#for some reason now was a nice moment so i wasn't bored with the ballads

[gnattyplayssims]

1948 Pt2 - The Butterfly Ring

A few weeks after moving to Copperdale, Kye finally made the visit to go see Aly Riddle the widow of his late best friend Kent. "I'm so glad you were able to make it. How are you liking the new house?"

"It's beautiful, thank you for helping Kye pick it out."

"Lukas I can't believe how big you've gotten."

"Ten years will do that, they don't stay kids forever"

"I was actually thinking of taking the twins to the carnaval. Might be nice for them to get shown around by a local"

Anabelle stood "I'll go ask them. I'm sure they'd love to"

"The Carnaval? Just the three of us? What about you?"

"We're just going to be here talking about boring adult stuff, go do something fun for a little bit. Kent's a very nice young man who has made a rather generous offer."

Stefan was eyeing Kent. "If there's ice cream, I'm in"

Back in the house things got serious. "How are you both enjoying Copperdale?"

Anabelle let out an exasperated sigh and Kye leaned forward. "Copperdale is beautiful."

"We miss Evergreen."

"We miss our friends in Evergreen. We had a support system there and nothing here...yet."

"I totally understand that. I'm from the Valley you know, moving to Copperdale was hard enough when I had Kent and then the war. I held onto the hope that he would come back but...well eventually I needed to put down roots of my own."

Anabelle leaned forward. "How?"

"Copperdale is known for it's school and the community that surrounds it. Many of the friends I have now, I met while Lukas attended."

Anabelle pulled on a sting on her dress irritably and Kye took her hand, letting her play absently with his fingers. "How did you do that?"

"How did I make friends?"

"How did you bond with your dead husbands kid-brother who you weren't even blood related to?"

Kye tipped his head back in exasperation while Aly sat blinking in shock. "What my overly blunt wife is trying to say is...we've been having some trouble."

Anabelle started picking at her dress again and Kye pulled her to sit front of him, tracing her throat and ear in a way he knew calmed her.

Anabelle took a breath. "It's Sofia. We're struggling to connect with her."

"Ah. She's at a fragile age, I remember it well."

"What worked with Lukas?"

"Oh I never had to try with Lukas. We both lost Kent and we both took care of each other. There wasn't a struggle. But there was something that my stepfather did for me when I was a teenager. It's the reason we have a relationship."

"What was it?"

A few days later Anabelle waited in the upstairs hall. She gasped when the door opened and Sofia emerged. "Darling you look beautiful. I think pink might be your color."

"I don't know, it's a little too bright for my liking."

"Well do you feel beautiful?"

"Like a princess."

Anabelle sniffled and blinked away a tear. "Mom are you crying?"

Anabelle laughed and took her daughter's hands. "I'm just so overwhelmed to have Stefan AND you in my life. When you were born I thought a moment like this would be impossible. But I'm so proud to be your mother."

Stefan took his dad across the river to a bar and grill in Prescott Square then headed to the thrift shop to wait for his mom.

Kye waited nervously. He felt more nervous than his first date with Anabelle. He had wanted to impress her then and he wanted to impress Sofia now.

The ballad on the jukebox was doing nothing for his nerves. "Hi Dad."

He let out a relieved breath "Hey there Dandelion."

"You know dandelions are weeds?"

Kye chuckled, "Beautiful, resiliant ones that never give up. It's what you are to me. Beautiful and Resiliant"

"Oh." Sofia said nervously as she took her seat.

"I have something for you." He produced a flower. "The lady at the shop said pink is for admiration." He took her hands. "Sofia, I know I came into your life late, but I'm here now. I want to know who my daughter is."

"I...want that too." He touched her face. "You look so much like your mother."

"Will you tell me about it? How you met, fell in love...how we came to be?"

"Are you asking me about Woohoo?"

"No!...yes...I don't know. I just wanna know how it works. Falling in love and stuff."

The two talked until the restaurant had mostly cleared out. He told her everything, answering all her questions.

"Sofia...I love your mother very much but I wish we had done things differently. If we had waited to woohoo till marriage, we would have been a family from the start."

"So you regret it then?"

"I don't regret that we had you, but I do regret that our choices hurt you. I want to save you that pain. One day you'll find a man who loves you as much as I love your mother and on that day I will bawl my eyes out the entire way down the aisle."

Sofia laughed and Kye took her hand again. "I got you something." He slipped a simple butterfly ring onto her finger.

"What's this?"

"A reminder of how you deserve to be treated and that you should never accept less then the best. Remember this night and how much I love you."

Anabelle found him in the living room later that night. "How'd it go?"

"Really good. I told her our entire story and gave her the ring."

"Wait, you told her our ENTIRE story?"

"Yes she asked. She wants to know who she is Anabelle. She deserves to know how she came to be."

Anabelle snuggled up against him. "No, of course, you're right. I just worry. She spends so much time in those books. I just don't want to see her disappointed when life turns out different."

"That's why she has us. To guide her down the right path. That's what parent's do."

1949 Pt1 - The Romance Festival

[virtuangel]

april, and a flower by chen and/or city lights by baek!!

believe me or not i finally heard both albums just now, literally seconds ago, so here i am (based only on first listen and possibly second listen since i might. re-listen to them while answering)

april, and a flower (chen)

cover: i’m not usually a fan of entirely drawn covers in general, so i don’t love it, but it’s okay! i like the april version much more than the flower one, though. i like the choice of colours, especially the beige for the part that’s not. the image!

favourite song(s): flower and love words!! i’m pretty sure i heard flower a while ago, but it felt totally different this time around?? i was genuinely surprised that the song was this good!! i’m glad, because sometimes when i listen to ballad albums, i end up disliking all of the songs if i’m not in the right mood.. but i think today was the day. and i really liked love words and i. don’t know why. i just. really liked it for some reason,,

least favourite song(s): maybe it’s because i was getting impatient as it was the last song before i knew i’d start writing this answer, but portrait of you didn’t sit as well with me as the other songs? i didn’t dislike it, though!

underrated song(s): i don’t see anyone ever talk about this album in general, so i have no idea,, but i‘ll be there didn’t have much of a reaction from me for the most part until it just suddenly surprised me with that high note somewhere in the middle (or at the end, i can’t quite remember)

city lights (baekhyun)

cover: not my fave, like, ever, but definitely nice!! i like it!! i like how the day and night are really.. opposites like, not only in the colour aspect but! how the day one has only a bit where the,, what seems to be paper is like “torn” whereas the night version is mostly without the,, paper-seeming pattern with just a tiny bit of it in a corner. i feel like i’m not making sense but anyways i like it. i like the day version more, though!! but that’s because i’m not the biggest fan of the picture in the night version enfke i don’t like hats. ALSO the digital cover is interesting? i oddly like it!! i think it looks really nice and it also has kind of an evening vibe which is funny,, it’s like.. between day and night..

favourite song(s): oh my gosh.. this whole album was so amazing.. i love it.. but if i really had to choose, it’d be un village, betcha & psycho!! (though ice queen is really good too..) i loved un village ever since i first heard it!! i really hoped baekhyun wouldn’t go for a ballad for his solo debut but chances were big that he would and that really bothered me when i first heard he’d be going solo..  mind you i was very late to listen to this song, but i heard its intro a few times and that.. literally shocked me so much,, it was a whole another direction i didn’t even imagine?? and it really threw me off when i finally heard the song because.. it was definitely not what the first few seconds made me expect.. but it was the same exact direction i originally wanted a baekhyun solo to go!! so i was (and still am) extremely pleased with it! and betcha... surprised me in the best of ways.. i thought i wasn’t going to like it as much (stay up was just before this and.....damn stay up was good) because of the overall mood in the instrumental? but then the chorus started and i was proven wrong. and psycho was basically everything i expected it to be from how the rest of the album sounded and from its title.. and it was GOOD so i am thoroughly satisfied

least favourite song(s): hmm probably diamond!! not because it was bad HELL NO, the entire album is amazing.. i love it.. one of my favourite albums from last month,, but compared to the other tracks, i think i liked this one the least still definitely gonna be played on repeat for hours

underrated song(s): i have no idea, i don’t see anyone talk about this album either.. although i did see people mentioning betcha but nothing else? so i don’t.. really know??