#but alas i could remember no other wedding scene where they actually got to this line | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

something-very-special · 3 years

Text

Call Her Back

Probably already a post with this title from the Let’s Play but it’s appropriate.

Thoughts on Replicant up to Ending A (and change):

This game is pretty. I guess it didn’t really hit me because I’ve always thought that the original NIER was pretty, but this game can be very pretty.

This in particular just kind of struck me as I was going across the Northern Plains. It had been dominantly gray, overcast skies up to that point because Part II of the game is meant to be. You know. Bleak. But I walked out onto a bright, sunny day with an expanse of blues skies, the mountains in the backgrounds, the ivy a burst of green growing up the rusted sides of the train tracks and it just kind of hit me that the game can be very pretty.

(Then I got punched out by a Shade.)

It’s definitely not a matter of massive graphical overhaul. The models look much better (getting a good look at the Twins during the finale, they really are beautiful) and I’m sure the environmental poly count is much higher and just overall smoother, and there are little touches here and there and just the capacity for better atmospheric lighting... I mean it all helps. But NIER is a game that’s always had fantastic art direction, making the most out of its budget through atmospheric tuning. There’s something uniquely beautiful about its muted palette and the way it uses its spaces that elevates it beyond the its actual technical limitations. It doesn’t look like an end-of-generation PS4 game, but that’s not an insult; it looks very much like itself from ten years ago, with its solid art direction, but touched up where it matters.

Does the sidequest grind seem... better...? I haven’t really dug into the BEST part of the game (spending 30 hours grinding out weapon upgrades) but I mentioned before my theory about how the sidequest grind is supposed to be carried out across multiple playthroughs and that’s why it sucks. To my surprise I finished Ending A missing only one sidequest (your friend and mine, Life in the Sands), with all of the other ones being more or less... pretty natural? The only thing I really needed to go out of my way for was Memory Alloy but all the other components didn’t really give me the kind of grief I remember from my playthroughs of the original. ‘Grief’ of course being relative to getting the platinum trophy, but my first time through the game I gave up finishing a few outstanding sidequests (specifically, fixing the lighthouse broke me-- I could not find 10 Mysterious Switches!)

Maybe I just got lucky, especially with the Machine Oils. Maybe some weird muscle memory kicked in. I feel like there were a few purchasing options that weren’t open originally, too, to ameliorate some of the grind, but it might also be a case of those options being cost-prohibitive so I just didn’t really acknowledge them... whatever the case the sidequest grind felt overall pretty painless. I dunno!

I really need to know how to manipulate events. For literally seven playthroughs straight of the latter half of the game I always did the keystone quest as Junk Heap (start) - Forest of Myth - Junk Heap (end) - Facade - Aerie. It wasn’t until I did a run with my college roommates and Popola gave me the Aerie letter before the Facade in invite that I realized the Aerie wasn’t actually programmed to be the last event.

Absolutely blew my mind, and ever since I became aware of it, it feels like the game goes out of its way to make sure the Aerie always comes before Facade. When I did my Let’s Play of NIER I kept a save file from the start of the kystone collection so I could re-do the events in case they went ‘out of order’ (according to my headcanon)... which they did. I replayed the latter half of the game again in order to get things the way I wanted them to be, same order, and fortunately it cooperated the second time, but I still don’t understand what the trigger is, if there’s a way to manipulate it, or when the determination is even made.

And then they throw the Little Mermaid into the mix, which I wasn’t expecting (that is, I knew it was added, but I’ve been mostly avoiding spoilers -- and happily, the changes have largely been a delight, I’m so excited for the subsequent playthroughs -- but the way it was posted about made it seem like it would happen after and apart from the keystone quest. Not so, my friends).

The reason for this is just the emotional escalation of each factor of the quest. The Forest of Myth is weird and little else (at this juncture, of course). The Junk Heap is a personal tragedy, but the actual tragedy has already occurred and you’re just experiencing the fallout. Facade is a powerful and personal tragedy that deserves to be experienced later on. The Aerie is a terrible place and nobody misses it it’s an enormous loss and profoundly traumatic for the party, and it feels like the appropriate apex to basically force them to go to the Castle and finish the fight, having already lost far too much.

Also it’s just super weird to me that they see that devastation, they literally wipe an entire settlement off the map, and then the next day everybody’s super excited to go to a wedding.

It also becomes even weirder that you go to Popola post-Aerie and nobody mentions ‘yeah that didn’t go so well’ but coming out of Seafront they have a legitimate conversation about the loss of the ferryman and the people they’re never getting back. I guess that guy had a personality but I still think maybe somebody should mention the smoking crater where people used to be.

Then again it’s legitimately funny to me how basically everybody is just agreed the world is better off without it.

This might also just be an issue of familiarity. Maybe if I’d always ended on Facade, or actually known that they could be swapped out as they are, it wouldn’t feel so weird. I definitely got used to the pacing with the Aerie at the end and I feel like I got into a debate with somebody about how it’s more appropriate for Facade to come last so this might just be a personal thing. But it’s still a personal thing and I’m still vaguely irritated I can’t figure out how it works.

Anyway I blew up the Aerie So that’s that problem taken care of.

I feel like the ambiance surrounding Wendy was a little creepier this time. I swear I heard that good stock creepy child laughter in the background.

Then the ferryman left This was a nice bit of foreshadowing; following the Aerie events I wanted to hop over to Seafront to take care of an extant sidequest only to find the ferry dock in the Northern Plains empty. I thought that maybe this was just a weird way of railroading you to make sure you went through the Village first, even though there were no scenes that would trigger just by being in the Village.

Alas.

Not gonna lie, when the couple was first introduced I thought for SURE it was going to be the wife who wound up dead. I guess it’s because the guy had a purpose as an NPC so yeah, I was tricked. Good design decision; the ferryman is talkative and bright and definitely difficult to forget and even though he was kinda obnoxious there’s a definite void where his dialogue was. It’s clever too that you’re forced to use the ferry at least once so you can’t escape the dialogue that you’re presented with, meaning that even if you don’t really make use of the ferry you’ll always have that contrast between him at the start of Part II and the other guy (his brother, maybe?) taking over the job and just not really talking to you afterward.

Episode Mermaid First of all, to be clear, I’ve not done the Route B playthrough yet. All I know about the Little Mermaid is what’s presented on the surface, what can be gleaned from there, what I remember reading in the Grimoire NieR short story. This is very much just an impression and reaction to the first encounter and it’s pretty cool.

I like that they managed to go into yet another genre style aping a point-and-click adventure.

I like the atmosphere of the wrecked ship. It really brought me back to the ‘ghost ship’ level archetype with its little hints of spookiness.

I appreciate that it ties subtly in to the Haunted Manor (technically the Part I Seafront dungeon) with Weiss’ utterly irrational fear of ghosts.

I love every excuse they find to get Kaine and Emil (and especially Kaine) out of a situation. It’s almost a running gag that Kaine keeps getting knocked out of dungeons and boss fights. None of them are quite as great as her getting Rules Lawyer’d in the Barren Temple, but there’s something delightful about “Let’s get you some fresh air, we’ll be right outside, be careful!” and then bookending it with Kaine and Emil just chilling at the end like “Well yeah there are a lot of holes in the hull we just popped in.”

(I forgot to go backward to see what happens if you try to take them into Seafront proper, gotta remember that next time.)

Interesting thing when you find some of the dropped apples is that Nier and Weiss talk about the dinner they had with the couple. This was actually a really sweet and oddly emotional conclusion to the added sidequest between the bickering couple-- entirely missable. I would assume the dialogue just doesn’t trigger if you didn’t do the quest but it was a nice touch.

I appreciate the use of dead bodies in the hold.

(That’s a sentence.)

But for the game’s focus on violence and excess of blood it’s very selective in how it uses actual corpses. Any time you see a dead body it really emphasizes the seriousness of the situation. The corpses in the hold and the blood spatter -- especially compared to how bright and clean Seafront as a whole is -- was surprisingly effective. Again, just good atmospheric buildup.

Bit of an anticlimax as a boss, though. It is a really cool boss, between the environmental buildup to the fight and then actually unveiling her, but for how big and scary she is the fight itself went by fairly quick, and the actual finale (the postman whacking her hand telling her to go away she’s groooooss) felt a bit weird in comparison to the way the boss fights in the rest of the game usually play out. Of course, I don’t have context of her dialogue (I can take my guesses, her holding out her hand to Hans as he freaks out and attacks her is already a palpable tragedy) and by the way the scene was framed I suspect the Route B reveal is where the most important part of the scenario lies.

And the seals came back! It’s the little things.

“I wish I was Fyra.” So in the original Replicant the conversation between Emil and Nier before Sech’s wedding was apparently an implication that Emil had a crush on Nier and wanted to marry him. It was ambiguous enough that people had to ask for clarification and some players interpreted it as a weird, childish expression of looking up to and respecting Brother Nier. It was clarified in the Grimoire NieR that Emil is gay and crushing hard on Brother Nier, and this line of dialogue here seems to have been... not made explicit, but changed even between RepliCant and ver. 1.22 to make the implication a little clearer, at least insofar as he isn’t interested in girls. (It winds up missing the implication that he’s into Nier specifically, though.)

...which is funny, because it colors his introduction to the King of Facade somewhat differently. These two meeting is honestly really sweet on a few levels (Sechs recognizing him from Nier’s descriptions, which implies that Nier’s been visiting Sechs regularly and so proud of his interactions with Emil he told the king of another nation all about him, and the King is legit excited to meet him) but then a couple of minutes later Emil is all ‘I’m so jealous of Fyra’. He isn’t crushing on Nier, but he is totally crushing on Sechs.

Endgame At this point in the game the distinction between Brother and Father has become mostly lost and the final charge is pretty much the same as

wait what’s up with the music in the Lost Shrine? This is Snow in Summer.

Or an arrangement thereof. That particular track level from Snow in Summer winds up getting used in a few new places and it has this kind of weird, vague sense of dread that makes it work pretty well. Utterly threw me off in the Lost Shrine, though (I think it’s appropriate given its connection to the Shadowlord/Gestalt Nier so slowly re-introducing it in the climb is pretty cool). It also builds insanely as you climb, which is a very cool effect but, um, I’m just here to pick up some sidequest items right now this feels like a little much.

There isn’t much to say regarding any impact or differences in the large part of this area of the game. It’s a good final dungeon, it carries good momentum, it works as well as it ever did (that is to say, rather well). The emotional beats are great and translate equally well between the protagonists, although I have to give the nod to Papa Nier during a lot of this just for the imagery of such a big, powerful man becoming so broken the further he goes in (and Kaine being strong enough to toss him around like a rag doll anyway).

The final flashback with Nier and Yonah also feels better with Papa Nier. I always read it as, of course, Papa Nier having his moment with Yonah, giving her the flower, and as he lays back down Yonah does the same big sigh like she’s trying to emulate her dad and it’s really sweet. This is another one of those moments where it’s not something that feels wrong in Replicant, but just having that comparison in the back of my head is something that I just can’t help.

Is Papa Nier still Best Neir? Yes.

But there’s room in my heart for Brother. I’m glad the bizarre marketing decision happened and both of these characters can exist.

...and then we reload the save. Okay, okay, so-- so here’s the thing-- I figured that’s a good place to conclude a session, right? Get to the ending, prepare for the next run. But I also know that Route B starts with Kaine’s unskippable novel segments. I’ve read them, of course, so I figure I’ll just reload into Route B so I can make a save after the novel sections, really get into the meat of Route B when I’m fresh.

So skim through those--

Beat up the Knave--

Skim through the rest--

Educated Warrior... didn’t pop...?--

Wait what’s this camera angle--

Why am I outs--

oh my god

KAINE AND EMIL HAVING GIGGLY GIRL TALK AROUND THE CAMPFIRE OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING

THERE’S MORE.

THERE’S. MORE.

I legit short-circuited. Going in I knew they added the Little Mermaid. I knew they added Ending E. Those were things I suspected would be added and went out to specifically confirm; beyond that I’ve been keeping myself completely spoiler free.

I had no idea there was more. I had no idea this was happening.

I’m so excited.

And a goofy thought for the road

“I polished you with a special cloth, I poured warm water on you--”

“Wait, you poured water on me?”

/imagines Emil running blindfolded eight hours across the Southern Plains with an 8oz plastic water cup, getting to the library, splashing it on Kaine, waiting expectantly

/nothing happens

/walks dejectedly eight hours all the way back to the Manor

#NieR #NieR Replicant #Musings #Ramblings #OH MY GOD WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME ABOUT THIS #I AM SO GLAD NOBODY TOLD ME ABOUT THIS

20 notes · View notes

skullsandwineglasses · 3 years

Text

The Legends (2019) Full Review

My review of the first 30 episodes of the drama can be found here.

This is more of a rant than a review. The drama should have wrapped up at episode 35. I was able to tolerate it up to episode 42 when the wedding was, but by episode 48 it’s a total mess.

If only this scene was as epic as the picture makes it look. But alas, this was just a dream sequence, and by this point in the finale, I was already bored and scrolling through instagram on my phone. If only they really did have a love-hate relationship. But this is an angst-free drama.

Inconsistent character arcs

The FL and ML have become incredibly weak, both in terms of abilities and personality. The changes just don’t make sense for their characters.

Zhao yao is no longer the badass she once was, and I’m actually fine with that. Moving away from her demoness persona is part of her growth. BUT, she no longer has a goal in the drama (except when she finds out that Mo Qing has an inner demon. Then, her goal becomes finding a way to expel the demon). But in the last quarter of the drama, she doesn’t really do anything of importance. She lost her sword, but she doesn’t actively go and find it. Instead, Mo Qing and Jiang Wu are the ones who took initiative to hunt it down for her. And when Lin Zi Yu got away with it, she doesn’t bother thinking about finding her sword again?? I mean girl, you lost your sword. Your only weapon. Why is that not at the top of your list of priorities? Is this the same FL who had risked it all for the Wan Jun sword?

(I miss the demoness)

Her tolerance level for things that annoy her is just so out of character. Zhao yao used to be someone who always fought back against anything she didn’t like. But when it comes to Jiang Wu, she seems to have unlimited tolerance for him. Yes, he saved her, but owing him does not mean letting him be a menace. Like when Jiang Wu sucked the life energy out of Ah Dai. All she did was try to restrain Mo Qing from attacking Jiang Wu, but she didn’t spring forward to prevent Jiang Wu from killing Ah Dai. I mean, the cause of Mo Qing’s rage was Ah Dai dying. Shouldn’t you go address the root of the problem? Instead, she just sits and stares and lets Jiang Wu kill Ah Dai instead of doing something. And then there’s the scene in the library when she’s asleep, but Mo Qing is wrestling with his inner demon, and then the Wan Jun sword kills the 2 guards on duty. She just sleeps through the entire thing. Wasn’t she once the most feared conqueror/demoness? Isn’t she a warrior? How can your senses not be alert when there’s so much ruckus around you? Someone on MDL said that she became a glorified baby sitter for the ML, and while I don’t agree that it’s as extreme as that, I can see their point. All that Zhao yao does after the wedding is try to reign in Mo Qing to prevent him from going into full-on demon mode. She holds him back, tries to calm him and soothe him, rinse and repeat.

Speaking of Mo Qing, his current personality is just rage and jealousy. At first, it was kinda endearing seeing him jealous, but soon his entire arc was just about him being consumed by jealousy. The writers try to justify it by saying that he’s always had low self-esteem and been unconfident about himself because of his upbringing, and the growing demon energy inside him is exacerbating these thoughts, making him more unlike himself, but you’re telling me that everything that he and Zhao yao had gone through together was all for naught? This would have made sense 5 years ago, but we’ve seen that he has greatly matured since becoming sect leader. During the earlier episodes, he was able to see right through Zhao yao’s mask. He teased her, flirted with her, scolded her, and basically proved he’s her equal in every way, and he did it all with easy confidence. And now suddenly, all of that growth reverses, and he’s insecure and sensitive again. This character progression just doesn’t make sense in the context of everything that’s happened. I would have loved to have seen more of the introverted and unconfident Mo Qing at the beginning of the drama. But instead, we only got a handful of scenes before that part of his character arc was cut short and we skip ahead 5 years later and then another 5 years later to when he’s the sect leader. There was honestly no purpose for Mo Qing’s suffering. He just suffered for the sake of suffering. In other xianxia dramas, characters suffered for a purpose. It was a price they had to pay in order to protect someone they love. But this suffering is just pointless. It does nothing for this character arc. And they kept replaying the same montage of him sleeping on the dragon. As if it’s not already clear from the last 20 episodes that he’s being haunted by his father’s demon.

Villains and supporting characters

I didn’t really care for the villains? Luo Mingxuan is still alive, but doesn’t do anything until the last 5 episodes. I eyeroll whenever Lin Zi Yu is onscreen. Jiang Wu is the only one who’s interesting and he serves as comedic relief.

And then there are all the unnecessary deaths. It’s like they’re killing off all the good characters one by one. What was the point of killing off the doctor? He was the only character who could scold both Zhao yao and Mo Qing. The drama felt so empty without him.

But on a good note, I really liked most of the supporting characters, from Zhiyan to Shi Qi to Ah Rong to Gu Hanguang. They were also the most consistent characters in the drama.

On a bad note, the drama spent too much time on the backstories of supporting characters. I did not care to watch Suruo mourn Luo Mingxuan and remembering how they fell in love, and this happens for pretty much all the couples in the drama. It’s because Zhao yao and Mo Qing have a very simple romantic arc that’s resolved very early on, so the writers had to throw in fillers to drag out the drama. And the consequence is that our leads end up getting not enough screen time.

The final 2 episodes

Oh boy. The last 2 episodes were a hot mess. In the final battle, everyone kept attacking and stabbing Luo Mingxuan, but he just won’t die?? He’s like Wolverine. He just comes back stronger. It just kept dragging on and on, and I completely lost interest. And I felt bad for Xu Kai. He was standing on the sidelines for most of the battle, just watching and shooting worried faces at Zhao yao. I hate to say he was useless, but it just felt like the writers did him dirty. Even Jiany Wu, who had already died by that point, was given a brief re-appearance. While Mo Qing, the ML, was forced to sit out on the action.

I’m also so over the will-he-won’t-he be evil plot. I keep saying this but I’ll say it again. It. Just. Keeps. Dragging. I’ve watching longer dramas, but this one felt to go on forever. We get it. You’re being tortured by your inner demon, but love will conquer all.

The editing is also weird? Some of the scenes aren’t in chronological order, and there’s no separation between dream sequences and reality. I also never liked the preview at the beginning of each episode. I also hate how they cut some crucial scenes from the TV version that’s on youtube, forcing me to hop onto doboku, which buffers.

Honestly, the last episode felt like a hallucinated dream sequence. In one scene, they’re all sitting around the table saying that the need to seal the Wan Jun sword before Mo Qing gets out of the control, and then it suddenly cuts to black with a title card that says 5 years later (don’t get me started on how often they overuse the “5 years later” plot device. Why is it always exactly 5 years?) We then see that Zhiyan is now the sect leader, and we’re told that Mo Qing has sealed himself away, and Zhao yao has been waiting for him to return. We don’t see them say goodbye to Mo Qing before he seals himself away. No scene showing a handover to Zhiyan. We’re just forced to go with it and imagine these scenes ourselves.

Zhao yao, with a new hairstyle and new clothes to signify the time skip, watches Zhi yan and the sect from the distance. She then goes to visit other people, like Sima Rong and Liu Cangling. Liu Cangling and Zhiyan are the only couple who were able to move on from each other, and honestly, good for them. We then see Zhao yao sitting in the cave, pouring wine onto the cave floor, and then it cuts to black again and a sword flies through the air and wedges itself on the bedrock and we hear Mo Qing say Zhao yao’s name in a voiceover. And then it cuts to a scene where they’re both in the cave wearing their clothes from 5 years and Zhao yao has her old hairstyle. You assume this is a flashback to when they sealed the sword. And then we see Mo Qing in another realm where he lowers the sword in to the water, presumably sealing it. And then it cuts to both of them on the street buying food, wearing their old clothes and hairstyles.

Does this mean he got out of the seal? When in the timeline is this street scene? How did he get out of the seal? Did he just walk out? Was Zhao yao there waiting for him, or did he go and find her? It’s typical for there to be a long period of uncertain separation in xianxia and wuxia dramas, and these dramas usually end either ambiguously where you don’t know if the couple will reunite, or they end with an emotional reunion, like in Ashes of Love, Eternal Love, Love and Destiny, and Love and Redemption, and famously in Return of the Condor Heroes. But what in the world was this ending?? The hell happened? That was so anticlimactic. If the scene on the street really was their “reunion” after he got out of the seal, does that mean Zhao yao changed her hair back to 5 years ago? Why is the costuming so confusing then?

And the last scene where they have the same actors play their kids? Um, no. That’s just plain weird. You built up the chemistry between the 2 actors, and then in the end you make them play siblings and re-enact the scene of when their parents met? For what? To make the audience reminisce about the budding romance between the leads at the beginning so that things come full circle? But, these characters are siblings?? You’re trying to make us emotional over a scene of two siblings pretending to be lovers?

There was just no point in doing that. It doesn’t tell us anything about the characters’ married life now. I don’t care about their kids. I care about the characters and what they’re doing now. What a strange and uncomfortable way to end the drama. Not satisfying at all.

It would have been better if they had left it ambiguous. The amount of times that Zhao yao came back from the dead showed that they can defy the impossible, so even if it was an ambiguous ending, you’d still be able to believe that they’ll be together again. But this mess just ruined the chemistry. Ugh. I really miss the first half of the drama.

Overall Impression

I’m mad about how chaotic the last few episodes were. While the beginning of the drama wasn’t without its flaws either, it was still very promising and intriguing. The beginning of the drama felt like they knew where they were going with the story, even if you didn’t completely like the direction that it went. So yes, I echo the other critiques saying that this drama had a strong beginning and a weak end.

When I got to episode 35, I thought, how bad can this get? When I got to episode 42, I was still holding out hope that maybe other people were just harsh and maybe I’ll actually enjoy it. But no, the final 10 episodes are really as bad as everyone says it is.

The romance, which was the only reason I stuck to the drama, also felt a little underdeveloped. I wish we got to see more scenes of them pre-episode 30.They were so cute then. Everything post-episode 30 was just them being constantly worried about each other.

At least there was no angst. And the comedy was great. So there’s that.

I give this drama a 7/10 for the characters and the premise. The plot is not worth watching due to terrible editing, pacing, and consistency, but it’s also a drama that won’t take you long to watch since you could skip most of it anyway and just go to the scenes with the leads. It’s my first drama watching Bai Lu and Xu Kai, but I’m def now interested in more of their work, like Arsenal Military Academy.

#招摇 #the legends #bai lu #xu kai #cdrama #白鹿 #许凯 #zhao yao #cdrama review #cdrama rant

17 notes · View notes

angelmichelangelo · 3 years

Text

i’m about five years too late and nobody asked for this except me and i need to just get this out of my brain because it’s 2am so here’s a list of things i wish happened on glee that didn’t HERE WE GO:

- new directions being actual teenagers. just them hanging out. going to group sleepovers. giant study sessions (because school exists in this universe?) like remember in tpp when they were eating lunch together ? that’s what i wanted MORE of. just them being actual friends. a sleepover episode is all i wanted imagine all the abba songs we could have gained from that episode

- a halloween themed episode. the closest to this that we got was the ‘thriller/heads will roll’ mashup which YES was iconic but im greedy and it’s not enough. my idea for a halloween episode is that the gang gets trapped inside the school after staying behind to idk rehearse? or something? and then things get progressively worse as they start to go a little mad, thinking the school is haunted and they split up into pairs trying to find an escape and they think they’re seeing ghosts/someone lurking around the school and they’re getting real spooked but it turns out it’s just sue fucking with them lmao

- kurt and finn being brothers. THE POTENTIAL WAS THERE and sadly after furt we are left with crumbs. why ?? WHY?? little moments like finn saying that he’s driving back home with kurt or them saying they can’t do something because they have a family thing would have been good enough. more scenes of them hanging out in their home with their parents would have been *chefs kiss* but alas. it never happened because glee writers are bastards

- based off my last point: sam actually living at the hudson-hummel house because he actually did live there? but nothing is ever said like what’s the dynamic there why weren’t kurt and sam and finn close if they all lived together for what? like a year? was sam living in the mf shed? did he ever get close to carole and burt?? where tf did he live when everyone went off to college did he just stay in their house lol who knows not me LMAO

- blaine dealing with his trauma ? mental health was never dealt with very well on this show. emma’s ocd was just ignored after she got married or whatever and blaine mentioned his trauma once and then it was ignored until it was mentioned in passing a few seasons later and even he just brushed it off and it was never brought up again like wtf. i have no idea how they wrote a whole episode about hate crime in bash and they never once thought to have blaine and kurt have a single conversation together, let alone a conversation about how they’d both been victims of a hate crime. AND THE ONLY TIME BLAINE DOES MENTION IT IS IN TESTED WHERE ITS JUST USED AS A REASON FOR THEM TO FIGHT AAAAAAAA no wait im calm it’s okay. i just would have liked to have seen kurt and blaine have an emotional moment together in that episode that didn’t include blaine singing and kurt being knocked tf out. just sayin.

- kurt dealing with HIS trauma !! again, glee gets bad points for talking about mental health and it just is crazy that they had so much potential with kurt, ie: depression, anxiety, ocd (kinda?) his bullying, being literally assaulted (i see u ryan murphy taking that whole plot line so loosely mmhm) and then shoehorning in the fact that he was suicidal AT THE SECOND TO LAST EPISODE when they had a whole episode about suicide and they could have mentioned it at any time but ofc they didn’t because the writers just wanted to shove in as much as they could in the flashback episode AYE AYE AYE the potential!!!! oof.

- literally just more tina. jenna ushkowitz is a fantastic actor/singer/preformer and she was criminally underused. i like the episode props because of two reasons: one. everyone switching characters was amazing. and two. some actual tina scenes. even if she.. technically was rachel but also herself or something? either way. i digress

- this is just in general but MORE ABBA AND ALSO THE CARPENTERS and also some sound of music songs would have worked GREAT but they already had like a million songs and as the show progressed they veered away from old songs and more towards popular songs at the time to help chart numbers blah blah blah whatever it’s cool. but also how did they only do a few abba songs that is criminal

- a more fleshed out ending that wasn’t so rushed. like rachel won a tony and everyone else is just? there? why is sam at mr shue’s house ??? how did artie get up the stairs? did quinn graduate from yale? and where tf was kurt and blaine’s child during ‘i lived’ because burt and carole are vibing in the audience and rachel isn’t pregnant so like? is the baby just?? alone somewhere in the wings?! lmao where are u bby girl!! but once again i know they didn’t have the time to do it so idk it’s fine what they did it just sucks we didn’t get more! but again. fanfic exists so yah im all good

- more of blaine’s mum. or mom, in this case i guess. why cast gina gershon and then give her ONE line like ? ik there was a whole deleted script that explained why she was there but i love that up until that point blaine seemed like he genuinely murdered his parents, lived in their big house all alone and when people got suspicious he just told them that they were “out of town” :) either way pam is great i love her and i wish she had more to do in the one episode she was ever in. not even a moment with blaine?? wasted.

- more of cooper anderson, matt boomer is so fucking funny everytime i think of the emotion tornado i bust a lung laughing like it’s so fucking stupid but oh my good i love it. (and if you haven’t watched the special feature of cooper’s transformers audition tape please please watch it because it’s just so funny.) ik he was just a special guest but i wish they got him back for at least the wedding ep but guess my mans was just busy. boo ;(

- going back a couple of points, i wish they’d done a whole episode like props. every actor here just shines when they’re impersonating each other. finn and puck as kurt and blaine is beautiful and quinn and sugar is incredible. also idk why they refused kevin the right to wear the cheerios skirt; they could have put a little more effort into some characters but that’s glee for ya lmao but yeah. a whole episode like that would have been so much fun

- they should have let chris colfer write more episodes. purely for the fact that he wrote with his own bare hands the whole scene where lea michelle’s character gets dragged down a road by dogs. this guy. it’s a shame he only got to write one since he actually did a really good job! i would have loved to have seen what other episode ideas he had :)

- glee in the summer! obviously it only was centred around the school year but after season 3 who honestly gave a shit about the glee club and mckinley lmao i wanna see them in SHORT SHORTS and POOL PARTIES but nope we just got september - june so like rip all my hopes and dreams

- WHAT HAPPENED TO DALTON? bitch just burst into flames ?? and for WHAT?? oh yeah plot convenience smh this is so sad i wish they’d either written something better than “we need the warblers to team up with new directions so uhhh the school burnt down” like. it’s a private school. if the school is gone and they’re just staying at mckinley what are the parents paying for? they’re just cool with sending their kids off to public school now? every adult in this universe has been murdered by these kids, haven’t they? they’re just doing whatever they want jfc

- a wedding was a good episode. ish. and yknow, huge kudos to them because gay marriage wasn’t legal in the us at the time so im less harsh on the fact that they definitely threw up the rainbow flags and made it less about the characters getting married and more so “we have gay characters and look they’re getting married what a concept” but i do wish we could have gotten some more married!klaine since they don’t really have much to do after this understandably but a little moment alone together after the wedding would have been nice :) IT WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE IM TELLING YOU

- get rid of the hummelberry friendship and send mercedes to new york instead. i have nothing else to add to this other than the fact that i mourn the fact that kurt and mercedes went from bffs to just. school mates. this is tragic this is traaaaagic !! and all for more of the rachel berry show smh

- every day i wonder what was going through carmen tibideaux mind when she watched the kurt hummel preform not the boy next door and was like :) and then watched rachel berry have a breakdown on stage and then proceeded to give rachel the spot at nyada and kurt gets payed literal dust. and THEN she had the nerve to tell him it was because his performance had no heart. AND HOW DID ADAM GET IN THIS BABY GOT BACK MOTHERFUCKER?! nyada is a circus school oh my god !!!!! kurt deserved better im telling yall he deserved so much better

there’s so much more i could rant about but im going insane im so tired and i need psychological help after watching glee so im gonna leave it here and say peace out homies it’s been fun but i need to sleep so bad

#this is insanity #how did this happen #glee #tw hate crime mention #tw suicide mention #tw mental health mention #this was from my drafts lmao

38 notes · View notes

g-perla · 3 years

Text

The ACOTAR Series is a Romantic/Gothic Horror Stage and Only Nesta Got the Memo

Not even SJM knows what’s going on.

Ok, this is going to seem off the rails but bear with me.

So I'm a big fan of Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (top 5 books and all that jazz) and I was thinking about it because it deals with themes of the Other and the supernatural, Nature as Character, the overlap of the animalistic and human, blurring of established binaries...fun, Romantic shit like that. Interestingly, this overlaps with how SJM illustrates her world and characters a lot of the time, hence why I was considering it while working on my Nesta project. I’ve mentioned before that Nesta really gives me Byronic heroine vibes and that’s a character construct of precisely this literary tradition.

I started thinking about Heathcliff and Cathy and how they're ridiculously extra and just feel the most intense emotions towards each other but also towards literally everything (nothing half-assed ever, this is a Romantic novel after all). I then remembered how so many people ship them, but like in earnest, in a totally aspirational way. It's not a #cursed ship to them at all. It's...romantic to them not Romantic. I even read often that people quote it at their weddings, specifically the infamous "two souls" quote.

Then I had an epiphany. I was like "wait, what if SJM is one of those people?? What if she has the energy of a Cathy/Heathcliff earnest shipper and that's why all her ships are messy??" Because if that is the case, my friends, oh boy oh boy would it explain so much. I will post some sections from Wuthering Heights:

Doesn’t the acotar series seem like a 1/50 dilution of that energy?? And that is barely a taste of all the spiciness this book has to offer. To illustrate further: SJM gave us the F/eysand suicide pact and the near-death battlefield Nessian scene. One is certainly more outlandish than the other, but both are the result of intense emotions. To that Emily Brontë raises the following: Heathcliff asking the sexton to dig up Cathy’s grave to see what’s up because her ghost has been haunting him since he personally dug up her grave 18 years prior and she has been haunting him ever since. He later demands to be buried in the same exact grave when he dies so they can decompose together. They both married other people though which only adds to the mess. (I am not lying to you the Romantic tradition really gave us these gems lmao. As an aside, Mary Shelley was also a writer of the Romantic tradition and she confessed her love to husband Percy Bysshe Shelley on her mother’s grave. Her mother was liberal feminist icon Mary Wollstonecraft by the way which only makes this even more amazing. Additionally, biographers believe that the Shelleys also had sex there. Talk about Romantic 😉.)

Then I had ANOTHER thought! (Dangerous)

If we read the series from the point of view of just another YA high fantasy things might get a bit boring because the world-building is honestly lazy and the magic system is pretty soft, which isn’t a pre-requisite in high fantasy (The Lord of the Rings has a soft magic system) but it's not the norm and it doesn't pay off in this series. Not to mention that the plot is pretty lackluster and derivative. To add to that the romantic and sexual relationships are questionable in their healthiness and consequently are the source of much argument in the fandom.

But, dear reader, if we think about the ACOTAR series as being a sort of thematic and ideological 21st century YA homage to the Romantic tradition of the 19th century (within which Gothic Horror also lives), things get REALLY, REALLY SPICY.

No longer do we just have a romance fantasy with messy, hyper-emotional, animalistic characters who constantly partake in morally grey situations rife with dubious dynamics. No longer does plot really matter. No longer do we require quasi-scientific descriptions of the world and the magical system. No! All that matters now are the characters and the mood. Now we have potential! Add a lot of Nature ambiance: expanses of dark woods, great mountains, the unknowable and sublime energy of the ocean, a violent rainstorm/hurricane/tsunami, an impending snowstorm whose intensity reflects the growing emotional intensity of the characters as the story goes along (I’m looking at you impending snowstorm in acofas that curiously matches the growing complexity of Nesta’s emotional state). Blur the lines between any imaginable category: life and death, human and animal, known and unknown, Self and Other, beautiful and monstrous, good and evil, masculine and feminine, the list goes on. Most importantly make your readers uncomfortable by frustrating their desires to sort things into easy binary categories and don’t apologise for making them question their assumptions about the world, morality, gender, and any other kind of previously constructed Order.

Basically write the story with Dionysus-in-a-Greek-tragedy energy and bring to us mere mortals artful Chaos.

Once that is done we can have a literal Romantic/Gothic Horror story. The Acotar series could have been this unapologetically, with the added element of being told through the eyes of the "Cathy" character instead of through the lens of a third person getting second-hand accounts about what went on. This whole series is honestly enough of a chaotic mess of Byronic-like heroes and heroines and cursed familial relationships that it could have been that. That alone is peak entertainment. The problem, however, and the main reason why I can’t really say that this series truly delivered this wackiness is that SJM committed the act of not fully committing to the bit (very un-Romantic of her, I know). Now, I am not saying that SJM actually intended this. I’m just saying it really could have accidentally been this genius with some tweaks. Unfortunately, she made the crucial mistake of trying to justify too much, trying to make things too neat, too tidy, too sensical (in other words: the reason we really can’t have nice things).

I could end this here, lamenting the potential of what SJM had set-up for us were it not for one element, one gift:

Nesta

OHOHOHO DO THINGS GET GOOD HERE SO BUCKLE UP

Most of the characters refuse to fully commit to the bit in their desire to satisfy modern sensibilities, by which I of course mean they want ridiculous things like political power, to conquer lands, to be a Girl Boss, to get married, have kids, celebrate holidays, converse about mundane things, be relatable, etc. You know, pretty pedestrian stuff that only requires a bit of genetic luck, a sprinkle of energy, and the right circumstances within the world of Acotar. I would like to reiterate the beginning of this paragraph: most of the characters.

Let’s say you’re stubborn and you decide to still read the series through the lens of the Romantic/Gothic tradition, what happens then?

The most hilarious thing (for the Nesta stans that is. The antis would probably hate this)

Nesta, based on what we know about her through Feyre and the limited amount of other scenes, is the only character who really takes the performance seriously. She's the only one that SJM hasn't managed to confine through justification. Nesta just shows up and simply refuses to make sense (her POWER what a queen 👑). She is endlessly fascinating because she just exists in her world on her terms, established categories be damned, and in this manner she frustrates not only the sensibilities of the characters in the stories but those of the reader as well. This double duty is, I suggest, the result of the other characters not fully inhabiting the nebulous world of Romantic characters and thus being a little too plausible and understandable even if they are not justifiable.

Ok, you may say, but I relate so much to Nesta. I do understand her. I don’t justify all of her actions, but I understand where she is coming from. (You’re not alone, friend. I like to think these things too. Alas, we are but plebs).

To that I reply; Nesta does things, certainly, and we can spend hours trying to explain through extrapolation, educated guesses, and personal experience why she did those things, but the fact is we really don't know why. We are never explicitly told. Our insight into who she is and her motivations comes predominantly from the understanding of her youngest sister and from our own interpretation of the actions she takes. I must make clear that our own interpretations are rooted in pre-established assumptions about what is sensical and orderly in our own world and in our own lives. We cannot interpret with the tools available to us that which may be, by definition, unfathomable. It is simply paradoxical. Nesta, as we currently know her, is a construct derived from a limited number of scenes and our interpretations and projections of these scenes. Even the scenes where we get third person narration don’t explicitly tell us her motivations and her logic. For all we know there really is no comprehensible reason for her actions and that is endlessly amusing to me in how utterly Romantic it is. Acosf may and likely will change this of course, but as it stands, Nesta is a whole Romantic character. Her divisiveness in fandom and in the narrative could be due in part to her refusal to fit the discrete categories available in her world and ours.

Isn’t that wonderful?

To illustrate this a bit more I will share some details SJM gives us about her/ elements she sets up that fit in with the characteristics of the Romantic tradition (these are not exhaustive by any means):

The absolute pettiness (and extra-ness) of being so angry at her father’s inaction that she is willing to starve to death to see if he does something.

How in Acowae she is described as shifting between emotions as if she were changing clothes and feeling everything too strongly (probably to the point of destruction)

She is constantly being compared to animals, even when she is still human. Granted, SJM compares everyone to animals, but that strengthens the blurring of lines between usually discrete categories. It is still most powerful when used as a comparison when she is human because it dehumanises Nesta.

Often, SJM describes her characters as forces. Forces of nature, for example. Acofas is full of details like this in relation to Nesta. There is a storm brewing leading up to the solstice party and it is in full swing when she arrives at the townhouse. The language used there suggests that Nesta herself may be the storm (against the onslaught of Nesta). It really adds to the Maleficent energy tbh.

She is often associated with death post her transformation

She is Other even to Others. She was Made like Elain, Feyre, and Amren in a sense, but the process of her specific transformation differentiates her greatly from the others. As it is, she doesn’t fit in anywhere

Her intense attachment to her femininity and its expression are at odds with the ideas and assumptions about the performance of womanhood and a woman’s role in her world and even in ours. She is unapologetically feminine in her physical presentation, but her character, her thoughts, and possibly even desires transgress the unwritten rules of acceptable femininity (unfortunately there still are abject expressions of femininity in our ‘”progressive” mileux

She displays in many of her actions a disrespect towards authority and to the status quo. This is particularly notable when her intensely polarised sense of right and wrong is aggravated.

Her self-destructiveness. This is referred to most strongly in Acofas, but I would say she was remarkably blasé about self-preservation in Acowar as well

She is described as intelligent, cunning, ruthless, attractive, and prone to debilitating extremes of emotionality. All of these are characteristics of Byronic heroes, a subtype of the Romantic hero

Here are a bunch of quotes that touch on many of the elements that I have discussed above:

“I looked at my sister, really looked at her, at this woman who couldn’t stomach the sycophants who now surrounded her, who had never spent a day in the forest but had gone into wolf territory...Who had shrouded the loss of our Mother, then our downfall, because the anger had been a lifeline, the cruelty a release. But she had cared--beneath it she had cared, and perhaps loved more fiercely than I could comprehend, more deeply and loyally.”

--Acotar, emphasis mine, note the strong emotions. This is a recurring element for Nesta.

“Cassian’s face went almost feral. A wolf who had been circling a doe...Only to find a mountain cat wearing its hide instead.”

--Acomaf, animal comparison

“Nesta is different from most people,” I explained. “She comes across as rigid and vicious, but I think it’s a wall. A shield--like the ones Rhys has in his mind.” “Against what?” “Feeling. I think Nesta feels everything--sees too much; sees and feels it all. And she burns with it. Keeping that wall up helps from being overwhelmed, from caring too greatly.”

--Acomaf, emphasis mine

“I knew that she was different [...] Nesta was different [...] as if the Cauldron in making her...had been forced to give more than it wanted. As if Nesta had fought after she went under, and had decided that if she was to be dragged into hell, she was taking the Cauldron with her.”

--Acomaf, Nesta had her own plans for the Cauldron what a queen

“Something great and terrible.”

--Acowar, referring to her eyes. Oooh, spooky Nesta 👻

“The day she was changed, she...I felt something different with her [...] like looking at a house cat and suddenly finding a panther standing there instead.”

--Acowar, a two in one here: difference + animal comparison. Boy does SJM really go heavy when establishing Nesta as Other.

“‘Not in flesh, not in the thing that prowls beneath our skin and bones...’ Amren’s remarkable eyes narrowed. ‘But...I see the kernel, girl.’ Amren nodded, more to herself than anyone. ‘You did not fit--the mold that they shoved you into. The path you were born upon and forced to walk. You tried, and yet you did not, could not fit. And then the path changed.’ A little nod. ‘I know--what it is to be that way. I remember it, long ago as it was.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’“

--Acowar, show don’t tell gets thrown out the window here, but it is useful for the present purposes

“What if I tell you that the rock and darkness and sea beyond whispered to me, Lord of Bloodshed? How they shuddered in fear, on that island across the sea. How they trembled when she emerged. She took something--something precious. She ripped it out with her teeth. What did you wake that day in Hybern, Prince of Bastards?

What came out was not what went in [...] How lovely she is, new as a fawn and yet ancient as the sea. How she calls to you. A queen as my sister once was. Terrible and proud; beautiful as a winter’s sunrise.”

--Acowar, who knew rocks, darkness, and the sea were such gossips, but look how many connections to nature! To be compared to the sea, a significant example of the sublime, is peak Romanticism. If any of you have read Moby Dick, think about what the ocean and the white whale might have represented there and how that might relate to Nesta.

“I think the power is death--death made flesh.”

--Acowar, Feyre referring to the possible nature of Nesta’s power. Alluding to her powers possibly being related to death is quite significant because that is something most of us cannot comprehend, nor can most of the characters. For Nesta, a “reborn” but very much living character to have death associated with her is a strong blurring of the lines. The case of her being labelled a witch is similarly significant as it solidifies the elements of the supernatural while simultaneously comparing her to pretty much the only exclusively female-coded monster in western pop culture. I will touch more on this when I do my study of Nesta through the framework of Barbara Creed’s Monstrous Feminine.

“I am not like the others.”

--Acowar, we love a self-aware queen.

“Nesta took in his broken body, the pain in Cassian’s eyes, and angled her head.

The movement was not human.

Not fae.

Purely animal.

Purely predator.”

--Acowar

There are a lot more details and quotes that support this interpretation, but I didn’t write them all down in my archived notes. This post is obscenely long, however, so even though there is more to be said, I’ll leave it for another day. If you made it this far you really are an MVP and probably love Nesta to a concerning degree like me. Please rest your eyes if you’re actually reading this 😂

I’d love to read about any other takes and thoughts that might have come to your minds after reading this monstrosity,

25 notes · View notes

xsecretblastsx · 4 years

Text

1x17 - Woman on the Verge

wanted to do this one like two weeks ago, but alas it wasn’t possible. Just one more episode to go and season one will be done.. and I’m going to miss it.

As usual recap’s under the break

Thoughts I had while watching:

Georgina is obssesed, she also looks fabolous.

I know is his brand of humour but still Dan cames across as really obnoxious, almost mocking his dad excitment about his performance for Rolling Stone. And I did watched VH1 clasics.

Rufus actually pointing out the fact that Serena probably lies to him because she’s afraid of what he will think because he’s really good at being judgy, and yet Dan doesn’t get it.

For real Dan’s like “so I should learn to be someone else around her so she can be herself around me” and I want to pull my hair out

It still surprises that Nate and Vanessa doesn’t bother me at all.

“Are you drunk dialing again?” the show always robbed us of the best stuff. What I wouldn’t give to see those calls. Just imagine it, drunk Blair, amused Chuck, priceless.

Most akward elevator ride ever. Well Chuck at least tried to be cordial, too bad Nate ignored him.

Dan is Serena’s number one on speed dial, no surprises there I guess.s

This such a glimpse of the old days, this was a routine they knew well and one can tell, the three of them helping a drunk Serena. And Chuck being pervy as usual.

I always forget Lily was into photography back in the day.

Dan asking if Nate, Chuck and Blair don’t hate each other, and Nate and Blair are like yes, and Chuck’s like no, never fails to crack me up.

Also I love how Chuck and Blair’s are so matchy here. They look good.

He has reason to be pissed I get it, yet Dan asking Serena for the truth as if he were the spanish inquisition is not the way to go.

“I had three perfect weddings, I want this one to be more perfect than perfect” I love Lily.

THe love Dorota has for these kids, never fails to warm my heart.

Blair and Nate pointing out how they’re not perfect and then Chuck is like “i’m Chuck Bass” like that’s the only explanation needed it, is probably my fave time in the series of him dropping that line.

“We’re the non judginb breakfast club” have I’ve mentioned how much I loved this scene? It’s I think the first time show explicitly let’s us know that the four of them were best friends before everything got messed up between them.

So Georgina was Chuck’s first, and I’ve always get the feeling there was some interesting history there, she going psycho on him, and him avoiding her ever since? Makes me wonder.

The Shepperd’s wedding ended up being more life changing for these kids than the bride and groom.

Serena left the wedding wearing Nate’s shirt, how did Nate explained that? Where was Blair?

The whole story of Serena, Pete and Georgina that night is awful, poor Serena keeping that secret for more than a year, it’s also really sad.

Lily’s words to Serena, are such a shame, sure she doesn’t know the facts and she’s worried about her wild daughter, but the fact is it only reinforces Serena’s belief that those that love her can’t see past her mistakes.

Seeing Lisa Loeb at Rufus concerct here it’s so weird.

Blair’s love for Serena, and viceversa is one of the best aspects of this show, and I just love how she went to Lily and set things right.

Nate taking the subway and calling Blair to give intel so she can scheme, it’s a brand new world for him.

Chuck’s always so gentlemanly with Lily, and I love it.

And Chuck and Blair are back for a scheme. Such a short bit, but is one of my faves of them because their faces are priceless, and it’s so them.

Ah Vanessa, always messing up stuff even when she doesn’t meant to. Thanks for letting Georgina know that the gig is up.

She may mess up constantly, but when she admits she is wrong and is actually there for her kids, Lily’s the best.

The whole Georgina and Dan thing is so ugh to me. This whole plot is so messed up knowing the ending of this show.

I wish we had a glimpse of that limo ride between Nate, Chuck and Blair, with them trying so hard to ingore each other. Akward much.

Pretty much the way Chuck and Blair awkardly stand next to each other the minute Nate leaves with Vanessa.

“I’m a big Leaky Hawk fan” nice try Blair.

Is there somewhere a full recording of the song Rufus is singing?

For once Georgina is right, Dan ain’t that good, and it’s time Serena realizes that.

I miss when one could take the battery out of the phone. I didn’t remember Georgina did that to Dan’s phone though.

This episode deserves a spot in the hall of fame of Gossip Girl episodes if only for the fact that is the episode that gave us The Non judging breakfast club. This is an episode that let’s us know a lot about the past, we finally know Serena’s secret and in learning that truth we also learn about the bond between Serena and her friends, particularly Blair and also how her mother can actually do help her and make her feel better. There’s a lot of love in this episode and it’s something I didn’t particularly noticed the first time around. The scene where Blair speaks up and defends Serena against Lily and she actually listens and helps her daughter is one of those moments that really makes this show more layered. Blair is also so sweet and loving with Serena this episode, their friendship is the heart and soul of this show, and it was nice when the show focus on that rather on creating never ending conflict between them.

The tale of what happened that night between Serena, Georgina and Pete seemed so much sadder to me this time around, because when one stops to think about it Serena is barely sixteen, and yet she’s already so caught up in a wolrd of sex, alcohol and drugs, and she was about to get a sex tape done about her without her knowledge, that’s really messed up, and she cames to this clusterfuck filled with guilt, we know by now the kind of friendship Serena and Blair have, about Blair’s insecurities and Serena’s not blind to this, she knows that what she just did with Nate is posibly the worst thing she could have done to Blair, it’s something that can be erased and it’s going to be more than likely the end of their friendship, it’s a nightmare, and then something even worse happens. It’s so much for a 16 year old, no wonder she runs away, and like Lily said it had a deep impact on her, and one of the reasons why she changes for the better. It was plain and simple the worst night of her life, and she’s deeply ashamed of it, and as such is hard for her to be honest about it, and it scares her to think what everyone would think of her.

Is the promise that no matter what they will support her that finally gets Serena to tell the truth to Nate, Chuck and Blair and when she does they are so suportive of her, no hesitation, Chuck’s already been helping her with Georgina, and Nate is someone who would always be there for her, and Blair, they’re sisters, and she proves to her what she said last episode, she won’t let go. These are the people that really love her, that know her better than anyone, and it’s such a contrast to Dan’s attitude.

Earlier today I got some asks about Dan and how he idealised Serena, she herself this episode said he puts her on a pedestal, and it got me thinking... on earlier recaps I’ve mentioned how the relationship started cracking when her past caught up with her, but there’s no way Dan by being Gossip Girl didn’t know about her wild past, he creates the site because he wants to find an in with her... but at that point she’s nothing remotely like the Serena he actually ends up dating, so why did he wanted to date her? If he hated that world, if she partied, lied, did drugs and was very unlikely to want anything serious? So what did he want? The only possible answer to me is that he went into this with his hero complex front and center, he wanted to date her to save her, to get her to be different, his perfect girl, the good Serena, the one that only came to be when she dated him.

I’ve been complaining about the show pointing out how good Dan was for Serena, that since he came into the picture she was differente, and how Dan bought into that, how he believe it and why he kept judging her when she didn’t comply to his way of seeing thigns, that he got pissed because in his mind he was like: realy hadn’t she heard everyone said he was good for her, so she should listen to his judgment, don’t prove him wrong in believing in her, but I was seeing as Dan gaining that belief because of the way things had developed between then and people, even Lily pointing it out, and now I kind of think he always thought it, even before he knew her, that she need him, and right now it’s making Serena’s comment of him having her in a pedestal not so good, because he has her in a pedestal not because he believes in her, but rather because he sees it as being all because of him, is almost a pedestal to his own ego. Maybe I’m seeing way into it, but the Georgina and Dan storyline makes me think all sort of crazy stuff.

I know the show didn’t knew Dan was Gossip Girl here, and people complain about this storyline the most in pointing out how that twist doesn’t make sense, but to me it sort of does, I can see it happening, is just that it makes Dan a 100 times creepier, because both him and Georgina are pretending, and this episode when he kiss her, it gaves way to different kind of arguments like maybe he kiss her because he wanted to hurt Serena, because he felt she deserved it, and he could do it because in the end it would never came across as the ugly action it was but rather as him being deceived by an evil manipulative mastermind and by the fact that Serena had led him to believe he cheated on him first. One can come up with many reasons to explain Dan’s actions, if one accepts the fact that he’s as manipulative and evil as Georgina since the start. The only difference between Dan in S1 and the one in later seasons is that he just felt he didn’t need it to hide anymore, and even then it was everyone else fault, they drove him to that point.

It also makes more sense why he was so mad about Serena hiding stuff from him, because he already knew, and in his mind maybe he believe he could be magnanimus about it, to be like, see I still love you, of course like Rufus pointed it out, he never gave Serena a reason to believe he would actually understand her. Nest episode is the last one, and I’m really excited.

Random bits I’ve noticed:

That robe Serena’s wearing, if I’m not mistaken Chuck wears it too on a later season. I love consistency.

And talking about consistency, when Lily is going through her contacts list, not sure about calling Bart, the contact at the top of the list is someone called Amelia. Most likely the same Amelia that makes an appearance next episode.

#gossip girl #gossip girl recap #gossip girl rewatch #1x17 #woman on the verge

7 notes · View notes

eternaljouska · 5 years

Text

Redamancy, Chapter 6 - Lee Jihoon

Pairing: Husband!JihoonxReader

Genre: Angst, the tiniest amount of Fluff

Word Count: 1.8 K

A/N: Again, another short chapter that I’m not really proud of (?)

Recommended Song: Linkin Park ft. Kiiara - Heavy (I’ll have a different song for the next chapter. I have one ready, I promise.)

–

You send Jihoon to the door with another lunchbox. And he bids his goodbye with a tight smile on his lips.

Last night, you barely got any sleep. One was because Jihoon suddenly moved to his original side of the bed, and two was because you couldn’t get rid of the wasps in the wake of your flashback. It had you replaying those scenes over and over again for you to finally understand that the woman you heard is you. And with the fact that Jihoon left the house at the end of the flashback, you can tell that the two of you just had a fight. A major one, that is, seeing that you’re never the one to resort to aggressive behavior.

You pace around the living room with your nails on your mouth again. You want to go to the Haven in the hope of getting another flashback, but you are afraid that if you do, it would be as intense as it was yesterday. And you doubt you’re ready for it. Your eyes flicker around the room aimlessly until you catch sight of something familiar from the corner of your vision. You turn around and gasp.

Lily of the valley.

The flower you hold in your wedding picture. Your wedding bouquet, it’s white lily of the valley.

You run upstairs and slam the door of the Haven open, rushing to the place where the pot struck the wall. You plop down in front of it, mind going to hundreds of different locations at the same time.

Why have I done that?

The fury, despair, and grief that were mirrored through yesterday’s flashback, you don’t fully understand them. You want to understand.

Why, why, why, why?

“I love you.” You hear Jihoon starts, and your breath hitches.

“I’m sorry that I’m being selfish, but… I want you to wait for me. I- I hope you’ll wait for me. Here”—he extends his hand, offering you a posy of flowers—“you know, it’s hard to choose a flower for someone who knows flowers.” There’s a sound of laughter that reminds you so much like a tinkling bell, a sound of which allows you to see the warm color spreading on Jihoon’s cheek, mimicking the sun who’s ready to set behind him. “So, um, I googled it. You know, hanakotoba, the language of flowers. I, um, there are a few versions, but… you know… just, here”—he clears his throat as he grabs your hand and shoves the flowers to you—“promise me you’ll wait for me, and this is my promise to you.”

The vibration of your phone in your pocket pulls you out of your head.

It’s Soonyoung.

“Hey, why do I still see that prick over here? I gave him a piece of my mind yesterday, and it offends me that he didn’t listen.”

You blink your eyes a few times before answering, “Huh? What is it, Soonie?”

Soonyoung’s heart skips a beat when you called him with that nickname. It did the same that night he and the other members visited you in the hospital. He hadn’t worried about anything else besides your wellbeing. He and Seungkwan have been your best friend since forever. He was nervous, but he knew you’d remember him. Yet when you actually called him Soonie instead of Soonyoung or Hoshi, relief washed over every inch of his body, and he swore that was one of his happiest moments in life.

“Um, I’m sorry. It’s just, Jihoon’s at work again. I told him yesterday not to go. At least, not yet, not until you’re better. How- how are you? I should’ve asked you that first, but—“

“Soonie, it’s okay. I’m okay, and you can’t chain Jihoon away from his job. None of us can, not you, not me. Or at least, not forever. He’ll get back to producing eventually, and I don’t mind. Really.”

Both of you are silent, your thought traveling back to the dusk on Jihoon’s face, and an idea pops up in your head. “Hey, are you free?”

“Why do you want to go to Han—hey, at least wear a hat, will you?” Soonyoung groans as he sees you exiting your house without any disguising elements on your head. “I don’t know about you, but I’m still famous, you see.”

You laugh at that, this boy, you think. Soonyoung himself wears a beanie and a mask that is lowered to his chin as he speaks. He stands from his previous position leaning on his car to open the passenger door for you.

“So, my question, why suddenly the Han River?” he continues once he hits the road.

“I… I had a flashback.”

“A flashback?”—his lower lip protrudes slightly, forming a little pout, a sign that he’s currently thinking—“Oh! You do?! What is it?”

You nod. “I’m not sure. I was hoping that maybe I’ll get some more if I visit the place.”

Soonyoung feels the atmosphere getting heavier by the second that follows. So he quips, “Why me, huh? Usually, you’ll go to Seungkwan first.” He looks at you teasingly, but frankly, he’s curious and nervous for your answer.

“You called me right after the flashback.”

“Oh, I did?”—his voice turns glum—“You’re saying that it’s by chance? And that it’s gonna be Seungkwan if I hadn’t called?” You whip your head at his morose inquiries. You were about to say something when he beats you to it. “I’m only ever your alternative, huh?”

“Soonyoung, I…” you trail off your words as you try to swallow the lump that’s starting to form in your throat.

“Shit! I’m sorry, Y/n. I don’t mean to—“ Soonyoung blurts out his apology when he sees that your eyes have become watery through the rear-view mirror. But you immediately cut him.

“No. No. I’m sorry. I- I don’t know that you feel that way.”

The silence between you is heavy even after both of you exit the car and walk together on one side of Han River. Soonyoung is busy lecturing himself for his outburst in his head when you stop on your track and raise your hand to point at something. “Is that familiar to you?”

Soonyoung looks up to see that you’re pointing at a big tree planted in a ground rather higher than its surrounding. He shakes his head. “No, just some normal tree for me. But if for you it is, we can walk there.”

“Hey, um, I’m sorry for earlier. I really didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I’m just… You know what I’m like,” Soonyoung says once you arrive in front of the big tree.

You turn to him and smile. “It’s okay, Soonie.”

“Did any of them talk to you?” he says after a few more minutes of silence, a comfortable one this time.

“Hm?” You look at him, making sure that you’re thinking of the same group of people as he is. “All of them did actually.”

“Good.”

You spend some time with Soonyoung, leaning on the tree and talking about the good old days. You clap your hand together and rise from your position, ready to go home. As it turns out, getting a flashback is not as easy as you wish it to be.

The sun is still high in the horizon when you leave, walking away with the heart of an ember that still burns for the same person.

Lily of the valley, you whisper to that heart.

Lily of the valley: sweetness or the promise of happiness.

The night is young when Jihoon arrives home. He wears an expression that’s quite far from amicable, lines etched on his forehead.

“Hey, you’re home!” you gush, standing from your spot on the couch in an instant that you hear the sound of the door.

He doesn’t say anything back. Nor does he respond to anything you say to him all that night.

To say that he is pissed is somewhat an overstatement. He is not angry, just slightly annoyed—yeah, but greatly hurt.

On his way out he was stopped by Soonyoung. The man skidded to a halt in front of Jihoon, chest heaving and shirt drenched with sweat. It seemed that Soonyoung paused his dance practice abruptly to run for him.

“Hey, I was out with Y/n to Han River today, I thought I’ll let you know. She said she had a flashback or something and asked me to take her there.”

Soonyoung was busy controlling his breathing to realize how his words were affecting the younger man. Jihoon’s body stiffened, and his eyes darkened. There’s a fire of anger burning in his chest, but it’s quickly washed away by the wave of hurt that followed. Why hadn’t you called him instead? Even if you couldn’t talk to him, why not tell his other members? Seungkwan, for instance. He’s like your best man, your best person, best whatever. Why Soonyoung?

He could barely keep himself from driving over the speed limit. His head was filled with tons of questions he was ready to ask you as he burst through the door. But then he saw your face beaming. And he couldn’t help the second wave of hurt that washed over him. He couldn’t help but wonder what you’re so happy about and question if it’s because of your little afternoon rendezvous with Soonyoung.

You were persistent, trying to make a conversation with him while forgetting to mention the fact that you’ve been away all afternoon when he’s not home. But he’s drowning in his questions. Why didn’t you say anything about the flashback, if not about Soonyoung? He’s supposed to know when you have any progress with your memory, right? He’s your husband. And he didn’t even ask or need to be the first to know, just that you’re the one to tell him.

You tried to bring up the Han River and the memory you’ve acquired, but alas, your poor heart’s easy to discourage. As Jihoon walks to your room, you rush inside to claim his side of the bed before he can, so you can sleep while facing him. He stops in the doorway to see what you’re doing and proceeds to occupy the remaining space on the bed, too tired mentally to argue or clean himself up first. He faces the dim lamp on your bedside table, eyes wide awake from it and some other reasons.

He gives you his back. You call him, but he doesn’t turn around. You know that he’s still awake. So you wait, teeth biting down your lower lip, willing yourself not to make a sound as you silently cry. When you’re sure that he’s asleep, you pull the cover away from you and walk out the room to the Haven. You plop yourself down at the hammock outside, ignoring the cold wind that stings your eyes.

You stare at the spot on the wall where the pot broke, and look down to the diamond circling your ring finger.

Lily of the valley, you repeat bitterly.

The promise of happiness.

Another A/N: HAPPY PRINCE HOSHI DAY!!!!!! I feel like it’s only fitting to upload this chapter on his birthday. Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed this. I’ve been progressing through chapter seven very slowly, but I’ll get there. Thank you so much for reading!

65 notes · View notes

glassworkspiderlilies · 5 years

Text

giyushino week wrap up!

aaaaand that’s a wrap!! thank you to the moderators of giyushinoweek, and to everyone who liked/reblogged/commented on/sent me asks about my fics!!

it was a wild ride to write 8 fics in basically a week or so; i keep saying the fics were hastily or frantically written but LMAO considering how little fic i put out nowadays and how long it usually takes me to write because i edit as i go (which means i take f o r e v e r ), i was seriously just screaming like I JUST GOTTA DO IT I JUST GOTTA GO WITH IT I DON’T HAVE TIME the entire time haha. it was really good to be able to just think of a thing and run as far as i could with it, though!! it’s been quite a long time since i was able to do that, and it was really nice to have a project to work on in the back of my head. <3

ideally, if i work myself up to it, i’d like to revisit all of these and spruce them up to post to ao3, but we’ll see. :’)

under the cut is just some thoughts on my process during this and also writing each of the fics, if you’re interested! favorite prompt, the most difficult parts to write, what the fic was originally was, things like that.

thank you again, everyone!! back to hibernation and occasional slow snail pace writing i go, haha.

re: writing process -i tried writing a fic per day during the week before the actual event, which...kind of worked!! ideally, i was going to write a mostly complete fic each day, and then spend the week of the event editing each one before i posted it. what really ended up happening was that i partially wrote several, but not all of them, during the previous week, and then spent the week of finishing up, editing, or writing the whole thing more or less the day before the prompt was “due”, LMFAO. my weekday schedule is pretty structured because of work--I have maybe an hour or two of free time before i have to sleep--so i doubled down a bit more on the weekends. i know like it wasn’t imperative that i meet the “deadline”, but i really, really wanted to!! i figured i’ve written a fic per day for fandom weeks before so why can’t i do it again, but BOY i don’t know who i was back then. i mean, i still did it (yay!) but it seemed so much easier then?? either i was just writing more back then or less afraid or...something, or it’s just been so long that i don’t remember what i felt, LOL.

-i was really quite nervous in the beginning to post the fics, since again, they’re pretty hastily written and my usual writing process is much more “careful” and drawn out. but, it was also freeing as the week went on to just post and not worry, because the point of the week was to have fun, and not necessarily to write the best work i expected of myself within a limited time. (oh, how the perfectionist in me still hisses, though.) still, i’m glad people liked them, and even the extra notes that i just kinda spit out for some of them. :’) i do wish that some had gotten more attention than others, but those ones don’t show up in the tags and i’m not sure why, so. alas.

re: the fics -confession: as of now, i feel pretty neutral about all of them, since i wrote them in a frenzy. at some point i’ll probably go back and read them and feel differently (and catch my mistakes! oh no!), haha. -a lot of them ended up being AU, which is...??? unexpected?? but i think it was just easier to put them in an entirely different setting, so i could play a bit more loose with their characters, haha.

day 1 - glance (or hug) -this one...im pretty sure was one of the ones i waited until the last possible minute to finish up. it’s pretty basic event-wise, one of the few more regular slice-of-lifey ones for the week. it was surprisingly hard to get down the “movement” of it all; a glance is hard to describe in detail and in any other way, but i had really wanted to create kind of this...fleeting, almost nostalgic atmosphere in the back and forth of “he keeps looking, she keeps missing”, if that makes any sense. oof, it’s still hard to describe what i had wanted to achieve even outside of the fic!!

day 2 - soulmate (or family) -this one was SUPER HARD to write!!! originally i had wanted to go with a “A sees flashes of what B sees” soulmate prompt, because i figured that would be SO disorienting and would be fun to play with. but i ended up not being able to run with that one. i had also wanted to do the “soulmates write on themselves and the words show up on the other’s arm” idea, based off of what i had started in a 100 word drabble i did, but that deserved wayyyyyy more exploration and angst i was able to write in the time i’d allotted. i do like the “tattoo” soulmate aus the best, i think, and i did want to explore the one i did more, buuuut. alas. soulmates aus are something i prefer to read rather than write, i think, they can get so complicated!!

day 3 - AU (or touch) -i’ve already made enough notes on this haha, but this ended up being a little too ambitious!! it wasn’t originally supposed to stop where it did, but i just...kinda got stuck and couldn’t bring myself to continue it, because i knew it would just keep going and needed more thinking out. so i just stopped it at the scene break, and hoped it would be decent enough. :’) surprisingly people seemed to enjoy this one most of all????? or maybe it was just the au itself that was a appealing, haha. regardless, i was surprised at the amount of notes this got!

day 4 - demon & wedding -soooooo this might’ve been my favorite prompt LMAO, like when i realized what i wanted to do for this day, i got excited because like, oooh yeah, pain. definitely wanted to go in on this to flesh out and explore various aspects more than i did, but i think of all the ones i wrote, i might be the most pleased with this one so far.

day 5 - moon (or angst) -honestly, it’s a surprise i didn’t choose angst for day 5. writing about shinobu’s death would’ve been so easy, but i’ve seriously been putting it off since i started writing for kimetsu no yaiba. both “a blade of honey” and “if not cut at dusk”, which are my longer fics, were intended to be about shinobu’s death scene and turned into something completely different, and i ended up avoiding it for day 5 even though it could’ve been so easy. it’s denial, probably! anyway, shinobu’s MAD BOLD here. she would never. maybe. there’s two shinobus that i think about--the "usual” one, modeling herself after kanae, and one who’s more in line with her younger self/inner feelings. i think i went with the latter for a lot of these fics, because i didn’t have to be as careful with dialogue. giyu might’ve suffered character-wise, though, woops. but again, maybe shinobu would, in the vein that she wants to win and have the last laugh, haha. still, i feel more like she wouldn’t. :P oh, also, do you remember ages ago, when AMVs were still widespread, that scene that was everywhere in naruto where hinata’s bathing/training at the waterfall and it’s like really pretty and cool and stuff? yeah. that’s what i wanted this one to be, a little, LMFAO. genuinely surprised that people thought this one was pretty spicy!!

day 6 - kiss (or ocean) -confession: i wrote all of this while i was at work LOLLLL. it was a slow day, i promise. this might’ve been the easiest one to come up with, because the “quick, kiss me!” to escape situation is a classic. the characterization is preeeetttyyyyy loose here, but it was also kind of fun, honestly. my day 5 and day 6 run in pretty similar veins though, so i had kind of wished the endings were a bit more distinct from each other.

day 7 - date (or crossover) -honestly i had wanted to do like, a soul eater crossover!! really i was planning out an au, but i think a crossover specifically has characters of two series interacting, and then i was Tired and was like, i can’t do that. crossovers aren’t something i usually read, either, so the planning got too complicated and i gave up. the date idea was also one that came much later and one that i finished up last minute; i’d wanted to make it a little more cohesive and come up with better things for sabito’s list, but. eh. it got longer than i expected too! ideally there would’ve been more of the college life, and sabito and makomo. i thought about doing another additional notes for this, but there was wasn’t enough i had wanted to add on. really it was just the majors for them i’d been playing with--shinobu as a med student (possibly a minor in horticulture/botany, SOMEHOW), sabito & giyu as hydraulic engineering majors (sabito more on fieldwork, giyu more on research), and makomo as a marine veterinary student. shrug!! the lines of “you do realize we were set up, right” and “this was a date, tomioka-san” were the highlight for me, haha. and i’m inordinately fond of the title.

day 8 - halloween (or n*sfw) -sexy stuff isn’t my forte at all!!!! so halloween it was, but. i was thinking of skipping out on this one, and then was like, oh what the hell, you’ve come this far, of course you’re going to go the last leg, too. already wrote enough notes on this one too, but yeah, this one really was quick, and just barely meets the prompt, i think, lmao. ended up being more of a fantasy au, which was fun, though there was a lot left unexplored. ultimately just glad that i was able to come up with something for the last stretch. :)

please feel free to drop me an ask if you have any thoughts or comments! i’d love to hear your thoughts on the fics for the week, if you’d like to share. :)

thanks for reading!!

#author's notes #giyushinoweek #thank you!!#spitting out more notes without proofreading ayyyy

8 notes · View notes

itsblissfuloblivion · 5 years

Text

Kindle - Chapter 18

A/N: We can’t really believe this is the last chapter!!!! It’s filled with fluff and love and hinny cuteness. We hope you enjoy it & thank you for reading along and sharing your wonderful comments!!! Love Love Love from @fightfortherightsofhouseelves & @gryffindormischief

Also available on FF & Ao3!

Harry never regarded a day spent at the Burrow, in the bosom of the Weasley family, as anything even remotely close to dangerous. Today, however, he found himself seconds short of being trampled upon, run down, and asphyxiated between the kilometers of lace and silk used to decorate the wide wedding tent slash ballroom. Hence why he can currently be spotted casually hiding behind a particular copse at the far end of the orchard, silently praying he will make it throughout the day alive.

It’s also where Ron finds him, harassed and out of his wits.

“I reckon if Mum hunts me down one more time to smarten up my suit and tie, I’ll scream bloody murder and then kill myself. Hermione would understand, she would,” Ron complains as he takes a seat next to Harry on the warm ground, knowing full well that he’ll be risking both his life and Harry’s as soon as Molly Weasley discovers soil stains on their wedding suits.

Harry snorts, eyeing his best mate amusedly, “I’m actually afraid of your Mum, you know. It’s only now I realise how naive I was to fear your Dad and brothers when we told them about the baby.”

“Oh, yeah, definitely. And don’t let her fool you, mate, but Ginny’s really Mum, only thirty years younger,” Ron elbows Harry and they both laugh easily, their shoulders visibly relaxing.

A pause and then Harry speaks, his lips stretching into a candid smile, “Hey, Ron?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m really happy for you, mate. You two - I mean, you’re perfect for each other,” he adds and Ron’s blue eyes turn moist as his cheeks color pink.

“Don’t-” Ron clears his throat, “don’t tell my sister, but that pretty much applies to you two as well,” he smiles sheepishly.

“Thank you,” Harry mumbles as he tries to swallow the newly formed lump in his throat.

They sit still, enjoying a silence that speaks of mutual contentment and a lifetime of friendship shared between them. To Harry, it seems amazing, fantastic even that he gets to be part of his best mate’s wedding day. His wedding day! When did they grow up so fast? When did all the years pass since that first day of school they shook hands for the first time, two scrawny, scared, lonely kids on a train leading them to great adventures. What would those two kids say if they knew that, sixteen years down the line, they’d go to each other’s weddings and cry with joy at the news of children coming.

“Oi! Happy tree friends over there,” George wheezes as he runs towards them. “Mum and the bride are looking for you. The ceremony’s about to start,” he adds, checking his watch, then smirks. “I’d be careful if I were you, Ronniekins. Your dashing bride looks like she’s about to have someone’s head.”

Gulping, Ron hurriedly pats his groom tuxedo in hopes of dusting off any traces of mud and grass, and gallops away, as fast as his black leather shoes can take him.

“I wouldn’t grin in your place, Harry, mate. Ginny’s also sent word to find you and take you back to her dead or alive,” George jokes, laughing at Harry’s desperate expression. “Frankly, I reckon she’s really about to lose it with everybody doting on her. Poor Angelina, she’s in for the same mad ride once we tell them we’re expecting,” he shakes his head and slightly shudders at the prospect.

Dumbfounded, Harry opens his mouth only to close it again. Inhales, exhales, and tries again, “Excuse me? You two-? You’re-?”

George’s face lights up, blue eyes sparkling brighter than Harry had ever seen them, pure bliss radiating from every inch of his being. “Yes, bloody hell yes!” He grins wide and Harry jumps in to hug and congratulate him with enthusiasm. “But don’t tell Ron yet, alright? I - erm, we don’t want to steal his thunder. I mean, he’s always got what Bill, Charlie, Percy, and then Fred and I didn’t need or want anymore. It’s his day,” George slowly says, embarrassed, his hand flying to the back of his head and eyes averting Harry’s green ones.

Harry claps him on the shoulder proudly as they shuffle their feet in tandem towards the wedding crowd, one future father and another.

On the other side of the orchard, Harry spots a dash of red hair and a mess of black. Lily and James Potter, dressed smartly in summer dress with hues of gold and a navy blue suit, sit close to each other, her head resting against one of his broad shoulders.

“What are you two love birds doing?” Harry sneaks up behind his parents, pretending to be grossed out by the fluffy scene unfolding before him.

“You look spiffing, son,” James nods in approval. “Hair like a hurricane is a family gene I’m afraid, but alas, you do have your charm,” he grins, winking at the younger version of him.

Snorting, Harry presses a kiss to his mum’s cheek and squeezes his dad’s shoulder before half-sitting in one of the delicate chairs in front of them. “Sorry we couldn’t pick you three up from the airport.”

Lily rubs some mostly imaginary smudge from Harry’s chin and smiles. “We’re your parents. And we can definitely handle ordering an Uber.”

“Dad can’t.”

“Siri hates me.”

Rolling her eyes, Lily pats James’ knee and sighs, “Yes dear.”

James’ retort is already on his lips when he follows Harry’s eyeline. “We fly halfway around the world and he can’t even pay attention to our scintillating conversation.”

Jolting, Harry turns to find his mother looking at him fondly. “He’s in love and his girlfriend is glowing and beautiful.”

A flush rises on Harry’s cheek as James muses, “Perhaps more than girlfriend?”

“Smooth, Dad.”

“It’s not a no, Lil.”

Harry growls and Lily pats his arm where it rests across the gilt chair back. “Don’t pressure him, James. Just because he has the opportunity to make his mum’s dreams come true while she’s on the same continent - ”

“You know - ”

Before Harry can finish his half-formed threat, Sirius drops into the seat next to him and grins. “Are we talking about my godson having eye-sex with the girl he could barely talk to like a human being not even a year ago?”

Head dropping to his forearm, Harry doesn’t bother interjecting as his family laughs at his expense.

His mum’s fingers brush through his hair, her smile warm, and despite the teasing, Harry realizes just how much he’s missed them. Which is lucky for the three menaces, because it puts Harry in a giving, patient mood, even when Sirius continues, “Remember when he kissed her and then ran away to do something academic and nerdy?”

“Biology really is magical,” James nods, “How else did he father a child with such a woman?”

Lily rolls her eyes and jabs at James’ middle. “You should talk - I seem to remember a very awkward hair-ruffling, mildly blackmail-ish first date invitation.”

Sirius nods sagely, “He didn’t speak for at least two weeks after that.”

“Harry’s an adult,” James accuses, a smile tickling the corners of his lips.

“Mature, Dad.”

“My son is charming and handsome. He probably won her over with his lovely smile.”

“Actually, I had her at professor.”

George comes to a halt at Harry’s side, overly large bouquet of flowers covering him from hip to nose before he peers around, “A little bird told me something about a hat, Indiana Jones, and a whip.”

Flushing, Harry rises and steps out past George into the aisle. “No comment.”

Across the yard, Ginny’s secreted herself off to fume where no innocent bystanders can be caught in the crossfire of her hormonally charged anger.

“You look like you’re ready to stab someone,” Bill approaches his sister, youngest daughter cradled in his arms in a weak attempt at putting her to sleep.

“Sure feel like it,” Ginny snorts, flipping her thick sheath of red hair over a freckled shoulder. “You’d think people’d understand I’m eight months pregnant, not disabled,” she add as she blows a considerable amount of air through her nostrils, eyes flaring so she rather resembles a dragon. To Bill, at least.

“Anyway,” Ginny plows on, fussing about her chair until she finds a comfortable enough position for her poor back and heavy tummy, “Have you seen Teddy?”

Bill round blue eyes morph into slits, “Wooing my eldest daughter, I suppose,” he responds with ill disguised nonchalance.

“Wouldn’t dare imagine how you’ll take it when they actually start dating,” Ginny giggles as her brother’s eyes widen, as if only then he’d acknowledged the possibility.

“Don’t.”

“Mr. Protective Father, aren’t we?” she raises an eyebrow, freckles gathering in a cluster right above it.

Bill sighs and takes a sit on the chair next to Ginny’s, transferring baby Dominique from one arm to the other, and squeezes his sister’s hand, “I truly wish that you’re carrying a little girl in there so I can even things up with Harry for knocking up my sister and stealing my daughter through that little godson of his.”

“You say knocked up once more,” Ginny pulls her hand away incensed, “I swear I’ll sit on you. And that’s a real threat seeing that I weigh about a billion kilos right now.” Her frown only brings a grin to her brother’s face, and she could never quite resist that mischievous, charming smirk Bill adorned when he felt comfortable or pleased, his ponytail hanging low over his back and fanged earring dangling in the shy summer breeze.

“Hullo, love,” Harry appears out of nowhere and plants a kiss on her cheek. “Hermione’s summoned you to the gallows. I mean, she’s called you up to her room for a last bride and bridesmaid rehearsal,” he grins, hands out an arm for Ginny to lean on as she rises.

“It’s ridiculous,” she sneers, breathing heavily as Harry lifts her, “I’m like a ticking clock about to explode and she has the audacity to call me a bridesmaid.”

“Maybe don’t explode just now,” Harry chuckles as they walk towards the Burrow, “I reckon Hermione wouldn’t appreciate it very much.” Ginny rolls her eyes, yet gives in to laughter seconds later. It’s easy being happy next to him, she thinks.

Knock-knock, Ginny raps her knuckles on the wooden surface of the door to her childhood room. It’s where Hermione set headquarters for her bridal transformation, in Ron’s words, and it was not a lie. Always a beautiful woman, Hermione was breathtaking in white satin, rich curls flowing loosely down her back.

“Might be the pregnancy hormones speaking, but I’m feeling attracted to you right now,” Ginny appraises her friend as she shuts the door firmly and drops herself on the old single bed, lifting her feet up on a freshly fluffed pillow.

“I’m afraid you took too long to make a move,” Hermione snorts as she tries to smooth down a rogue curl, hovering so close in front of the mirror she goes a bit cross eyed.

“Yeah, afraid so. Plus you’d probably have to fight Harry for me.”

“Oh, no, I’d never win. Heard he has a trusty whip he uses to impose discipline,” the bride smirks, switching her gaze to observe her friend through the mirror.

“Harry got drunk and confessed, didn’t he?” Ginny drawls, bored.

Hermione lifts an ebony eyebrow, “Trust me, I’m the victim here. Absolutely did not sign up to hear that.” She gingerly holds one heeled shoe and inserts her right foot with great care, long brown bushy hair shielding her face from view. “Although I must admit, role playing does sound rather...tolerable.”

Palm pressed to her mouth, Ginny giggles, “The word you’re looking for is kinky. And yes, do it. Just never tell me it’s my brother you’re doing it with. Can’t possibly stomach that.”

“Will the two of you ever grow up?” Hermione asks, hair pushed back from her face with one arm as she holds a second shoe in place with the other.

“Nope. I expect we’ll have children and lie that they arrived with the stork.”

Hermione rolls her eyes, “I’m marrying into this family.”

“Your decision, not mine,” Ginny winks and tosses a peanut into her mouth with high accuracy, a trick learned and polished over holidays spent with her brothers.

“Impressive. Where’d you get’em from?”

“Nicked them on my way here.”

Chuckling, Hermione lifts the heavy material of her wedding gown, her high heels tap-tapping on the creaking floor as she walks to sit next to Ginny. “So how are you feeling?”

“I’m aware I said it before, but like a whale waiting to be put out of her misery,” Ginny pouts, palms running light circles over her rounded stomach. “I may never voluntarily choose to have children again.”

“I gather it was a choice?” Hermione’s deep brown eyes meet Ginny’s, mischief glinting bright.

“Eh, it’s not like we did much to prevent it, to be fair,” she admits with a grin. “Nevermind that,” Ginny tries to lift herself up on her elbows, “How are you? It’s your wedding day!”

The two women smile so wide their cheeks hurt, features alight with happiness and giddiness. If Ginny didn’t feel like thrice her size and Hermione had not spend the last five hours getting ready, they’d be sure to jump up and down in sheer excitement. Still, given the circumstances, they settle for squealing at earnumbing frequencies.

The ceremony is beautiful up to the tiniest detail, and has a peaceful effect on everyone present. Madams Granger and Weasley seniors weep in tandem with a hormonal Ginny, Lily squeezes James’ hand, and Ron feels like bursting with joy. From the audience, Bill, Charlie, and George give him a thumbs up and three mad grins. Percy, on the other hand, sits poised on the edge of his chair, the image of British properness, while Arthur subtly wipes a tear from underneath his horn-rimmed glasses. In the middle of it all, Hermione gasps as though she can barely believe everything that’s happening, hand trembling as Ron slides the gold band on her finger.

The newly weds’ kiss hovers dangerously close to indecent, Ron lifting his wife off her feet in a toe-curling snog that has Sirius wolf whistling and Snuffles barking.

Barely two weeks later, it’s well past the ‘witching hour’ and Harry’s taken over the couch - his office surrendered in favor of a baby nursery - typing away at his latest revision of the post-dig paper, when Ginny shuffles out into the living room. “Harry?”

She looks so young, hair in a tangle around her freckled face, soft cotton nightgown dwarfing her even at such a late stage of pregnancy, that Harry can’t help but imagine a little girl of their own. Ginny’s fiery locks, his almond shaped eyes, her freckles, his knobby knees -

Ginny’s wince puts an end to his daydreaming. “I think. I think it’s time,” she grips the doorway, “Unrelated - we need to change the sheets.”

Nearly tossing his laptop across the room in frightened haste, Harry’s at Ginny’s side in two beats, palm finding the small of her back like it’s magnetized. “I’ll - we’re good. I’ll call Mum, they’re closest for Ted. Just. You’re packed, yeah?”

“Yes, yes. You nagged me about seven billion times. Today.”

“Well aren’t you glad I did?” Harry shoots back, blinking exaggeratedly.

Before Ginny can answer, she doubles over, breaths coming in short pants. “Stuff it. Go call your Mum.”

“Sir, yes, Sir.”

“Don’t sass me while your child is trying to violently expel itself from my body,” Ginny grunts, pinching his arm as he fumbles for his mobile.

It’s a quick, excited call that gets Lily and co. on the way before Harry’s dialing the hospital and tugging on street clothes.

Ginny’s movements are slow, hampered by the periodic spasms at her back, as she drags her soiled nightie overhead and pulls on a cottony grey dress that stretches comfortably over her belly. After a few failed attempts, she leans against the door to their closet and moans, “Harry, I can’t see the floor.”

Quick as he can, Harry trots over and brushes his thumb along her jaw. “Which ones, love?”

Sighing, Ginny nuzzles against his shoulder and murmurs, “My granny clogs?”

Not even a quarter of an hour later, Lily, James, and Sirius are gathered around the dining table while Harry lectures them as he reads down the checklist scrawled over two full pages of a yellow pad and Ginny strokes her belly, resting against the front door.

“You know, there’s this thing called texting, son. Plus we raised you alright.”

“And we are bloody doctors, Harry,” Lily adds, “Now go, or Ginny’s going to murder you before I see my first grandchild.”

Harry’d really like to point out that his mother did in fact work in a lab all her professional life, but considers it twice before opening his mouth to blurt out his usual sass for fear that either Lily or Ginny might eat him alive.

The trip to hospital is a blur, the odd hour at least eliminating some traffic as they trundle through the rain streaked streets. In between contractions, Ginny fiddles with the radio and does her best to smile teasingly. “You know, you’re handling this quite well.”

“I’m an adult, I can handle stress.”

Ginny glances at him sidelong. “Sure.”

And Harry does remain beautifully cool, calm, and collected as Ginny’s wheeled into the maternity ward, as he fills out the check-in paperwork, and even while she’s changing into her gown and getting tucked safely into the scratchy hospital blankets.

It’s not until her doctor comes in, snapping rubber gloves at her wrists, and explaining the steps of this first check up that Harry begins to leave the comforting haze that carried him through the last hour and realization sets in.

By this time tomorrow, Harry’ll be a dad. Again. And really, he’d have thought having Teddy, and nine months of lead in time would’ve made this a less terrifying thought. But as the time is counted in hours rather than months, weeks, or days, he can barely keep his hands steady enough to ring Ron.

He lets it ring once, then dials back again - Ron’s had his mobile set on ‘Do Not Disturb’ for most of the last month - and before Hermione manages more than a sleepy ‘hello,’ he’s blurting, “The baby’s coming, how soon can you get down here, I’m freaking out.”

Hermione’s laugh is quiet as she murmurs and shakes Ron awake. “Harry, take a deep breath, we’ll be right down.”

It absolutely does not help that Harry’s last glimpse of Ginny is of her moaning and promising to inflict as much pain onto him when the baby is finally out as she’s currently suffering, as, according to her, it’s entirely his fault.

Before Harry falls into the pits of despair, James Potter arrives to sneak a comforting arm around his son and helps him into a nearby chair, while a sleepy Teddy drops his head to one of Harry’s knees.

“There, there, my darling boy. The ER guy and your Mum will take care of Ginny until the Weasley cavalry rides in,” James pats Harry’s messy locks, kisses him on the top of his head.

“You mean Sirius made his entrance?” Harry grunts, forehead pressed closed to where Teddy’s is resting, his body twisted in a position worthy of a Cirque to Soleil contortionist.

“He’s really so good at what he does I can turn a blind eye to his dramatics.”

Harry lifts his head enough to catch a hurricane of red hair crashing by. The poor nurse trying to keep people outside of Ginny’s already crammed ward has no chance when faced with Molly Weasley, nerves wired to the tips of her overworked fingers.

By the grace of some lucky star, or rather by the force of the combined prayers of medical staff having to do their job with one Molly Weasley and one Sirius Black barking orders and shooting questions to and fro, Ginny’s not in labor too long, things moving quickly as they can. Even so, the rush of nurses and doctors dressed in pale scrubs flying in and out of her room doesn’t do much to quell Harry’s nerves.

At some point, Ron pressed a styrofoam cup of tea into Harry’s hand, long since gone tepid and untouched. Still, it gives him something to fiddle with. A lifetime passes before Sirius exits the room, wiping at his sweaty brow, and disappears to god knows where. But Harry has no energy to rise and chase after him, or rather ask why they needed an emergency specialist, or a million other questions. He can only sit there, straddling the metal chair, his palms pressing into his forehead until the tips of his fingers turn white.

He’s about to storm his way into the room when a nurse emerges, wrapped in a bright yellow apron and beckons Harry inside. Looking around, he catches a glimpse of bushy brown hair resting on Ron’s shoulder as his own mother and father seem to have dozed off to sleep next to them. Harry feels too tired to smile, but the family scene does bring some sort of comfort and familiarity to the newness he’s confronted with. He exhales loudly and steps in.

The crowd has dissipated somewhat and Ginny seems to be at a resting point, hair matted and face utterly wrecked. But she seems alright, all things considered.

“Hey, Gin.”

Her mouth twists in a tired smile, “Don’t Gin me. Your little basketball sized spawn is slamming its way out of my body. I deserve a ‘Hello goddess of the universe.’”

“At least you’ve still got your sense of humor,” Harry murmurs, ruffling his hair as Molly avoids eye contact and studiously examines a two month old copy of Reader’s Digest.

Ginny rolls her eyes and gestures him closer, not relaxing until he claims the chair next to her, barely perching on the stiff plastic seat. “I thought I didn’t want you in here, but,” she clears her throat and shares a brief glance with Molly, “Someone very wise helped me realize I needed my partner to finish this out.”

Molly’s lips tick up in a grin and Ginny continues, “You’re still not allowed down there but - ”

Before Ginny can continue her conditions, her entire body tenses as another contraction rolls through her body. And after that, it’s a blur of measured breathing and nearly cracked knuckles, until suddenly a little cry pierces the early morning light and Harry’s holding his squalling little son.

The whole world seems to shrink down to the three of them, that little room, and Harry’s whole world in the space of his arms. Or almost his whole world. At nearly the same moment his brain catches up, Ginny’s does too. “Where’s Teddy?”

“I’ll get him?”

Teddy’s hesitant when he reaches the doorway, eyes wide as he bites at his lip. “I can really come in?”

Ginny’s brow furrows, unused to seeing Teddy so restrained. Until she finds his gaze focused on the little baby boy, tucked against her chest. “You ready to meet your brother?”

His smile grows and he totters over to the bed, Harry at his heels. When he can’t manage climbing past the bed rail, Harry lifts him onto the edge of the mattress and Teddy reaches out a hesitant hand towards the pink bundle.

The baby’s chest rises and falls steadily beneath his tightly wrapped blanket and finally, after nine months, Harry’s life’s work is together and right before his eyes.

“Can we call him Victor?” Teddy asks innocently, his eyes wide with unrepressed wonder.

A laugh tumbles out from deep within Ginny’s chest and she leans in to kiss Teddy dearly on the cheek, her smile unrelenting. “I was thinking something more to the effect of...well, James. For tradition,” she adds, immediately searching for any signs of possible refuse from Harry. But there are only tears in his eyes, and Ginny just knows it’s the right decision - three generations of James Potters with their wild, messy, dark hair (and most probably bad eyesight). “And,” Ginny prepares herself to say out loud what she’d been thinking since realising that Harry had, in fact, two dads, one of them who held her hand through most of the night, calming her when she was in terrible pain and terribly frightened, “Maybe also Sirius?”

It’s likely too much for Harry, as he closes his eyes and keeps quiet for a minute, his breathing coming in and out unevenly. “Why?” He finally asks.

“They’re inseparable, the two of them, like peas in a pod. Only seems natural,” Ginny shrugs like its no big deal.

Before Harry can shout his happiness to the world, there’s a knock at the door and Molly’s face appears round the corner, leaving Harry wondering when exactly she managed to slip past.

“You have an adoring public waiting, dears. Everyone’s promised to keep it short.”

And then it’s like the circus has set up in the maternity ward of Mungo’s Hospital, too many people, too many grabbing hands, and entirely too much laughter. Somehow, the Weasley brothers all manage to gather themselves into an intimidating huddle, looming at the foot of Ginny’s bed as she settles back against the pillows, eyes drooping with tiredness, and Harry’s never felt so analyzed and judged in his life - not even when he defended his dissertation, and that’s saying something. “‘M sorry love, if they’re going to beat you up I can’t defend you much,” she tells him between two yawns.

Harry presses a kiss to her forehead and laughs. “At least I’m already in hospital.”

Growling under her breath, Ginny readjusts in the bed - wincing a bit - and scowls. “It was a joke. No one’s beating anyone up. God, it’s not 1950,” her voice drops as she eyes each of her brothers in turn, “Which is why Victoire’s birthday is just a bit too close to her mummy and daddy’s wedding day.”

Bill scoffs but he claps Harry on the back, as Charlie and Ron cackle, while Percy clears his throat uncomfortably and unnecessarily readjusts his eyeglasses. “We like you well enough, and Gin’s got you well in hand.”

“She’s got all of us well in hand,” Harry laughs, earning a playful scowl from Ginny, even as she dozes off against her newly fluffed pillows.

Like the mother hen that she is, Molly shoos the Weasley masses from room, only lingering long enough to press a kiss to Ginny’s head and nearly squeeze the life out of Harry. Lily rounds the bed next, finally standing out again now that she’s the only redhead in the room. With a smile, she cups Harry’s cheek. “I’m so happy for you, my sweet, darling boy.”

James hovers at her shoulder, furiously blinking away tears as his lips tilt in a grin. “You have a lovely little family.”

“I’ll expect 24-7 babysitting availability once you come to your senses and move back,” Ginny says with a laugh, her eyes barely open.

“You won’t have to twist his arm,” Sirius puts in, brushing a careful finger over James Sirius’ sleep flushed cheek, “Ol’ Jamesy is a sucker for all things baby. You’ll have to pry him out of your flat.”

Lily snorts. “You’re one to talk - Harry was almost as spoilt as ickle Diddykins that first Christmas.”

“I am extravagant with my love.”

Rolling her eyes, Lily squeezes Ginny’s hand and sighs. “We’ll come back and visit. Tomorrow - well today. Late. I know you’ll be more than tired.”

“Wait,” James pauses in his stride and turns back to the family of four cuddled up on the feeble hospital bed, “What’s this little tike’s name? If it’s been decided, of course.”

Sharing a look, Harry nods for Ginny to speak.

“He’s named after some famous double act,” Ginny dares a sheepish grin, “James Sirius.”

Ginny might’ve hit the two men with an iron chair over their heads and would’ve probably gotten more of a reaction. It takes whole minutes before they can speak again, their voices trembling and knees shaking as Lily half-carries them towards the exit, arms wrung through each of their own.

Harry climbs out of bed to walk them to the front door, accepting more teary hugs, sloppy kisses, and congratulations, before they disappear into the miraculously quiet hallway.

Back inside the small ward, Teddy’s dead to the world where he rests against James’ shoulder as Ginny shifts a bit restlessly. “You could go home and sleep in a bed - Teddy too.”

“Are you kidding me? First, all parties involved were more than happy for a sleep over at Mum and Dad’s posh hotel suite, and second there is no way I’m leaving this building while the two of you are here, alone.”

“Such a dad,” Ginny murmurs, eyelashes brushing her freckled cheeks as she drifts off, “Now stop trying to pretend that chair is comfortable and get up here with me.”

Kicking off his shoes, Harry makes to follow her instructions, even as he asks, “You sure? That nurse was a bit scary.”

“Poor baby.”

“You’ll have to protect me if Nurse Moody shows up.”

Ginny hums, already half asleep, “Of course, my love. Now come snuggle your tired wife.”

Harry’s heart stutters at the slip, his eyes shooting open wide to catch Ginny’s expression. But it seems it was indeed just a tired slip of the tongue. One that has him awake long after Ginny drifts off.

“Thank you,” he whispers into her ginger hair and presses his temple to it. His last conscious thought is of love, of his son carrying the names of two of the most important people in his life, two people who had shaped and defined him, of how much this woman, this incredible, beautiful woman means to him, of how easily she seems to understand him.

The next forty eight hours are full to the brim with last minute preparations at the flat - Hermione is an over prepared lifesaver - lessons in parenting from nurses, doctors, and nosy family, and for Harry, a few slight (and luckily private) freak outs that he’s got two kids and really wants to propose to his girlfriend.

Ron pulls his and Hermione’s little SUV up to the porte-cochère just as Harry and Teddy wheel out Ginny and James Sirius.

Luckily, the ride home isn’t too long but Ginny’s still ready for a nap by the time they arrive. It’s a team effort to get Ginny tucked in bed, James and Teddy fed, and all three of them to sleep. Still, Harry’s never been more content.

He’s sipping lemonade at the counter while Hermione does the last of their lunch dishes when Ron sidles up. “So, dad, how’s it feel to be ancient?”

“You’re the old married couple.”

Hermione smirks, setting the last plate to dry. “I’ve a feeling we won’t hold that distinction for long.”

They wander into the living room and Harry sighs, slumping back against the cushions. “My life has never been in the right order. Not that I’m complaining.”

Ron claims the seat on his left and Hermione the right, her head tucking against his shoulder. “Is there a ‘right order’?”

“Look at my wife, the philosopher.”

“She’s a woman of many talents.”

“You’re a couple of tossers.”

Chuckling, Ron takes another swig of his lemonade and throws his arm around Harry’s shoulders. “What? I’m serious.”

They share a laugh, muffling the noise against the palms of their hands, until Harry calms. “Tell me not to go wake my newborn son because I want to play with him. Or hold him. Or both, I can’t really decide.”

Hermione pats his arm. “Don’t.”

“Yeah, Gin-Gin will kill you if you screw the kid up.”

Harry shows a pretty sizeable amount of restraint - his own view of the subject - and manages to wait a whole hour before he tiptoes into the bedroom just to stare after Ron and Hermione return to the comfort of their own home. Glancing at his watch, he turns towards Teddy’s door and finds him sitting half atop his covers and thumbing through a picture book. “Hey, Ted.”

“Hi, wanna read - ”

A sad little wail of a cry sounds from the master bedroom and Teddy perks up, “Is James awake?”

“Sounds like it,” Harry rubs at the back of his head, “We’ll have to pause the - ”

“Let’s go, he’s crying.”

Teddy grabs Harry’s hand and tugs him into the hall, books forgotten in the wake of ‘big brother duties.’

In a few quick strides, they’ve reached the little bassinet and little James is giving his lungs a good work out. Smiling softly, Teddy brushes his fingers along James’ bootied toes. “S’alright. Harry’s here. He knows just what to do.”

The bed creaks behind them as Ginny slowly raises herself into a sitting position. “He is pretty great,” Ginny agrees, “Which is why he’s probably guessed James needs some mummy time.”

Gently, Harry lifts James from the cradle and passes him over to Ginny before he ushers Teddy from the room to choose a storybook.

It’s a bigger choice than Harry guessed, Victoire has told him the first book a baby reads is very important so they flip through half of Teddy’s collection before settling on Babbity Rabbity and her Cackling Stump.

They’ve given Ginny enough time so that James has been fed and burped, her clothes have been righted, and the baby boy is cooing softly against her chest. “We’re ready for some entertainment. Hospital was pretty boring.”

With care, Harry and Teddy climb up onto the bed - Harry claiming the innermost seat as he fans the book open before them. “A long time ago, in a land far away, there was a kingdom ruled by a foolish King who decided that he should be the only one to have magical powers.”

Ginny and Teddy snuggle close on either side while James blinks tiredly. “He formed an army, which he called the Brigade of Witch-Hunters, and armed them with black hounds. At the same time, he wanted an Instructor in Magic, so he made calls for a wizard or witch from one of the nearby villages to teach him.”

“A little dark for a first storybook,” Ginny teases while Teddy reaches to flip the page.

Harry presses a kiss to her forehead. “It’s got a nice ending.”

Not long after the story comes to a close, Harry’s mobile vibrates in his pocket. With a quick fumble, Harry manages to pull it free and swipe the call on before James Sirius wakes. “‘Lo?”

“Uncle Harry?”

“Hello, Victoire,” Harry says with a smile that only widens as Teddy perks up, “I know we’re tight, but I have a feeling you’re not looking for me.”

There’s a pause like she nearly drops Bill’s phone and then presses it back to her ear. Harry glances down at his wide-eyed godson. “Teddy’s right here.”

Reaching up with grabbing hands, Teddy accepts the mobile and trots out with an affectionate glance toward James where he sleeps in Ginny’s arms.

As Teddy disappears out into the living room, Harry chuckles softly before he twists and cups Ginny’s chin, pressing a kiss to her lips. “You’re - beautiful.”

She hums, deepening the kiss just barely. “So’re you, my love.”

James shifts a little restlessly in Ginny’s arms, snuffling in his sleep while Harry brushes a finger over his cheek. “I love you, Gin. You - this life we have together is better than anything I could’ve dreamt up for Teddy and I.”

“Better than just a doughnut?”

Laughter bubbles in Harry’s chest as he kisses Ginny once more. “I - you know how we talked briefly in New York?”

Brow quirking, Ginny turns a bit more to face Harry. “We talked more than a few times in New York, dear.”

“About - about adding another Potter to the world.”

“Seems we did that fairly well,” Ginny teases, darting a glance towards their sleeping son.

“I mean, making you one. About being officially.”

In all seriousness, Ginny asks, “Harry. Will you marry me?”

Jolting, Harry scowls down at Ginny. “No fair, I started first.”

“But I finished first - you always like that.”

“God, innuendo in front of our slumbering son?”

“What’s the answer, Potter?”

Harry drops his forehead against Ginny’s and feels his eyes filling even as his smile widens. “Yeah I’ll be Mr. Ginny Weasley-Potter-Whatever.”

“I like the hyphens,” Ginny laughs, her own tears forming, “Damn, I can’t wait until these excess hormones wear off. You do realize you proposed to a hosepipe, yeah?”

“A beautiful, amazing, cheeky, brilliant hosepipe.”

“What a bloke you are.”

“You’re the one who proposed - this is your choice.”

Settling James in Harry’s arms, Ginny presses herself close and sighs quietly. “It’s a good one.”

A cry pierces the air just as Harry’s miraculous coffee-fueled epiphany gets into full swing, sentence half finished as the ending dangles and then floats from his brain.

There’s probably only three people in the world he wouldn’t shout at for interrupting that flow and it’s the youngest of the three that beckons from the nursery. Teddy falls in at Harry’s side, his eagerness to be the world’s greatest elder brother only grown in the months since James came into their lives, and they find the little squalling bundle of Potter wriggling unhappily in his cot. “Alright, James?”

His tears pause for a moment as Harry and Teddy appear overhead, before the wailing renews in earnest. “Guess someone’s got a little gift in their nappy.”

Teddy presses his fists to his hips, power posing like a little superhero, and nods at Harry. “I’ll get the wipes.”

They go about the process of tidying James up, letting him swallow down a bottle of milk, then wander into the kitchen, standing side by side, staring aimlessly into the void of their mostly empty fridge, and then pantry. Harry bounces James on his chest as he slobbers over the collar of Harry’s t-shirt and Teddy sighs, chest rising and falling dramatically before he glances up at Harry and shakes his head. “Nothin’ to eat.”

“Unless you want some,” Harry shuffles a carton of baking soda aside and lifts a can from the back of the shelves, “Dehydrated milk?”

Teddy wrinkles his nose. “Ron’s?”

“You read my mind, mate.”

Harry and Teddy bundle themselves against the Autumn chill, tugging on wellies and winding scarves around their necks while James giggles happily while his chubby fingers jab at the dangling bits of his baby gym. Once they’re properly festooned, godfather and godson take care to ensure the littlest Potter is appropriately protected against the elements and admittedly overpack his nappy bag.

Luckily, the weather holds as they walk the few blocks toward Ron’s, the overhead bell soon tolling their entrance to the crowded shop.

Teddy tilts his head in the direction of the counter and bake case and Harry nods his approval, handing a few pound notes over before he carries James towards a free table in the back, his legs wriggling in the Ergo carrier. The line moves fairly quickly as gangly little Dennis rings up the line of hungry customers until Teddy’s next.

He places their regular order with a polite smile for Dennis and trots over to their table. “Dennis said t’ wait here and they’ll bring it.”

“We don’t need all that - ”

“Well too bad sir, this is a full service bakery and I expect a tip.”

“Gin-Gin!”

“Hello. Teddy Bear. I got some apple slices to go with this doughnut for breakfast.”

“You’re the one peddling fluffy strawberry clouds by the dozen,” Harry sticks out his tongue and starts freeing space for Ginny to take a seat next to him.

She laughs, “Only until my wandering brother and his wife return from their ‘second honeymoon.’”

Smiling, Harry sips at the tea Ginny’s set on the table and drags a third chair closer with his foot. “Take a load off, Madame Manager.”

Accepting the proffered seat, Ginny claims an apple slice for herself and ruffles Teddy’s hair. “And by the way, isn’t a second honeymoon usually more than six months in?”

“Hey, if Hermione’s willing to go on holiday, I’m not going to stand in her way.”

Dennis wanders by, bussing tables and offering refills as necessary, and slips Ginny a shortbread biscuit, which she accepts with a grateful smile before turning to Harry. “I thought her brain might leak out after the eighth month of negotiations.”

“She’s got a one track mind the minute anyone mentions institutional inequality.”

After a moment, Teddy wanders over to the little shelves tucked in the back corner and settles in on ‘his’ beanbag chair. Ginny sends him a wink and settles back in her chair, toying with the ring sparkling on her left hand. “Aye. And a few early morning shifts is a small price to pay.”

“Plus we do owe all - this,” Harry gestures a bit vaguely to their odd little family, “- to them.”

Leaning forward, Ginny kisses the sugary remnants of Harry’s doughnut from his lips, “And cinnamon crème.”

Much to Molly’s chagrin, Ginny Weasley doesn’t dress in white on the day of her wedding to Harry Potter (“I’ve already got a son, Mother!”), neither does she assemble a big party for the occasion. Instead, she chooses a dress to match the late autumn hues and combs her long ginger hair loosely against her back. Eyeshadow, lipstick, and a set of golden earrings she received as a wedding gift from her Bill and Fleur are her simple adornments.

Giving herself one last look in the mirror, Ginny smiles, confident as ever and clicks her heels on the wooden floor of her childhood room. At the door, there’s Arthur waiting for her. He kisses her cheek warmly, his fatigued hand brushing her tresses in light strokes, before extending an arm. Father and daughter together, they slowly descend down the circular staircase of the old Weasley family home.

“We’re so proud of you, love,” Arthur murmures as he holds his daughter’s hand.

It’s the whirlwind of emotions that deems Ginny speechless, and she simply clings on tighter to her dad as they walk towards the small wedding tent swaying gently in the November wind.

Family and friends are all waiting for her inside. Yet their faces are all a blur, she’s only got eyes for the man waiting for her at the other end, his hair the usual mess and his smile radiating love. Beside him, Ron claps his shoulder and greets his sister with a short nod.

Ginny squeezes her father’s arm and steadies herself as he kisses her cheek. Vaguely she realizes there are two women crying their eyes out behind her, Lily and Molly unable to contain themselves.

Another short inspection on her right side and Ginny is pleased to notice her little James Sirius securely snuggled between the two men whose names he bears. Taking a deep breath, she knows she can go on with the ceremony.

“I can never come to terms with how beautiful you are,” Harry whispers as she takes her place next to him.

“Don’t you make me cry in front of all those people, you handsome, brilliant man,” Ginny replies, her cheeks coloring ever so slightly.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Harry grins and takes her hand, his thumb brushing over the engagement ring he placed there months earlier. It’s been a full year, a beautiful year. Best of his life, if he’s honest, at a tie with the one before. He’s established a permanent exhibition, his article on the dig is still published and quoted, his son was born, and to top it all off he’s about to marry the woman of his dreams, the one who’s made him happiest he’s ever been.

They say yes in a deafening wave of applause and cheers, grinning as they officially become Mr. and Mrs. Potter. Hand in hand, they walk down the aisle and accept all hugs, kisses, and congratulations, their hearts bursting with joy and beating in sync. Three steps ahead of them, a convoy made of Teddy, Victoire and Snuffles open the way, flowers spread around from their baskets. Behind, Ron and Hermione follow suit arm in arm.

“Not gonna lie, Harry, you kind of strong-armed me into doing the same,” George winks as they pass by, immediately wincing as a pregnant Angelina pokes him in the ribs.

Bill, Charlie, and Percy all hug their sister and cheerfully offer their congratulations to Harry. He takes a step backwards, offering Ginny enough space to celebrate with her family as he spots his own trio of mischief.

“Congrats, daddy,” Sirius smirks, cradling baby James in his arms.

Harry grimaces, “That sounds...gross, coming from you. And a little like you’re hitting on me, which I hope you’re not, giving that it’s my wedding day and you’re my godfather.”

Sirius rolls his eyes, then ruffles his godson’s unruly hair. “You’re alright, kid. No one’s mad enough to try and pry you away from that red haired temptress of yours.”

Before he can shoot his own comeback, Harry hears Lily’s giggle and feels her plump lips on stubbled cheek, as his father plants a kiss on his other one.

“Well done, son,” James booms. “Look at you - a proud father and godfather, an established archaeologist freshly married to a promising psychologist.” His smile extends to his hazel eyes, sparkling from behind his specs.

“She is rather brilliant,” Lily pipes in, squeezing Harry’s cheek. “And I’m not only referring to her formidable wit. I’ve read the study report on her work at the early education institution and it’s superb. I’m so proud of you two, my love.”

Harry lets himself be swallowed by the three sided hug before he can extract his own son from Sirius’ arms and find his beautiful wife.

Later, much later, when they’re giddy on pure bliss and champagne, snuggled close in their bed while their sons are fast asleep, Harry and Ginny feel like the luckiest people alive. And, in that moment, they truly are. They allow themselves to drift to sleep with their hands connected, ready to support and love each other in the days and years to come, for the rest of their lives together.

All in all, it could be honestly said that life throws a lot of unexpected things Harry Potter’s way, but his luck has been pretty good so far.

#itsblissfuloblivion writes #kindle chapter 18 #kindle #itsblissfuloblivion #fightfortherightsofhouseelves #gryffindormischief #hinny au fic #hinny fic #harry x ginny fic #harry x ginny #read-a-hinny-fic #jily #romione #ron x hermione

47 notes · View notes

justgotawesome · 5 years

Text

I really need to just write down my thoughts on things so this is a warning that below here I will be talking about things from the entire film. Actually wrote most of this yesterday but felt the need to see it another time in case feelings change. So if you haven’t been stupidly given it early like me (wtf Universal) please don’t read this. Okay here we go with SPOILERS ABOUT MANY THINGS

(this first bit turned out to be a long rant, didn’t realize I had as big an issue with the film until I actually began writing hahah) And again this is all just my opinion.

First off, I’m just gonna say this - I don’t think either sequel was a necessary one. The first film doesn’t warrant any continuation beyond wanting to be back in the world with the characters again. And then the 2nd film does that, but with a story that they made worthy of telling. The 3rd did not. Because again the 2nd film doesn’t warrant a sequel in the slightest either. Like that could have been it, same with the first, but it feels like they just wanted to have all the dragons leave. You know? Like they wanted that moment to happen and so they did a 3rd film. HTTYD2 doesn’t feel like they had one specific thing in mind and made a whole film for it, it feels like they came up with a bunch of ideas (time gap definitely helped) and kept rolling with them while adding more making a movie that feels natural and gives the story another chapter very different and unique but just as grand as the first. 3rd film feels like they had the one idea and then simply had to come up with other things so that one thing could happen, therefore making the other things not feel natural at all and instead forced. And honestly I don’t care for that one thing, it felt forced and unnatural too. All the dragons leaving just because it’s safer for them. The other films do show a world unsafe for dragons, but not by the end of each one. I mean if they had hinted at this more in the 2nd film it would have worked better in the 3rd, but the 2nd film was just all Drago, and at the end I personally didn’t think a single dragon was still “unsafe” in the above world. And at the end of this movie, the other bad guys that show up died! So what’s unsafe again? Each film ends with safety, why’d they still leave? Like I get it was more of “you’ll most likely never be safe staying with us.” but fuuck that. That whole moment was really weak storytelling.

I mean everything they did to get there was just too obvious, more convenient bad guys, Toothless finding a mate and having a “reason” to leave, a hidden world that Stoick was “obsessed” with but was never spoken about or mentioned in any other way before. Also why didn’t Toothless kill Grimmel immediately on that cliff? That was an odd moment considering everything that’s happened and was happening.

I feel awkward having used the word perfect before, I think I was just riding the emotions I felt during the final scene. I mean I doubt I’ll ever think any film is perfect, but my love for them definitely is. So despite all the main plots of this feeling unnatural, the supporting characters were sometimes true to themselves from and I love them so fucking much it hurts. So my love for them is perfect, despite the film not being so at all. Side-note, what was with that one weird fade in after the first “I’m with him, who else?!” to them flying away? It looked terrible, a simple cut would have been much nicer.

Anyway moving on.

Really wish there had been a third Stoick memory, like after the dragons leave and before the wedding, not exactly sure what he would be saying but I needed one more, maybe something with him and Val while she was pregnant to do with family Idk. And I hope they didn’t cut anything, if they cut a single second of Stoick I’m gonna be really upset. Gods Stoick not being there with Hiccup was painful throughout. And I’m gonna say this, so don’t hate me because we’re all going to be thinking it forever - Stoick never got to hug his grandkids. He never got to know them and love them and grow old with Val and be so proud of his son and daughter-in-law and all that they do. That fucking breaks my heart more than anything.

Glad Snotlout, Fishlegs, Tuff & Ruff got plenty of moments, even if all they had were comedic arcs again. There was just so much of them though, I loved that! Sure they did stupid things that didn’t make sense to further the plot, but whatever. All their armor was dope too. A little thing about Eret however, while he was there plenty, during the big fight at the end we saw no action from him? There must have been a cut moment, like he shows up and we don’t see him fight with anyone. Unless it was a bit into the background, there is one shot where he might be to the right but I missed it again. But still that was odd.

And the new dragon, really surprised it turned out to simply be a female Night Fury. I assumed it was a subspecies that was connected enough and therefore still able to mate with Toothless but nope so like why does she not look like him? There has never been a case of a dragon’s gender causing them to look so different. But then their kids are a mix between the two so wtf? And not gonna lie, it does seem like they wanted to make her more feminine. I mean again, I assumed it was a subspecies so both genders looked like that, but nope. Just a female NF. I don’t know, it’s weird, right? And why does Grimmel not care for her as much as Toothless, she’s another NIGHT FURY. Like he goes “not possible” to hearing about Toothless but seeing her he’s not all “WTF ANOTHER ONE? HOW????” that was weird too. EDIT: I’ve apparently learned it is a subspecies, weird that I assumed that going in, but coming out and from what the film told me I thought I was wrong. Grimmel says “A female...”, like what else is that supposed to mean? Oh well hahah. Design makes sense at least.

Speaking of Grimmel though, at first he seems like a completely different person and it was interesting but then really he’s pretty much just a Drago 2.0. Like it could’ve just been Drago again, he did HAVE a Night Fury cloak in the 2nd film so him having hunted them all to extinction would add up. Really interested to know what his actual arc in this movie was gonna be.

But still so many good little moments in the film, like gods they dress the sheep up like little dragons it was so adorable! And how much they built on Berk in merely a year, I don’t buy it haha. Something doesn’t add up there but whatever that place looked amazing. Oh and that Crimson Goregutter, what an awesome dragon that dude was.

Oh and I also have to mention the moment at the end where Toothless jumps onto the boat. It really bugs me. I understand completely he wouldn’t immediately recognize Hiccup (what with the beard and whatnot haha) but having it go on for SOOOOOO long and Astrid cowering and trying to make us, the viewer, uncertain, really fucking belittled their bond with one another. Like it’s been under a decade, if he was an old man, it would work, completely, but he just has a beard and kids what is the difference here? As if they’re telling us Toothless would that easily forget him, pfft. I at first thought he was messing with Hiccup but then it’s his hand that makes Toothless remember or something. That was a weird choice to make. (sigh) But then they fly together and that first shot of Hiccup’s hair blowing in the wind made me feel how I felt during the end of the last two and it was perfect for doing that.

To sum it up, I find that despite HTTYD’s proper ending to the story HTTYD2 was a great extra chapter in so many ways and that it also had a proper ending making HTTYD3 not really a story that needed to be told or worthy of it, aside from being back in the world with the characters again. Like everything that didn’t have to do with the main story was pretty good. Just seemed like all they had was the dragons leaving and so the whole movie conveniently pushes towards that but still having it not make any sense at all. Like nothing the main characters or story did made sense. I mean at the end, bad guys died, island’s more remote and safer, maybe just stop bringing back every dragon you free? I recently read an article with Jay and he said about the emotional stuff “not sad for the sake of sad” but that’s exactly what this film’s sadness at the end seemed to be, unlike the first two. Still, really happy it wasn’t a permanent thing considering how unnatural it was and that it didn’t end with Hiccup saying those final words to his grandkids or something.

But no matter how many flaws I have with it, I do love this series with all of my heart and I’m never gonna stop caring about these characters as deeply as I do. And the first two films are so beautiful in so many ways, I truly wish we could stay in that world forever because it really is a perfect one. But alas.

#matt babbles #httyd #httydthw

18 notes · View notes

fountainpenguin · 6 years

Note

Question Meme: (Ignore this if you don't want to answer all these....) 1, 2, 3, 28, 31, 33, 40 (sorry i couldn't pick one)

40 Questions For ‘Fic Writers Meme

#1 - Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.

Gradual character development spread across a piece with deepened, believable worldbuilding. You know, I often say I’m not into romance, but here’s the thing: A nice long, serious slow burn does a person good. I’ll happily accept romance if an author can really get me into the minds of the characters and make me want their relationship to develop as much as the characters do.

It’s shallow romance that rubs me the wrong way. Give me two characters who honestly, truly care about each other to the point where they’ll sacrifice something they love, or even be willing to let each other ago if it means the one they love will be happy. I love that. But if you’ve got one character who will pitch a fit rather than let their love be happy with someone else, you’re really working uphill with me.

Worldbuilding doesn’t have to be as deep and complex as my ‘fics tend to get, but I do love to see how different authors expand the same world in different ways. I’m not a big fan of horror and for some reason I just can’t get into sci-fi. I enjoy fantasy and biology.

Really, I love anything that doesn’t contradict canon. AUs? Eh, sometimes, but they’re not my favorite. I like behind-the-scenes, between-the-lines, believable futures, and backstory pieces with some nice worldbuilding. And some complex characters who don’t always make the best choices and then have to suffer the consequences for their actions. Yes. ‘Fics like those are very nice.

#2 - Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

A queerplatonic relationship that’s happy, healthy, and long-lasting. You would think I would let my aro/ace children be happy, but alas, ‘tis not to be! You could say I like to squash zucchinis. I am self-projecting my own insecurities. I made Bennett a horrible person to show the “worst possible relationship with an aro/ace who wants a sexless marriage” so that the hopes and dreams of the other aro/ace characters look more reasonable by comparison. I do that a lot.

Okay, I lied. I can think of six “official” queerplatonic relationships we will see in my FOP works, and one of them actually does have a happy ending. I mean, probably. I haven’t written it yet, so who knows?

Spoiler alert: Mario and Peach are the OTQP and I’m going to milk it. What can I say? I call ‘em like I see ‘em and canon literally gave us a plumber who’ll collect 120 Power Stars in return for cake, and a princess who turned down his hand in marriage after all the times he’s rescued her, but adores him anyway.

#3 - Is there a trope you wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole?

“We pretend to hate each other but secretly we’re both in love and will one day in the heat of the moment spontaneously confess our romantic feelings and form a mutual, caring relationship without any further character development.”

I don’t know if it’s because I’m a very serious, honest, straightforward person (being INTJ and all), or if it’s because I’m asexual, or if it’s a combination of both (or neither), but I can’t stand huge plots about people refusing to admit that they like someone. Love has always been a logical thing to me. I was sixteen before I found out sexual attraction was a real thing. I don’t really understand it, but I guess it’s possible to have physical feelings for someone even if you don’t logically want to? And you can’t stop yourself or turn it off? I honestly don’t know how that works, which is why the “I wish I wasn’t physically attracted to you” trope has infuriated me since childhood. I just didn’t get it.

Even before I realized I was asexual, I would have discussions with my mom about how if I ever had a crush, I would openly admit this to my friends if they asked. I wouldn’t protest or deny, as I see so many media characters do. Then it turned out I’m incapable of feeling physical attraction and I get friendship squishes instead of romantic crushes, so that happened.

As a general rule of thumb, you should trust the characters I write if they say they aren’t attracted to someone. If they like someone, they’ll tell you so. If they don’t, they’ll tell you that too. And if they’re confused, then it will be very clear that they’re confused. No means no. I’m very strict about that. Don’t read into it looking for signs that they’re being secretive even to the reader. They are not. I emotionally cannot bring myself to do that.

#28 - Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

Oooh. I’m going to say that Shaddic takes the cake on this one. If you’re a Total Drama fan, or even if you’re not, then “Daddy’s Characters” will break you deliciously like very few fanfics will. “Before and After” is just a step behind it. The emotion captured by these ‘fics is incredible, and I highly, highly recommend them if you’re into evil villains who are undeniably and yet realistically cruel. Both ‘fics revolve around Mike and his multiple personalities (“Daddy’s Characters” revolving around adult Mike and Zoey, married with a daughter and with twins on the way, coping with something horrid that lands a distraught Mike in prison, and “Before and After” being the trauma-filled childhood backstory ‘fic).

Shaddic characterized everyone perfectly. So horribly, painfully well. Ugggh, I love it. My gallery has Identity Theft on the way, which will revolve around Foop and Hiccup and some multiple personality trauma, but it won’t be as beautiful as Shaddic’s work. They’re honestly worth a read if you ever have the time one day, even if you aren’t a Total Drama fan. You really don’t need to know the show to enjoy them. And enjoy them (and suffer) you will. In all my years, I’ve never seen an evil villain portrayed so… villainously. Love it.

I’m also a fan of SelanPike- partially for sentimental reasons, I suppose. I remember reading her Mario ‘fics over and over eight years ago, and I still read them today on a regular basis. Crazy how time flies. They’re just ones that I love going back to. As most of you know, I tend to fall in love with background characters. Fawful, Kamek, and Doopliss fit those qualifications- and coincidentally, those three are Selan’s favorites too! Technically, it’s because of her that the 130 Prompts project came to be. I always loved her 100 one-shot challenge, and that’s sort of how I eventually decided to write my own.

I really admire Selan for her characterizations. Her Kamek portrayal is my all-time favorite. So is her Fawful, her Doopliss, her Bowser, her Bowser Jr, her E. Gadd… she’s just a master of character. Even her freaking Jojora is spot-on. I mean, talk about background characters, am I right? Ha. Her writing is excellent and she has some fun plots. I always enjoyed drinking up her fanart and reading her comics on her deviantArt too. Still do. She has such a fun, bouncy art style. Her 8-page comic about Fawful attending school in the Mushroom Kingdom after Kamek hits him with the truant officer threat gets me every time.

I highly recommend “Until Tomorrow” (Her post-“Superstar Saga” ‘fic about Kamek and Fawful attempting to revive Cackletta so Kamek can kick her butt in a magic fight and Fawful can get the mother figure he refuses to call his mother figure back), and her famous ‘fic “On My Own” (about Fawful coping with Cackletta’s death and eventually working his way up the Koopa Kingdom social ladder). “Fragmented Spectrum” is a wonderful, tense, horror-ish ‘fic as well, with my absolute favorite Bowser Jr. portrayal. Plus, I love the rivalry between Kamek and Fawful seen in “F.S.” with Fawful trying to draw magic circles that he decided must be 100% perfect to count as circles, and Kamek not even knowing how to deal with him and his technology brain. Beautiful.

Check out the rest of her gallery too. Her two FFN fandoms are Mario and Invader Zim. She isn’t active there anymore, but her ‘fics are worth the read. I will say that I’m not a fan of her ‘fic “Everything You Ever” because I feel that Cackletta was way too sweet and nice for an evil villain in that one. But then again, I haven’t read it in years, so who knows. I’m not crazy about Selan’s Peach portrayal either, but that’s where my third recommendation comes in.

GuardianM1234 is a recent discovery of mine, and she does not disappoint. I’m a big fan of her ongoing ‘fic “Smoke” (which updates twice a month right now and is nearing its climax). It’s basically the story of Peach and Bowser growing up, and the development of their relationship from being fairly friendly as children to their complex relationship as adults. I’ve never seen Peach portrayed so perfectly, and I adore her. Never thought I would, but I do. Guardian also has a very unique take on Mario that’ll really make you squirm.

I love Guardian’s writing because she pits characters in emotionally-difficult situations and lets them learn and grow. They make bad choices, but she demonizes no one. Not even Bowser. Plus, Bowser has a little sideplot with Clawdia going on (the canon mother of the Koopalings if you know your deep hidden lore, though since the Koopalings were recently ruled “not Bowser’s children” by Nintendo’s “official” canon, I don’t know if she will be their mother in “Smoke” or where Guardian is taking this ‘fic). Basically, what I’m saying is, Clawdia and Bowser roastfest. Be there. They crack me up. And Guardian’s TOADSWORTH is perfection. Please give that old boy his gossip.

Plus, Daisy takes Bowser shopping for wedding dresses once and he bribes her with a six-pack of soda. Nice, short chapters with a few pleasant hints of worldbuilding slipped in, and a LOT of character. Guardian is still somewhat new to fanfiction, but she’s very sweet and she would adore some reviews if you do read her work. If you love her stuff, give her a shout-out! She’s great.

#31 - Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant?

I fall halfway between this one. The answer is, sort of both! For my main fandoms, I have one rule: I don’t contradict canon, unless canon contradicted itself and I was forced to pick a side. Origin gets so deep into biology and Knots into culture that they feel more like original works than fanfics sometimes, because I’ll flesh things out as much as I want to. So that’s sort of a liberty I take with canon. But I never contradict canon if I don’t have to. I always comply.

It’s a puzzle. I love connecting dots behind the scenes. I love forcing everything that’s canon to be canon, even if it looks like it contradicted itself. If I can solve a plot hole, I try to. I will make ridiculous backbends to fit colorful Anti-Fairy eyes, Crocker’s ebb and flow of wealth, Miss Idaho’s “rare genetic condition that prevents her from aging,” Mary Alice Doombringer’s random abilities, and Girlfriend the cat’s sentience into Riddleverse canon, and I’ll love every second of it. I only cut a piece of canon out if I feel like I absolutely have to. It’s fun.

I can definitely enjoy reading ‘fics that stray from canon, and might even write them on occasion. But the reason why I write fanfics is because I loved the canon and I want to see it expanded, not taken away. I’d like to publish my original works someday, so if I’m not sticking close to source material, why would I write a fanfic that I could publish as an original work instead?

For the same reasons, I’d rather read a fanfic that expands on canon than eliminates it. When I fall in love with something, I fall in love with its world. I like ‘fics that blend worldbuilding aspects in with the plot they’re writing, even if it’s a short one-shot. I don’t love reading something that feels like its writer just inserted the names of popular characters into their otherwise original work so that people would read it. I want to have the little details and feel convinced that these are the characters (and the world) that I love. Personal preference.

In some cases, I default to realism over canon, such as by giving Cosmo the ability to recognize faces. In my psychology classes, I’ve learned that sometimes during investigations, police will show pictures to people and ask them to select the face that matches the one they were shown earlier. People pretending to be mentally handicapped in some way will often get the answers wrong on purpose in an attempt to maintain their facade, while those who are actually mentally handicapped will get them right. Just a nitpicky thing I do.

So I often favor realism over canon in certain ways, even if it possibly contradicts canon a bit. I respect canon and try to stay true to it as much as possible because I enjoy doing so, but I don’t consider myself 100% beholden to it, especially considering how many different contributors there can be to a project over the years. I do my best, but enjoying what I write comes first.

#33 - How do you feel about crack?

I can enjoy the occasional way-out-there thing, but I prefer serious stories in general.

#40 - Write an alternative ending to [insert fic title] (or just the summary of one).

Well, you didn’t give me a ‘fic you wanted to see an alternate ending to, but I do have a few short pieces I can share. You see, the “That Was Then” Prompt (the Jay Rhoswen and his studies about Anti-Fairies one) wasn’t supposed to end the way it did. Here is how it was meant to go:

Rhoswen scooted back hand over hand along the counter, his feet skittering in the vapor. What in the name of dust was he doing? He shouldn’t be looking at his wife’s counterpart more than at his wife! He shouldn’t be having these sorts of thoughts at all!

Anti-Shylinda placed her palms to his cheeks and gazed into his eyes. “No talk,” she whispered, and when she leaned forward, those burning lips closed over his.

As for whether that Seelie Courter chose to kiss the anti-fairy back once she’d started to draw away? Well… You ought to look to the term “Rhoswen syndrome” to answer that.

I didn’t like the idea of Anti-Shylinda being the one to make moves on Jay, so I scrapped it. Not only that, but the whole piece is written as snippets from Rhoswen’s journal now, so the voice here no longer fit the narrative.

At the end of the first chapter of Frayed Knots, “String Theory”, Anti-Cosmo cuts off the tips of his ears. I was originally going to expand the scene as follows:

Blood spattered the floor. With a hiss through my teeth, I withdrew the knife and dabbed the blood up with my sleeve. The stone might stain.

Recalculating, I dragged my stool over to the sink. The angle was awkward, but at least my blood would wash easily away. There, I slit off the tip of my ear, cutting carefully around my first canetis ring. Then I mirrored the action on the other side. Both rings bounced across the stone with a clink, click, clatter.

I uncurled my tongue and set the knife aside. Then I took the severed tips of my ears and held them to my head again. It took three agonizing minutes, but the smoke that filled my veins stretched out and wound around my fingers. It absorbed my ears and pressed them into place again. Full, soft, and whole. I fingered the gashes mother’s piercing clamp had left behind. Apparently, even regeneration couldn’t heal injuries left by an unenchanted tool. Useful information to know.

The canetis rings disappeared into my pocket. Then I got up and pushed open the window. I took a running start, dove out, and unfurled my wings.

However, I kind of liked leaving the chapter on the cliffhanger of “Oh my gosh, what did he just do to himself???” I also couldn’t include a sink in the castle in a time period when there is no indoor plumbing. Then I decided that I would rather give Anti-Cosmo permanent gashes in his ears he had caused himself, rather than ones caused by his mother, to always remind him (and everyone around him) of that day he stood against Anti-Fairy tradition. Kind of a shame to delete the scene since I like how it gave us information about smoke and Anti-Fairy healing right from the start. I might recycle it later.

Actually, if we’re talking about the original version of Knots, everything was supposed to be different than what it was. Here is another deleted scene that was originally planned to be the opening scene of Knots:

“Mum, I’m nine and a half minutes old. I’m not a baby anymore. Come on, please? You let Anti-Robin leave home to get his wand when he was only three!”

“You weren’t even born yet. How can you possibly know that?”

“He told me about thirty seconds ago, right before you came in here.” I grabbed my mother’s skirt in two tiny fists. “Mum, I’m going to be the only pup in the colony without a wand. What about our image?”

She wavered visibly, running her thumb along her staff. “Well…”

Father peered over his spectacles and frowned. “Now, wait just a minute here, Anti-Florensa. He’s just a pup. You can’t send him into the woods to gather the materials for his first wand all by himself.”

“But it has always been our family’s tradition,” she sniffed. “It’s not as though he’ll die. On the contrary, I’m more concerned about him killing valuable plants with his acid. Anti-Cosmo, you’re drooling again.”

I wiped my mouth. “Sorry, Mum.”

I really loved the “I’m nine and a half minutes old- I’m not a baby anymore!” idea, especially since there aren’t many times when you’ll have the chance to use it. As you can see, Frayed Knots was going to begin with baby Anti-Cosmo leaving his manor home alone to obtain his first wand.

But overall, in the end, I decided that it was more important to show the importance of smoke in Anti-Fairy culture, and we ended up with the scene we have now. Also, I really wanted Anti-Cosmo to grow up never knowing who his father was until several years after Anti-Robin had died, which meant I had to scrap or replace this scene in some way anyway.

The “Mama’s Boy” Prompt was actually written with the manor idea in mind, and I believe Anti-Florensa even uses the word “manor” in it. I added an author’s note to that piece several months ago mentioning that “Mama’s Boy” is semi-canon for now until Frayed Knots is finalized. A lot has changed.

Some other deleted scenes from the early plans of “Anti-Cosmo lives with his family in a manor near the Castle, and they are nobles but not royalty” include:

“I got something for you, kiddo.” Anti-Robin flicked an aluminum medal across the table that read #2 Son. I grinned.

“This is for me? Thanks! I love it!”

He tilted down his glasses. “You say, ‘Thank you, Father, for this generous gift.’”

I repeated the words, and he tousled my hair. “Now, go do second son things.”

“Yes, sir! I will! Thank you, Father!” With the medal swinging from my neck, I trotted happily off.

and

I clung to the frame of his office door, beating my wings to keep myself from staggering forward. I knew better than to cross the threshold, even though there was nothing I wanted more in the universe right then than to throw my arms around his waist and squeeze him in a hug. The bruise Mother had left on my arm hurt even more now than it did in the kitchen, somehow. My eyes slid back and forth across his desk.

“Where are you going?”

Anti-Robin calmly placed another folded shirt inside the suitcase. “Back to Anti-Scarlett’s.”

“With your other family?” I asked. “With her kids, Anti-Xavier and Anti-Tom?”

“Yes.”

“Why can’t I come with you? I want to meet them.”

“It’s a dad thing.” He closed the suitcase with two clicks and turned around. His eyes were steely calm, his frown very firm. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

and

“ELEANOR!”

Anti-Robin and I grabbed our mouths and looked at each other, gaping with our eyes. Mother was over 150,000 years old. Her real name wasn’t supposed to be said out loud.

Father slammed a newspaper on the table, then stepped back and crossed his arms. “Might I inquire what the meaning of this is, ‘dear’?”

“Whatever do you mean?” she asked, not looking up from the end of her staff. She studied its base, then ran her polish rag across it again.

“Anti-Bryndin had the green fairy locked up, and I know you’re behind it.”

So, don’t feel too sad that Anti-Cosmo grows up without a dad in my works! It wouldn’t have been the best relationship anyway. Besides that, now that I’ve had time to think about it, this Anti-Robin portrayal isn’t that far off Ambrosine, and I’d rather H.P. and Anti-Cosmo had fathers with very different personalities.

If you have a really sharp memory, you may possibly remember seeing that medal around Anti-Cosmo’s neck when I drew my late-night FOP/Moana doodle dump that one time.

I also have oodles of scenes deleted from Anti-Cosmo’s visit to Winkleglint’s estate, since originally Scarletfeather was supposed to show up and Anti-Cosmo panicked when he couldn’t stop Scarletfeather from luring Mr. Thimble away. I could have filled another entire chapter with what happened during that study abroad week, but in the end I decided they were mostly self-indulgent and not important enough in the grand scheme of things to justify leaving in.

I’m skimming through my files of deleted scenes and I forgot I had this one too. Anti-Cosmo wasn’t supposed to have his intelligence test proctored by Ambrosine originally, as I was going to send him to this mental hospital facility. I decided against it, but here is a terrifying scene that we almost got. So, it’s technically an alternative ending too:

Dr. Gabriel handed me a piece of bark marked with the word Failed. “Don’t get cocky. Everyone has their limits.”

Failed? That lout outright failed me? I dropped the bark strip and looked up as Dr. Gabriel spread his wings. With a few sharp beats, he flew out of the pit. I chased after him, searching the platform above me with my eyes. So I couldn’t fly, and I was short, but I could make that leap-

“Oof!”

Or… perhaps not. I slid back down to the floor and landed on my rump. Never one to be deterred, I leaped back to my feet. Something to boost me, something to boost me… Oh! Snatching up his forgotten broom, I backed against the opposite wall, and then ran forward. I shoved the handle of the broom into the corner offered by the platform and the floor and launched myself into the air. Yes! Yes! Ahahaha! I hurtled out of the pit and went rolling across the ground. Dr. Gabriel spun around, his mouth falling open in surprise.

“Please,” I begged him, climbing to my feet again. My broken wings batted feebly behind me. “I want to gain a Fairy education. Level with me, doctor. You don’t want Anti-Fairies filling up your precious conservative school. And I don’t want Anti-Fairies filling it up either. True, we Anti-Fairies are known for our memories, but I like to feel special, and I shouldn’t want to chance anyone stealing my thunder away from me. You let me in, and I won’t breathe a word about your biases against my people.”

Dr. Gabriel studied me with idle coldness, clutching his tablets to his chest. He drifted a few steps backwards along the corridor. “Anti-Cosmo, your genius is entirely creative. You’re severely behind in your knowledge of technical skills, and you lack basic common sense as well as a sense of self-preservation. Because of this, we can’t recommend you be placed in any advanced programs. You’ll need to stay where you’re at.”

The corners of my mouth twisted into a frown. Then a sneer. “Frankly, Dr. Gabriel, I’m not particularly fond of that option.”

With that, I yanked out the can of forget-a-cin I’d nicked from his pouch when he’d been turned the other way. Dr. Gabriel had time to look horrified before I mashed the button down. My eyes were squeezed shut, but even so, the world around me lit with white. I let the empty canister fall to the floor and opened my eyes again to find the nervous fairy glancing around in bewilderment.

“There,” I said. “I’ve just put a block over this memory of yours. I do hope no one else would care to challenge me, or I will be forced to perform the same trick on them. Now, I demand that you, good sir, will have me enrolled in all the classes of my choosing. Is that understood?”

Dr. Gabriel’s wandering eyes finally latched onto me. His shoulders shivered, although he possibly didn’t remember why. He bobbed a bit lower in the air. Then his wings fell silent altogether, and he leaned his back against the wall. He slid down to the floor. “S-security! Security?”

His voice was too weak for anyone who wasn’t an Anti-Fairy to hear. I sighed. Covering my eyes again, I made a signal with my other hand. “Oh, dear. I do apologize. I really never do this, you must understand. It’s so messy.”

If he hadn’t been so hazy from the aftereffects of the forget-a-cin, I’m sure Dr. Gabriel wouldn’t have let me get away with as much as he did. As it happened, I walked right up to him and lay my claw against the karmic pouch on the left side of his neck. He yelped, but I knocked his clumsy hands away from me without any real effort. I braced my hand against my hip.

“I really never do this. It’s vile and crude. So sorry, I really am. But then again, well, perhaps I’m really not.” And with that, I sunk my fangs into his neck. Blech. He tasted of old mutton.

Dr. Gabriel screamed. He twisted, his shoulders rapidly seizing up. I rolled my eyes and kept my fangs embedded until his coughs turned to silence and he had frozen in place, as still as a stone statue. Only then did I wrench back my head, bringing the coils of his karmic weave along with me. Most of them were blue, but here and there a pink one surfaced, or a yellow. As the colourful threads of his life whisked above us, I stood back and traced one claw beneath my eye.

“Anti-Fairy tears consist mainly of sulfuric acid, of course. And I daresay you hurt my feelings quite a bit back there, didn’t you?”

Forcing myself to cry came as naturally as forcing myself not to cry always had. I captured the burning tear on the end of my claw and, very slowly, held it out towards the paralyzed fairy sitting against the wall. For several long seconds, I let him see it glistening there. Threatening to drip down on the place where I had bitten him. Which was still bleeding.

“I never do this,” I said again, truthfully apologetic. “It’s messy and you’ll be rather cross when you wake up, assuming you wake again at all. But it is true that I am crying, and here you are, lying so very still. We’re standing rather close, aren’t we? So close that I could touch you.”

Lacking the ability to move, all Dr. Gabriel could do was sit numbly, his mouth gaping. I lowered my claw towards his neck.

“But it’s only a single tear, isn’t it? Why should a fairy care if he made an anti-fairy child cry? No, a single tear cannot hurt your conscience. A single tear may sting your skin, perhaps, but it shouldn’t cause any long-lasting problem so long as no liquid in your body is particularly warm. Oh, wait…” Here I feigned surprise, and brought my claw a mere centimetre from his karmic pouch. Green liquid trickled down his neck. I smiled. “Why, internal Fairy body temperature borders on the boiling point, does it not? Oooh, I’d hate to see what happens when that acid comes into contact with your blood. I’ve heard it’s prone to such catastrophic explosions.”

There was, of course, no reply. Sighing, I withdrew my handkerchief from my pocket and wiped the tear from my claw.

“No, but I suppose I’m a gentleman, so I shan’t leave you comfortless. As I told you, I really never do this. I’m all boasts and bluster, really. That’s all I really am. Let’s get you cleaned up, lad.”

I was just wiping away the last drops of acid from his stunned face when the door opened behind me. I looked over my shoulder to find Anti-Jolene floating there with a clipboard in hand. She took in the threads of wild karma and my kerchief, and looked at me with her ears cocked forward.

“So… How is it going?”

I sighed and tucked the handkerchief away. “Dr. Gabriel and I have just finished, painfully. I say, are business deals with Fairies always so messy?”

She smiled a thin smile. “It would behoove us to find a neutral party who could settle things between our two races more easily, wouldn’t it?”

“I’ll be cleaning karma out of my fur for weeks,” I muttered, and went about gathering up his tangled threads so I could stuff them back inside his soul.

He was one messed up kid in this draft, that is for sure. Who knows? Perhaps I’ll find a place for this scene in the current version someday, if I ever need to send an older Anti-Cosmo to a mental health facility. For now, however, it’s deleted.

“This Is a Box” was actually supposed to end differently as well. And of course, so was “This Is Halloween.” Every once in awhile I’ll have a piece get away from me and end the way it wants, but most of them end the way I plan from the start.

Thanks for all your requests! I really appreciate your curiosity!

#Anon #asks #riddleverse mention #Ace Penguin #Mushrooms and more #FAIRIES!#Reading recommendations #130 Prompts #ridwriting #The bat with the hat #Bat cube and associates #Frayed Knots #Ask box games

1 note · View note

idealisticrealism · 6 years

Text

Blindspot 3x04 recap

Aka ‘You probably should have just watched 3x03 again, Laura’

Okay, clearly I don’t do well with deadlines. Despite having 2 weeks to do it, I’m still doing this last minute, so it’s gonna be a fairly short one. Not to mention that this wasn’t exactly my favourite episode, so I may have fewer thoughts about it than others... but there’s definitely a few thoughts I do wanna share, so here goes.

At first I thought that little girl was Alice but then realised all the many reasons why that made no sense. Instead we get introduced to a bomber guy who is clearly gonna be relevant to the ep despite just seemingly blowing himself up...

Oooh Jane came out with the truth about Roman calling her. Nice, honey. I’m proud of your openness. I wonder if Weller noticed she was acting weird last night, since it’s morning now? Also dude she gave him yet another perfect opening to tell her about Berlin and he didn’t take it!!!! Literally no matter what happened in Berlin, his staying silent about it is bad enough in itself. Dude you are setting yourself up for a big fall here!

Naww I love that Zapata is always checking in on Patterson. Ugh, these sisters. And instead of forcing her to take a break, like all the others would have tried to do, she just asks how she can help. I just love these two. I love that Zapata helps her see things from a different angle and gives her a plan to follow. Poor Patterson is so determined to make it up to Stuart and she needs all the help she can get

God I love Hirst’s accent. But dude what is happening with this scene. How have she and Reade been on such close terms that they had a bet that involved potentially shaving her head?? That’s the kind of thing you agree on whilst drunk. Have these two gotten drunk together?? What is going on. Also she legit takes the ugly jumper thing and agrees to wear it to a meeting?? At work, at the FBI?? With executive people?? That just feels very unlikely. Also dude she basically just said ‘hey Reade if you’ve done any shady shit make sure it’s buried deep because we’re gonna have people looking into us’. Wow.

Anyway my lil genius has cracked a tatt, which relates to the bomber guy we just saw before. Lol the guy’s ex wife nailed him by recognising his handwriting and tipping off the cops. You go, girl. Now though Patterson’s smarts they’ve found a van in some particular car park in Brooklyn, and lol Weller’s doing the bombsquad thing for some unknown reason. All that’s in the van is a letter though-- to the bomber’s daughter, from the bomber. He’s not really dead. Dun dun dunnnnnnn (lol get it bc his last name is Dunn haha)

Oh boy we’re actually seeing the wedding video. I don’t know whether to roll my eyes or melt into a puddle, but tbh I’m a little more leaning towards the eye rolling. I like that Zapata and Reade are doing theirs together, because I imagine they were both like ‘you go first, no you go first, no you go I don’t know what to say’ so they just went in together. And lol ‘what do you even do in Colorado’ (right tho??) and ugh they’re so looking forward to being part of Jeller’s future and Reade even tells them he loves them (sidenote I like his earrings) and they say ‘don’t screw this up’ which kinda just hurts to hear because man did they screw it up real bad. Also Patterson ‘videobombing’ is the best lol. But I wanna know what happens in between the cuts! Where’s the director’s cut of this vid? haha

Lol Zapata giving Weller shit about the bombsquad thing (right tho????) and then also giving Jane shit, saying that she was surprised she didn’t squeeze into the suit and go with him. Ugh Zapata is so great this season already, can she just be like this forever? I’m still confused about Hirst’s ugly sweater sitch and why this is even being included. Is it to show her bond with Reade/the team? To show she’s a good sport?? Why Gero what are you trying to sayyy. Also they found the bomber’s daughter (who has had some trouble with the law herself) and they’re gonna bring her in to try find the bomber or whatever

Roman is looking dapper and heads into some fancy event as his new Tom persona. And then he meets Blake, the gorgeous hostess of the event, and who was also another former ‘LA Complex’ character-- fun fact she played the long-lost sister of Jonathan Patrick Moore’s character, so technically her and Roman’s siblings kind of dated. Ish. But ugh he’s being all cute and charming and weirdly Australian and she’s clearly liking it. She has such a great smile, it lights up her whole face. Aaaand the moment she walks away he’s off doing something sneaky, bc of course he is.

The bomber’s daughter is being recalcitrant, naturally. Goes with the territory. Weller and Reade are interrogating together which is nice, I like my good boys playing together. Glad to see Weller isn’t being such a butt. Anyway turns out her dad doesn’t drop the letters himself but has someone do it for him, and there’s an emergency signal for if she needs help. So they go to the park and they’re so cute all loitering about ‘undercover’. And I like that Jane can tell from across the park that Weller isn’t happy with the situation. Naww, so married. Based on Weller’s gut they all move out, looking for the drop guy. Of course it’s Jane that spots him-- and does he spot the daughter, or Jane?? I can’t tell which he’s looking at. She loses him momentarily and then next thing he’s got a gun on her-- only he recognises her, his tone surprised but not hostile when he says ‘Remi?’ So they knew each other in the Sandstorm days?? He’s definitely not pleased to see her working with the cops though…

Oh boy. Now Weller is on the wedding vid and okay it’s pretty damn cute. And ugh he said the thing about her being his starting point AND end point and ughhh how many of us included a line like that in our fics?? But ugh he loves her so muuuch and he’s so emotional and amazed and happy to be marrying her ugh

Okay after that brief interlude we’re back to the suspect guy. What has this guy been in? I recognise him. And he seems to actually like Remi/Jane, which is why I think she is able to get the jump on him. I always love Jane being a badass. I wanna know what happens right after this tho-- like does she radio/call the team and be like ‘hey guys come to the house across the street I’ve incapacitated our suspect’ and Weller is all like ‘are you okay?????’ while the Reade is hoping that she managed to do it without drawing attention or injuring him too badly, and Zapata’s just miffed bc she didn’t get to kick any butt lol. Back at the lab Patterson fills them in-- he’s a dude that’s wanted in like seven countries for “like, all of the crimes” hahahaha. I love the way she said that. Zapata’s kinda impressed with him since according to the CIA he’s the go-to guy for forged documents. Then Reade sends Jeller in to do the interrogation and tbh I’m kinda getting used to Reade giving the orders. It’s pretty much like hearing Weller’s voice come out of his mouth lol. And then aw their suspect is kinda sad that Jane doesn’t remember him, bc he was like an uncle to her? And then omg he says “that summer, in Kalispell, up on Flathead lake” and dude I was literally just there in July??? My friend has friends like an hour from Kalispell and we all went rafting together at Flathead. Yayyy Montana. I love when slightly more obscure places I’ve been get mentioned haha. Jane tries to get him back on track and he just keeps reminiscing. Clearly he knew them when they were pretty young-- he says he did her adoption, so however old they were when Shepherd took them in I guess? Sounds like he wasn’t a huge fan of Shepherd tho which I approve of haha. Too bad he won’t tell them anything about the bomber guy.

Again Patterson and Zapata are having one of their little vibing moments and they realise the suspect must have had a ‘go bag’ somewhere. And Zapata being the kickass FBI and CIA trained badass that she is, realises that it’s hidden in the seat of his car. Lol she even uses the CIA lingo. And then omg Patterson just whips out a butterfly knife from her pocket?? Lord that is so damn cool. I wish I could be cool like her and carry one of those around but alas carrying knives is illegal in my country. Ugh then they find his stuff and high five over it and I just love them so much

Hirst is arguing with some bigwig guy who wants to take away their suspect bc of his other crimes and ugh I could listen to her talk all day. I’m proud of her for saying ‘you all’ and not ‘y’all’ to him haha. Lol Weller tries to tell the dude he can’t take them and errrr Weller I think he’s a little above you on the foodchain, buddy. Anyway Patterson calls them into the lab-- they stuff they found includes a coded ‘black book’ of his transactions. I love that she calls Zapata ‘00Z’ haha. And then they figure out from the cypher thing that the bomber is in Ithaca, bc Patterson is a genius, of course

Uh oh. They’ve arrived at the place in Ithaca and the local fuzz are all over it instead of keeping the perimeter-- they apparently found a bomb which has also supposedly already been disarmed. Well that was quick. Also omg the guy calls Tasha darling and her face is all ‘bitch please’ and Weller shoots her a look like ‘please don’t kill him, please don’t kill him’ lol. And Reade puts a hand out to settle her lol. They get in and it’s a pretty basic bomb, then as the dudes go to lift it Weller realises it’s a decoy and yells for everyone to get out-- and good thing it’s a room with a lot of exits bc Weller and the main cop go through one, Zapata pushes another cop through another, and Reade and Jane go through another. Not sure about the last cop, but he’s probably fine bc ~magic~

Oh now it’s Jane’s turn for the vid. And omg she immediately makes a sex/dirtytalk joke??? Wow girl, you’re really opening up, aren’t you? But ugh she never thought she would have this and she��s so emotional about it and she’s like halfway through a sentence when Weller walks in?? And I know this should be adorable and all but I’m kinda mad about it? Like he already had his chance to share everything he felt without being interrupted, but now whatever she was gonna say is lost bc he felt that he was entitled to butt in?? And then she jokes that he thought she’d run away and he said he’d never let that happen bc he’d ‘never let her out of his sight’ which tbh I do not like??? Firstly it hurts bc she DOES leave, but also it feels kinda weird and possessive and like a ‘you will never be free of me’ kinda thing? Feels more stifling than romantic. But whatevs just gonna let that one slide right on past

Back at the bomb house, Weller is immediately searching for Jane, and belatedly remembering to check on everyone else haha. Zapata emerges, lookin kinda fine with all those soot stains, then a cop stumbles past and Reade stands up. Assuming the other cop who was saved by Zapata gets out fine, then that just leaves Jane. Who is unmoving on the floor, and ugh Weller’s voice gets all small and wobbly and he’s all ‘no, no’ and goddammit writers can you not? Then she miraculously regains consciousness under his touch and he cups her face in his hands as she tells him she’s okay and then he hugs her to his chest and nope I do not need this in my life please stop

Why do these guys all look so great covered in dirt and soot?? They’re back to the NYO with the news that their bomber guy has a bunch of bomb stuff (surprise!) and is likely planning an attack. They split up and Weller finds Jane in the locker room icing her bruised ribs, and he knows right away that it’s not the injury that’s bothering her-- it’s Roman. Nice hubby senses, Weller. Ooh interesting she says that she doesn't care about her past bc she finds nothing but pain in it, which makes me feel like this Rossi guy is going to reveal something big and kinda positive to her about her past. And then ugh she says that right now, them, is what she cares about and ughhhh why they gotta be so cute? Tho again I take issue with Weller-- this time with calling her perfect. Jane knows she’s not perfect, so why not say that he loves her as she is, imperfections and all? But whatevs. He promises her a lifetime full of perfect moments though and okay that’s pretty sweet with the heart eyes and the hand kissing and ugh he loves her so much and yet he’s STILL lying about Berlin and I haaaaate it

Oooh we’re back at Roman’s charity event. And ugh Blake is so cute and she’s a good auctioneer and she auctions off a little bracelet and she clearly knows the little girl who made it quite well, and cared about her particularly, I think? And her jokes are so sweet and I love that she gets them to start bidding and then bam here’s ‘Tom’ with a $20,000 bid and says that he ‘likes wishes’ so cutely and omg the way she’s looking at him rn is just so-- Oh no I ship it. Why do I ship this I mean it’s like a terrible idea but wow I do. Oh noooooooooo

Patterson called Zapata to the lab even though their tests re the bomber are still ‘marinating’, because she wants to talk to her about Operation Cuttlefish (aka their investigation into Stuart’s murder) and lol she tries to give a nerdy explanation of cuttlefish’s camouflage ability but Zapata is like ‘good lord just show me’ lol. Turns out a bunch of things have been meddled with and now they both wonder whether there could be another leak in their taskforce. Man, this office is leakier than a damn sieve….

What, Hirst even made a video entry? Really? Ok, I guess. I do love listening to her talk. And lol she says ‘y’all’ this time. Patterson again videobombs with shots and also to inform everyone that she met a guy named Jonathan Walker Blue and that they’re in love and I was literally about to make a comment about how that’s a weird name and that I wanted to hear more about this guy, when I suddenly realised that I’m an idiot and she was referring to Johnnie Walker Blue. The whiskey. Lord that went right over my head the first time haha. Then Hirst goes on to say that they’re an amazing team and even though they’re gonna have hard times, they’ll lean on each other. “To the good times and the bad, may love rule mightily over both” and lbr that’s totally gonna be a theme for the season (and the show as a whole) isn’t it

So they’ve discovered that the bomber is planning to bomb a university in the city within the next hour, and while they were about to waste a lot of time evacuating all the campuses, Patterson discovers that the colours on the materials that the bomber had on his workbench were the same as the colours for the metro university so he must have been making an ID badge for there, giving them their target. And lol Weller is giving all the orders and then is just like ‘okay you heard the boss’ (meaning Reade) and it’s like well I think we all know who is really running the show here…

Aaaaahhh Blake comes to deliver the bracelet personally to Tom bc she has the epic hots for him and omg THIS FLIRTING IS SO FREAKIN SMOOTH I CAN’T. And then she gets all earnest and is trying to ~understand~ him (because she liiiiiiiiiikes him) and ugh they move in closer and there’s more flirting and then he tells her about Tom’s backstory of fighting in Afghanistan and inheriting money from a friend who died and wanting to use it for a good cause and oh god she’s falling like a rock for him and I DIG IT. FOR STUPID MASOCHISTIC REASONS. Seriously gimme more of this, Gero. (Ship name: Take?? Blam?? lol). And then ugh he asks her how the wish bracelet works and then when she explains he ties it on HER wrist and tells her she deserves the wish more than he does and I’m????? So into this???? Which is ridiculous bc it’s all a total lie but damn it’s just so cute and she’s basically swooning and then she offers to buy him a drink and they joke about the open bar and ughhhhhhhhh why. Why must I want this. And then he says he can’t because (sadly) he has a plane to catch and ughhh I’m bummed about it. But then again, the old ‘leave em wanting more’ thing does have merit, so maybe we’ll see…. Oh aaaaand he’s tracking her with a GPS he planted in the bracelet bc the whole thing was a ruse. Of course. Dammit, Roman, why you gotta crush all my dreams

Back at the lab, Patterson realises that Roman gave them the clue to crack the bomber’s manifesto, because all the older manifestos use the same code. Also literally how was anyone meant to crack that code without that very random and specific picture?? But eh. So now they know that the bomb is under the medical building at the university and man that’s just mean. You know how hard it is to evacuate a hospital??? That crap takes forever. But anyway damn Zapata and Reade are looking like a really badass team rn. Zapata gets slammed into the wall by the bomber guy (rude) but Reade shoots him just before he can shoot her. Phew. Unfortunately now this means that Jane and Weller are disarming the bomb on their own….

Lol it’s finally time for drunk!Patterson to get to have her say on the video, and of course she mentions D&D. Apparently Jane is an elf paladin and Weller is a dwarf monk. What’s the bet that Ashley herself chose those characters? I kinda wanna look up their abilities and characteristics now. And ugh she just loves them and believes they can do anything and she’s just the sweetestttttt

And now Jeller have 80 seconds to disarm the bomb, which has an anti tamper device which requires them to work as a perfect team in order not to set it off haha. Symbolism, symbolism everywhere. Also lol Weller, saying ‘steady’ over and over doesn’t really help buddy. And then they pull each of their wires (as advised by Patterson, bc no one would get through anything without her) at the exact same time, staring at each other as the timer hits zero. Sidenote but anyone here used to watch Castle?? Can’t help but think of the scene in S3 where Caskett hold hands in front of the bomb and then Castle disarms it by yanking out all the wires. Anyway, different OTP, different time. Then Jane is giving Weller a look and tells him that disarming the bomb with him was kinda hot and he pulls her into his arms and lol they’re getting off on this and Patterson is like ‘Mom! Dad! Stop, I can hear you!’ hahaha. But they don’t care bc they’re already making out haha.

Ooooh the fancy schmancy dude from the other organisation is back to tell them that Rossi escaped from his custody, which they’re all pissed at him for, bc now they have to help fix his screw up. But I only care about Patterson not-very-subtly pulling Zapata away from the bullpen mouthing ‘CUTTLEFISH’ lol. And lolll Zapata's like ‘god I’m the only adult in this place’ haha. Patterson has discovered that the anonymous tip from their last case (the one from Karen about the train crash, I assume, not Rich’s sneaky fake tip lol) was wrongfully marked as low priority on the database-- so someone in the FBI is doing this tampering? Idk I don’t think I’m following along very well lol

Ugh I’m actually mad at Weller for fast forwarding through Patterson’s message on their wedding video??? Like clearly he’s watched it before (probably many times, whilst drunk, and always laughing bitterly at the part where he tells her he won’t let her out of his sight, and ouch I made myself sad) but Jane clearly hasn’t seen it since she asks how long it goes on for. And then they basically ignore the rest of what Patterson’s saying anyway in favour of having a little chit chat. Sigh so rude. It is cute though how Jane is teasing Weller about not ever saying lovely things like in the video. And dude clearly I am wired a little bit oddly but for the split second when he moved fast I almost thought he was going to hit her, which makes no sense at all and once that tiny fraction of a second passed I was like ‘aww he’s playing around with her and being cute and silly, how adorable’ and then I’m sure he was gonna say some more sweet things and then demand apology kisses, but instead suddenly there’s Roman on the screen. And mmmmmm isn’t it symbolic that the two of them, having been all tangled up in each other, suddenly separate when Roman appears?? I see what you did there, Gero. But okay I literally cannot get over Roman’s little decorating effort. Like I know this is supposed to be a grim moment but I am almost wheezing over his lil fairy lights and flowers and handwritten sign?? He could have just appeared in front of a blank wall but nope he is just that Extra. I love him. Not cool of him to tell Jane she’s broken and tell Weller that their relationship is built on lies, though. But omg he literally toasts them with what I assume is champagne and lol this is hilarious. Err, I mean, it’s terrible, sorry Jeller….

Oooh Zapata wants to hang with Reade for drinks but he tells her he’s already home-- only for her to see him a moment later with fancy schmancy dude from before, and immediately gets all suspicious. My head says we’re supposed to suspect there’s dirty dealings going on but my heart says ‘gay love affair’. Though lbr there could be some dirty dealings involved in that, too lol

A mysterious envelope has been slipped under the Jeller's door. And Jane, seasoned FBI consultant and ninja warrior, just goes right ahead and picks it up with her bare hands. Really? No thought for fingerprints or anthrax or anything? Fine, whatevs. But hold up, it’s from Rossi, about some secret that he thinks she deserves to know. Weller comes over just as she pulls out some birth records-- and BAM, turns out Rossi organised the adoption not of Remi and Roman, but of Remi’s daughter, 18 years ago. Ohhhhhhh boy. I feel like Gero is actually literally Oprah rn-- you get a daughter! And YOU get a daughter! Daughters for everybody!!!! And as legitimately terrible as this plot decision is, I hate it somewhat less given that Weller’s spawn also exists. I mean, at least instead of just one of them having a child outside the relationship, then now both do, which balances things out a bit? I literally can’t believe I even am in the situation of having to write that sentence but this is where we are now. This is what you did to me, Gero. Ugh.

Well. Interested to see tonight’s ep. Here’s some spoilers you might not have caught yet: Reade’s estranged twin, Duane, comes demanding that Reade donate him his kidney or he’ll die; Zapata falls into a brief coma after a rollerblading accident and awakens only able to speak German; Patterson turns out to be a chihuahua piloting a very convincing android; and Hirst admits that she is actually Canadian and not from the South at all, eh. Can’t wait!

#Blindspot #Blindspot recap #Jeller #*sighs eternally*#That Blam tho

12 notes · View notes

holidaywishes · 4 years

Text

my dearest loves

This is gonna be a little long, so bear with me and don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Also, if you haven’t read all chapters, there are some spoilers below!

I wanted to put out a note before I post the last chapter of It Had To Be You. Some of it will be put in an author’s note in the chapter as well but I wanted to explain why, with a little more detail, I’m ending the series the way I am.

I’m so unbelievably amazed how many people have followed along with this story and how many chapters have actually gone into it. My goal when I started writing it -- and as my first ever real piece of writing -- was to make you, the readers, feel something. Whether that was angry, sad, happy, confused, hurt, romantic or what have you; the goal was to make you feel whatever it was you were feeling. And I think I did that. Most of the time. Or at least a little bit of the time. So my goal has been successfully achieved in that sense.

But I also wanted you to have some kind of connection to the pairing. I wanted you to be able to put yourself in the story as authentically as you could which is why I made the characters as flawed as possible while still making you want to root for them. Hopefully, that came through. I wanted you to be able to read the story, and the relationship, and think “yeah, I can imagine this being what it’s like to have Seguin in my life,” and believe me, I realize how creepy that is but I wrote it anyway 😅. With how they started and how many challenges they had, I think a lot of you saw their end coming -- so it wasn’t a surprise. That doesn’t mean I wanted to end them. I wanted to make them work. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it a thousand times again, I love movies where the couple ends up together after struggling to make it work the entire time. I love those big romantic scenes that you remember forever. The ones that have great speeches that make you cry or that are just so quotable that you can’t help yourself. I love those, truly. And I tried to find a way to make this pairing be like that. Find some way to magically work everything out even when they fought each other every step of the way. I tried to blame the break up on trust issues and immaturity and bad relationships and family stuff and everything in between. I even tried to write a section in Part XLVIX (forty nine) that blamed the ending of the relationship on the rape and the aftermath of the rape, but it just felt wrong and overdone and, honestly kinda forced.

So, in the end, I had to end them. Because in real life, this is not the couple you’d root for. I’ve had friends who were in relationships like this and it was not good for them. They’d always come to me with some story about how they thought their partner was hooking up with someone behind their back and they found some way to hack into their partner’s social media and track who they’ve been talking to; but then, after telling me all of this, they’d say they loved them. Through everything, they loved them, they just didn’t know if they could trust them... Super confusing. When I realized I was more or less making this pairing that same way, I needed to do switch gears and try something new.

Enter: the proposal.

It was the last thing I ever thought Tyler would do (the Tyler in this story anyway) and I thought it would show some type of personal growth on his part but I couldn’t make myself believe that this version of Tyler I’d written would ever be mature enough to actually go through with the wedding. Especially if he was going to keep the friends he had in his life but maybe, people change right? Even in stories. Especially in stories. Alas, everything that came from my brain was some angsty bullshit that ended with Tyler lying or (Y/N) crying or both of them mad at each other. It wasn’t healthy to make anyone want to root for them. It also wasn’t healthy for me to continue writing such sad things week after week without some sort of denouement. A lot of work has gone into this story. I started writing it almost exactly two years ago, and the first like 18 chapters were in the past. So, a lot of research went into them. Those dates and scores of games and fights and everything, they all happened. I had to go into archives for those (😕 that’s insane). And then all of the stuff that happened outside of hockey, including the songs I used in the chapters (not including the song titles), I had to make sure fell in the right time frame. Everything had to line up so it made sense. So it could continue to feel authentic. But it was a lot to do. A lot to keep up with. I’m sure there were chapters that everyone realized I was putting a chapter out just to have a chapter out and I never wanted to be that type of writer. Some things from my personal life were added in, which was helpful in some ways, but most of it just turned into an over exaggeration of what I was feeling or what I thought I wanted someone to say to me. I want to explain one last thing. I didn’t want the split to be Tyler’s fault. I mean, I wanted him to take some of the blame and to have some of the shit be on him but I didn’t want it to be a one line of “I can’t marry you, you’re too immature.”

I wanted there to be more depth there. A chance for them to have closure without her running away so he would chase her or blaming him for something he had no way of controlling. So, I made her the reason they split. Not him. Even though that would’ve been so easy and so much simpler for her. I thought that if she could see that she’s put him through a lot and that she was still going to put him through a lot, constantly, that she would understand that them getting married wouldn’t fix their problems, her problems, it’d only hide them until one of them cracked. I thought it was time for the girl to be the problem. Not because I think Segs is perfect or because he’s not the problem. He’s a problem in other ways. But this was a relationship that started after drama and trauma and was encompassed by a lot of fighting. A lot of it her fault. I couldn’t just let him take the blame for issues she hasn’t fully come to terms with yet. So, that’s where my head was at with that decision.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m so immensely proud of this story and it being the first fic I ever wrote but there’s not a lot more I could write for these two. Also, I believe that a writer needs to love what their writing and I don’t know how much I’m loving what I’m writing anymore. That’s why I wanted to pick up months after they walked away from each other, so they could move on and be happy without the other. So that the series could end clean.

I’ll admit, I probably won’t be writing anymore series like this; for hockey anyway. I’ve got some other ones going for 9-1-1 and Teen Wolf that I’ll continue but this much angst for one series is a little exhausting. But you can always send me requests for one-shots or whatever, as long as you know that a series won’t come from it.

I’m not sure how many people will actually read this long ass note but for those of you do read to the end. Thank you. Thank you for following along with this story and I hope you like the final chapter. Share your thoughts on what your favourite chapter or moment has been. Let’s reminisce.

The last chapter will be out in about a week or two but it will be just as long as the previous chapter so prepare yourselves!

Thank you again for all your support! I love you all and I appreciate you taking a few minutes out of your week to read my silly little musings.

I hope you understand that I’m ending this for my mental health and to find more stories to create that will make me excited to write again.

All my love!

#It Had To Be You #It Had To Be You Series #Tyler Seguin #Tyler Seguin Fic #masterlist #the other masterlist

0 notes

sincerelydayyy · 7 years

Text

The Keeper - (Sherlolly fic)

my dear @justatrashpanda asked about recreating the drunk scene (when Mary just saw her ex-fiancee and gets drunk off her ass and Steve takes her home and proceeds to take care of her) from The Wedding Planner with Sherlolly. So me the au trash weeb literally rewatched the movie again this morning because it’s a fave and here we are.

[edit: it’s been at least a couple months, my mojo sways so much it makes me sad but alas here we are again this time completed :D]

Hope you like it! <3

Also on FF.NET & AO3 because why not.

Sherlock was conflicted. His dear friend and something more if he was honest with himself was currently sobbing over a man who had broken her heart. Unfortunately he hadn’t gotten the chance to completely rip the man to shreds because Molly had high tailed it out of there - a case that she was helping him with - before he could get a complete word in.

What he had found out was that this complete moron had once popped the question to Molly whilst they were in university together only for her to find him and his now wife getting it on right before they were going to announce it to her mother. Sherlock was beyond seething but he knew he had to take care of Molly first then track the man down and give him a piece of his mind. Molly Hooper shouldn't ever cry over someone who would tear her heart out like that.

He was aware that he had no room to talk considering he had done that to her in the past. But, he never hurt her like that. He would never cheat on her before they wed. If they ever got down that road. That entailed them dating and he hadn’t quite gotten there yet. This near altercation today was slowing him down.

Another thing that was slowing him down was the fact that he had had her upgrade her security measures after Eurus had gotten in one too many times before her reveal. He loved his sister but this was one of two places he needed to be off limits. It was his second home and as such it needed to be protected like a fortress.

He had gotten passed the normal bolt-lock, now it was the matter of the password that his pathologist had changed. He turned to her, she was slumped on the steps with another bottle wine in hand. “What’s the password, Molly?” He asked as he gotten in wrong for the second time. One more and the Yard would be contacted.

“I didn’t expect to see him.” She tried to wipe her face. It didn’t do much for her state as she only kept crying. “He still looks good, and she’s...she’s still the same.”

Molly was a wreck. Sherlock moved to sit next to her. He took the bottle from her hand as she tilted her head until she was laying on his shoulder. “She’s nothing.” He swallowed, taking the cork out of her opposite hand. He really needed to grab her bag to see if there was anything of use but he couldn’t exactly do that when she was pushed against him like this.

“She’s practically a goddess.”

Sherlock scoffed. “Not everyone wants one of those you know.”

Before Molly could argue Sherlock continued. “I happen to think you’re everything.”

This sobered her slightly as she wobbled to her feet and rushed over to the keypad. She didn’t want him to talk to her about this out here. She was already incredibly embarrassed. She thought she was done with crying in front of Sherlock Holmes. At least this time it had nothing to do with him and more to do with her, and her messy past.

Sherlock drew in a deep breath when he realized what the pass-code was. She had a hard time hiding it in her state. Once the door gave way he had to reach out for her before she hit the ground. He was right to cut her off when she did. There was no telling what state she would be in then.

Taking her in his arms he stepped over the threshold and shut the door with his foot. He moved past the kitchen into the bedroom and carefully placed her down on the made bed. He helped her take off the remaining shoe she had left before turning to see her with her eyes closed.

He crouched, observing to see if she had actually fallen asleep or if she was just ignoring him. He had gotten used to the latter. Of course he had deserved it but he had thought they had worked through most of their issues.

“I have a problem with wanting people who don’t want me, don’t I?” She said quietly.

Sherlock frowned to the point that he almost bit his tongue on just how unsatisfied he was by one of the lights of his life being so down on herself just because of a stupid man and a stupid woman making her feel so inferior. He had always held her above the rest. He wasn’t stupid for doing that either. She was brilliant and lovely, and everything that a man could possible want wrapped up into one petite woman - not quite always tied with a bow.

“No.” He feels the growl before he notices the way she looks at him in alarm. She wasn’t expecting him to be this way. He’s always doing the opposite of what she expects.

“What?” She tries to clear her throat.

Sherlock rises so that he’s standing for a moment. He looks up into the darkness of the room for a beat, his brain is whirring. Then he looks at her and he’s really looking at her as if this moment count. As if out of all the moments they’ve had this was the ne that she had to be alert for.

Problem is she’s drunk, and she almost wants to laugh, as much as she wants to cry but she doesn’t look away from him. Not really. She wants to remember this look on his face the next time she wants to throw something at him. “You’re wrong. Out of all the people you have wanted there’s one who wants you for you.”

“Are you insane?” It reads as if she’s asking if he’s high - even when she’s plastered out of her mind because of another man she knows he’s not. From the beginning of all of this; from the out burst where she put Ramon’s escapades on display for all in attendance to know, to the point where Sherlock skipped out on ripping someone in half using only his words to run after her - he’s never left her side. Not even when she looked like this. A very pathetic vision she was sure.

He scoffs. “Normally that would be questionable but no, Molly. I’m very much in my mind. We’ve traded places. You’re...” He paused no doubtly trying to find a better way to tell her that she didn’t look happy without saying it out right. “Not okay.” He breathed, calling back to a few years when she had used that line on him. It had truly opened so many doors that he hadn’t been expecting.

“However, that’s more than okay with me. People run from situations like this because they’re terrified of what could happen. I can’t.”

“Why?” She let him talk for long enough while simultaneously trying to find her footing and get off the bed. She faltered and he made sure to catch her. There eyes never leaving each other’s, it was like a very clumsy dance.

Sherlock smiles at her. It’s soft, and knowing - the kind of knowing that only two people who have gotten used to each other should be able to understand, and Molly does understand.

“You should go.” She fumbles out.

Even though her eyes are saying a completely different story, he nods. He was actually expecting this. “I’m not running away.” She tells him as she leads him to the door.

“I know.” He replies.

“I just rather not do the next part when you still have a case to finish, and I’m more sober.”

He’s fully aware that the first part was a half truth but he takes it. “It wouldn’t matter if you were sober. My feelings about you are still the same.”

“How do you know?” She had started to edge the door closed, his foot was stopping her.

“You’re everything. I meant that.”

Molly’s brows knitted. She doesn’t know what to say in return. So she bids him good night. Before she can bolt the lock, he knocks again.

“Sherlock, I told you we weren’t...”

She stops when he pulls her towards him and presses his mouth to hers. When he pulls back, “Goodnight, Molly.”

She didn’t think that was what he meant to say but she couldn’t even come up with anything herself before he closed the door once more.

She returned to her room and plopped down on her bed trying to think. It was hard when your brain was just as cloudy as your heart. He had kissed her and then left.

She wasn’t sure if she was happy with that but she wasn’t thinking about the other man who had hurt her in the past.

When she woke up at half past twelve she found a text.

I’ll be done around 2. Still want to talk? - SH

Molly grumbled, she decided maybe she hated him a little for his arrogance so early on. He had sent that text at 8am.

She replied slowly.

I need food first. You let me get drunk.

Check the kitchen. I’m almost there. - SH

It’s not 2.

He didn’t reply. Molly tossed her phone and headed to the shower. This was what she was going to have to deal with.

It took twenty minutes for her to end up in the kitchen eating the takeout he had gotten her at some point during the night or morning that she was not awake.

She turned when she heard the lock click.

He knew the pass-code.

She passed a hand over her face. This was going to be a day.

Sherlock didn’t come sauntering in although he could have. Instead he plated himself some food and joined her at the island. “Finished early.”

Molly made a noncommittal noise.

“My birthday.” He started.

She sighed.

“Your brother needed to know it too.”

“Change it.” He scoffed.

Molly smiled. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a long day.

She waited until she was mostly finished with her food to reach up and peck him on the cheek. “Thanks for the food.”

Sherlock eyed her slowly. She did look very appreciative and then some.

He reached forward and tucked a loose strand behind her ear. “It’s a new day,” He commented carefully.

She disregarded that thought entirely. She couldn’t help but think about what he had did. To her. “Would you do it again?”

His eyes widen significantly. “Do what?��

Molly bit her lip. “You left before I could do anything.”

Sherlock almost wanted to laugh at how adorable she was when she was both flustered and pouting. “That was the point.”

“You’re lucky I like to keep you around, Sherlock.”

He leaned towards her, “You sure you’re the one keeping me?

“Your parents sent me flowers a few months ago.”

Sherlock balked. “When?”

Molly moved over to her fridge where she had tacked the card underneath a few other memos she had written lately. “I figured you must have told them my name or something.”

“I’ve mentioned you before, yes.” He was thinking. She could tell. “One of my siblings must have given them your address.” He sounded slightly perturbed, she passed the card to him.

“You were still upset with me when you got them.”

Molly tried not laugh as he pointed out the rip through his name where she had tacked it. “They were nice flowers though. Lasted a long time. I do take care of things.”

“And we’re back to the whole Keeper thing.”

“Your mother said I did a good job. Mums are usually right.”

He sighed. “If I kissed you would that be the end of the conversation?”

“For now.” She laughed.

He shot her a look that read so many things.

However after everything that had transpired recently he couldn’t not go through with it. Not to silence the woman he was besotted with for a few years at least, but because she was tempting. Which was half the reason he didn’t tell her that part of his morning was spent telling her past lover how much he had missed by hurting her.

They still had a lot to talk about but for now he was done with that.

She made sure of it. She was the one to initiate the kiss. “You’re being slow.” Was her only quip.

They had to take a few more steps but he never forgot the words they exchanged and like the others who had tried to use his words against him, he would in his own and loving way do the same to his partner.

After all this had all started with her, a case that involved flowers and a wedding.

Buy me a coffee?

#sherlolly #day does aus #prompt fill #day's fics

12 notes · View notes