fuel her imagination. and lewis makes sure to pick stories that he KNOWS she’ll like (which mostly involve heroic and daring feats of adventurers or pirates. he's tried to read more classic fairytales and romances to her a few times, but celeste always gets bored). she loves to draw though, so sometimes when lewis reads books that have no pictures, she'll draw them herself.

Celeste & Seb/Clora: celeste is a daddy's girl LOL and always tries to impress seb with the stuff she does, especially after hearing how HE was at her age, and so its half to impress and half because shes competitive that she wants to do the same/be just as good. and seb always gets a kick out of hearing her feats in the crossed wands club, or in defense against the dark arts class, and he also goads her on, telling her she'll have to do better than that if she wants to be as good as HE was. and whenever celeste gets detention, clora always stresses and asks why, whereas seb just tries to keep the smirk off his face. as for celeste and clora, clora also reads to celeste, and bakes and cooks with her, which is something celeste actually likes doing. not only because it keeps her busy and she likes to help and get messy in general, but also because she likes the fact that it results in good food afterwards LOL, and constantly asks when things can be taken out of the oven. also, for as tomboy-y as celeste is, she honestly doesn't mind/likes the clothing that clora puts her in and likes when clora dresses her up, bc it makes her look like one of the princesses from the storybooks, and it just amuses her more than anything else. once she enters hogwarts, though, its mostly trousers. but she still DOES like the occasional girly clothing.

Lewis & Seb/Clora: lewis is a momma's boy LOL and unlike celeste, doesnt care about duelling or of proving himself or anything like that, and is only concerned with stories and his future studies. so ofc clora had to show him sherlock, which he naturally loved. it even inspired lewis to want to write his own stories, so that he could challenge his own skill and see if he could, but also because he wants his mom to read them, and likes the idea of writing his own sherlock-esque story with equations and mysteries to be solved that he can offer her. lewis also wants to write a book for celeste as well, bc although he wont admit it, he basically wants to write a story tailor-made for her and her interests. one that he thinks will have everything she’d love in it. and part of it is genuinely because he WANTS to do it for her, but the other part of it is also for his ego, and to see if he CAN write a compelling story, and write something that would actually get THE hyperactive celeste to sit down and read it in its entirety (not to mention of her own volition). as for with seb, lewis looks up to him more than anyone else, due to how well-rounded he is and how hes so good at practical stuff AND studying, and he kinda sees seb as a main character/protagonist from one of his books, and uses sebastian as inspiration for his own stories. if hes stuck on what he thinks the dashing main character should do next, he'll ask his dad what HE would do, which results in seb getting very weird questions that he nonetheless is always happy to answer. also, when lewis is older and finally learns the full story of what happened with clora and seb and ranrok and rookwood, he writes their story in novel form, except he just changes their names/some of the details, and it becomes a best seller LOL. and i didnt know where to put this, but the four of them all read a story before bed every night, with lewis in the middle and seb and clora on either side of him. though celeste stands at the foot of the bed, basically doing a charade/mime show of what theyre reading, and putting on a little play to go along with it BAHHA.

OK thats all i can think of for now ive yapped enough😩 if youve read all of this ur a real one.... ive also considered giving them a 3rd (and last) child, which would be a boy that looks exactly like seb, and seb would just be praying like please.....let this son take after me🧎‍♂️🙏 BAHHA