#all your faves will be alive and happy and living their best lives

[screeching-bunny]

Helloooo my fave yandere!character writer! I hope your having a wonderful day! Can i request yandere!jock with male!reader and he finds the reader crying bc someone was bullying them or said smth mean or smth like that? Ik he would be pissed but i was thinking something along the lines of this:

*Reader explains what happens*

*Yandere!Jock absolutely pissed and turns to go beat the shit out of them*

Then the reader would grab is arm to stop him and say smthing like: “wait!…please…..please just….stay with me….please?” Like EEEEEEE I LOVE YANDERE!JOCK SMMMM AND IMA PASS OUT IF YOU DO THIS! OKAY THANKS BYE

(Also plz ignore if your requests are closed rn)

Yandere! Jock x Male Reader

Asks 2

Warnings: Obsessive Behavior, Yandere Thoughts, Bad Writing, Stalking, Reader is specifically going to be Male in this post!!!

Asks 1

Yandere! Jock liked looking at you whether it be intention or not his eyes were almost always on you. He loved looking at every expression you made throughout your day to day life and practically memorized every fine detail on your face. So it was no surprise that he was instantly alerted when he saw a hint of sadness appear on your face when you came in for your afternoon class. Like a little leach he started attaching himself towards you with a concerned look on his face to find out what had happened to his little darling but alas his attempts reamied futile as you refused to give him an answer that he accepted.

“I’m just tired and just didn’t get that much sleep last night.”

Tired his ass. Yandere! Jock knew for a fact that you fell asleep early last night while watching an animal documentary. How does he know this? Well, he was stalking I mean watching over you last night. Anyways the sentence “The giant horse cock weighs over eight pounds” was still fresh in his mind but that's not the point! The point is something or someone made you upset! This is honestly so absolutely unacceptable!! When class finishes he ends up cornering you to try and figure out what has happened to you. Soon you start to give in and tell him the exact reason as to why with tears bawling out of your eyes.

When he finds out the reason he is beyond pissed. A bunch of npc bullies had the audacity to go and bully you! There is nothing he wants to do then skin those losers alive for making you cry like this. How fucking dare they. Yandere! Jock immediately decides that at that moment, he would go on a manhunt. He genuinely believes that it’d be a good riddance, no way in hell is someone going to miss them. As he tries to get up, he is immediately stopped by you as you grab ahold of his arm.

“Please stay, I don’t want to be alone right now.”

Holy shit! That sentence damn near put him in a coma. He just can’t believe how adorable you are. With that, he decides right away to bring you to his home in order to comfort you. The rest of the day is spent with just the two of you guys together while watching Netflix and ordering out to eat. All of his plans that he had before were canceled in favor of being by your side. He does his best to make you happy and laugh as much as possible. That smiling face of yours suits you better than a teary eyed expression. Although he can’t do it now, he vows to absolutely destroy the lives of your bullies. The mental and physical wellbeing of yourself matter more than anything in the world to him. Anything that causes harm to you he quickly deals with even if it means people. All that he wants is that you’ll be safe in his arms and by his side whenever he wakes up.

He makes it a point to prove the words of you tormentors were false and does his best to undo their claims. He’d be so appalled by the whole situation and just can’t wrap around his head at how someone could be mean to you. Like just look at you! You’re literally perfect what the hell were they smoking when they decided to verbally assault you. Yandere! Jock would be so overbearing and clingy towards you. Wherever you went he was close behind you. You’re going grocery shopping? Cool he’s right by your side. You gotta go to class? He’s right by you. Even if he doesn’t have the class he’s still coming. Showering? Move over and make room, he wants to shower as well. Is totally the type to throw a fit when you say no which causes you to relent and let him follow you.

In a few weeks after this incident there were missing people reports all over town of local college students. The same ones who coincidentally were vicious towards you. Everytime Yandere! Jock walks past these posters, he has a hidden smug look on his face. Justifies it by saying that he’s doing it in the name of love and that those people were the spawns of Satan. Besides, they're not even dead yet. They’re just trapped in a cabin in some random woods that only he has access to. Content with himself he spends his days by your side and pledging to himself that he’d never let anyone bother you ever again.

[teddie-bear420]

Flash warning!

What’s worse? Your greatest shame coming back to life, or your greatest shame coming back to life and being happier than you?

Tldr: I rant about the most homophobic lesbian

Remember I made all this up! And I love reading all the replies yall leave!

So there are a lot of songs that make me think of vaggie and lute, the angst of killing your crush and being attacked by your best friend is just so juicy, plus friends to enemies to lovers is one of my fave tropes ever!!

I’ll always wonder about what vaggie and lutes life was like before the betrayal? So in the perfect world exterminators are heaven born critters, grown from bug eggs, they are raised to protect heaven from the outside in, basically they were born and raised to be nationalist soldiers.

Military indoctrination with bugs

Oh! And a design element with the halos is that every angel type is different, like the exterminator halo has a 4point star! The cardinal directions! And they can magical girl transform, that’s why I draw lute with a star pin/necklace.

But back to toxic yuri

Lute has this contradictory mind set, she is the most holy thing and can’t be capable of sin while also being the most wicked thing in all creation, capable of great acts of violence.

She loves the violence but she hates the shame and guilt that comes with that, so she takes it out on other things/people. Then she starts to hurt her friend, who she has a crush on btw. Very bad for her holy ego, she loves vaggie, but she also hates the way that vaggie makes her feel. Vaggie alway had the softest wings, and the brightest eyes, lute loved to smell vaggie, lavender, she recalls.

Lavender makes her feel safe and angry at the same time, it makes her face hot and tummy sick.

She had to get rid of vaggie to make all these difficult go away. It did at first, she had Adam, Emily and others to distract her. Lute became the second in command and personal chaperon to Emily! She was living the dream! She believes that it was for the best that she killed her crush, vaggie had to be put down for her sinful, tempting ways!

But the guilt and shame finally come to a head when she sees vaggie again in heaven

And not only alive… but alive and happy with some demon!

[lollipopliccer]

𝔘𝔫𝔡𝔢𝔯 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔠𝔥𝔯𝔦𝔰𝔱m𝔞𝔰 𝔱𝔯𝔢𝔢 ❦

❦ warning lollipop chaos ahead proceed with caution...❦ soft dom nanami , set in a cabin , sex on the floor , praise , daddy kink , pet name usage , whiny reader , impact play . no matter your height or weight , nanami is taller and can bench you like a feather , idgaf .

word count ; 2.9k

black fem reader (still all can read)

lollipopliccer’s love note ❦ ... hiiii this is the first fic i'm writing, AAAAEEEE i'm so excited, & ofc my first fic is gonna be with nanami... this is me coping the best i can, cus when i tell you... its on site with gege akutami, ooooo. (ಡ᎔ಡ) anywayyy this fic is for me to live in my delusions, because in my mind nanami is alive & thriving and gege can suck it blehhhh. also my use of lowcase letters in some instances, (like when i type 'i', or when i make reference to nanami's nickname (kennie)) this is purposeful. in addition this is gonna b prt 1 cus this was long as hell (i wanted my debut to be perfect eeeee) okay byee and enjoyyy ❦

"No Kento the tree is all wrong, i want the tassels to sit that way and the bloody balls are wonky... no nanamiii, you can’t put all the pink balls next to each other" you whine at your man.

Nanami looks pointedly at you, so you check that tone, which he has reprimanded you on, more times than you can count, but you just love how nice it is to boss him around. Such a patient and caring man, he knew how tired his precious girl was from a full day of shopping for all the Christmas decorations (that naturally he paid for), and organising the Christmas celebration for the next week. so of course he made you sit down on the couch while he made you both hot cocoa and brought your fave choco chip cookies, and peppermint candy-cane treats. Even though you repeatedly protested, wanting everything to be perfect, he wasn't going to hear a word:

"Honey, you're going to sit on the couch. i will bring us both hot coca, then you're going to tell me exactly how you want this cabin decorated."

"-But"

"Do you understand y/n?"

"Hmph yes Nanami"

"Thank you my sweet girl"

"Oh go away" you beam smiling.

You were stubborn by nature, but Nanami always knew how to take care of you and how to get you to relax for him, pliant to his demands. It was easy to let Nanami take control of the decorations while you sat so pretty for him and demanded, and whined, about the hanging of the stockings being too crooked, or how the phat tree that reached the ceiling of the living room, wasn't giving the right vibes in his elegant holiday cabin, that he asked you to celebrate Christmas with him in. Nanami was perfectly content to fix it all to your desires.

"Baby i think you've rested enough, would you like to help me decorate the tree?"

"AAAAA YES!" you squeal, as you jump up to go and help decorate the tree with your lover. But you can't help but notice how the tree seems to tower over you, as it seems that Nanami’s sheer height has created the illusion of it being normal-sized. You almost swoon.

"EEEEE that's perfect Kento, okay you have to make sure the pink star is placed at the very centre, or else i will legitimately die"

"Tch" Nanami rolls his eyes, but you still catch his smile peeking through, completely enamoured by you.

The cabin was breathtaking, even better than you could've imagined, with Nanami taking the time to ensure everything was as you wanted. Oh, how he made your heart swell.

"Do you like it, baby?" Kento asks you with genuine uncertainty as if you're not literally at a loss for words. He pulls you into a hug, holding you as you rest your head on his chest feeling completely content.

"kennie..." you whisper, "you make me so fucking happy." You can feel him bring your bodies so close together, your proximity to him makes you grow restless- nuzzling your head into his neck. You're welcomed with a wave of his cologne, filling the air with its sensual, rich woody scent. Oh, how he intoxicates you.

"i'm glad to hear that my love." he replies, while you take the time to appreciate him by kissing down his neck, trying your best to mark him just a little bit. Even though Nanami tried to avoid visible hickey marks around his neck, he can’t help but respond with a hiss, sucking in his breath in anticipation of you. He can't blame you, he would never blame his princess, not when you just get so desperate for him; Making it so hard for him to keep his composure.

"Baby, i should feed you first, hmm? You haven't eaten all day and i know you're exhausted from shopping."

You hold Nanami tighter, almost clambering up him like a tree, getting needier and needier for him as he carries you with ease, whilst kissing his neck earning a little moan from your man "mmmno kennie i want you to play with me, hold me please" as you brushed your chest against his.

Holding and caressing your face, how could he deny you, "Sweetheart..." he utters with both your faces so close to each other. The peppermint engulfs him, making his mind run frenzied with filthy, tempting thoughts of all that he could do to you.

"Please daddy," you whine as you run your pretty acrylic nails (that he paid for ofc) through his golden, luscious hair "i promise i'm okay, kennie i swear, i just need you". Even though Nanami is usually the first to say what you need, you know just as well what makes him weak for you.

Kento already losing his resolve, completely melts you into a kiss. It starts off slow, and sensual, but it is intense- oh how it turns you to goo, butterflies fluttering all around.

The kiss grows in intensity as you both grow needy, feeling him through your matching shorts. You try frustratingly to rut against his dick which makes you gasp and whine, but Kento's having none of that whining, biting your lip in retaliation. His princess is going to be good and patient for him, just as he likes.

"I've got you baby, hold on to me okay", he brings you both down onto the carpet, next to the fireplace, right under the Christmas tree. At this angle, you're able to feel him consume you, and how his hard cock rubs your swollen, aching clit over your shorts, you can practically feel his tip already leaking with precum. It's so hard to control yourself when you're with him, he takes such good care of you, and it simply makes you want him inside of you constantly.

"Pleasee" you whine as Nanami grinds against you and kisses you like he's starving, you can hardly breathe. Trying to keep up, you can't help but grab and pull his hair, his top, his pj bottoms, fucking anything-

You whine, trying to get him as close to you as possible, but it's never close enough,

"Patience princess", he begins kissing down your neck, and this makes you melt, surrendering to his control. "That's it baby, mmm i've got you, just gotta be patient for me. Daddy' s going to take care of you, promise." Nanami soothes, though his words do anything but calm you, you moan demanding more.

All control leaves you, feeling a sudden heat as you whine and pant, craving more. Nanami, usually so put together, is losing his composure to the point his throbbing dick aches just at the thought of his tip feeling your warm, sloppy pussy. But he never rushes, no he is thorough, and meticulous in all that he does for you, he will work you till you're fucking broken. A fucking mess.

"What did i just tell you, mmm baby?, i want you to be patient for me, my pretty girl thinks she can be good for me?” *bite*

"Ahhh, yes daddy" you moan, wincing from the mild pain of Nanami's bite on your neck, tethering him to you.

You know how good he rewards you when he has his way with you, how he makes you fucking drool all over him, oh you want it so bad.

"That's my girl, pull your shorts down." As he does the same with you, you watch his body and how he's decorated with your hickeys, his beautifully built body, towering over you. And as he takes down his matching pj bottoms you can see the print of his throbbing bulge, leaving a wet spot from where his impatient tip is begging to be wrapped in your tight, warm pussy.

He knows his demand makes you think he's going to fuck you stupid on his cock, that is always a struggle to take, but he knows what's best, he knows he's going to work you rigorously, till you go dumb for him, his pathetic little slut- he'll scoop you right up and feed you full...

Nanami will have you at his pace. Will work you at his pace. That's when he cradles your head into such a deep kiss, stroking your tongue with his, having your saliva mix together - so messy. So dirty. He watches as a string of spit appears between the two of you as you pull apart; he can't help but push his two fingers past your soft lips.

"Suck."

Without hesitation, you take his fingers into your mouth, coating them with your saliva. You just want to show him how you'll take anything for him, how perfect you are for him, how happy he makes you.

"That's it baby" he praises as you start moaning on his fingers like a starved slut, while he squeezes and lightly strokes your thighs with his other hand. You start moving your hips trying to get him to touch you where you need, oh where you need him so badly, it fucking aches, "daddy, it aches please, please touch me", you mumbled. You look up at him, to watch how his eyes are hung low, yet so intense, and his soft lips, glistening with your last kiss, have you hypnotised. Completely enchanted by you, he won’t make you wait much longer, he never wants to make his baby suffer.

Nanami brought his fingers out of your mouth, while he gripped your plump thighs and he couldn't help but take a bite. Licking and marking you so close to where you needed him. He knew you couldn't take it, he knew how he drove you fucking crazy. It was punishment, punishment for making him so easily swayed as his lady, his soon-to-be wife. The way you mewled and whined made his fingers itch to stuff your pretty little mouth again, his fixation on them was maddening. But he's made you wait long enough, he won't toy with you, not when he has to touch you, feel you, or he might burst.

"So fucking greedy" he chastises, whilst gently bringing his wet fingers down to spread your soaked lips apart so that his middle finger lightly brushes against your clit. You gasp at his touch, igniting your whole body, while Nanami watches intently, taking you in completely; "m'not" you whine,

he leans over you while his fingers take the wetness, only slightly dipping inside, to tease your needy little hole for him to toy with your throbbing clit.

"No baby?" Both of you face-to-face, he circles around your sensitive clit - you gasp and moan, for Nananmi to be right there ready to have you, holding his mouth so close to yours while you struggle just to take his fingers on that tender clit. You move your hands into his hair once again feeling so soft beneath your fingers, making him tingle while he feels your pretty nails tug.

"No kennie, i only wanna please you". Nanami responds to you by sliding his fingers into your soaked pussy, having your wetness give off a little squelch in his motions. This forced a whimper out of you, so soft, so fucking whiny "that's right baby, you're my sweet. girl. aren't you? So. good. for me. isn't that right?" Punctuating each beat of his words with the stroke of his perfectly fitted, long digits that always reach where you need them most, places where you could never get, places that get you so needy and impatient for more, that you begin clutching his shoulders, digging those pretty nails down his back, just how he needs.

"Nghhahh ken-, fuck daddy aah"

"Answer me." he reprimands, smacking your sore, marked-up thigh, once again making you remember how he's trained you, his perfect princess.

"m'sorry, daddy" you're panting - trying so hard to stay focused, trying not to lose it so quickly, so pathetically, just from a few pumps of his fingers in your sloppy pussy, his pretty pussy. "Yes daddy, i'm only good for you, only you kennie" you mewl.

Nanami, gives into you completely, enveloping you in a passionate kiss, bringing your tongues together, stroking against each other. He mirrors the curve and dips of his tongue with his fingers, bringing his thumb to your clit disciplining you like his perfect slut, while he plays with your little bundle of nerves, just how he wants. While he curves his fingers to find the spot, oh that spot that makes you lose your fucking mind, that you can no longer kiss him how you want, so hard for you to keep up. You've given in to him, so pliant for him to play with. You sob, gripping and clutching even harder onto his back, making him hiss and moan in pain. You can both feel his bulge grow impossibly hard, oozing precum on your plush thighs that begin to shake.

"Sshhh baby, i've got you, daddy's got you mmm,"

"nngh ahh kennie i can't, please... ohhh ffuck" you sob rolling your head back and arching your back so pretty for him

"i know baby, i know, but you're gonna take it for me, won't you?" Nanami brings his other hand to pull and hold you down so you're laid out for him, putting some pressure on your pelvis so you feel what he's doing with you more intensely.

Your pants, your moans, whines, Nanami soaks them all up, going straight to his throbbing cock, aching in pain. Wanting nothing more than to stuff you so fucking full, and coat you all over, with his cum, make his cum fucking leak out of you. So you're a drooling mess on his dick.

Alas, he is a patient man.

"Please, i can-nghh can't" you whimper, trying to hold his hand, to get him to slow down, even just a little, just to take it a little easy on your aching pussy.

"Move your hand." he says it so sternly it makes you almost fucking orgasm squeezing your knees together and mewling like a fucking slut. Nanami immediately slaps you (softly whilst still stern), the sting making your eyes prick with tears immediately making you regret your actions,

"Daddy m'sorry" you sob, all while he doesn't let up from fucking your sore little pussy with his fingers. Make you take them without complaint because that's how good girls behave. He separates and holds your thighs apart warning you,

"If you try that shit again honey, i will hurt you, do you understand?"

"Yes sir" you whimper, averting your eyes from him and biting your lip to still try and muffle your moans

"Look at me y/n... there's my sweet girl" as he removes his hand holding your thighs to stroke your face, bringing his thumb to your mouth-

“-Suck baby", and of course, his thumb is in your mouth without a second thought. you suck and moan on his thumb so pretty, while his other hand toys with you. Unrelenting, firm and yet still soft, Nanami holds and fucks you like the most delicate slut, his only slut.

"Daddy- fuckkkmngh ahh" Nanami can feel your pretty pussy clench around his fingers, gripping him in so perfectly so that he finds that little spongey spot, that only he gets. At this point, you're already a blubbering mess, but once he starts to stroke up on your g-spot- so deep. so firm. you feel as though you're going to fucking combust. You grip his arm so firm you almost try and wiggle away, Nanami has gotten you so sensitive it's almost hard to take

"i know baby, fuck, i know..." he softly whispers in your ear, as your eyes roll to the back of your head, your mouth falling agape whilst his thumb is still on your lips, causing some drool to pool down your cheek. You look so beautifully fucked. Nanami is holding on by a thread to not flip you over and genuinely fuck your brains out, he wants to make you come over and over, one after the other, but he will never rush, he is a thorough man.

"... you'll take it for me though, i know you can baby" he softly groans, whilst rutting his pulsing dick on your thighs slightly, his tip so pretty turning red whilst it gently hits the flush of your thighs, angry and throbbing.

"Oh my god aaa fu-kennie! daddy aa-" Your legs start twitching, white borders building as you start tearing up from pleasure. You quickly bring your arms around Kento holding on to him, begging him not to stop, he couldn't possibly do such a thing, he wants you fucking cum drunk.

"I've got you baby, let go, come for me mmm," he says after kissing your forehead so softly, while your hips buck and your body twitches, you're barely coherent, blubbering and begging to cum.

"There's my good girl, you're going to cum on my fingers" keeping his fingers firm and steady, curving into your tight little fucking pussy, while circling your puffy clit so perfectly. You clutch and keen onto Nanami, leaving marks all over him that sting so badly. You look so wildly desperate to simply fuck yourself till all your thoughts are on him alone. But it's when Nanami begins biting and marking you down your neck- exacerbating your pleasure, making you tingle all over as your nipples perk up. Your head falls back to expose yourself to him, moaning and whining to his surrender "Daddy-" you whine "I'm gon- gonna cum" as you finally cum undone, spiralling- you sob wantonly, cumming with a loud whimpering cry.

Having all your pleasure gush onto Nanami, as he fucks your mess back into you slowly which makes you hiss from overstimulation.

"Sshh baby, you made a mess all over daddy, can't have it all go to waste mmm? i have to fuck it all back inside, gotta take care of you mm" he whispers down into a kiss holding you in place while you whimper... so fucking sensitive…❦

[saintvainglorious]

10 Best Black Sails Fics I Read in 2023

In honor of Black Sails' 10th anniversary, here's a list of my top 10 favorite Black Sails fics I read in 2023, in order from shortest to longest. Most Black Sails fic rec posts I've seen are now around 2 or 3 years old (though not all, bless @jaynovz and your #jay's esoteric rec lists tag) so nearly half of the recs in this list spotlight newer fics. It's amazing to see fantastic fics still being written and updated years after the show ended - y'all are keeping this fandom alive!

I didn't read that much Black Sails fic this year, comparatively speaking, so I'm sure there's plenty of newer gems that I missed. All the fics in this rec list are Silverflint unless otherwise stated.

1 - Gone To Port Royal by Apetslife (G, 3k) - a delightful oneshot from Gates' POV where they all go to a pirate afterlife. every scene is perfect. endlessly re-readable and never fails to make me smile.

Definition of Valhalla 1: the great hall in Norse mythology where heroes slain in battle are received 2 : a place of honor, glory, or happiness: heaven

2 - i’ll be seeing you by youatemytailor/@annevbonny (NR, 19k) - this is THEE post-canon Silverflint reunion fic. the anguish, the rage, the quiet jokes, the tenderness, it's all devastatingly in-character. particularly the chapter 5 climactic unspooling leaves me in awe upon every reread.

Silver is out of his chair and across the room before he knows it. He has a grip on the barkeep’s shirt before he knows it, and he’s pulling him up, hauling him eye-level, only to head-butt him to the ground again. The barkeep’s mouth is thrown open in a wail, but there’s no sound, Silver thinks, no sound at all, save for the blood rushing in his ears as he looks at the other man on the ground, watches him roll to his side with a groan. Flint, Silver thinks, and nothing else. It beats around the knife in his gut like a drum. Flint. And then Flint is looking at him.

3 - The Dark Lord Proprietor by Amiril/@runawaymarbles (M, 19k, Silverflintham) - a fuckin hysterical supervillain AU. Thomas has amnesia, Flint is pining, Silver tries to get them back together. what could go wrong? could not stop cackling.

A year ago, James Flint was in a stable relationship and was within spitting distance of taking over London. Now he’s single, with a dubiously loyal henchman, a lairmate determined to learn his every weakness, and a Secret Past with the new supervillain on the scene. And thanks to a new government program, it’s all a race to the bottom.

4 - the cross dimensional nassau bar of getting izzy hands laid by FortinbrasFTW/@fortinbrasftw (E, 19k ~WIP~, Flint/OFMD Izzy Hands) - a Black Sails OFMD Flint/Izzy Hands crossover. the very best kind of smut-as-character study. funny, gripping, and endlessly re-readable.

The first thing Izzy realizes is he looks absolutely fucking furious — which yeah, alright, fair enough. He’s got shorter ginger hair. A beard like Izzy’s but kept neater. Earrings like Izzy’s but worn simpler. Bleeding like Izzy but, well, maybe a bit less. And he’s handsome. Izzy realizes it suddenly and slowly somehow all at once. Bit like a bloody painting even. The kind you saw up on walls in rich folk’s houses. Only, well, no painting had eyes like that, did it? You’d have to be mad to keep a painting with eyes like that in your home. They were bright and clear and looked — honest-to-fucking-Christ — ready to set the whole damned world on fire. Izzy's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad night takes an interesting turn thanks to a completely different sort of pirate captain.

5 - frail and fragile bars by Ajaxthegreat/@francisthegreat (E, 21k) - Silver realizes, post-shark date, that he's in love with Flint. an instant, iconic fave fic. SO many delicious scenes and quotes that live rent free in my head. just read it, you won't regret it.

“I think you fuck,” Silver says. By which he means, with great intent: I think you are human. I know you are human. I see you.

6 - the whole estate of mortal man by Amiril/@runawaymarbles (T, 43k) - Creature Silver AU where he'll grant wishes in exchange for souls. first read this fic in 2020 and cried. reread it this year and cried again. the nature of the AU intersects so cleverly with Black Sails' themes, and the end result is devastating.

Silver has a limited memory, an unlimited lifespan, and a need for human souls. He spends months trying to buy Flint’s.

7 - our feast is but beginning by x_etoile_x/@etoilesombre (E, 55k) - Flint teaches season 1 Silver how to cook. they're definitely not dating. no, really. this writer writes dialogue so in-character that it cuts like a knife. features sensual cooking, Flint being a queer mentor for Silver, fun genderfuckery, and Them Being Real Tender.

Flint should walk away. Silver can figure out how to feed the men, it isn’t his problem. But roasting a pig is so easy, and when was the last time he had a hand in creating something rather than destroying it? Anyway, what else is he doing, with Billy taking the crew in hand with such annoying competency? He absolutely does not think about why he is reluctant for this interaction with Silver to end. “Go get another pig,” he says before he can reconsider. “Do exactly as I say.”

8 - With Strange Aeons by Amiril/@runawaymarbles (M, 60k, Silverflint + Flinthamilton + Jackanne) - Came for the Silverflint, stayed for the Silverflint but also for holy fuck Jack and Anne are sent to Savannah and break out of there with Thomas to battle literal Cthulhu. How can you NOT read this. I don't typically read Flinthamilton, but by god Thomas is amazing in this.

After the disappearance and presumed death of Captain Flint and Long John Silver, Max smuggles Jack and Anne to Oglethorpe’s plantation. Thomas learns that not only do the three of them have a friend in common, but he is not the only one whose dreams are haunted by a strange city and a terrifying name. Meanwhile, Flint and Silver try to escape an island trapped in time, impossibly built and impossibly old. Along the way they’re forced question reality, each other, and themselves. And in his house in R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.

9 - The Salt and the Sea by x_etoile_x/@etoilesombre (E, 60k) - a between season 2 and 3 recovery fic. i still remembered months after reading that chapter 4 in particular left me undone. a harrowing journey into the ruins of post-leg loss Silver's mind, plus exquisite hurt/comfort.

John Silver was always able to make the best of a situation. If this particular situation had started to feel complicated, well, a vast fortune ought to prove clarifying. Whatever he might have imagined he’d seen in Flint, the reality was they had used each other. And he had been set to walk away on top. Except now he couldn’t. Now he was trapped.

10 - the straight walk home by vowelinthug/@vowel-in-thug (E, 73k, Silverflint + Jackanne + Maxanne + Billy/Vane) - A western AU and one of the best long fics in the fandom. Excellent comedy, amazing AU twists on our favorite characters, found family vibes, nail-biting action, and a fucking fantastic climax. Also, I can't believe this fic got me invested in Billy/Vane.

Let me tell you a story, about a vaquero named Vasquez...

[lizzybeth1986]

Hana and Madeleine: When You Reward Your Favourite Bully with One of Her Victims

Series - TRR's Alternative LIs: The "Romances" That Didn't Happen

Previous - Maxwell and Penelope: When You Like the Side Character So Much, You Gift Her A Shiny New LI

A/N1: Apologies, again, for the length of this. There was so much damn retconning to wade through that it felt like a rollercoaster to write. There is also not going to be a lot of Hana in this, as I needed to unravel so many inconsistencies in Madeleine's writing. I also didn't want this to become a repeat of my essay series on Hana (which you can read here).

CW: Descriptions of bullying and intimidation, as well as dismissiveness of the same both in canon and from fandom. A mention of the 'infertility' plotline written for Hana in TRH1. Mentions of parental abuse and neglect.

In every other essay in this series, it's been important for me to analyse the potential of the pairings TRR went for. No matter how badly PB handled them later on, one could find promise in the possibilities of these pairings, and if written well they could result in a sweet, happy ending for the LIs we didn't marry. With a better sense of balance from the writers and less vitriol and double standards (in some cases) from the fandom, they could have worked.

Not so for this pairing.

In the case of Hana and Madeleine,it would have been far far better if this pairing had never happened at all. The problem wasn't just in the development; the roots of such a pairing itself were rotten.

(White) Female Antagonists

Before I delve into the characters involved in this pairing, it's important we take another deep dive into a narrative practice we often see with PB. Their blatant favouring of specifically white female antagonists.

Now, it's not as if white men in antagonistic roles don't get favourable writing from their teams and adulation from sections of the fandom (one has to only look at some of the posts Gaius Augustine of BB, Caleb of Hero, and Kane of TE got - just to name a few). But we also often see fans of such white women decry the (very little compared to their black counterparts) condemnation that their faves get for their actions in comparison to both antagonistic and romanceable white men. Such readers often neglect to acknowledge exactly how much the narrative bends over backwards to accomodate them, in a way that they never have done for even mildly hostile/wary black and brown women. And often this is with ample support and encouragement within the fandom itself.

One cannot even pretend this is a recent development. The early books had their fair share of white-woman-adulation and you can see some of the patterns that would solidify in PB discourse already take shape in their early books.

One excellent example of this is TCaTF. Compare the treatment that white women like Helene Leventis, Hex and Zenobia Nevrakis are given, to what Rowan Thorn - a black woman - gets. Helene is allowed to escape never to return, or join Kenna, despite being the woman who killed her mentor and close friend Gabriel. Hex is well known in the series for her sadistic torture devices and for destroying an extremely prosperous kingdom. Yet, she is captured - alive - and there are two options that allow her a bit more mercy, and only one that recommends the harshest of punishments. Rowan in the meantime only betrays Kenna if the latter is an absolute tyrant to her, and letting her go if she betrays her is touted as a failure. Her loyalty doesn't ensure she will live like Diavolos' does - you can in fact leave her to die if you don't have enough diamonds/prestige points.

The Freshman was an improvement on this: even if Becca Davenport started out as a classic college mean girl, her redemption arc involved her needing to work to regain trust with the group and her best friend Madison, regardless of the MC's fondness of her. Her housemates immediately set her straight when she lashes out at them at the beginning of TS, and Becca has to plan for almost a-book-and-a-half to get her friendship with Madison back to normal again.

Sadly, this is something that rarely ever happened again. Discrepancies in character treatment became more and more obvious as the years passed. Books where black and brown women behaved even mildly unimpressed or catty with the MC, showed them either suffering grievous fates or written out of the narrative (eg. Scarlett not even getting a proper future in the VoS bonus scene) or being mistrusted and misunderstood constantly by the MC and their friends (Aurora). Books where white women could cause grievous harm depicted them being let off without so much as a slap on the wrist (eg. Aunt Mallory of RoE being rewarded with a happy life, a man and reconciliation with the niece she tried to kill and the daughter she emotionally abused).

(Screenshots from SavageLordBarlow's YouTube channel)

Perhaps the worst and most obvious case to date was that of Vanessa Blackwood of MoTY, who called a young child "guttersnipe" within minutes of encountering her, outed a lesbian teacher, encouraged her son's bullying, provided legal counsel to the MC's ex husband just to see the woman suffer, and engineered a plot to frame the MC for theft so she could lose her job. Once Vanessa had crossed her limits, PB ensured they laid on the sympathy narrative thick, having her show sad faces when the MC scolded her in a paywall scene, punishing only her brown lackey (both the white people involved - Vanessa and Guy - are never named when Tallulah is exposed, even though she literally stole jewellery and framed the MC for them). In the series finale, Vanessa was rewarded with a cushy diamond scene where the MC can choose (in what is the understatement of the century) to call her "classist and a little bit racist" - all she is given at the end of the book is an extremely softball form of criticism.

Compare this to Xanthe of ACOR, who had far less power, who was repeatedly slut shamed by the MC and others for doing her job, and whose end was met in a "comical" scene that implied she'd been sold into sexual slavery while two black members of her scholae gloated over her plight (in a manner so uncharacteristic of them that even players who didn't necessarily like Xanthe were shocked. I would highly recommend you read @cassiopeiacorvus' excellent essay on her, "Xanthe: Courtesan, Rival, Pawn").

In an essay I'd written years ago, I'd noted the following:

"Check out who the narrative rewards you for treating well, as opposed to who will be made to support you either way.

You're allowed to show basic decency to a black or brown woman. But you're expected to show kindness, understanding and empathy to a white woman, and richly rewarded if you do. In some cases you will also face consequences if you don't. (Fandom - take note of the difference, and be sure not to forget it)."

Madeleine Amaranath is probably one of the best examples of this - with blatant retcons, unfounded adulation and obvious pandering lasting over five books.

Rules of Engagement

When we look at the full cast of TRR, we find at least six characters who are callbacks to its sister series, Rules of Engagement. Leo, Constantine, Regina, Bastien, Madeleine and Rashad (the last one was an addition from TRR2 onwards). Part of TRR's appeal as a series was its ability to reference the earlier one through these characters, but this time from the PoV of Leo's younger brother instead.

Madeleine appeared in only 2 chapters in RoE. She was Leo's fiancée, in an arranged match that not only their parents but their citizens expected, unfazed by the "commoners" Leo brought to his bed and secure in the knowledge that no matter who he slept with she would eventually become his Queen. Leo dashes these expectations, however, by abdicating his claim to the throne - whether the RoE MC chooses him or not.

At this point - when TRR was barely even a concept - Leo was a clear fan favourite. Players liked the idea of romancing a rogue prince from a fictional European country; it meant they could revel in the luxury of touching royalty, while being away from all the hard, unsavoury parts. The Madeleine angle provided them with a rival to fight off, and at the time that was all that mattered.

Was Leo's behaviour in RoE, towards both the RoE MC and Madeleine, dishonest? Definitely, but not many seemed to care much at the time and it hardly created a dent in his fanbase (most of the criticisms against him and his cheating ways and irresponsibility would emerge later - when the Leo stans became Drake stans, and it was more convenient to badmouth Liam's family).

Jeffrey Herdman, a Junior Game Writer with Pixelberry for over 7 years, was a part of both the RoE and TRR teams, and proudly admitted in the TRR2 pre-release interview, to being the one in charge of writing Madeleine:

Q: Very funny. (Just so we're clear, Jeffrey is joking. Sort of.) Out of curiosity, who's your favorite character to write in The Royal Romance?

Jeffrey: Madeleine. It's fun to write someone who's constantly trying to spin a situation to their benefit, and making power plays along the way. I've actually been writing for Madeleine since her appearance in Rules of Engagement: Book 2, so we're practically besties.

Excerpt from The Royal Romance: Book 2 Interview

(If we were to compare this adulation of the character from Jeffrey, to the person who wrote Hana - head writer Jennifer Young, you'd find a surprising difference. In this very interview Jennifer talks about enjoying the process of writing Hana, but pointed to Drake as her favourite LI - "In my personal game, my love interest is definitely Drake, and I totally make Kara write him just so I can read his scenes and enjoy the romance. =)".

Perhaps if Jennifer had spent less time fawning over Drake, and more time doing Hana's story justice, that LI wouldn't be stuck in a situation where the team constantly erased her experiences and history to benefit their favourites)

When you look at Jeffrey's open admiration of Madeleine, and trace her fairly choppy and largely incoherent narrative journey through the books...a lot of things begin to make sense.

TRR1 - Would a TRR1 Madeleine Have Been A Better Fit for Hana?

When you look at the first book, you can tell that the possibility of any of the other alternative pairings besides Liam and Olivia wasn't really entertained. There is no buildup at all for Maxwell x Penelope, Drake x Kiara - and not even a single direct interaction between fellow competitors Hana and Madeleine. In fact, TRR2 often had to cover up for the lack of interaction in certain cases by making the alternative LI come up with justifications for why they weren't approaching the LI before.

There is maybe one implied interaction between Hana and Madeleine, that I don't think even the writers paid much attention to at the time. In the pie baking scene in Applewood, Hana is assigned to Madeleine's team if the MC doesn't take her along. Whichever group Hana is in, she is in charge of the pie design.

In the diamond scene, she takes the MC's suggestions and gives her advice on the amount of apples required for the filling. Given that she gives credit to the MC (in front of Queen Regina) in this option, and doesn't not do the same for Madeleine, it is likely that she was allowed to decorate for the other team, but not with much input from the captain.

This pie has a rose design, which is beautiful but lacks the intricacy and the challenge of the Cordonian Royal Seal, which the MC can suggest in the diamond scene. It's possible that by default, Madeleine handled the baking herself (since Penelope couldn't even boil water and in fact is so distracted she unwittingly helps sabotage the pie), and Hana was assigned strictly decoration duties. But even these possibilities rely on conjecture and guesswork, with no real dialogue or interaction shown.

There are no other scenes where the two women talk or do anything together. Hana may be present in one or two scenes where Madeleine is speaking (such as the dining scene in Ch 17 where Madeleine tells the court ladies about the upcoming Engagement Tour), but the two never directly engage with each other. It's more likely that (like Maxwell and Penelope, or Drake and Kiara), the writers may have thought of Hana and Madeleine only in the second or third book - more likely the third, but there are possible hints in TRR2 if you squint.

Hana is an interesting anomaly among the cast of TRR. She is both Cordonian and foreigner; the ways of the Cordonian court are, in equal parts, both familiar and confusing to her. This serves as an double-edged advantage to the MC - Hana is both skilled and knowledgeable enough to ease her into the culture, and isolated and vulnerable enough for the MC to step up as a hero on occasion. We also find out in Lythikos (TRR1 Ch 7) that she was so deep in the closet that she couldn't fully articulate her struggle to love the romantic English noble who wanted to marry her, in the presence of the woman she was slowly beginning to love. Within the competition itself, Hana is shown having a hard time finding people who will associate with her, often shown left out of events and her yacht party abandoned during the Regatta. The broken engagement could have a hand in making her appear to be struggling in the competition, but tbh Olivia is the only one who brings it up. Overall, she does well in the competition, but gets little credit for the same.

Madeleine is the polar opposite of this. Even though the ladies of the court initially view her with a mixture of pity and respect (due to her broken engagement with Leo, and her position as a Countess and winner of the previous season), their views on Madeleine once she enters the competition range from anger (Olivia), to speculation (Kiara and Penelope), to indifference and later suspicion (the MC).

Madeleine comes into the social season with several advantages: her pedigree and her years of experience at court. Both Bertrand and the MC note that Madeleine hails from a "powerful family" and "is immersed in the intrigues and maneuverings of courtly life", and therefore the MC is cautioned by Applewood to pay more attention to her than to Olivia. If the MC fails to win court favour, both Penelope and Kiara show allegiance to Madeleine. Where Hana is shown to be vulnerable despite her skills, charm and intelligence, Madeleine is meant to be viewed with respect even by her peers - and expected not to return that respect to others unless they're the king and queen.

I often view the Madeleine of Book 1 (and early TRR2), and the Madeleine of the latter half of Book 2, as two separate people (more on that in the next section). Early Madeleine was depicted as a clear threat. While she does nothing too out-of-pocket during the competition, her threats to the MC once she is (optionally) the favourite frontrunner, her singular focus on only the king and queen (and largely ignoring the Prince), and inability to respectfully lose, ensure that the reader registers her as a figure of danger early on. The first time she (optionally) faces an obvious loss and sees the MC crowned as Apple Queen, Madeleine tells her to "savour these moments. You may never hear the phrase again".

Her very extreme attempts to belatedly win Liam's favour after ignoring him the entire season (we later find out that she barged into his sleeping quarters the previous night and suggested the arrangement that Liam speaks about in TRR2), earns her speculative looks from the MC and wariness from Liam himself. Given that the outcome was so different in TRR2 but the buildup to said outcome was so rushed and chaotic, there is a 70/30 chance that Madeleine's buildup in Book 1 was meant to highlight her as someone with the capability to harm the MC, rather than just as a red herring. At the very most, Book 1 would highlight her as powerful, with the intention that Book 2 would follow through with showing her as a cog in a very vicious machine.

But because Madeleine's actions in TRR1 don't result in any direct harm, it's honestly hard to envision her as dangerous beyond the subtle threats (that people could brush off as basic rivalry) and rank classism.

Would Hana's pairing with the Madeleine of TRR1 have worked? It's equally hard to say. If we take only Book 1 into account, and ignore the very real possibility of a threat that Madeleine represents, there's a sliver of a chance that such a pairing could work...if Madeleine works on herself. At this point she hasn't manifested as a direct threat to Hana in a way that, say, Olivia has - and all the MC has at this point are theories and speculation. You'd have to probably change half of Madeleine's characterization, but it could be workable if the foundation for such a pairing was mutual respect from the start.

Still, when you take into consideration that Madeleine being involved in the plot against the MC was a very legitimate possibility, it's hard to see any opening for this pairing. Even Penelope - whose coddling from the narrative knew no limits - was no longer entertained as a potential alternative romance for an LI the moment her role in the plot was uncovered. If any harm was done to the MC, and Madeleine was found to be behind it, there is no way Hana would even be allowed to entertain the thought of her as an alternative LI at all.

You see - hurting Hana is no big deal. But hurting the MC and still getting an LI to show interest in you? Now that would be beyond the pale!

Madeleine: A Red Herring...Or A Villain Retconned?

As I have mentioned earlier, there is one writer - who has seniority in the company because of his many years there, who has always been in charge of Madeleine's writing, and who has always loved writing her. On close inspection one can say for certain that Jeffrey Herdman had a fair bit of sway in the team itself, especially from the fact that one of his weirdest writing suggestions - the MC's supposed obsession with hats - was retained in the books as a gag for a very, very long time (TRF finale livestream interview). When you take both Jeffrey's sway in the team, and the writing of Madeleine in TRR2 and 3 (and beyond), one can make several educated guesses about what Madeleine was built up to be, and how that changed midway.

Plenty of fan posts written in the gap between TRR1's finale and TRR2's release, took for granted that Madeleine would have some role to play in the plot against the MC. While one may assume this was due to "jealousy" from players or "hate for a bitchy character", there were enough signs in TRR1 and 2 that this was the route the narrative was initially planning to take with her.

The MC does voice suspicions of Madeleine in the first book - mostly after Madeleine herself voices threats to the MC during the Apple Queen ceremony. Madeleine also looks apprehensive at the (optional) public support Liam shows towards the MC at the Beaumont estate, and even shows him a suspiciously huge amount of attention at the Coronation. The MC even confronts Madeleine during the Coronation festivities when she gets a note threatening her to withdraw from the competition, believing it was sent by the latter. But beyond this, Madeleine's own words in TRR1 often sound ominous and laced with subtle threats. Still - going by just TRR1's evidence, Madeleine could still work as a good red herring, since she's not exactly crossed a clear line with anyone yet.

TRR2 seems to go in one direction when it comes to Madeleine's arc, then makes a sharp pivot in the opposite direction post Chs 7 and 8. The first half of the book has both the MC and Liam regard her with doubt and suspicion, especially when the MC learns that Madeleine had come to Liam's rooms the night before the Coronation, and insisted he continue the relationship with the MC on the sly while making her the queen. The book presents several contrasts between Madeleine and the MC, presenting their possible ruling styles and envisioning how each woman would fare as a future queen.

In a diamond scene in TRR2 Ch 4, Liam asks the MC how she would handle a plate of curry chicken falling on someone - an incident that has already occurred in some playthroughs to Madeleine (who got recognizably frustrated and called the whole episode "a disaster"). In contrast, the MC can claim she would either defuse the situation with humour or help clear the mess - both of which establish that unlike Madeleine the MC knows how to adapt to different situations, and prefers to find a solution rather than take her frustrations out on everyone else. Liam points out the differences between the two women as the MC "having perspective... every gaffe isn't a disaster".

Multiple scenes in the story focus on Madeleine's rigidity, her inability to adapt, her hunger for power, her belief that becoming queen gives her a free pass to be a tyrant, her hubris that allows her to outright harm some of her ladies in waiting and believe she will never face consequences, and her overall lack of real impact during her own engagement tour (only if the MC fails miserably does the Italian statesman Francesco even mention Madeleine). A lot of this buildup indicates that she won't be as effective a queen as other characters claim she will be.

Her overall behaviour in the first half of TRR2 seems to highlight overconfidence, and a willingness to overstep every possible boundary in the belief that nothing will now prevent her from getting what she wants ("the best part about being Queen is that I don't have to explain myself to anyone. Including you."). Even though she isn't queen yet, both Madeleine and everyone around her behave as if she has already been crowned! That kind of overconfidence - especially from someone who should know better than anyone that winning the competition doesn't necessarily mean she'll be crowned - makes more sense when she is aware that there are powerful people (like the former king and her aunt, the former queen) to back her.

There is also the fact that Penelope's involvement in the plot never got any proper buildup. There is just one scene, in TRR2 Ch 6, where she speaks about feeling uncomfortable at parties and balls, and how much she hates crowds. The reveal of her being the culprit is in Ch 7; the reveal of her social anxiety is in Ch 8. Before this, you have zero indicators of her being involved in this level of deception - even though her history of "social anxiety" should have ideally made that kind of subterfuge difficult, and she should have been able to leave a few tells, signalling her guilt. It is very clear on rereads that Penelope's involvement in the plot was a last-minute narrative decision.

But perhaps the strongest evidence that TRR2 was originally meant to establish Madeleine as part of the plot against the MC, is a line from the very first scene of the book. When a confused MC asks Bertrand how it's possible for Liam to break his engagement, Bertrand mentions a constitutional provision:

"The king is able to change his selection in specific cases for the good of the nation". The MC being proven as framed and unfairly disgraced achieves very little in this context, because the focus is clearly on the king's final choice. This means that the engagement cannot be voided on the basis of the MC being innocent, but on the basis of Madeleine being unfit for the role.

What happens to this "constitutional clause" once Penelope is declared the culprit among the court ladies rather than Madeleine? It disappears completely. If she was really meant to be a red herring from the start, the team would never have added this line in the first place. Nor would they have left the "buildup" for Penelope's anxiety till Ch 6, just one chapter before her reveal. If Madeleine was really meant to be a mere red herring from the start, there would have been more than just one crumb presented for that trail.

It is highly possible that the team had plans for Madeleine to be involved in the plot, or in something shady enough to justify breaking the engagement. It is just as highly possible that Jeffrey, the writer in charge of her character, allowed his favouritism for that character to dictate his writing of her, and convinced the team to change the trajectory of the story to benefit her.

Hana and Madeleine - The First Half of TRR2

Most of the interactions between Hana and Madeleine in TRR2 are overshadowed by one incident in Ch 7 - the one most popularly known as "the chocolate incident". Madeleine was already not too popular as a character when this scene came out, but her admission that she wanted to break Hana crossed enough of a line that a number of players would bring it up as a reason for why they couldn't ever like her, no matter how often she was retconned in canon.

A common misconception made about the "chocolate incident" from Madeleine lovers and haters alike, is that it's viewed as a singular episode rather than as an escalation in an ongoing pattern of threats that Madeleine was already making to Hana.

Viewing it as an isolated incident is precisely what allowed both Madeleine stans, and the canon narrative itself, to severely downplay what Madeleine did, and what she openly declared she would continue doing to Hana. Therefore, it is essential to look into Hana and Madeleine's interactions before Ch 7, as well as the context behind Hana's return to court and the very real and grave threat that Madeleine represents to Hana specifically.

To do this, we must first look into how Hana's return to court (after her parents forced her to leave post Coronation) is depicted. There are two versions of this story - Madeleine's version...and the truth.

Madeleine's Version: "If it wasn't for me, she'd still be on the other side of the world. I've heard dogs remember those who feed them. I hope you'll keep this in mind and remember that dear Hana is here by my personal invitation". This is a half-truth at best and ironically, this is the version Hana sticks to. She is never allowed to tell us differently.

The truth, as said by Liam to Hana post Coronation: "I am the King of Cordonia. I'm sure Lady Madeleine knows that if she wants to keep our engagement, she'll have to give me something. Perhaps I can convince her to make you part of her court". Hana never gets to tell us this. That honour is given to Drake!

Even after the MC (optionally) gets to know this truth, she never talks to Hana about it, and Hana is never allowed to veer from Madeleine's narrative even in private. In the process, Madeleine gets to use her half-truth as a form of blackmail - threatening Hana at least twice to send her back to China if she paces even one toe out of Madeleine's arbitrary line.

In TRR2 Ch 4, Madeleine is shown antagonizing her entire court (ordering Penelope to get lemonade and comparing her to dogs, telling Kiara to exoticize herself by not speaking in English [which itself has colonial/Orientalist connotations]). But none is more ominous and disturbing than her subtle threat to Hana before introducing her to the two suitors:

Being sent back to her parents is a terrifying prospect for Hana...for two reasons. For one, Hana is committed to being there for the MC, to contributing to her investigation (and she does! Massively. Perhaps more than anyone else in the group). For another, she is just beginning to realize what a damaging environment her parents' house is, and she also knows they are already growing suspicious that she hasn't found another suitor yet. By the end of this conversation, Hana is visibly distraught... to the point of needing moral support (something she rarely asks for herself).

Remember - this is an arbitrary rule Madeleine comes up with, that applies only to Hana. In the same conversation, neither Kiara nor Penelope are placed under this kind of pressure. Though Penelope claims in Ch 6 that her parents won't allow her to come home if she doesn't get a suitor, Madeleine doesn't levy any other threats of this nature on her (she harms Penelope in other ways).

Madeleine is aware that Liam was the one responsible for Hana's return. It is implied that she is also aware that neither Liam nor Hana can say this in public. By this coin, she'd know that she shouldn't be the one who can take a call on sending Hana back - Liam is. Yet she issues this sort of a threat, and worse still...is allowed to get away with it through Hana and the MC's silence, both in private and in public.

Unlike the MC and Olivia, the other three ladies of the court are present in official positions to the future Queen, and are expected to publicly pledge loyalty to her. The narrative of TRR2 alone seems to give the King's fiancèe powers and influences similar to an actual Queen Consort's. And Hana, Kiara and Penelope aren't just random "court members" - they are Madeleine's ladies-in-waiting. They cannot even speak to certain people unless she approves of it (Ch 1), she orders them around with the disrespect that many in that nobility reserve for their servants (Penelope in Ch 4), she publicly humiliates and insults them if they make a single mistake (eg. Penelope not getting a metallic dress in time for the bachelorette), and she can get away with causing them grievous harm (Hana). There is no actual point to any of this behaviour - it achieves nothing and (by the narrative parameters of the third book) is actually foolish, because Madeleine's actions could cost the royal family their relationship with the Great Houses. Neither the MC nor Liam (the actual monarch), would be allowed by the narrative later to abuse their power the way Madeleine can, in a position that isn't even hers yet!

It is easy to view Madeleine's interactions with Hana and Penelope especially, as just some regular mean-girls shit, with all the excuses, justifications and crocodile tears that the fandom can shower on said white/white-passing mean girls. Canon itself encourages this reading when they use the word "hazing" to describe what Madeleine put Hana through. But when we speak of Madeleine's behaviour in her engagement tour that way, we miss a very important aspect of her dynamic with these two women. They are no longer competitors or mere allies. They are not just people she knows in court.

They are not Madeleine's equals. They are her employees. She is directly in a position of immense, unquestioned and unchecked power over them. Publicly, she has the authority to invite them into her court, and to throw them out of their jobs. It is from that lens, that we must view her behaviour, especially in Ch 7.

The "Chocolate Incident" and Its Aftermath

Another reason to believe Jeffrey's favouritism for Madeleine allowed for an actual change in the story, is the way this above scene - and the ones preceding it - were handled immediately in both the immediate and long-term aftermath.

Often dubbed "the chocolate incident", this scene takes place in Italy (the first stop of the engagement tour) during Madeleine's bachelorette. For anyone who has forgotten the incident, Madeleine's ladies-in-waiting are supposed to organize different fun activities for her bachelorette, and the MC uses each event as both a PR exercise and an opportunity to check the credit cards of the ladies.

The final activity is Hana's, an intricately-planned chocolate fondue party complete with chocolate-themed games and treats. If one reads too much between the lines, one could maybe notice the tiniest sliver of a romantic hint in Hana's conversation with the MC over her confusing an actual bachelorette party with the show The Bachelorette (It is just as possible tho - if not more - that this is a comic aside pointing to Hana's lack of exposure to modern media).

However, things take a turn for the worst at this juncture. Madeleine heavily berates Hana for not knowing that she is "allergic to chocolate", accusing her of an attempt to murder and even threatening to remove her from her position in court. This leaves Hana so distraught that she ruins her own dress in the process, and is damn near inconsolable. The MC can - if she chooses - comfort Hana along with their friends. At the end of the night, a heavily drunk Madeleine gleefully admits she lied about the allergy and gloats about wanting to keep hurting Hana till she breaks, because she "wants to have a little fun".

She claims, when asked why, that it's because "everyone wants something, but the nice ones like Hana don't even have the decency to act like it". Which sounds like the sort of sick logic that fandom often happily accepts from their favourite white antagonists, where they can project whatever sob story they want to make such a reasoning palatable. Such attempts ignore the fact that Madeleine is torturing someone for supposed "duplicity" when she is herself well-known for being insincere.

Later, when it was convenient for the fandom to hate on Hana, she would be either blamed for the torture Madeleine put her through (because she was "weak" or "too nice", or that she was "spineless and deserved this treatment". I even saw posts that claimed it "wasn't that bad" (in the case of one particularly memorable instance, a Madeleine stan went so far as to say, agreeing with a post expressing a fondness for Madeleine: "...before anyone mentions the chocolate prank: Did Hana die, tho?"). Some also tried to reason that it was fair for Madeleine to target Hana, either to showcase her "wiles" or because of her sad sad childhood.

As I pointed out earlier, every single one of these takes tend to downplay Madeleine's bullying/abuse so that it sounds more like a schoolyard squabble that happened only once, rather than a person in power consistently placing their employee's job under threat, with the stated intention of harming them mentally and emotionally on a regular basis, until they experienced a breakdown. The center of this conflict isn't about different people with different approaches. Nor is it about court maneuvering or wiles because honestly, nothing worthwhile was achieved through Madeleine's abuse, and she had no purpose for doing those things beyond deriving a sick pleasure from other people's suffering.

It isn't about nice vs tough, nor ambitious vs generous, nor "naive" vs "jaded". It is about a gross power imbalance. An imbalance that results in the exploitation of the more vulnerable party...which is later brushed aside by the one who claims to be the latter's "friend" like it means nothing.

Structure wise, one can see striking similarities between this chapter, and TRR1's Ch 7, where the MC can view Olivia in a new light in the first half of the chapter, but be disturbed by her vindictive nature by the end of it. Here too, the MC comes into the investigation of the credit cards fully expecting to see Madeleine as the culprit. Over the course of the evening she finds Madeleine treating her ladies-in-waiting badly, but also calling out the press for targeting only the MC but staying silent on Tariq's involvement (ironically, Madeleine herself didn't exactly believe the MC if she tells her she was set up). She is also shocked when she realises Madeleine isn't the culprit at the club. Still, the court is given a rude shock when Hana is accused of putting Madeleine's life in danger.

Clearly the aim of such a chapter was to make the MC soften a little towards Madeleine, while still keeping some of the antagonistic tension. However, the more direct impact of Madeleine's huge ego trip on Hana made the harm far more visible than Olivia's jibes towards a woman who was far away...plus the scenes that followed in the former sequence centered Drake, far more than the ones in the latter that involved comforting Hana.

Madeleine's bullying also clashes - quite conveniently - with the reveal of Penelope's betrayal, so that the latter overshadows what Hana went through altogether.

It is important to note at this point that the MC is the only person not directly tied in an alliance to Madeleine (besides Olivia and Maxwell, who are then missing at the fashion show backstage scene in Paris) who knows Madeleine's intentions towards Hana. She is the only person present at the event in Paris, who knows that Madeleine intended to continue harassing her until she broke. Hana herself is never made fully aware of this, and if she is left in a vulnerable, dangerous position while on her mission to support the MC's investigation - then the fault lies to a large extent with the MC for keeping silent, rather than protecting her friend from someone who fully intended to hurt her.

I say this because in France (Ch 8), the MC's exposing of Madeleine is by choice, rather than default (this essay has a full breakdown of said scene). Moreover, the option where the MC can "expose" her will result in Madeleine lying about the act being an "official hazing" she does for all her ladies-in-waiting. Not only does the MC neglect to contest Madeleine's claims (or even tell Hana the full truth in secret), she also parrots Madeleine's lie in a conversation with Adeleide in NY, as if it were the truth (Ch 14).

Remember how I mentioned Jeffrey - the writer who was in charge of Madeleine's scenes and sang her praises in TRR2's pre-release interview? His influence here is obvious in the way the narrative sharply pivots away from Madeleine's characterization so far, to engage in a full-blown pity party.

The abuses of her power (towards Hana and Penelope in particular) stop. The parallels that canon makes between Madeleine and the MC as future Queens, stop. No reference, ever, is made of her actions before Ch 8.

For over seven chapters, Madeleine largely fades into the background - sometimes there will be scenes where she is present, but without any dialogue or actions. Sometimes she may make a catty move like getting the MC to pick up her wedding ring, but from a safe distance. Because she doesn't openly antagonize anyone or show up much in Chs 9-15, the sense of distance could allow some to soften in their memories of her. Especially when the only strong reminders of Madeleine in these chapters come from Adeleide, her mother.

Adeleide is an important cog in the machinery that resulted in the retconning of Madeleine's character in TRR2. Without her, Patriotic!Madeleine wouldn't have become canon. Adeleide sets the stage for this extremely inaccurate reading of her, with complaints on two occasions about how Madeleine is "putting too much pressure on herself" and working too hard. Which contradicts her very real actions in Applewood and Italy, where she regularly antagonized her entire court and where she doesn't get much notable approval from foreign dignitaries (Signor Francesco) unless the MC is that bad.

The narrative, at this point, expects us to view her with sympathy, as someone who could have been "an excellent queen" (Adeleide's words, not mine). The stage is clearly set so that we pity her when Liam calls off the engagement and she loses this position, that we can see her loss as "unfair". It ensures that there is an overflow of sympathy for Madeleine's plight, especially since she had already lost her chance to become Queen once before with Leo. By this point, many readers had actually forgotten the "chocolate incident" altogether, and were more than willing to view Madeleine as a patriot who wasn't given her due. A description that, ironically, more accurately fits Hana.

Is Hana Really Just A Nice Girl who Never Fights Back?

As I mentioned before, Hana's "niceness" and "weakness" were sometimes presented in fandom as justifications/reasons for Madeleine's bullying of her, often in an attempt to shift blame or make it sound like Madeleine's stated "reasons" (in TRR2 Ch 7) to hurt her were legitimate. Almost as if to say that Hana was targeted because she presents herself as an easy target.

To be clear, I don't subscribe to such a train of thought myself. Different people react to bullies and abusers in different ways - and not being able to push back aggressively in tense situations doesn't make anyone a lesser person. In fact, canon itself doesn't mind providing a "weaker" person protection against someone like Madeleine...as long as that person is Penelope. So we cannot even claim that Hana's "weakness" is why Madeleine targets her, or why the MC shouldn't have to protect Hana better.

Canon also doesn't help much in this respect, especially with their preferences for the meaner white women. In fact the narrative doesn't even allow Hana the chance to speak up in private against Madeleine's half-truths about her return, and she is made to easily accept Madeleine's "hazing" excuse. Let's not even get into how she speaks about Madeleine in TRR3. Additionally, no one in Hana's own friend group provides adequate protection or support - they stay silent where it counts.

But is Hana really that incapable of fighting for herself? According to the finale of TRR1, no.

Even though the scene is hidden behind a paywall, Hana's pushback against Olivia's treatment of her during the social season is strong, decisive and done entirely on her own initiative, with no prompting or involvement from the MC. She is honest about the ways in which Olivia has hurt her, but also makes it clear that Olivia's opinions and vitriol no longer matter - effectively reclaiming her own power in the process.

Such a scene is a clear indicator that Hana is capable of pushing back, and isn't afraid to speak truth to power - as early as TRR1. While one could say that as a diamond scene, it is possible that it can't be fully shown as canon - there are ways the writers know how to incorporate such things. Often, they have managed to write in similar scenes or the same information into free scenes later on (eg. the selling of Liam's bachelor party photos, which wasn't even that important to the story of TRR2). Hana could have had a free pushback scene with Olivia if the writers really wanted to give her one.

That aside, it's safe to say that there is a precedent for Hana being able to fight back before TRR2, and canon could have found ways to ensure that she could safely do so with Madeleine too. Or at least have more protection and care from her friend group, if her position as lady-in-waiting prevented her from speaking out. Penelope got to demand protection later on, after all - and she wasn't even our friend.

We must also take into account the positions of power that Madeleine, Olivia and later even the MC hold. Madeleine is a countess in line to become queen in TRR2. Olivia is a duchess, and the MC herself is given this honour in Book 2. Hana - despite her skills, knowledge and charm - never gets lands, nor a title unless she marries the MC. Hana's experience in Cordonia isn't just about "other women" being mean to her with the MC being "not like other girls" - all three of the above women are in positions of power over her, and even the nicest of them uses her more often than she helps.

TRR2 doesn't exactly build Hana and Madeleine as a pair. In hindsight one can read romantic hints into Madeleine's mocking usage of the word "darling" around Hana, Hana's attempt to replicate The Bachelorette for Madeleine's bachelorette party, and read parallels into both their toxic family histories (particularly Hana with her mother and Madeleine with her father). But there is no actual romantic content there that one could find with the other three pairs, which leads me to believe that Hana and Madeleine was only taken seriously as a romantic prospect in TRR3.

How did Madeleine become the final romantic choice for Hana, and no one else? Because the relationship was never made Hana's benefit - it was for Madeleine's. Given all the evidence laid out about TRR1!Madeleine, TRR2!Madeleine and including hints that she may have actually been written as the villain at some point, it's more likely that Madeleine's main writer ensured some changes in the writing of his favourite character midway into the story, resulting in her staying longer in court and several retcons that painted her as a tragic heroine and completely erased any actions that contradicted such a narrative.

This specific narrative also seems to draw upon a narrative trope that is seen sometimes in certain stories featuring queer couples - the Armoured Closted Gay. It is employed often enough, mostly to show the pervasiveness and immense pressure heteronormativity can have on some queer people - that sometimes, they hate themselves for not adhering to the norm and therefore project that self-hatred onto people like them. PB had done a similar kind of story in TF and ILITW - with Zig and an aggressive teammate Manny (but with discussions on sexual harassment and about being closeted) and with Lily Oritz and her crush Britney. Unlike Zig's and Lily's cases though, this sort of narrative hardly centers on Hana.

Hana is hardly treated as a person in her own right in this narrative. She is treated as a "consolation prize" for Madeleine's "good behaviour" and "hard work". Which is still a really, really hard story to sell when one of the characters states outright that they'd abuse their power over the other till she breaks.

So how does PB get back from that kind of cruelty, and convert it into an actual romance?

Madeleine in TRR3 - The Royal Retcon

(In order: MC complimenting Madeleine to Godfrey (Ch 3), response to Madeleine's "send my regards to Hana (Ch 9), Madeleine asking for a dance (Ch 16), Optional response about memories of Madeleine's bachelorette in Hana's Vegas diamond scene (Ch 16))

By gaslighting an entire fandom, of course.

TRR3 requires us at the very start to do two things - to recruit Madeleine into replacing Justin as our press secretary, and to convince her family to join the Unity Tour so that Cordonia knows its nobility stands with the Crown. Until this point, we've only had hints of Madeleine's so-called "patriotism", mostly from Adeleide. TRR3 Ch 3 goes full force on this reading: having Madeleine claim (in the most positive option) that all her efforts to become queen was "for my people...it was always for Cordonia", having Hana claim that Madeleine "would mostly likely take a bullet for Liam... because you'd never leave Cordonia without a King". Coupled with Godfrey and Adeleide's toxic family dynamics, the story is set to push forward a narrative where we are meant to sympathize with her and preferably downplay her behaviour from the previous book.

Throughout Madeleine's tenure as press sec, we are expected to laud her "work" - even though the truth is that she makes our work harder by giving us heavy folders and 100 note cards of materials just minutes before our meetings, and leaving out important information (like Zeke) for us to scramble about and find. Where during her time as future queen, her ladies-in-waiting were expected to have every detail perfect as per her desires otherwise face her wrath - as our employee, we are expected to appreciate efforts alone, and be lenient when she doesn't follow our rules (eg. wearing gold for our bachelorette when she was supposed to wear muted colours, trying to sneak in a white dress to our wedding). Most of our responses to her "work" involve fulsome praise, or at most a very light criticism that still claims she's good at her job (she isn't). And it isn't just the MC - even Justin (who recommended her) and Hana are made to sing her praises.

Having canon claim Madeleine does a good job when she actually doesn't is... frustrating, but not as awful as the retconning they do for her past behaviour. But it is part of a pattern that whitewashes Madeleine altogether so the readers can consider her deserving of the rewards that the narrative so badly wants to give her, whether her actual conduct matches up to these fulsome praises or not.

One clear tactic that is used to achieve this, was to have the person she harmed the most, speak of her in glowing terms. In TRR3 Ch 3, you have at least two instances during the "Cordonia's Most" game where Hana uses the game to compliment Madeleine. Here, she compliments Madeleine on knowing how to "charm a crowd...her confidence and poise", and claims her to be very patriotic. If the MC refuses to coddle Madeleine during their private conversation, the onus to be kind to her rests solely on Hana's shoulders, where she is required to say, "maybe it's time to see if you can catch more flies with honey". Hana is also shown wanting to include Madeleine in group activities (TRR3 Ch 6, before going to the spa), in the same way she tried to include Olivia in TRR2. When we're shown a Hana who is not only willing but enthusiastic to speak to Madeleine, it further encourages the reader to befriend her - almost as if to say, "if Hana doesn't mind being friendly with her, why should you?".

And this wouldn't be possible at all if canon was honest about Madeleine's conduct in TRR2. So much about Madeleine's advice to us in TRR3 directly contradicts her own behaviour as future queen in TRR2 ("having an entourage isn't about vanity...it's about support"). Had canon actually been honest about her conduct, this statement would be viewed as extremely ironic, a huge portion of the blame for Penelope's reluctance to return to court would be (rightly) placed on Madeleine's shoulders and we would be able to call her out specifically on her tyrannical behaviour as future queen, as well as her inability to adjust her work to suit her client now. We would not be placing Madeleine on a pedestal ad nauseum, or paying much attention to her childish complaints that her "efforts" are going unappreciated.

Whenever the early part of the engagement tour is referenced, it is spoken of in the vaguest, most milquetoast terms. The narrative will speak vaguely of "meanness", but never actually specify what Madeleine did. The closest we get to any sort of confirmation of this is in the Costume Gala (Ch 9) if the MC warns Madeleine to stay away from Hana...and even there, the MC just says she did "mean things". Which is the mildest possible way I have seen of someone describing a person who gloated about breaking Hana. Like the word "hazing" from the previous book, all these vague references leave it to the readers' faint memories, or imagination, to figure out what Madeleine did.

But all of these are just hints at best, and most of what we could assume of the writers' intentions came largely from guesswork. There was constantly a sense of something not being right, but many of us at the time couldn't completely articulate it. That is, until Ch 16, and only if we pressed a specific option in the Vegas diamond scene, in just Hana's playthrough:

Unlike the previous scenes - which were mostly attempts to obfuscate the events of the previous book - this scene replaces what actually happened with blatant lies. Not only does it wipe out entirely what Madeleine did, replacing it with a casual comment from Hana about her "fun side", it also smears Kiara for something she didn't do at all during the bachelorette (for clarity, Kiara found out she was a great dancer, and looked quite annoyed if the MC chose a wrong dialogue option as an excuse to see her card. The MC never saw her lashing out at Penelope during this event). Even if the MC and Hana were so drunk that night that they wouldn't remember events clearly (which isn't how they're depicted at all when the "chocolate incident" took place), it wouldn't be replaced with things that never actually happened. The writers were more than ready to throw Kiara under the bus to make Madeleine look better, and have those lies come out of Hana's mouth (and mind you, Hana liked Kiara so much she chose her to be her MoH in Ch 18 of her playthrough, so it can't even have been spite towards Kiara on her part).

In contrast, Penelope is allowed to be open about Madeleine's mistreatment of her. In fact she cites it as the main reason for her reluctance to return to court, and even complains at the MC if the latter asks her if she didn't get the memo on the bachelorette dress code in TRR3 Ch 16 ("oh no, no, it's like Madeleine all over again!"). The group is required to protect her from Madeleine; in Ch 4, when Penelope is upset at the very sight of Madeleine, Drake comes to her rescue and reassures her ("She's with us, Penelope. We won't let her bite."). While Madeleine herself is protected from any consequences for what she did to Penelope (besides an optional tiny jibe in Ch 4), the MC and her group are required to reassure her that they will never allow it to happen again. In a very disgusting contrast, the narrative pushes Hana at the forefront of the diamond scene with Madeleine, without ever considering her comfort or safety around the person who wanted to break her. Not only does the group involve her without ever asking her if she wants to be part of it - Drake and Maxwell safely distance themselves when the time comes for Madeleine to speak personally about her troubles, and the MC can choose not to be sympathetic in certain dialogue options. Which means that the onus to comfort and persuade her is largely on Hana's shoulders. We must also remember that, unlike Penelope, Hana is deprived of the full truth of Madeleine's intentions in the last book too.

Where the writers were ready to at least admit that Madeleine's behaviour affected Penelope deeply, they went to the extent of completely rewriting the narrative of her TRR2 bachelorette to erase what she put Hana through.

The "Romance" in TRR3

(First four screenshots from my playthroughs, next four from the Adventure...Romance...Thrills YouTube Channel, and the final row's screenshots from the Annabelle Lee YouTube channel and the Skylia YouTube channel)

The Hana and Madeleine "romance" is hinted at in 5 scenes (4 in other playthroughs, and just one in Hana's own). As with most of the other romances, Madeleine's feelings are the most prominent. To the more romance-coded overtures, Hana's reaction is usually shock and disbelief, with a small suspicion over whether Madeleine is doing this to trick her into humiliation later. But the narrative gives her very little opportunity to even talk about anything related to Madeleine, especially anything negative. You do have a scene at the finale that is meant to provide closure, but not in a romantic way. This scene is very different from the others, and in some ways puts an end to the possibility of this relationship happening anytime soon.

How did we get from those scenes to this final one in Ch 22? It would be useful to look at the scenes, within the timeline of TRR3's release and with the context of fandom reactions.

1. The "Cordonia's Most" Scene (Ch 3)

This diamond scene is written to give the MC/reader a bit of background on Madeleine's past and family, which will prove useful later when she has to convince the Amaranths to fix their relationship with each other. It is set against the background of a drinking game where an asker can quiz everyone else about who would be the most likely to do a particular action. Hana references Madeleine twice in the game (in a very complimentary manner), and Madeleine references Hana once. It was her comment about Hana being "stupidly sweet and perfect" that caught the attention of some readers and made them wonder if that was the route PB was planning to take with Hana. This dialogue shows up in Hana's route as well.

In later chapters, we see instances of Hana trying to include Madeleine in group activities...such as in Ch 6 where she invites the latter to come with them to the spa after the football match with Jiro and Camellia.

2 and 3. Cross-Referencing Each Other at Costume Gala (Ch 9)

This is a very interesting development, at an equally interesting time. Around the time Ch 9 released (end-April 2018), PB announced that TRR's team would be taking a hiatus, mostly to work on "some exciting stuff" during that break. It also gave them the time to work on certain things the fandom was demanding, and do away with others due to stan vitriol (Kiara's attraction towards Drake being one of them). The next chapter would only appear a month and a half later (mid-June).

Ch 9 sneaked in a scene that hinted at Hana and Madeleine as a romance option, but in a way that made it very hard for players to notice on a casual read. The scene is split in two parts: the MC can choose to speak to either Hana and Olivia, or Maxwell, Justin and Madeleine. Hana and Olivia's scene shows the two commenting on Gala outfits, which kickstarts a conversation about diplomacy vs bluntness. The latter option explores a variety of topics, mostly revolving around an appreciation for Madeleine's "great work".

Both Hana and Madeleine reference each other in their scenes. Hana's dialogue depends on whether the MC is her fiancèe or not; in other playthroughs, she admires Madeleine's costume, the compliment on her good looks very personal. In her own playthrough, she compliments Kiara's outfit but in a more distant fashion ("subtle and clever, just like her...very well-chosen"). In Madeleine's scene (which is the same across playthroughs), the ending involves her telling the MC to "send my regards to Hana", in response to which she can choose a line of questioning (which ranges from "protective towards Hana" to largely indifferent. In all three options, thankfully, the MC can close with "don't let me catch you antagonizing her", but that really is one small mercy in a pile of blatant retconning.

What marks Hana's dialogue about Madeleine as an LI-specific option, is that she says something entirely different if the MC is getting married to her. This is an indication that the dialogue was intended to be read as romantic, and that it couldn't be said by an LI who was already in love and ready to marry the MC. Pretty much in the same way that Olivia in Liam's playthrough cannot hold his hand in Applewood or dance with him in Vegas.

I wrote an essay on this at the time - both on the possibility of the pairing and why it was a bad idea - and the overall response I received at the time was mixed. Those who remembered exactly what went down at Madeleine's bachelorette and weren't her fans hated the prospect, but some weren't as convinced and some refused to believe it would happen. So there was some pushback for it, citing Madeleine's "chocolate incident" (thankfully, since there were players who had forgotten about it), but it was very low-key and didn't gain much traction.

4. An Offer to Dance in Vegas (Ch 16)

The most obvious indication of Hana and Madeleine being a romantic possibility was in the Vegas chapter. It was impossible to miss for people who didn't romance Hana. This scene, again, featured only in playthroughs where Hana wasn't getting married - which meant that many Hana-romancers didn't get to know of this pairing unless they were told by a friend or saw any such posts on their dash (some even found out years later, to their shock and dismay).

The mild pushback from Ch 9 resulted in a scene where the writers could be emboldened to continue writing this pairing, but confirm (in the vaguest possible way) that Madeleine treated Hana badly. Madeleine's non-apology "apology" really reads more like an attempt to get into Hana's pants than actual regret, and is followed by a reaction from Hana that is confusing in its mildness. Hana is surprised at the offer to dance, asking Madeleine whether she's trying to trick her. While the mild suspicion is a slight improvement from Hana's fulsome praise and enthusiastic attempts to involve Madeleine in group stuff in previous chapters, it still downplays what Hana suffered at Madeleine's hands by making her present the weakest, most milquetoast examples of "fooling someone", examples that pale miserably in comparison to what Madeleine actually put Hana through.

With both the "stupidly sweet and perfect" dialogue and this scene, you'll notice that Madeleine is not only the one who initiates the conversation, but is also the only one with an actual voice in these exchanges. Forget having an opinion on whether she wants to have anything to do with Madeleine or not - the narrative doesn't even give poor Hana the opportunity to properly react beyond mere shock.

There was a stronger reaction to this scene than to the Ch 9 one, because it was way more visible (though you could avoid it just by letting Madeleine stay in her hotel) with Madeleine's romantic intentions on full display. Her asking Hana for a dance immediately after the no apology made it pretty obvious. Players who didn't see the Ch 9 scenes or who didn't believe the divergences meant anything, now couldn't deny that this was positioned as an alternative romance. Additionally by this time, those who forgot about the "chocolate incident" did get reminded of the exact scene, so the vagueness with which Madeleine "addressed" her actions in TRR2 felt criminally inadequate for a number of readers.

Most of us, however, didn't know about the retcon in Hana's Vegas scene, until years later. Those who didn't do Hana's playthrough would have had no idea, and those who did more likely chose the more romantic options.

5. "Jealous?" (Ch 20)

This scene is unique in that the option shows up across all playthroughs, but the specific reaction only shows up in two of them. It's understandable that Hana stans would have missed this - the dialogue is an option, the response is very fleeting and you would have to look through the same option in other playthroughs to recognise the variations.

In the cases of both Drake and Maxwell, Madeleine's response to this jibe from the MC is "ugh, please". Dismissive, almost mocking the idea that she would have any interest in them. In Liam's and Hana's cases, she appears shocked for a minute, then composes herself and gives a more neutral response ("I...I refuse to dignify such a ridiculous question with a response"). In Liam's case, one can safely assume that even though she had no romantic interest in him, she was still on the verge of marrying Liam and that alone would make the situation awkward. In Hana's case there is really no other reason for her to feel that awkward besides having lingering feelings that she cannot suppress.

While this version of the scene doesn't feature in playthroughs where she is single at all, it's still a very strong indicator of authorial intent. Even in the face of backlash against the pairing, the writers clearly wanted to continue hinting at the possibility, if they were slipping in hints of Madeleine's feelings for Hana as late as Ch 20 (just two chapters before the finale). The most plausible theory for this inclusion would be that the backlash was a lot more than it was after Ch 9, but not entirely enough to do away without the pairing completely...yet.

6. "I Wanted To Break You" (Ch 22)

No one knows what happened between Chs 20 and 22, and there's little I can think of that would account for such a quick change in such a short span of time. The finale has a scene featuring Hana and Madeleine, that begins by drawing more obvious parallels between the two women and their families (until now, the parallels were not as pronounced. It's not exactly a great parallel to begin with, since Madeleine has at least one supportive parent and doesn't get punished to the extent that Hana has been, if she openly protests against her parents' methods. But in TRR3 the narrative sometimes does use Hana's toxic parental situation as a parallel to garner sympathy for Madeleine's).

However, once the parents are out of the picture, the attention then turns to Hana and Madeleine, setting the stage for either a romantic confession or a full apology. This time, canon opts to go for the latter.

Unlike all the others, this scene is bluntly specific not just about what Madeleine did but what exactly her intentions were. It has her use the word "break"; it has her actually say the word "sorry". It allowed Hana, for the first time, to fully hear the truth about the harm Madeleine planned to wreck on her. And most importantly, it also allowed Hana her own voice in response to Madeleine's revelations, making it very clear to her that her forgiveness needed to be earned, over a period of time.

The dialogues used to talk about Madeleine's bachelorette in the finale are poles apart from the language they'd used earlier ("hazing", "put my ladies through their paces", "mean things", "refuse to coddle", "wronged"). The finale scene was a more accurate return to the original language and purpose of that bachelorette scene. In fact it sounds less like what canon had been attempting to gaslight their readers into believing thus far, and even seemed to borrow verbatim from the language of the readers who closely followed this issue.

One could call it a good closure scene on the surface level...but there are many, many problems with it.

One was the reaction of the MC. Her angry "excuse me?" in response to Madeleine's confession is still a very obvious retcon. It may have been done to preserve the myth that the MC is a good friend/wife to Hana, but reads as extremely dishonest when you remember that canonically, the MC knew the truth about Madeleine's intentions the whole time and just chose to leave Hana in the dark. It's an attempt to make the MC seem protective that ultimately rings false.

Another is the excuse Madeleine gives for why she targeted Hana. "I wanted to push Hana too far, and for her to drop the nice-girl act once and for all! Only, it isn't an act, is it?" My response when I first read this was "if Hana was faking it...so what. So fucking what. Who was she harming". Coming from the reigning queen of duplicity herself, Madeleine is really not in a position to be judging anyone for putting up a front. This also ties into the hollowness of the motives PB tried to belatedly cook up for TRR2 Madeleine's bullying - no matter what canon says to whitewash her actions, her attempts achieved nothing, did no good for Cordonia, and would likely have led to a very fractured court if the Unity Tour was held while she was queen.

Ultimately, the possibility of this pairing becoming canon was laid to rest in the final chapter. One could interpret Madeleine's promise of a starting gesture ("know that if anyone at court gives you trouble, I can make them regret it") as a possible opening to something more, but considering the earlier backlash, that was unlikely.

TRH - Madeleine Gets The Penelope Treatment, Hana Gets Her Entire Childhood History Retconned.

An interesting development that came up when TRH dropped was the departure of Jeffrey Herdman from the team, most likely because he was heavily involved in the writing of its Renaissance-era spin-off The Royal Masquerade. He would return, by TRF (he is part of their finale livestream), but by then his pet favourite character was likely gone.

TRH has a different set of circumstances, and different power dynamics. The MC is settled into marriage and trying for a child, the LIs are working in the council, Olivia is upgraded to cosplaying spymaster and the side characters go on with their lives. The first book of TRH seemed to do a surface-level recognition of some of the complaints certain readers had in previous books, but their favourites and the people who wouldn't get much attention or appreciation, remained the same.

TRH1 was a time when the writers praised Hana and claimed in a livestream that she was the kind of LI they would love to marry, but also where they gave her a condition that (inaccurately) made her unable to safely carry children (just for the MC to be the mother of the heir) and forced her to be immediately okay with that fate. As the sequel series progressed over the course of 4 books, the erasure of all that Hana was in the past was subtle and insidious - the narrative often compared her to Olivia and found her lesser, she was never allowed to even mention her home place China and worst of all - the writing completely retconned the emotional abuse she suffered at home by claiming it emerged from loving protection, from wanting to keep their daughter away from a cult. And even though Hana's discovery of her sexuality was described by Kara as a "journey that she's still on", no attempts were ever made to show her exploring what she likes romantically, or to show her dating. We don't know if she's involved with anyone, we don't know where she lives, we learn very little of her interests beyond what benefits the MC at any given moment, and the narrative never fails to remind us that they like Olivia more than they like her. Hell, they still encourage Olivia to keep insulting and degrading Hana! Hardly the behaviour of writers who love a character so much they would marry them irl, honestly.

On the other hand, Madeleine wasn't very prominent in TRH1, but gained notoriety in the next two books. The first book has her occasionally engage in inappropriate, invasive badgering of the MC to get pregnant quickly, and she continues to pretend that her doing whatever she likes without ever consulting the person in charge is professional behaviour (eg. Setting up the presscon about the MC's pregnancy announcement. She never even considers whether the MC would be comfortable announcing this pregnancy or not at this time). She gets to deliver a small bit of foreshadowing in the second half of the book (an early hint about Queen Eleanor's pregnancy, though Madeleine's awareness of it hardly makes sense when you look at the entire TRH series, and it never comes up as a point again). Her father being exposed as the traitor who poisoned the former queen builds up to a storyline that benefits her the most in the long run.

Hana is given one chapter where she can call Madeleine out on her entitlement (Savannah's bachelorette). She doesn't insult or berate Madeleine in TRH1 Ch 7, but is refreshingly no-nonsense and will not put up with Madeleine's constant whining about an event she had invited herself to. It's a small, cold comfort, since Hana's actions here are tied to making Savannah's bachelorette a success rather than for herself - but it's still gratifying to see Hana in a position where she can call people out without having to worry about the repercussions. Especially when the narrative disrespects Hana in so, so many other ways for the rest of the series.

In the same chapter, the ladies of the court are given an opportunity to talk about their love lives. Of the four, two women can speak about the people they like (Penelope about Ezekiel by default, and Olivia about Liam if you choose), and one only mentions him by name if the MC is married to someone else (Kiara, about Drake, if you choose to ask her over Madeleine). Madeleine doesn't mention anyone at all, insisting that marriage is something she will only consider for the benefit of her country or estate. This was a relief to players who feared that PB might attempt to push the possibility of romance between Madeleine and Hana again.

Though Madeleine doesn't get the romance that PB so desperately wanted to gift her in the last series, and she isn't given any further romances...the narrative clearly wasn't done pandering to her, even though Jeffrey was not officially a part of the team.

Remember how in the previous essay, we explored the levels to which PB encouraged players to coddle Penelope? Entire chapters would be spent just making her feel comfortable and safe, in encouraging her to help us. No actual initiative or enthusiasm from her end, even if her actions caused the problem or there were lives and reputations at stake. No, Penelope's comfort and happiness should be front and center.

Now think of that treatment, but on steroids and lasting for two whole books. That's what Madeleine's story - starting from TRH2 - looks like.

TRH1 ends with the reveal that Madeleine's father, Godfrey, was involved in the assassination of Liam's mother Eleanor. So a certain amount of narrative focus on Madeleine was expected, perhaps. But the second book doesn't stop at just that.

We are not merely asked to be kind to Madeleine. No, kindness towards Madeleine is expected of us. The warning issued in TRH2 Ch 4 promises "consequences", which means we know straight off the bat that we will be punished if we're not nice enough. It insists we take note of her "fragile state", and give her the mercy and compassion she had never given to anyone in her court.

To give Madeleine the smallest of credits, she acknowledges this just two chapters prior to the oath ("in the past, our positions were once reversed and I was...unkind to you. I had no reason to expect any kindness from you..."). However, this admission does sound disingenuous in the face of the narrative's implicit demand that we treat her nicely. Because if she did recognise her own past behaviour in TRR2 esp as hurtful, and herself as not exactly deserving of kindness, then it makes no sense for her to judge people for behaving exactly as she expected. A genuine redemption arc would have been one where she understood no one owed her kindness after what she'd done, and still determinedly forged ahead to do good for her country. After all, the narrative wanted us so badly to believe this woman was patriotic, right? If her "patriotic spirit" was so tied to her ego that you needed to pamper and praise her every five minutes, just for her to not support such an obviously-foolish tyrant as Bartie Sr, then it can't have been as strong as canon so vehemently claimed.

TRH tracks our "treatment" of Madeleine over 2 books and 10 distinct scenes. Of these, 6 scenes allow us to choose between kind responses and unkind ones, 2 others require the player to choose one among multiple options of people, and 2 scenes are check-in dialogues rather than actual choices (which means that the player doesn't choose an option, they just find out through such scenes whether they are winning Madeleine's favour or not). I imagine that the first category is the most important, with the second being options that you don't necessarily need to choose Madeleine for if you want to go for one of the others, as long as you pressed enough "kind" options.

To elaborate, here's the breakdown:

Kind/Unkind Responses

- House Amaranth's pledge (TRH2 Ch 4). Notably, the "most hurtful" one doesn't even accuse her of anything - it just tells her that the family needs to earn back the Crown's trust. Compare that to Madeleine's accusations to Hana that she was trying to kill her and deserved to lose her position in court. You know, the cruel treatment that some Madeleine stans claimed "wasn't that bad".

- Carrying the Heir's train at Anointing Ball or not (Ch 5)

- Deciphering Madeleine's conversation with Godfrey on his boat (ie whether she is betraying or helping the MC) (Ch 6)

- Acknowledging Madeleine's help in capturing Godfrey, at the Gratitude Ball (Ch 7)

- Gently encouraging Madeleine into being Penelope's bridal attendant, rather than mocking her (TRH3 Ch 2). There is no longer any need to acknowledge Penelope's earlier fear of Madeleine - we are expected to forget entirely that she was the main reason why Penelope didn't want to return to court in TRR3.

- Trusting Madeleine to help with investigations at Fydelia (Ch 6)

Choosing Among Multiple People:

- Speaking about loyalty before making a pledge to the Heir. Other ladies of the house are also presented as choices (TRH 2 Ch 14)

- Babysitting the Heir during Fox Hunt. Other choices are Regina and Savannah (TRH3 Ch 10)

Relationship Check-in:

- The way Madeleine greets you at Fydelia (Warm Welcome/Cold Front) (TRH3 Ch 6)

- Whether Madeleine helps you escape with the Heir in Ch 13, or allows the child to get kidnapped by Godfrey in Ch 15 (Desparate Times/What Goes Around)

The ending of TRH3 has Madeleine either thriving and inheriting her mother's estate, or being merely fired from her job in Royal Communications (a better punishment would have been to strip the entire Amaranth family of their lands, but I digress). She is notably absent in TRF, possibly because she wasn't entirely very popular to start with and two whole books of coddling her didn't exactly help matters either. As one of the junior writers in the TRF team said, "some people exiled her so..."

The first few opportunities to win her over, notably emerge from attempts Madeleine makes to assure the Crown/MC of House Amaranth's loyalty, and you will find that even at an early stage she expects to be included in sensitive discussions that call for discretion, and to be constantly praised for her efforts. Let me give a reminder, again, that she hardly ever gave any praise to the women working for her, and in fact punished them just to keep them constantly in fear of her.

I know it sounds like I'm labouring too much on this point, but it's important to understand just how much effort the narrative had put into coddling this one woman. Chapters and chapters of branch coding, writing two routes, title cards, dialogues, rewards and consequences.

This is similar to the way the narrative encouraged kindness and sympathy towards Penelope, but it's now over a lengthier period of time and with more drastic consequences. We were required to coddle Penelope over a chapter each in three specific books, or be deprived of her support/help. We are required to constantly shower Madeleine with praise and sweet words over the course of 31 chapters, or she will help an unscrupulous Regent-Elect kidnap our child. She will even openly accept that the only reason she put a mere child through that, was because we weren't nice to her ("Wouldn't you have done the same to me? You've made it abundantly clear you see me as the enemy").

But if the MC deserved a punishment this cruel for just mocking Madeleine at every turn, then what punishments should Madeleine get for what she put her own ladies-in-waiting through? What should she get for planning to "break" one of her courtiers? A second broken engagement doesn't seem entirely enough by such parameters.

Then again - as I said before, the narrative deliberately shifted the goal posts for what a potential royal could and couldn't get away with, in the time between Madeleine's engagement tour and the MC's marriage, for this very reason. So that Madeleine would never have to face the kind of constant censure the MC and Liam would face regularly. Among characters in canon, or among largely biased stans in the fandom. Speaking of which...

Fandom

Madeleine's popularity has always been a mixed bag, ever since TRR2. By TRR2, there were people who loved her for what they thought were her craftiness and wiles, some who suspected her to be involved in the plot against the MC, and a number of Liam stans had reactions that ranged from stanning, to indifferent (after all, both Liam and Madeleine showed a mutual disinterest towards each other), to slightly jealous (after all, she was still his fiancée).

But it was Madeleine's treatment of Hana in Ch 7 that definitely crossed a line for quite a few. It was so unwarranted, and her justification for this act so inarguably cruel, that it turned several people off her immediately. The way canon dealt with this was to make her feature less in the story until the memory of the "chocolate incident" was faded and almost forgotten, and then encourage fans to sympathize with her.

The gamble definitely worked, with plenty of help from hardcore Madeleine stans who often downplayed what happened to Hana ("a prank", "making Hana cry just once" were some of the terms used to describe it). By TRR3, I recall having to remind some of my mutuals what actually happened in this scene - their own recollections of it were that vague. The Hana and Madeleine ship would have died a far quicker death if more people remembered this incident as it was shown, and not as narrative wanted us to remember it (and also, if more people cared that it was Hana being hurt, rather than their fave white girl/boy).

Madeleine gained some popularity among the wlw crowd - a couple of them did have a soft spot for stoic, aggressive or women often labelled as "bitchy" (I know a few who also showed a similar amount of love for ACOR's Xanthe or BB's Priya, to be fair...but the adulation for the white female antagonists was a lot more), and Madeleine clearly fit that bill.

A point that often came up from Madeleine stans who were wlw (and reiterated with other mean-girl characters) was that grey-shaded and villanous male characters weren't subject to as much censure as their favourites were. While there is truth to such an argument, it fails to take into account the role race often plays in the way some "mean" women are loved and certain others are scorned. Madeleine clearly did not have the scale of hate that a Xanthe or even a Kiara (who isn't even on the same level) got. In fact when it suited them, many in the fandom were more than ready to view Madeleine as a victim when Liam broke his engagement with her.

Madeleine's "patriotism" - as I've now clearly established - was a retcon made to erase the worst aspects of her characterization. Sometimes it was used to make people feel sorry for her losses, other times it was made to cover up her actual behaviour in TRR2. But there were very few readers who didn't consider it an undeniable fact. Even among those who were indifferent towards her. For instance, in an anon ask that compared Madeleine and QB's Poppy, a poster responded that "the difference between the two was that Madeleine had a sense of duty, and Poppy was just petty". In TRH3, players who claimed that "we can all agree Madeleine is fully redeemed" when she worked with the MC to protect the child from Bartie Sr, stayed mysteriously silent when the other consequence (her helping in the child's kidnapping because she didn't like the MC's pettiness) showed up.

And while these responses could be attributed to the way canon gassed Madeleine up in TRR2 and 3, some of these players had no problem nitpicking the political savvy or work of certain other (CoC) characters, esp Liam (often bashing them for "throwing parties every day", even though the general populace was depicted as being happy with their rule and influence. Mind you, no prompting from PB was necessary to bash these characters). So why were these parameters never applied to Madeleine? Why was practically no one asking what the political relevance of her bullying (as future Queen) was, or why we were expected to sing her praises for poor time management or terrible work ethics towards her boss, or ask what work she actually did in canon as Royal Comms Director? (There is a reference or two to the position, but you aren't shown that many instances of her doing much work). For quite a few, the fact that she walked around with a job title in TRH was more than enough (somehow Kiara never got this kind of fandom treatment despite being part of the Diplomatic Liaisons department).

How does this adulation for such a heavily retconned character, affect the way the Hana and Madeleine ship was viewed? For one, it meant that readers bought into the retcons easily enough that Hana's pairing with her was seen as an extension of her "redemption arc" by some.

Take the example of the various posts that argue in favour of this pairing, or fic that features them as a couple - a lot of them center Madeleine: her pain, her history, her reasons, the correctness of giving her a reward. Hana is barely mentioned or given much attention in these arguments - and often when she has any sort of voice, it is only there to humanize Madeleine. Supporters of this pair often took stances that were either ready to throw Hana under the bus, act like she hardly mattered, or treat her like some sort of blank slate to scribble their adulation for Madeleine over.

Hana is often viewed as less worthy of a focus - she is often the benevolent saint who forgives Madeleine because she "worked so hard to be better". Often it never matters to get into detail why Hana thought Madeleine earned her forgiveness, what Hana's perspective was, what journey she went through to get such a point. Because if Hana's journey really mattered in such a ship, the most pressing questions would revolve around why Hana should ever trust a person who wanted to break her in the first place. Why she should feel safe around such a person. Why her own friend group wouldn't want to protect her from such a person.

Some readers would bring up their parallels as daughters brought up in families that didn't value them, but neglect to take into account the nuances of those dynamics (Madeleine's mother at least wanted to be supportive, and no matter how bad things got, Madeleine was never in danger of being disowned. Hana was, repeatedly). Nor is it fully honest about how Madeleine was comfortable being a perpetrator of abuse, in contrast to Hana's own deep discomfort with the idea of controlling her partner.

In certain cases, I can maybe see this attitude in fandom emerging from an acceptance of the narrative's retcons as truth. But I also think there were as many readers who were just inclined to liking the mean white girl, and finding justifications and excuses for her behaviour.

Fandom's attitudes towards Hana herself often played a small role in how Hana's end of this story was ignored too. When TRR3 fucked up her arc phenomenally (by rushing her parents' turnaround from disowning her to supporting her in Ch 15), it became popular to view Hana as a lesser character, and the "meaner" white women as better. People who wanted other options for female LI often took their frustrations out on her, calling her "weak", servile and submissive, dismissing her honest accounts of the treatment she faced even from her own parents as "whining". If that was the way people preferred to view her emotionally abusive childhood...then what can one expect from such a fandom when she was being outright bullied?

Fandom was already comfortable with the idea of erasing Hana in their content, or replacing her with either their fave white girl (or an equally white OC esp in their fanfic - but more on that in a future Hana essay). So neglecting to center her in what would have been her only canonical alternative romance wouldn't be too difficult for some people.

Which merits the question...is there a way to write about (or write fic for) such a pairing, in a way that centers Hana, respects her story, makes it clear that she has the right to never forgive Madeleine no matter what she does to "earn" it - if that was what she wanted? I highly doubt it. You'd have to completely change Madeleine for that to happen, and that would more likely result in a situation where you were too busy working on her as a character, to give Hana the attention and focus she deserved.

And that's a real pity, because there's plenty to explore about Hana if you actually take the effort to look.

Conclusion

In a lot of ways, once the team had decided upon making Madeleine into a more positive character, they tried to draw a little from Olivia's arc to replicate its success. You can see some of these parallels in the way TRR2 structured the bachelorette as a semi-callback to the childhood- reveal-mocking-Savannah sequences in TRR1 Ch 7. Both chapters gave you reasons to start seeing these women in a different light, while still feeling free to dislike them. In both chapters they also targeted LIs - the only difference was that Drake's diamond scene post that confrontation centered him, and Hana's parallel diamond scene a book later...centered everyone else.

That attempt in TRR2 didn't work for several reasons - the timing wasn't right, Madeleine's cruelty had gone too far for some, the retconning hoodwinked quite a few people but not enough.

So when they tried to pair her up with the victim of her bullying, and twisted canon to make it happen - enough readers emerged to call it out, enough people pushed back by Ch 16, and the possibility of this alternative pairing garnered enough dislike that not only did the writers have to backtrack, but they also had to wipe away their past retcons and write in a scene where Madeleine gave Hana the full, unvarnished truth about the "chocolate incident". Hana was, thankfully, given a chance to give Madeleine her most polite "no".

And although that ship would never be brought up again, the team (even without Madeleine's top writer Jeffrey) still attempted to make pampering and uncritically praising her a narrative priority. She gained a bit more popularity during this time period - quite a few were inclined to feel sorry for her (especially considering the way her father's crimes affected her social standing) and saw only what happened if you were consistently nice to her.

But there was also a significant section of people who were tired of the constant coddling, and who didn't like that it was demanded of the player (when there were far more deserving WOC in the same book, who didn't get this level of kindness). It was significant enough that Madeleine wasn't given any scenes in the final book, and the writers cited her lack of popularity as a reason why.

As a Hana fan myself, it was a relief to see Hana not be paired up with her bully. But it was also immensely disheartening for me to see that "ship" get as far as it did, and to see the narrative do so much more work for Madeleine, than they did for Hana even in the follow up series. It was even more disheartening to see so many in fandom follow suit.

--

By now, we have explored 3 out of the 4 alternative pairings that TRR put forward for the LIs. They all vary in terms of buildup, attention, and payoff. But there are several things that are common about them. They all have either significant histories with the LI, or the narrative thinks they share something in common. The moment an "alternative" option ends up harming the MC, they are no longer suitable as an option because of the LI's loyalty towards her.

But perhaps the most common factor among the three women we have explored so far is how the LI is expected to treat the alternate, no matter how jealous the MC is allowed to get, no matter what the alternate themselves may have done in the past. The alternate is supposed to be treated well. With respect, with kindness, with compassion.

Betrayal doesn't allow an LI to treat their alternate badly. Bad behaviour doesn't allow an LI to treat their alternate badly. Disregarding consent doesn't allow an LI to treat their alternate badly. Classism doesn't allow an LI to treat their alternate badly. Not loving them back doesn't allow it either. Not even extreme levels of bullying...allows an LI to disrespect them.

In the next essay, we will see if any of these rules apply to our last alternative LI - Kiara.

Next: Drake and Kiara.

[anonymityisfunwriter]

Midnight Rain

“I broke his heart because he was nice. He was Sunshine, I was Midnight Rain…”

Request from ao3- "ok but imagine a grumpy/sunshine fic with sam but the reader is the grumpy one 🤷" For one of my fave readers, @/badasswithafatass I hope you enjoy! 💛

Pairing - Sam Wilson x Reader Sam Wilson Masterlist | Inspired By Taylor Swift Masterlist Anon's 1K Celebration

“You know, for a smart guy, you’re pretty fucking dense," Bucky mutters, taking another swig of his beer.

“Aw… you think I’m smart?” Sam sarcastically awes from the bar stool beside Bucky.

Bucky rolls his eyes, shaking his head, “Do you honestly think she had any real interest in me?”

Bucky doesn't miss the tick in Sam's jaw at the mention of you. Months had passed since the last time Sam saw you, and he wasn’t too keen on remembering that dreaded last night. Just the memory of you leaning over the bar counter, hand resting on Bucky’s chest, whispering something in Bucky's ear, was enough to make Sam's stomach twist into a knot.

Even before that night, he could tell that you were pulling away from him, but there it was, that night, the final nail in the coffin. That was the last time he’d seen or heard from you. You walked out of his life without so much as a goodbye.

Sam rolls his shoulders back, his mouth twisting in distaste, “Sure seemed like it to me.”

“See? Dense,” Bucky declares, tipping his beer in Sam's direction.

“Alright, I’ll bite. How does any of that make me dense?”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Are you going to keep insulting me or are you going to actually explain?”

“Sam, she’s a spy, an assassin," Bucky explains like it should be obvious. "She knew you were standing there. She knew you were watching.”

"So maybe she wanted to make a point. It’s not like she was one for talking or communicating, maybe that was her way of letting me know how she actually felt. Trust me, I got the message loud and clear. That doesn’t make me dense."

"Sam..." Bucky takes a long breath. "We're a lot alike, me and her. And people like us, we cut and run, it's what we do. We don't wait for things to go bad, we live with the expectation that things will always go bad."

Sam tosses the rest of his whiskey back, flagging down the bartender for another one. "That's a depressing way to live."

“It keeps us alive.”

“We weren’t on a battlefield!" Sam spits through gritted teeth. "We were done with the fight, remember? We won, for Christ’s sake!”

“And where did that leave her, Sam? With a conditional pardon? People watching us 24/7?”

“With me!” Sam snaps, slamming his glass down on the bar. “It left her with me. We were good, Bucky! We were happy together. At least, I thought we were happy together. I even- I told her that after everything, that I would take her back home, meet my family, maybe settle down a little.”

"And while you're thinking about taking her home to meet your family, she's probably thinking how a family like yours is going to react to you bringing an actual assassin home."

"I... didn't think about it like that,” Sam confesses, faltering for a moment. He shakes his head. No. He refuses to accept that. It didn't excuse that he'd found you flirting with his best friend. It didn't change that you told him he meant nothing to you. “Because I don't think about her like that. And you know what? She could've talked to me, she could've told me she felt like that, Bucky, but she didn't."

"Sam, can I be honest?"

"Shoot."

"I don't think you two will ever work."

"That's a shitty thing to say to me," Sam spits.

"I don't," Bucky admits with a languid shrug. "Honest truth, I don't see it."

"You don't have to see it, I do,” Sam firmly states. “I see it working out."

Bucky claps a hand on Sam's shoulder with a tight lipped smile, "That's my point, Sam. That's the difference between you and us. You, you live for the hope of it all. She doesn't know how to do that. I don't know how to do that. We're broken, haunted people, Sam. We hurt people that get too close."

"You're wrong."

"Why else-"

"Because she was bored!" Sam angrily shouts, not caring at the stares his outburst brings. "She only wanted me because I was there."

“Do you honestly believe that?”

“Yes. I do believe that,” Sam hisses. “Unlike you guys, I believe the words that come out of people’s mouth. She was bored... She was bored and I was there.”

Bucky takes a long pull from his beer, rising from his seat with a defeated sigh. He turns to Sam to offer one last piece of insight, “All I’m saying is I wouldn’t go on the run with someone for two years because I was bored. Not unless I really gave a shit about them. Not unless I loved them, like really loved them.”

"Do you mean that?" Sam asks over his shoulder.

"Yeah, I mean that."

--

3 Years Earlier - Somewhere in Scotland

“Just let me do the talking, okay?”

Sam raises up his hands, “No arguments from me.”

The doorknob rattles for a moment, opening just enough for you to stand before them. You look at them and immediately try to snap the door shut, “No.”

Nat extends out her hand to stop the door from swinging shut. “Just hear us-“

“No.”

"You don't even know why we're here," Nat argues. “It’s important. Please.”

You relent, allowing the door to fling open. Standing tall in the doorway, your eyes rake over each of them, “Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov or whatever name you’re going by now, and Sam Wilson, all in the flesh, all the most wanted fugitives on Earth. So I don’t care how important it is, my answer is no.”

Sam’s eyes comically widen, his voice taking a slightly bewildered, high pitched tone, “How did - Do you happen to know the names of all strangers that show up at your door?”

Your eyes dart over to Sam with a grimace, “Strangers that show up at my door end up dead. Consider yourself lucky.”

“I want you to know I’m choosing to take that as a compliment,” Sam quips, placing his hand over his heart. 

“Don’t worry, Sam," Natasha smirks over her shoulder. "She’s more bark than bite. And this is me calling in a favor.”

Your eyes narrow at Natasha, "Which favor?"

"Budapest."

Your mouth narrows into a thin line as you glare at her. You hated that favor.

You look back at the three of them. Even dressed in street clothes they all stuck out like sore thumbs. They’re all disheveled, clearly exhausted, and you did owe Natasha. You convince yourself that there is no good in this deed, it’s just a repayment. Even as your eyes linger back to Sam for a second too long. You tell yourself you don't care what happens to any of them. It's just paying a debt. “Fine. Just keep me out of it.”

Natasha nods, offering a small grateful smile, “Thank you.”

You turn on your heels without another word, striding down to your room. You slam your bedroom door shut, leaving the others on their own.

“It was nice meeting you,” Sam calls after you.

You don’t bother to reply.

After a few hours, the sun sets and your safe house returns back to its normal quiet state except for the soft snores of Steve Rogers in your spare bedroom. You’re certain that they’ve all gone off to get some rest. That is, everyone, except Sam Wilson.

“Have a good nap?” Sam greets you, sitting on the small couch in the middle of your living room.

Your eyes snap over to Sam, lightly scoffing, “Actually, I was avoiding you.”

Your brutal honestly doesn’t phase Sam. The corner of his mouth twitches up as he playfully tugs on the collar of his t-shirt, “I tend to have that effect on the ladies… That sounded better in my head.”

“For you and me both,” you quip.

“You know, you’re kind of a jackass.”

“I know. Thanks.” That's the only conversation you plan on having with Sam Wilson. You continue walking to the kitchen without saying anything else.

"So how long have you and Nat been friends?" Sam asks, trailing you as you walk to your kitchen, clearly not taking the hint that you don't want to talk to him.

You scoff over your shoulder, "Who said we were friends?"

"So you're not friends? Because the whole letting us hide out here, housing us, letting us eat your food, not turning us in, sorta gave me a different idea."

"We're not friends."

In truth, your relationship to Natasha was much more complex than that. At one point, you were like sisters. In the Red Room, she was all you had. Your only friend. Your confidante. And still, you could never quite live up to her, always second to her. You knew all her secrets, all the blood spilt, all the skeletons in her closet, and she knew all of yours.

The night before your graduation, you ran. As far away and as quickly as your legs could carry you.

You were never quite sure if it was irony or simply Dreykov’s own cruelty, but she was the one tasked to find you and collect you. You never stood much of a chance against the person that spent almost two decades besting you. She found you in Budapest. It would’ve taken a single shot. And still, it never came.

But you weren’t going to tell that to Sam.

"You're not friends?”

"No."

After that, your paths crossed only once in a blue moon. Once Natasha left Dreykov, she never sought you out. And you didn’t bother to either. You weren’t friends. You weren’t enemies. She was the sister that became little more than a stranger.

"Do you help all your not friends run from the law?"

"Natalia and I have an agreement of ... mutually assured destruction."

"Mutually assured destruction?" he dubiously repeats, quirking an eyebrow. "...So best friends."

In spite of your best efforts, your outwardly stoic expression gives way as a chuckle bubbles out of your mouth.

"Did anyone see that?” Sam proudly announces to the empty house. “I want it on the record that I made a Black Widow laugh!"

"Don't push it," you warn, though the hint of a smile that pulls at the corner of your mouth dampens the threatening undertone of your words.

"You've got a nice smile," Sam compliments.

You wipe the smile off your face, but there's nothing you can do to tame the slight blush creeping up your face, so you say the first thing that comes to mind, "Fuck off."

--

That's how it went between you and him. Push and pull.

Their time at your safe house in Scotland was short lived. No more than a few weeks. And even in those few short weeks, he saw it, saw the good that you desperately tried to keep hidden. Even then he knew, he knew you cared so much more than you would ever let on. Cooped up in your little cottage, he found that behind your barbed words and tough exterior, was a person that he really liked. You didn't let him see very much of it. Most of the time, it was in little slip ups, little cracks in your armor, but he saw it. He swore he did.

Sam ambles alone through the streets of New York, the pavement is still damp from the midnight rain, the noisy cityscape is the only thing keeping Sam from fixating on the endless loop of memories playing in his head.

He’d be lying if he said that he didn’t think about you anymore. He did. All the time.

He thinks about how good it used to be. How even on the run, constantly looking over your shoulder, it was good. He'd like to think you were as happy as he was.

In truth, he wasn't sure how or when it happened. You weren't very nice to him - to any of them really. You kept them at arm's length. He had to earn every glimpse of the person behind the armor. He had to earn every smile, every laugh, but he found each one was worth it. To him, you were worth it. You were worth all of it. 

And when that time came, when that safe house wasn't safe anymore, you stayed by his side, you became his home. 

--

You simply walked up to the breakfast table and announced that it wasn't safe to stay much longer. "You have to leave."

"What?"

"We've been here too long. People in town are beginning to talk."

Natasha didn't miss a beat. "How long?"

"Tonight."

Sam watches the interaction closely. You refuse to look at him. For a moment, Natasha's eyes look at you, imploring. She utters a quiet question in Russian.

You don't respond, only shaking your head once.

"I understand." She softly inhales, her shoulders slumping slightly, "Thank you."

You nod, turning on your heels and heading to your room. You didn't expect Sam to follow after you.

There's some part of you that's unsettled by how easily Sam fits into your life. You don't like how he speaks to you like you're friends. You don't like that there's a part of you that would love to know what being in Sam's life would feel like. And you most certainly don't like that Sam has no problem questioning you. Prying into your life. He won't like what he finds. He'll run the moment he sees the number of skeletons in your closet. No, you don't like that at all. 

And you definitely don't like that he feels comfortable enough to follow you back to your bedroom. He wedges himself into your doorway, leaning against the wall, "So what about you?"

You don't turn to look at him as you pack your duffle bag, "What about me?"

"Where you gonna go?"

"I have other places."

"By yourself?"

"Typically."

"Why don't you stay with us?"

You pretend like you're surprised by the offer. As though Natasha didn't offer the same thing two minutes ago. You just didn't expect Sam's kindness to extend past his need for your safe house. "What?"

He takes a step off the wall. Even turned away from him, you can practically hear the grin he wears in his words. "We could always use the help. You seem like kind of a pro at being a fugitive."

"I don't think your team would appreciate my presence."

"I would. I want you to come." Sam turns back at the doorframe. He pauses for a moment, looking back at you. "You should come with us."

--

You never told him why you ended up joining them. It was the one question he couldn't ever get a straight answer for.

He couldn't really remember how or when you ended up in his bed - or more accurately, when he ended up in your bed.

All he knew was that for two years, you were his sanctuary. Each and every night. He held you. Kissed away your fears. You allowed him to see parts of you that you buried long ago. 

It made the moment you walked away hurt even more. 

He doesn't know what the hell he's doing here. He's pacing through the streets of New York in the middle of the night. It won't bring you back. It won't change what happened. You still left him.

It was easier believing that you left him because you didn't love him. 

The other option hurts. It hurts too much. His heart almost shatters at the though of you leaving him because you didn't see it working out, because you thought you would hurt him. 

That's the worst part - he believes Bucky. He believes that no one, not even someone as prone to finding trouble as you are, would ever go on the run with someone for the hell of it. Not unless you cared. Not unless you loved him. 

He should've seen it. The panic in your eyes when he suggested going back to Louisiana. The pain when you lost Natasha, the last person you considered family. 

It eats at him. He didn't even try. Not really. Yeah, you walked away, but he could've gone after you. He could've believed in the love he knew you shared. 

He reaches for his phone, tucking into the crook of his neck as he hails a cab, and calls the one person that could possibly help him, "I need your help. Can you find someone for me?"

--

1 Year Earlier - Somewhere in Eastern Europe

“Stop watching me sleep.”

Sam kisses your bare shoulder, resting his chin on your arm, “It’s the only time you’re not frowning. Except when you’re with me, of course.”

You sleepily sigh, trying to suppress the smile that Sam so effortlessly puts on your face. You halfheartedly push him away, rolling further away from him, “I’m going back to sleep.”

Sam’s arms wrap around you, pulling you closer to him, “No, come back.”

“We’ve got a lot to do tomorrow, we should get the rest while we can.”

“I miss you,” Sam whines.

“I’m right here.”

“But we’re always talking about work, about the world ending, I just - I just want a minute, just me and you.”

You finally turn around to face him with a cheeky grin, “You had me to yourself all night, remember?”

“How could I forget?”

You settle against him, resting your head on his chest, “So why couldn’t you sleep?”

He smiles down at you, absentmindedly playing with your fingers, “I was thinking.”

“About?” you urge.

“What comes next. After the fight, after everything, about going home, finally seeing my family again. My sister would love you. I can't wait to introduce you."

Your smile slips from your face. "What?"

"I mean, I know we're on the run and everything, but I'm still holding onto hope," Sam confesses. "You'd love Louisiana."

A sinking feeling overtakes you. Those survival instincts you've spent your entire life cultivating bubble up. You could see Sam's family picture where he left it on the dresser. His picture perfect, shiny family.

That wasn't you. Not even in your wildest dreams could that be you. The closest thing you had to a family was the Black Widow sitting in the other room cleaning her knives. You weren't meant for domesticity. You weren't built for the happy ending that Sam deserved. The happy ending he wanted. 

Sure, he loved you now, but would he love you when his family looks at you with disdain? Would he love you when Sarah refuses to let you anywhere near his nephews? 

Or even worse, what if he did? What if he loved you through it all and you broke him in return? What if he loved you and he lost everything else because of it?

You could tell Sam. Right here and now. Tell him that you weren't built for that life. He would listen. He would hear you. Like all of your other scars and imperfections, Sam would take it in stride. You knew he would. 

But could you really do that to him? Doom him to a life tethered to someone so tainted.

He was perfect. In every conceivable way. He was Sunshine. And though you'd done unspeakable things, there would be nothing quite as vile as dragging him down to the dim, murky depths of the wasteland you called home.

He deserved more. More than you would ever be. 

--

6 Months Ago - A Bar in New York City

"You don't have to do this."

You bitterly chuckle. It was too late. You'd made up your mind. You gave yourself until the war against Thanos was won. You gave yourself that time to say your silent goodbyes, to memorize the one and only love you would ever allow yourself to have. You were selfish in that way.

Now was the time to save Sam while you still could, to finally set him free. Even if you had to break his heart to do it. You rest your hand on Bucky's chest, the furthest you could allow yourself to go without making your stomach turn. "Do what?"

Bucky's jaw ticks, "He's a good man."

"I know." It's the only time your voice reveals even an ounce of your pain. Your eyes flicker to over Bucky's shoulder. It's too late. Sam stands a few feet from you, watching you with anguish in his eyes. For good measure, you lean in closer, whispering in Bucky's ear, "But I never did well with sunshine."

"Can I talk to you outside?" Sam demands. 

You roll your eyes and snort, "If we have to."

"We do."

Sam doesn't waste a single moment. The second you step outside, he points back to the bar, "What the hell was that?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Are you kidding me? I saw you. You were all over him. He's my friend!"

"I was just having a little fun, Sam."

"A little fun?" Sam scoffs. "Are you kidding me?"

You don't allow a single ounce of remorse to show. You don't allow him to see the regret. Your face is purposely blank, cold and uncaring. You were good at this part. You were good at hurting people. It's exactly why you have to let him go. "I don't see what the big deal is, Sam."

"You don't see what the big deal is?" Sam's voice wavers. "You were just coming onto my friend! What about us?"

"What about us?" you scoff. "I was bored, Sam, we had our fun but it's done now. We're not on the run anymore. It's not a big deal."

"Just like that, we're just done?"

"You were there, Sam," you lie through your teeth. Acid churns in your stomach, rising up through your esophagus and coating your every word. "There's nothing more to it, nothing more to us."

You'd done a lot of bad things in your life, but nothing made you feel quite as wretched as watching Sam's heart shatter before you. It was better this way. He didn't know it, but it was for the best. You couldn't ruin his life anymore. You couldn't hurt him if you walked away right now. Those were the last words you ever said to him. 

--

He did it. He couldn't believe it. He'd found you. There you were, standing out on a rooftop, out in the pouring midnight rain. He almost laughs because of course you wouldn't even realize how theatrical this whole scene was. "Do you realize how dramatic it is to be standing out in the pouring rain all by yourself? And without an umbrella?"

"I'm working, Sam."

"Shooting your next romantic comedy? Is this the breakup scene?"

You don't even turn to look at him. “You shouldn’t be here, Sam.”

Sam scoffs, “That’s all you have to say? That I shouldn’t be here?”

“Go home, Sam," you demand. "I don’t want you here.”

“You’re such a jackass, you know that?”

It pisses him off that you still refuse to even look at him. If you were going to break his heart all over again, the least you could do was look him in the eye. You speak through clenched teeth, "I know."

He storms around, planting himself in front of you, forcing you to look at him. "No, I mean that, I really, truly, from the bottom of my heart, I mean that. You're such an asshole. You're one of the most difficult, abrasive, cold, and selfish people I've ever met."

You can't bring yourself to meet his gaze. You look just past him, mustering every ounce of your training to stay stone faced, "I know."

"Do you know how hard it was to find you?"

"I didn't ask you to come here," you spit at him. "I didn't want you to come looking for me. You knew that."

"And you're a liar!" Sam exclaims, a bitter laugh bubbling up from his chest. "A damned good one, too."

"I never lied to you about who or what I was."

"But you did lie, didn't you? You've lied to me before."

“Yes, I have," you softly admit. You catch yourself, reminding yourself of why you're being so harsh with Sam. You force yourself to speak with that venomous tone you know all too well, "Many times, so if you’re done insulting me, I have to go.”

"God, you're so selfish, and- and you're mean! You brood way too much. You're so fucking angsty all the time. You act like the tortured character in every shitty teen movie every made. You're inconsiderate. You don't listen. I swear, talking to you is like talking to a brick wall. And sometimes - sometimes, I want to hate you so much."

It takes everything in you to sound as unaffected as you do. You quirk an eyebrow at him, crossing your arms over your chest, "Is that why you came here? Because you're upset?"

"Upset?" Sam incredulously repeats, taking a step toward you. He's still several feet away from you, still far out of your reach, "No, I'm not upset. I was upset six months ago. Now, I'm angry. I'm pissed off - with you. I have never been so mad at another human being in my entire life."

"I didn't do anything to you. You knew who I was - who I am."

"You think that's why I'm pissed? I'm pissed because you made me like you. I'm pissed that you made me fall so hopelessly in love with you."

For the first time in six months, your eyes find his. His warm eyes, the ones that grounded you through storms of midnight rain. He'd never said he loved you before - there's no taking that back. You suck in a breath, "Sam."

"I'm pissed because I believed you when you said you were bored. But mostly, I'm pissed that I let you go, that I let you walk away without fighting for you."

You try to warn him, beg him to stop before he says something that'll make it too hard to walk away from him. "Sam."

"Because I'm in love with you."

Your voice wavers as you beg him, "Don't do this, Sam."

"I'm in love with you," Sam announces again to his audience of one. "And I know you don't think you're good for me. And I know that it won't be easy, but I am. I am in love with you. Every part of you. Especially the parts you don't like. I like that you're mean, I like that you're tougher than any other person I've ever met, I like that you're grumpy. I like that you don't see how dramatic it is to stand in the pouring rain all by yourself! I love you. I love all of you."

"Sam..." His name leaves your mouth in a whisper. It's too late. You're not strong enough to survive walking away from him. He's doomed himself.

He takes a step closer to you. "And maybe it wasn't real... but I think it was. I think you feel the same." And then another step. And yet another. Until you're face to face, close enough that you could reach out and touch him for the first time in months. The rain beats down on the two of you. The dampness on your cheeks has nothing to do with the rain. "Tell me that you don't love me and I'll leave. Tell me and I won't bother you again, I promise."

You can't. You can't bring yourself to say any of it. "Sam, it'll never work for us. You have to know that."

"We're not at war anymore." His hand skates across your cheek. "We don't have to hide. We don't have to run."

"I'm not - I'm not good, Sam." And you are, you want to say.

“No, no, you’re not good. You’re great. You’re amazing. And it’s a damn shame you haven’t stepped into the daylight long enough to see how incredible you are.”

You jerk your face away from his hand, “And what if I can’t give you what you want? What if I can’t be what you want?”

“What do you know about what I want?”

“You want a bride. You want someone to bring home to your family - that’s not me, Sam. I don’t think that’ll ever be me.”

“I want you." Sam takes your face in between both hands, begging you to see the sincerity in his eyes. "I want you in whatever way you’ll have me.”

“I’m not worth it," you softly exhale. "You have to know that I’m not worth the trouble and the heartache I’ll put you through.”

“Break my heart," Sam offers without hesitation. "Do it over and over again. Do it for the rest of our lives. It’s all yours. You’re worth it.”

“Sam…” You didn’t have any other defense. He’d broken down each and every argument you spent years cultivating. You didn’t know where to go from here.

“Do you love me?” Your lips press into a thin line, eyes squeezing shut to keep the tears welling in your eyes from falling. The rain slows to a halt. His thumb and pointer finger grip your chin, forcing you to meet his warm brown eyes. “Do you love me?”

“I love you.” You don't think you've ever said those words before. You don't think you've ever seen the daylight until you saw him. It'll take time for your eyes to adjust, but he's worth it. "I love you so much it hurts, so much that I let you go."

“You don't have to let me go anymore. We'll figure the rest out together."

Sam Wilson Masterlist AnonymityIsFun Masterlist Inspired By Taylor Swift Masterlist

As always, let me know what you think! Reblogs and comments are always appreciated! 💛

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[dappledpaintbrush]

Hey question, what’s your honest opinions on canon Dimentio? Like, wasted potential maybe?

OOOOO this is very interesting

I’m not saying this because he’s my ultimate fave (I’m very critical of super paper mario and it’s my ultimate fave game-wise), but I believe he’s perfect. Like honest to god if the writers nailed ANYTHING, they nailed Dimentio and everything about him

Dimentio is a very secretive character. Sure, he might not initially appear to be. He’s consistently flaunting himself in his attire and his words, words that seem so full at a glance, but are ominously empty when scrutinized. He forces the audience’s attention to fall upon him. He WANTS all eyes to stare, both the characters’ and the person’s on the other side of the screen. He is draped in a rich, smooth purple and a sharp, extremely pale yellow. He makes purple and yellow, two complementary colors, seem inverse. He makes them wrong. He makes everything wrong. Something about this character is wrong. It’s not the fact he’s on the villain’s team. It’s something else. Something you can feel but can’t put into words. It’s those words. It’s those colors. It’s that smile. It’s that two-faced mask.

And of course you’re right. Of course he’s the secret villain. He has to be. What else is his purpose? The heroes are victorious, the villain who was also destroying all worlds is redeemed because his motive was known, the other villains live the rest of their lives with good intent in their hearts, and Dimentio is dead.

And … It can stay that way. You don’t have to know anything else. There’s no more Memories. There’s nothing more that you cannot miss. Dimentio can remain as he wished to be: Unreadable. Secretive. Wrong.

But, if you wanted to, you could go beyond what the game intended you to. You could find and take out the narrative that was tucked away and hidden for you. Only you. There’s no cast of characters or musical score witnessing this part of the story with you. It’s just you. You, and Dimentio. Dimentio is dead.

I love Blumiere so, so much. He’s such a beautifully crafted character that is pure tragedy personified, and he deserves nothing but love, and thankfully, that is something he is lucky enough to possess. But Blumiere is a liar. Dimentio is a liar, too. Blumiere lost someone he loved. Dimentio lost someone he loved, too. Blumiere never found happiness. Dimentio never found happiness, either. Blumiere tried to destroy existence. Dimentio tried to destroy existence, too. Blumiere revealed his secrets. Dimentio did not. Blumiere is, somewhere, alive. Dimentio is dead.

How crazy is it that something that was so critical for Super Paper Mario’s story to unfold was only halfway told? How crazy is it that the writers created two characters that are so beautiful and so tragic and have to be handled with the utmost amount of care and an unbelievable amount of nuance and only one’s story is brought to light? To me, that is the best thing they could have done. Dimentio’s story did not need to be told like Blumiere’s. It would have harmed his character- his secretive, unreadable character. The writers wanted him to be a mystery, and by god they did not go back on their word. They kept him true to himself, and he died true to himself. Maybe he’s alive, somewhere, true to himself. It would not be the first time he and Blumiere mirrored one another.

It is fascinating to me. It’s something I’ve rarely seen accomplished this well, it’s something I’ve rarely seen accomplished at ALL. To me, Dimentio is far from wasted potential. To me, he is one of the best characters, both good and evil, that Nintendo has ever created, and the fact a good portion of people may be confused with why I hold that perspective is precisely why I personally have it. Dimentio’s perfection as a character IS that confusion. What is not known is what makes everything. This game’s writing is beyond words and I believe that even when it’s showered in praise it still remains unappreciated. It’s part of why I hold it so close to my heart and have for all these years. It’s so unique. It’s so beautiful. It’s so tragic. It’s so secretive. It’s alive.

[moonlit-midnight]

One More Happy Ending

Characters: Azul Ashengrotto, Jade Leech, Floyd Leech.

Genre: Remarriage, Romance, Mild angst.

Summary: In which your sick husband asks you to remarry as his final wish.

Warnings:

Character death in the first part. Reader is a female, has a child with Jade and has long hair.

The wedding setup is inspired by one of my fave movies.

—

“If I would die today, my darling, I would die knowing that your life was my life’s best part. I would remember that you were the heart that kept me alive.”

Hanging your head low, you desperately held back the unshed tears from falling.

You couldn’t look at your husband without crying because looking at him in that state shattered your heart into pieces.

His illness took a toll on him, but despite being on the brink of death, Jade Leech never lost his smile. His dazzling smile that rivaled the shine of the sun was still present.

“I have one last wish. Would you hear me out and fulfill it, my love?”

“What is it, sweetheart?” you got up from the chair, taking the empty space beside him on the hospital bed.

“I wish you all the happiness in the world, so after you move on from my death, I want you to marry Azul.” Jade held your hand, his grip was tight as if his life depended on it. “Once you get married, don’t feel guilty about it.”

He paused briefly, bursting into fits of coughing.

“I know that you love Azul as much as you love me, and he loves you too more than anything.”

Another pause ensued, followed by a weak sigh, then eventually his body went limp and still in your hold.

Minutes later, Dr. Riddle Rosehearts, the doctor in charge who was also your longtime friend rushed inside the ward, his expression heartbroken and crestfallen.

“I pronounce Jade Leech dead. Time of death 10:04 A.M.” He announced tearfully as he pulled you into a consoling hug. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

After Riddle left, you stared at your deceased husband, allowing your tears to flow freely.

After weeping for a long time, a faint smile embraced your lips as you recalled what Jade told you a week ago.

My darling wife, when I leave this world, I hope you’re here beside me.

I hope I look peaceful with the sun shining down on me.

Indeed, Jade died while you were by his side, looking serene and at peace, as if he never suffered from an illness.

He died in a sun-lit room, his face glowed beautifully beneath the mellow sunlight of the autumn season.

“Thank you for sharing your love and your life with me. You made my dreams come true, and I am forever grateful.” you smiled, brushing one last kiss on his face.

★ —

As you and Azul placed a bouquet of violets in front of Jade’s gravestone, a painful pang struck you like a bullet.

Seven years flew by since you lost Jade, and the heartache was still there.

When he died, you and Azul couldn’t tuck him in your hearts because he couldn’t fit.

He died young, and before his time, so you couldn’t seal him away like that because sealing meant forgetting.

“I loved Jade from the moment I met him. We were like long lost soulmates who finally found each other.” you said softly, gazing at the wide, blue sky.

“He was really a great friend.” Azul chimed in, smiling afterwards.

Despite not moving on from his death, you and your best friend still managed to find new happiness and new beginnings.

You lived a joyful life with your daughter whom you were expecting when Jade passed away.

She was named Daisy, in loving memory of your late husband who always gifted you bouquet of daisies during your dates.

She was born five months after his death, and she was seven years old at the moment.

Daisy was the female version of Jade.

She had the same glimmering mismatched eyes and gorgeous teal hair except hers was wavy, and the way she smiled was exactly like him.

She was a little prankster and mischievous like her uncle Floyd, and she enjoyed teasing you a lot.

She was your light when all hopes were lost, and that’s what you loved about her the most.

★ —

“Uncle Azul!” Daisy clung onto Azul’s leg.

Although the latter was busy baking, he still acknowledged the girl.

“Yes, my little flower?”

“When will I start going to an elite school like NRC?”

“When you turn sixteen.” Azul glanced down at her.

“Hmph, still a long way.” Daisy pouted.

He lifted her in his arms, and with a grin, he smeared a blob of icing on her tiny nose.

“Gee uncle, why do you always smear icing on my nose every time you bake?”

“Because I love you.” The silver haired man smiled, lightly pinching the child’s cheeks.

“And I love you more than mama.” your daughter giggled, putting her small arms around Azul.

“Daisy Leech, how dare you say that!”

They froze upon hearing your voice. They turned around, only to see you glaring at them in a playful manner.

“Oh, hey dear best friend.” Azul grinned.

“Tsk, you and your stupid grin.”

“Uncle’s grin is not stupid!”

“Just kidding.” you chuckled as you stood beside Azul.

While watching him putting icing on the blueberry cake which he usually baked during Sunday mornings, you felt your daughter tugging on your sleeve.

“Mama and uncle Azul, can we sit down for a few minutes? I have something to tell you.”

Upon hearing that, the man set down the icing nozzle as he sat on the floor, and you followed suit.

“Last night someone visited me in my dreams. I think the man was my late father.” said your daughter. “He asked me if uncle Azul is treating us well. I told him yes, and I told him that he makes mama so happy. Father seemed relieved hearing my answer.”

“Uncle Azul, I know it’s not my place to say this, but will you do the honor to marry my mama, and adopt me?” The girl reached for your best friend’s hand, her eyes glistening. “I always considered you a family, but I want us to be a real family.”

It wasn’t shocking hearing such thing from your child, but you didn’t expect that she would bring this topic in the open one day.

“I would be happy to marry your mother and have you as my daughter, but only if your mama is okay with it.” Azul glanced at you, a gentle smile adorning his face.

“Of course I’m okay with it.” you returned the same smile, feeling a new love blooming in the empty space in your heart.

★ —

(Two years later)

Today was supposed to be your another big day, but it was postponed due to a small incident.

Three days ago, you were hanging out with your daughter in your treehouse, and while heading down, you missed a step and fell down.

The treehouse wasn’t high, but it still left you with one twisted ankle.

You weren’t upset, but you were a little sad that your wedding was postponed until you recovered.

Unbeknown to you, your friends already planned everything.

“Rise and shine. You gotta get ready.” Floyd gently shook your sleeping figure awake.

“Get ready for what?” you mumbled before fluttering your eyes open.

“For your wedding.” Floyd leaned forward, a big grin plastered on his face.

“What wedding are you talking about? It’s postponed for a week.”

Floyd could only giggle, looping an arm around your body to help you get up.

Once Floyd was done with your makeup and your other friends helped you dress up, you headed to the wedding venue.

You could swear that your friends were creative.

With a permission granted from the hospital administrators, a makeover was done to the hospital’s cafeteria, turning it into a wonderful wedding hall.

“You guys really did this?” you marveled at the beauty of the place.

“Yeah, and Azul helped too.”

“W-what? He really did?”

“I know that he’s the groom, but it was honestly your man's idea in the first place.” Floyd winked at you.

Thrilled and giddy with excitement, you clamped a hand over your mouth to muffle your squeals.

“You’re one lucky lady.” Floyd remarked, chuckling softly.

★ —

Once all the invited guests arrived, your chosen wedding soundtrack started to play in the background.

Your right hand was in Floyd’s grasp, fingers interlaced, and your other hand was holding tight onto the crutch.

“Scared?” He asked quietly, his thumb brushing your knuckles to calm your nerves.

“Not at all.” you beamed a smile. “Just make sure I won’t fall.”

“You won’t,” Floyd smiled back. “You have me.”

The two of you began walking down the aisle, heads high, and postures calm and relaxed.

You looked beautiful in your simple yet stunning wedding gown, handpicked by Mrs. Leech, your previous mother-in-law.

Your hair was curled, radiating beneath the lights, and a pretty crown of blue daisies sat atop your head.

You teared up when you neared Azul, and you almost cried when you spotted your beloved nine year old daughter in the front row, cheering for you.

“I’m so happy for you, mama.” she said, smiling brightly.

★ —

“Do you, Azul Ashengrotto take (...) to be your lawfully wedded wife, to love her and cherish her to the end of your days?”

Azul looked at you, drowning into your gaze, and your enchanting smile spared him a breath.

“I do.” He exclaimed as he placed the ring on your finger. “From this day forward, I promise you that even when the skies tear apart, even when the sun burns out and the lights go out, I will love you to whatever end awaits us.”

The man who officiated the ceremony turned to you.

“Do you, (...) take Azul Ashengrotto to be your lawfully wedded husband, to love him and cherish him to the end of your days?”

“I do.” you responded, eyes glittering like gemstones. “From this day forward, I vow to share my love, my happiness and my sadness with you. As long as we shall live, I will be here for you, for love and death go together.”

The man announced. “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

As soon as you and Azul shared a kiss, the room erupted with clapping, gleeful cheers and cheerful squeals.

Some had happy smiles on their faces, and some had tears of joy in their eyes.

It was a heartwarming feeling seeing the guests genuinely happy and excited for you, but what mattered the most at the moment was the two of you.

Under the bright blue skies, you found a home in each other, and you’d never be apart.

For you and Azul, home was never a certain place.

It was anywhere as long as you were together.

[yoursummerfrost]

i'm not that kind of bard

Aka a playlist for Zebeystra, my BG3 Tav and the love of my life. Best listened to in order, this playlist follows Zebeystra throughout their life, including before the events of BG3/my fic series. Liner notes with tracklist and fave lyrics under the cut <3

Dreamland, Glass Animals

You want everything live, you want things you can touch Make it feel like a movie you saw in your youth Make it feel like that song that just unopened you You were ten years old holding hands in the classroom He had a gun on the first day of high school

Mile Magnificent, Molly Ofgeography

We're animals of love and the city never makes us beg And it feels like a good, good omen Never been much of a good, good woman But good things are coming Good, good things are coming

After Midnight, Chappell Roan

I'm feeling kinda freaky, maybe it's the club lights I kinda wanna kiss your girlfriend if you don't mind I love a little drama, let's start a bar fight

We are the Kids, Walk the Moon

Lost boys, lost girls, high tides, wild animals We won't live forever Hand over the future, hand over the future

Got Love, Tove Lo

Perfect like a picture I know we are one in the same Perfect like a picture Even when they look through the grains

The Louvre, Lorde

Blow all my friendships To sit in hell with you But we're the greatest They'll hang us in the Louvre In the back, but who cares--still the Louvre

27, Fall Out Boy

My mind is a safe: If I keep it in, we all get rich My body is an orphanage: We take everyone in

Too Much, Carly Rae Jepsen

I'll do anything to get to the rush Now I'm dancing and I'm dancing too much So be careful if you're wanting this touch Cause if I love you, then I love you too much

Someone New, Hozier

Would things be easier if there was a right way? Honey, there is no right way

What a Time to be Alive, Fall Out Boy

Cause everything is lit except my serotonin, yeah Everything is lit 'cept my lightning bolt brain Everything is lit But, baby, please, I just need someone to hold me Even though you don't even know me

Asking for a Friend, Chvrches

But if I can't let go, Will you carry me home? Can we celebrate the end? I'm asking for a friend

Bang!, AJR

So put your best face on, everybody Pretend you know this song, everybody Come hang Let's go out with a bang!

A Better Son/Daughter, Rilo Kiley

You'll be awake, you'll be alert You'll be positive though it hurts And you'll laugh and embrace all your friends You'll be a real good listener You'll be honest, you'll be brave You'll be handsome and you'll be beautiful You'll be happy!

26, Paramore

Hold on to hope if you got it Don't let it go for nobody They say that dreaming is free But I wouldn't care what it cost me

This is Gospel, Panic! at the Disco

Don't try to sleep through the end of the world And bury me alive Cause I won't give up without a fight If you love me let me go If you love me let me go

I Wanna Get Better, Bleachers

I didn't know I was lonely 'til I saw your face I wanna get better, better, better, better I wanna get better I didn't know I was broken 'til I wanted to change I wanna get better, better, better, better I wanna get better

[lyss-butterscotch]

Not really an ask more of a message but I reeeealy love your rw AU, particularly chasing wind, NSH and moon, moon seems so vibrant, so alive in the world, as if she was learning everything for the first time each thing sparking joy in her, I know chasing wind doesn't get a lot of content in the base game but I LOVE what you've done with his characterization, he's a little bit older but he makes it work, he's kind but he doesn't really like socialization. he takes everything people say seriously at first but can take a joke. he loves his projects and the feeling of looking at a creation knowing it comes from his vision made corporeal. And your personality of no serious arassment is exactly what I think he represents, he loves his friends and he loves making fun of them and doesn't let anyone sit up on a shelf all alone. I also really like the idea of travel puppets since they make sense in game and allow you to do so much with the iterators when they're no longer confined to a 20 foot room. Sorry if this sounds bad it was written at 2 In the morning on my phone.

Gdbdhdhh????? Aaaa thank you thank you!!! I know im not the best at the game lore or writing but i really try. I say this alot but im super biased towards happy endings and i mean that already went against rw lore, so i really try to develop the iterators and the world and the story so it makes sense and has more to it than just oop theyre happy! Thats the story.

YEAH MOON IS HAPPY NOW! This whole time she had to be professional, the senior that has everything under control, responsible for people who sees her as a tool. Now shes free of her chamber! Shes almost indestructable, she can just... go! She doesnt have to pretend to like her citizens, doesnt have a structure to constantly worry about, no more working on the Great Problem shes just... free! She loves slugcats so now she can just go travel with them! She can go and visit and physically hug her sibling and friends! She can travel the world and live out the rest of her existance NOT stuck in a room constantly getting drowned. Like heck yeah girl is gonna be more vibrant!

Man i dont even draw wind alot, i know i probably should, heck UI has a dedicated comic for her backstory so wind should get one too. They overwork and worry about things alot yeah but theres an end goal they want to achieve! They have things they want done and i totally agree they WOULD be super proud to be able to make their ideas real. Theyre not super social but that doesnt mean they hate their fellow iterators, they listen and they want whats best for the group!

Sigs personality is kinda determined already and the fandom collectively agree hes a lil gremlin man. We love the gremlin man. Now with the ancients gone and new found freedom he has more time to do what he wants and what makes him happy!

Off the string aus arent that rare especially in ths fandom where the canon ending is sad robots get stuck in room forever .-. But yeah atleast with it our fave robots get to do more with their life

Final words. You probably should sleep bestie

[sashi-ya]

𝑥𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡; 𝑠𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑛𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡, ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑛𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡. 𝐈 𝐖𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐚 𝐇𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐦𝐮𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐚𝐬 ⋆˙⊹ kyoraku shunsui x f! reader

request: @the-witch-of-one-piece Hello my love!!!! Happy holidays!! I hope your having such a wonderful holiday babes!!! If I can please request the prompt I want a hippopotamus for Christmas with shunsui x fem reader sfw please!!! Thank you so much mi amor! Love you !!!! 💜 |tw: none. based on the song "i want a hippopotamus for christmas. I'm sure Shunsui would have a daughter so the kid is a female | wc: 819 | masterlist | taglist: @zella07 @jin-supremacy01 @stygianoir @alexkanroji |

“What do you think she meant?” you ask, showing your husband your little daughter’s messy Santa letter. “That exactly. She wants a hippopotamus for Christmas” Shunsui says, laughing as he drinks his morning coffee.

You laugh with him, flipping some pancakes. And he continued laughing until total silence, something that for you felt a little weird…

You turn around all of a sudden, narrowing your eyes at him while he scrolls on his phone. “Shunsui Sozosuke Jiro Kyoraku you are not buying her a hippopotamus”.

The man with tied long hair and sharp features rolls his eyes. “Fiiiine….” he grunts, leaving the phone over the table to take another sip of his coffee as you go back to the pancake flipping.

“Alexa… where can I get a hippo?” he suddenly whispers to the little device over the counter. “SHUNSUI!” you scold him, trying to repress your laughter. It’s crazy how much this man loves his daughter. Where is he planning to put that animal, after all?

Of course the conversation had to be cut short, since your baby daughter come down the stairs with still sleepy eyes but driven by the smell of momma’s breakfast.

“Good morning my sleeping beauty” Shunsui salutes her, as she sits her on his lap. “Mworning daddy” she mumbles, rubbing her eyes to shake the sleepiness away.

You hide the letter from her, since none of you should read it but Santa. And bring her fave food to the table. As you sit, and kiss her forehead you think about ways of asking if she actually meant a real hippo or maybe just a toy that looks like it.

“So, (----)… what did you ask Santa this year?” you inquire her, as Shunsui helps her cut the pancakes with care.

“A hippo, mommy” she says, proud with one of her cheeks stuffed.

Shunsui laughs loudly, looking at you with that classic “told you” smirk. “A real hippo? Not a cat, nor a dog?”

The kid turns around to look at his father, using her two tiny hands to grab his face. “Pappa, I don’t want a cat, nor a dog nor a tyrannosaurus rex. Only a hippo will do” she says, assuring it.

“We will see if Santa can bring you one. You know, those live in Africa and are pretty heavy for him to carry. Plus, do you think a hippo will be able to pass through our chimney?” he says, tucking one of her curls behind her ear.

She takes a few minutes to process the information, and ultimately she arrives at a conclusion; “Just let the front door open, daddy. It can fit right through it”.

“Honey, a hippo will eat you up alive!” you tell her, trying to scare her… but the kid is way more intelligent than you thought.

And as she jumps from her daddy’s lap she comes closer to you. “Aunt Nanao told me those are vegetarian”.

Shunsui covers his face, he is so weak for his tiny little bundle of joy. “My my, little one… we will see what Santa has in mind for you then. You should be really nice if you want him to bring you such a gift!” he says, looking at you with a soft look that shows he has something in mind.

And because there is nothing he wouldn’t do for his daughter, he quickly solved it with his best friend that same night…

After tucking their baby, and waiting for her to finally fall asleep, Shunsui pulls you closer in bed. The book you were reading ends up on the floor, but you don’t care.

“Honey, do you know about (….)’s gift? Ukitake has given me the best idea!” he says, snuggling you against his wide chest.

You widen your eyes, surely you care about your daughter’s gift, but, you had forgotten for the rest of the day. “Oh yeah? What do you and your soul sister have in mind” you tease him. You know very well how much those two love each other and how many years they’ve been together like brothers.

“He- you- come on! (Name)-chan!” he protests, but he continues. “So, he told me about a special day at the Zoo. You know they have hippos there, right? It’s more or less like a sanctuary where they are recovered and ultimately sent back to Africa”.

You smile, kindly. That’s beautiful and kind and it would probably fit your baby’s desires very well.

“So, I thought… we can give her a little invitation letter on Christmas morning. As if the hippos were inviting her to visit them and because they have to go back to their home they cannot come here. What do you think? Giving her the whole fantasy and experience? She would also learn something about animals and their habitats!” he chimes, excited.

“Shunsui… you are the best father a kid could ever ask for…” 💖 ~

[x0401x]

Hello....Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks...

I've been asked my top 10 before, but never from all of the media I love and I've never been asked to elaborate on why I love them. Not to mention that the list changes as I watch/read new stuff, so it's good to update it. Then again, I don't watch live action that much, so I'm afraid it's gonna be all animanga/books, if you don't mind.

I must say, though, that it was impossible to decide on 10 this time around. So I resorted to listing my top 5. The list is in no particular order, by the way.

1. Kuchiki Rukia

So this one was an instant fave and I don't even think I need to explain much. Badass, kindhearted, A+ sense of humor. Just checks all the boxes. Also love her unique character design.

2. Gilbert Bougainvillea

I strictly mean the book version of him. Gil was one of the very few fictional characters to ever surprise me. I love how unapologetically emotional he is and how he's always making sure the people he holds dear get to live a happy life. The way he's such a "family and friends first" kinda guy and yet nobody seems to realize it simply because he looks like the aloof type is bitterly relatable for me. Also the way he acknowledges how unfair life is for him despite being brough up in an environment that, in theory, had everything to meet all his needs, and yet tries to make the best of it all. And my God, the amount of Respect Women Juice that this guy drinks. Goals as a human being, tbh. (Yes, the books are that different from the anime.)

3. Oikawa Tsurara

I normally don't vibe all that much with characters like Tsurara, but she quite literally opened new horizons for me in fandom. Imagine the dumb, clingy servant girl stereotype turned upside down. You start out fearing that she'll fit into the Mold TM, and before you realize it, she's risen to become an upper officer in command of two clans and is endgame with the protagonist (with three more guys pinning after her). Except this isn't a Cinderella kind of journey; she was always treated by her love interest as an equal and was always portrayed as having immense potential. Her jealousy of her rivals seems comical but is actually valid, as her suspicions always hit home. She's smart and strong and not at all delusional, and the story makes sure to give her a steady growth. She never becomes overpowered, but the protagonist only gets to that level because of her.

4. Takigawa Masaki

Again, book version. Motherfucker just be casually defying every god in existence because y'all can't just try to kill my disciple like that, what the actual fuck. The "Catch These Hands" priest, because he'll punch the shit outta whoever gets between him and the little bitch who tried to harm his students. And then he'll fuck into his shrine in the middle of the woods like nothing happened. His main occupation, however, is to be hot as hell. Truly an icon.

5. Sheryl Nome

Same as with Tsurara, I normally don't vibe much with characters like Sheryl, but holy fuck, the amount of respect I have for this woman. Macross is a franchise that specializes in taking archetypes and tropes and subverting them completely, and Frontier is my favorite because the character handling in this thing is good fucking food.

Sheryl has such an attitude but she can back it up. And she does it in ways that are charismatic, rather than annoying or bitchy. She absolutely never puts herself down and is never portrayed as actually fragile and inoffensive on the inside. The narrative gets points too for never going "she's amazing but she won't ever be as good as the protagonist". And she's cute, sure, but she's also dangerous and is out there to get what she wants. Yet there's so much heart to her. So much passion and admiration for all things alive and for connecting with them through music. She usually only does what she wants but is so ridiculously selfish with the people she cherishes. Easily one of the most extremely complex and absurdly cool femme fatales in animanga.

[nikethestatue]

Lol. Not both sides of the ship war celebrating the same bonus chapter 😂

I never read any bonus chapters (they're not available in my country which is RUDE btw 🙄) until ACOSF and it was always clearly Elriel for me. I personally think that it's taking Sarah so long to write an Elriel book because the interaction between Az and Elain was the best thing she's ever written and the bar is very high. There was so much hype for ACOSF and honestly it didn't exactly deliver.

Gwynriels live off of fanfics (cause that's all they have) and they can't even tell what's canon anymore. Also, most gwynriels are very pro Nesta/anti IC and it's so funny of them to say how disgusting Azriel is for lusting after Elain and how that ends them in the bonus chapter (LOL) when their second favorite ship started as JUST SEX 🙃

I dont even know if we are 'celebrating' but more like pleased to see that what we've been saying for years is actually true. We've been fed a steady diet of 'Elriel ended in Azriel's POV and he is mated to Gwyn now'. Hearing that Azriel is not mated to anyone, and that he is not too happy about it is a relief. Or that the shadows 'love Gwyn and she is their mommy'--the shadows like music, not Gwyn.

As someone who doesn't put much stock into bonuses and treats them as what they are intended to be--a bonus to a bigger scene--i think i was most excited about Azriel's mom being alive, and hopefully meeting her in the next book, and hear that story.

I am very very interested in that. I also dont think that she was just a simple Illyrian girl, so I am extremely curious about her backstory and what she might be. But I also want her to have found happiness.

All in all, I wish there were fewer bonus chapters, because this fandom is really bonus chapter obsessed. I suppose that's all you got to freak out about when the only meaningful interaction between your faves was in a bonus chapter.

[gaywatch]

I need more music to listen, so unleash your reccomendations

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh dear I never get to talk about music enough so pardon me if I explode all over you

(Links are to songs that are both faves and good places for a newcomer to start.)

Taylor Swift - Yeah yeah she's a household name but no kidding, she has 10 albums spanning several genres and I can guarantee you that she has at least some songs that you will permanently add to your rotation. Google around for a good place to start and dive in (...or just ask me because I will gladly help you out).

Taemin - He's been known as 'the Michael Jackson of kpop' for years now, but what's wild is that he started at Michael and has since grown into a dancer and performer all his own. The only kpop artist I fully stan. His singles never. ever. miss.

Delta Rae - Incredible folk/country/Americana band from the state I live in with male and female vocalists. They are criminally underrated because they were liberal country artists before that was even remotely possible. Seen them live twice, met them twice, they are the most genuine people and outstanding artists.

Amanda Palmer - Originated as The Dresden Dolls, a duo that invented the 'punk cabaret' indie subgenre, and has been a solo artist for like 15 years at this point? Intense piano, intense lyrics, intense everything (the linked song is the anthem for girls with daddy issues). Objectively the most personal lyrics I've ever heard. Voice may take a second to adjust to. Not made for mainstream and doesn't want to be. One of the most important artists to me, personally.

Marianas Trench - Pop/punk perfection (but also simply genre chameleons) with a musical mastermind at its core. One of the best vocalists. Most albums end with an opus arrangement of the songs that came before and it's life changing.

Pink - People don't realize how powerful her vocals are and how incredible her lyricism can be. A pop icon. This bitch raised me, forever grateful.

Halsey - If all you know is Without Me and Closer, you haven't heard Halsey. Every album is outstanding but hopeless fountain kingdom doesn't have a single misplaced sound. It's pretty freakish actually.

Chvrches - Sheer and utter synthpop perfection, every single song. The one I linked is one of my favorite songs of all time, period.

MUNA - Queer girls making queer indie pop. Great lyrics, immaculate vibes. Recently opened for Taylor Swift on the Eras Tour, and well deserved.

The Midnight - 80s/90s synth like you can't even believe. Saxophone for days.

Imogen Heap - A genius and pop legend. Her greatest song was sampled in something god awful and got meme-d to death, I don't wanna talk about it. If a pop artist does breathy vocals, 95% chance they're doing it because of Imogen. She sang me happy birthday. Haven't been alive since.

Rina Sawayama - THIS BITCH. Falls under pop but never met a genre she couldn't master. Stayed in the game into her late twenties (which is geriatric by pop standards), when she finally blew up a bit. A variety of sounds, some of them strange, but all of them brilliant in one way or another (even if you don't personally vibe with it).

Troye Sivan - Twink icon whose first two albums were as gay as they were pop brilliance. I don't care much for his newest work, but you might.

Alice Merton - She's the girl with that Roots song from a few years back. Two albums now, both genius. Unique voice, varied sound but with a distinct Florence oomph to it.

Ava Max - UN. DER. RATE. D. Classic, anthemic pop. Vocals for DAYS. Music so infectious you have it on loop for days. So much more than Sweet but Psycho.

Kesha - I prefer recent Kesha to her classic dance pop madness, personally. She grew into an amazing artist who can blend her weird ass dance flavor with her more mature sounds in a way that doesn't really seem possible.

Bishop Briggs - Nobody has a voice like this. A sort pop/alternative vibe that can be anthemic as easily as it can be dark.

The Chicks - Icons for a reason. Their most recent album, written by the main lyricist after leaving her husband of 20 years for cheating on her left right and sideways, is one of the best break up albums of all time. Period.

The Civil Wars - They only lasted long enough to make two albums, but both are flawless. Nobody will ever harmonize quite like them. Folk/country in the most *beautiful* way possible.

Evanescence - 2000s rock with with a stunning female writer and vocalist whose melodies are simply beyond compare when we're talking about their stuff from 2003-2006. Goth, dramatic, hard hitting, cathartic.

Freya Ridings - Adele but make it a touch more contemporary. Gorgeous deep voice, lots of ballads but her up tempo stuff is just as good.

Billie Eilish - If you haven't heard her first album yet or her early EPs, you need to. Nobody that young should have that much of a grasp of music and her place in it.

Foxes - Underrated pop queen! I have yet to hear a bad song from her, but her latest album is quintessential synthpop mastery.

Jukebox the Ghost - Piano pop/rock. It's actually too much fun to listen to them, tbh.

Kelly Clarkson - Listen, her latest album follows directly after The Chicks' on the string of ultimate divorce albums we've gotten from pop icons lately. I've loved Kelly forever, but in bits and pieces. Her latest album is her strongest project to date, easily.

Labrinth - I do not comprehend what this genius does with music. Electronic, experimental, metaphorical, personal, just something else. Did the music for Euphoria, but his first solo album was an experience and a half.

Lorde - Everybody tells you to listen to Melodrama because you should.

Maisie Peters - Everybody calls everybody else 'the next Taylor Swift,' and they're wrong. It's this girl.

Marina and the Diamonds - SUCH a unique voice, lyrics that are way too smart for mainstream pop.

Patrick Wolfe - A deep-voiced violinist who released a pop album in 2011 that I still listen to because I'm a sucker for pop laced with classical instruments and it's just that good.

Owen Pallett - A higher-toned violinist with more of an indie approach, coming up with concepts and melodies that would go well with an A24 film.

Emilie Autumn - Violin-fueled industrial/pop/metal, often with Victorian leanings. Visceral lyrics on mental illness, depression, bipolar, suicidal ideation, sexual assault, sometimes with a satirical bent or through a historical lens. Voice might take a second to get used to, it's unique and she does unique things with it (including "ugly" sounds on purpose) but once it clicks it clicks hard. Opheliac and Fight Like A Girl are good starting places.

The Veronicas - Underrated (yet oddly influential?) pop icon twins from the early 2000s to now. Killer voices, KILLER pop.

[riosnecktattoo]

Do you have any fav S4 moments. Obvi for me it's the dinner scene moment. They are so funny n obvious 🤣. I loved the scene in the bedroom. The dialog is just so!! I also loved the call back you did to that scene in 🍒 trees.. what are your favs??

tho not my fave season, S4 as a whole makes me so happy to remember cause it was the last time we all live-watched GG together and had an insane time. Waking up at 3am Monday morning, setting up my VPN and my untrustworthy live-stream and screaming with everyone and then screaming some more until like 6am my time on zero sleep........the best times actually 🥹

When S4 was hitting it was HITTING so I deffo have loads but for just my Brio heart yeah obviously the 4x06 Brio shenanigans like everything about that and that live-watch was the best. I remember the spy work we all did with the promo pics and the bathroom break clutch returning and WE WERE RIGHT and how nuts we all went over the domesticity of them eating side by side ahhhh. God I love that convo by the bookshelf it's sooooo good. When The Fingering™ happened and me and @matssonlukas were mid-convo and her stream was like 30 seconds ahead and we were SO UNHINGED! 😂

All of 4x07 including the absolutely ridiculous experience of Amazon dropping it 3 days early so half of us had watched and half got spoiled early and were like WHAT'S HAPPENING (I'm still super bitter that that live-watch of such an incredible episode got stolen from us but hey-ho)

Smurfing! Sexy Pool! The wild Kitchen scene in 4x05! 4x09 boxing SHE KNOWS! Basketball Rio! Rio crying in the club! Ponytail! I told you didn't need him! He's in our way! YOU GOT IT BOSS 😭

There's more but yeah what a time to be alive

And thank you so much! I'm kind of splitting that inspo between what I did in part 3 and what will happen in part 5 👀

[edwinspaynes]

What are your thoughts on each of the tlh ships?

In my order of preference

thomas/alastair -> 1000/10. up there with wessa as my all-time favourite ship from any media. they are definitionally soulmates and i will die on that hill. they're perfect for each other, bring out the best in each other, and help each other heal. they're both extremely solid, well-written, and dynamic characters who better each other's storylines and make each other more complex. i'm so glad they have their gentle little love. i want to slurp up their love like spaghetti. it has made me feel alive.

christopher/grace -> 9/10. good god. i love them together and their scenes in chain of thorns made me feel a lot. they both changed each other for the better, and i feel like christopher could easily have been a lifeline in a cruel world for grace in a similar way that thomas is to alastair. in fact, i'd have adored this parallel. i wish they hadn't been doomed. in my mind they're living together in a nice little country cottage. they have the 1900s equivelant of a qpr and love blowing shit up and doing science. i choose denial!

james/cordelia -> 8/10. i'm not overly invested in the relationship because i view it as somewhat static in the way that it's written. but i do like both of the characters and think they're both good people. their story is cute and i always like childhood friends to lovers. there truly is no one else for either of them and i'm glad they have that. i think that they both really deserved their soft happy ending and i am glad they got what they deserved.

anna/ari -> 4/10. look. listen. i am sorry. i don't really like anna because she is to me just the lesbian equivalent of a fuckboy. i don't hate her but i think she had so much potential to be an awesome character but turned out to be kind of a not-so-great person. i'd have liked her more if she grew over the course of the story, but no, she 'likes everything she has and approves of everything she's done.' ari/anna obviously isn't abusive or bad or anything but i think ari could do better. still, it's fine. meh.

lucie/jesse -> 2/10, and i definitely am being hard on them because of how much they disappointed me in chot. i think my main issue is that i grew disenchanted with both characters. lucie behaved really annoyingly at cordelia (despite my criticisms of her character, i feel protective toward cordelia and truly do like her). jesse is probably my least favourite after chot, sadly, because he just was so atrocious to grace for no reason at all. so, no, i don't like them, and i don't care about their relationship. it's sad because they'd have been my 2nd fave ship in tlh before chot, but they made each other worse and the characters and relationship degenerated into being not only boring to read about but also just irritating since i could not cheer for them.