#i have other characters that would be far more receptive to her but she is just not my agent's type

[crash-and-cure]

Every Minute, Every Hour (Yandere!Austin!Elvis x Reader)

Summary: You were out. You were out goddamnit. How was he here?

A/N: Soooo.... It’s been awhile. Writer’s block is an absolute son of a bitch. So this is based on an idea I had and requested to @venus-haze a couple months ago and which I almost completely forgot about until I got this request and I decided two birds and all that. I also acknowledge that there was another similar request made a while back, to the person who requested it don’t worry, I do have plans for it. 

Warnings: Yandere!Elvis so expect themes of obsessive, manipulative, jealous, and delusional behavior. Dubious Consent in regards to coersion being involved. Loss of virginity. Explicit sexual content depicted that includes Penetrative sex (m/f), oral sex (f.recieving), female mastubation, slight dumbification, and implied anal play. Brief depictions of choking. Touch-starvation. Mentions of Pregnancy. Referenced cheating on Elvis' part. Self-loathing. Stockholm Syndrome(?) Probably more that I am blanking on. Period-typical homophobia and closeted characters depicted. Please do not interact if you are under 18. 

Word Count: 19.8K

Masterlist

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You look like an angel (look like an angel)

Walk like an angel (walk like an angel)

Talk like an angel

But I got wise

You’re the devi-

It takes you longer than you would have liked to reach the radio and turn it off. And it’s only as you reach it do you realize how odd it looks from the outside when you see a customer looking at you funny. 

“Not much of a fan,” you say with an admittedly pathetic smile on your face. 

“I can see that,” he replies with an awkward smile, before going back to browsing the books. 

You bashfully turn the radio back on and quickly try to turn the knob to anything even remotely comprehensible, but it’s just your luck that this is the only station you get decent reception on in the store. With no other choice but to simply grin and bear it you put the volume on low and return to reading your book. 

You do keep an eye on your final customer of the evening, and hope he hurries up so you can finally close up for the day. Susan had been complaining about a migraine since lunch and Gina was caring for her upstairs and so it was on you to close up the shop on your own today. 

You feel embarrassed to have been seen that way but that all falls away when you hear the shop bell ring, only to be immediately followed by tiny rapid footsteps and an excited little “mama!” and you grab onto the counter before your little two and a half foot terror can knock out from behind you. Which ends up being the right call as you feel her head butt your knees and locking her arms around them nearly knocking you down.  

“Mama! Mama!” she squealed, practically vibrating, she was so excited to see you. 

“Rosie! Rosie!” you say, equally as happy to see her though you do a far better job at reining it in. She takes your hands in hers as you crouch down to look at her, and take stock. Her hair is askew with the ribbons you had tied in place this morning holding on for dear life in her beautiful curls, her face is smudgy with what you’re hoping is chocolate, and one of her socks is just gone, but both shoes are in place so you can only imagine how your little hellion managed that. Overall this is the best condition Rosie has returned to you in, after a long day with Jenny.

“Mama, Aunty Jenny took me to the Candy store!” she says, showing off the candy bracelets on her tiny wrists. 

“Really,” you say, shooting a look at your friend for giving her so much sugar before bed. The woman in question has the courtesy to at least look a little guilty about it, before giving a small laugh. 

“Mm-hmm. And we saw Danny at the playground and we-we saw Uncle Lee’s friends, and then we listened to a lotta music, and we saw a movie about a wizard and there was no one else in the whole room, and then-then…” she rapidly rambles on but you pepper her face in kisses before she can pass out from the lack of oxygen. She giggles uncontrollably and tries to squirm out of your grip, but you gotta get in one good raspberry on her cheek before you let her go.

“Alright, why don’t you go upstairs and help Aunty Gina finish up dinner,” you tell her with a smile on your face. Her “help” in the kitchen is typically watching and holding spoons and spatulas on a step stool, but she’s at an age where she believes the whole dish would fall apart without her important contribution to it, so she goes rushing to the stairs. 

But she quickly comes running back while taking the uneaten bracelet off of her wrist. “Danny said to give this to you for your birthday,” she declares. Ever since meeting Jenny’s nephew she’s seemed to hang on to every word of his, and though you’ve never met the boy he seems to be a good kid, always polite and saying hello through your daughter, but has, as you've heard, an extreme affinity towards spinning a few too many fantastical stories. But your daughter is far too young to see him as anything but a friend so you doubt you have anything to worry about as of right now. 

She’s always so eager to tell you about everything, and you’re just as eager to listen. Your folks never wanted to hear anything from you, and you pray that your attentiveness will pay off one day when she is never afraid to come to you with your troubles. Maybe if you had that with your mother you wouldn’t be where you were.

“Well tell him I said thank you,” you say, as you pull it on your wrist, placing a small kiss on her forehead before she books it back to the stairs behind the counter. As you stand back up, to your surprise you find the customer now at the counter with a good stack of books. 

“Sorry to bother Miss…ummm…” the customer says nervously. 

“Love,” you clarify for him. “Y/N Love.”

He gives a shy smile at that, “Well Miss Love, I’m ‘bout ready to check out so…” he says gesturing to his tower of books. 

“Of course,” you answer and you begin to ring him up. He’s got quite a few so at least he makes the extra time staying down here somewhat worth it. 

“Whatcha readin’ there,” he asks you, pointing to the open book you’ve left to your side. You show him your copy of We have always lived in the castle. “I-is it any good?”

“I would say so,” you answer. Though that ending did hit a little too close to home, you think to yourself. 

“So umm, d-do you like to read?” he asks hesitantly as he quietly adds a copy of the book to his pile. 

“I’d be in the wrong business if I didn’t,” you joke, and he laughs a little too hard. “How ‘bout you?” you ask, wanting to not have an awkward silence, as you’re not even halfway through the stack. 

“Yeah, I-I love reading though I don’t got a lotta time for it these days,” he says with a guilty smile on his face. 

“Why’s that?” you ask, since it seems to be the only way this conversation could go. 

“I-I just started my residency at Charity Hospital,” he says bashfully rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m Sam by the way,” apparently realizing that he hadn’t made the proper introductions. 

“Y/N,” you say, giving him a small nod and a smile. “And congratulations on your residency,” you're almost done with the final few books, but you may or may not be taking your time to finish them up, wanting to prolong the conversation you’re having for a bit. 

“Thank you, and I- well, umm… I couldn’t help but overhear your daughter, but umm… Happy Birthday,” he says ducking his head, a bit embarrassed at his own admission. 

“Oh, thank you,” you say, your face heating up slightly that he had heard. 

“Your Husband’s a lucky man,” he says, though he does steal a quick glance at you, no doubt trying to gauge your reaction.

So this is what it’s about, you think to yourself. “I’m actually not…” you trail off, and hope that he gets the message. 

“Oh, I’m glad to hear that,” he stated before his eyes widened as he realized what he just said. “I-I mean not glad like I’m happy that you-you’re not married, bu-but glad li-like I’m relieved that I hav-haven’t been trying to build up the courage to talk to a cute girl for the past few weeks only to find out she’s married already.” he blathers on and you can’t help but laugh. 

Your heart does flutter a bit at his confession. Everything about this feels like it should be perfect. Unfortunately for the both of you, you finally get a good look at his icy blue eyes that are a little too familiar for comfort, and it feels like your throat closes up. 

You can feel your stomach churning (and not just from the baby that fills it) and cold regret for not buying an extra pair of socks as you sit at the Greyhound terminal in Nashville, your feet starting practically turning into ice blocks. That cold November morning you had made a show of telling everybody you were gonna make a quick trip down to the shops for some eggs, now you’re almost a full state away praying that the bus gets here soon, jumping every time a set of headlights passes by and you're just barely keeping dry underneath the metal canopy. 

But for as cold as you are physically, your chest starts to heat up at the prospect that you’re so close to freedom from an even colder gaze. When the bus does get there you hardly sleep a wink afraid to let your guard down even now. You know how well he could sabotage your plans if he was so inclined, from small things like spoiling the surprise party you had planned for him to the major of ruining your chances to get into another school. 

You know he’s half a world away yet that still does little knowing what the most loyal of his are willing to do for him. It’s not until you finally make it to the train station in Atlanta that’ll take you down to New Orleans that you finally give in to your heavy eyelids, willing to trust strangers with your safety, aware they can’t hurt you any worse than those you know have done. 

You shake your head as you’re brought back to the present, and you hear him say something, “I’m sorry what?” you covertly wiggle your toes as you try to ground yourself and get sensation back in them as though you were just getting them out of the cold.

“I was just sayin’ there’s this club down on Bourbon that I been meanin’ to check out since movin’ down here, and I was hopin’ a local such as yourself could show me ‘round these parts,” he says, a nervous but hopeful smile on his lips. 

For a moment you can almost imagine saying yes to him, how he would take you out on the town, how he would kiss you, how he would throw your daughter up in the air. How maybe you could be happy with him.

But like a looming black cloud, in spite of the lowered volume, you hear what the new station is now playing, clear as a bell.

Oh please come to my arms and say you'll love me forever

For with the dawn, you'll be gone 

It’s almost as though He’s following you, serving as a constant reminder of what you did, and that you’re never allowed to imagine being with another man. You wordlessly turn off the radio before you’re forced to listen anymore. “Uhh, I-I’m sorry, I-I really don’t go out much,” you say, trying to shut this down as gently as you could. 

“Oh-uhh, that’s fine I umm,” he says, pivoting hard. “I’m more of a movie guy myself, I hear he’s got a new one out, and we can go and watch anything but that,” he gives a small laugh pointing to the radio, but quickly drops it upon seeing your grim expression. 

Without knowing it Sam just shut the coffin on any potential happenings between the two of you. “I’m sorry, it’s late and I gotta close up for the night,” you say softly, and he’s smart enough to take the hint. 

“O-of course,” he says looking down at the books he has in his hands. “But can you promise you’ll think about it?” he asks as he reaches the door to look back at you. 

Even before you open your mouth, you already know that your next words are going to make you lose a customer forever. “There’s nothing to think about,” you say, trying to feign apathy. Harsh as your words may be, you know this is far kinder to him in the long run as opposed to getting more involved with you. 

You watch him leave the store with a sagging shoulders and a long face, before you feel a hand meet violently with the back of your head, and you swivel around to see Jenny with an exasperated look on her face. “So a handsome, single, doctor who loves to read, and doesn’t mind that you already got a kid, asks you out and you say…” she trails off, seeming to only get more offended with every dreamy quality he had. 

“Don’tchu get like that Jenny,” you defend yourself, as you stomp to the door in order to flip the sign to closed and lock up for the night. “I’ve got a daughter to worry about and I don’t have time for a boyfriend right now.”

“Well newsflash Y/N,” she argues, “Rosie needs a daddy.”

You feel your hackles rising at that statement. “No she doesn’t,” you state firmly, not wanting to raise your voice, because you know better than anyone how easy it is to be overheard.

She deflates a little at your obvious fury at this line of questioning, before letting out a long tired sigh. “It’s just that… when we were at the park today… she asked me why she didn’t have one. And she… she just kept pressing,” she says obviously ashamed that she hurt you, but wanting to get across her reasoning. “What am I supposed to say to that? Especially when you won’t tell nobody what happened. I only got her to drop it when I took her to the candy shop.”

You feel guilty for snapping at your friend. Jenny Hodge had been an absolute godsend since you met her almost a year ago, when she and her new husband, Lee, had moved down from Alabama. Her arrival had coincided when Rosie started becoming aggressively mobile and insisted that running was the only way to get around anymore. And because she felt she needed practice with being a Mama before she had one of her own, she insisted on being your one and only babysitter, in exchange for free books every so often. 

The story around the block is that you are were the young widow who “tragically” lost her husband in an accident before he ever had the chance to meet your beautiful daughter, and with no one in the world left to turn to, you ended up on your “spinster” aunt and her “good friend” Susan’s doorstep. And Jenny, since hearing your story, has by far been your most fervent supporter outside of this house, with her support primarily coming in two flavors: 1) helping you with your daughter so she isn’t so cooped up in the store while you work and 2) trying to set you up with any moderately successful man.

“Y/N,” she says softly. “I get that it’s hard to get back out there, but you need to think about the bigger picture, because it’s only a matter of time before she starts asking you.”

You know she’s right, and that’s the worst part about it. Your little Rosie Love is a stubborn one, not to mention smart, always has been. Didn’t want to walk because she wanted to run. Hated her diaper so much she learned how to unpin it when she was barely a year old. Wanted to try to feed herself when she first took to solid food, and would snatch the spoon out of your hand when she could. She’s broken out of every play pen she’s ever been in. Hell, she was almost two weeks overdue, and the doctors were forced to induce you, she didn’t want to come out until she was good and ready.

She, like someone else you knew, is capable of throwing a wrench into any plan you make. For as endearing as it can be, it is all the more frustrating knowing exactly where she gets it from. 

With a long defeated sigh, you concede to her point and thank her for both her input and for being a good friend this past year. And maybe someday you’ll be ready to find another husband.

She has a wide cheshire-cat like grin as you say that, “And I’mma ‘bout to be a better one,” she practically sings. “Lee’s friend is in town, and I think you two would hit it off.” 

“And I think we wouldn’t,” you state, putting books back where they belong. 

“C’mon Y/N, I thought we were past this,” she whines.

“I did say someday, not today,” you emphasize.

“Y/N, your birthday’s comin’ up soon, and it ain’t like you’re gettin’ any younger. Besides Lee and I are already trying for a baby, so I ain’t gonna be so available much longer neither,” she says in a soft voice holding your hands in hers. “And you need to find someone you can rely on too, it’s not like you wanna end up like your Aunt Gina”

You say nothing not wanting to say anything incriminating about the relationship between your Aunts, as for all that you trust Jenny, you don’t trust her enough with somebody else’s secrets. 

“Just promise me you'll think about it at least,” she pleads, hands clasped over your own. 

What is it about people that, not trusting you when you answer the first time, and thinking given enough time you’ll come around? 

Yet you're no better as you let out a long tired sigh, before ultimately agreeing, if only to get her off your back. Or so you tell yourself. 

She tells you a bit about the man she has in mind for you, or more accurately she keeps insisting how perfect the two of you would be together.  In her mind it’ll be love at first sight, how he’ll love and accept Rosie as his own immediately, how she guarantees that you’ll be married within a year and be trying to give Rosie a little brother or sister. You have to bodily shove her out the door by that point lest she get into any more specifics in her attempt to sway you. 

Jenny’s a little older than you, but she is very much a romantic at heart, you suppose, though that’s the benefit of things going right in your life. 

But your story went wrong. 

“Why you in such a hurry to get out girl?” your accomplice would ask as he handed you the money (He had made it a point of order that you were never to handle any) the day before your escape. 

“There’s someone else,” you say simply, because it’s true and if they were to ever betray your trust this would be worse on them than on you. 

You got away with quite a bit back in the day like getting out of trouble for making out in a dark empty classroom by claiming to have been caught by surprise by your monthlies and now you couldn’t bear the thought of being seen like this. Or when you got hired by the library for the summer after you approached the front desk and claimed to be the new hire ready for her first day of training and nobody really bothered to check in with anybody else. Even that one time when you confidently strolled backstage at a music hall He had wanted to perform all to sneak them in through the back door and convinced just enough people that his band was meant to perform that night.

Your ability to make up stories on the fly and map things out in your head had led you to believe that you would make for a pretty good mystery writer. You had even tried to go to school to be one, though you told everyone it was to be a teacher, a far more respectable and womanly job.

Well not everyone.

He certainly knew. 

Knew about your talent for planning and story-telling, and was practically always in awe to see it in action. But this recognition came at the expense that he was aware of your tricks and he always knew how to throw you off just enough to make any plans you made go belly up. Whether it was something relatively small like figuring out you were planning a surprise party to the major… like when you tried to end things the first time around.

He called you almost every night when he was on tour, and you had done your best to relay all that was going on back in Memphis. And in spite of his insistence that he wants to hear about it, you suspect that he wasn’t being truthful. He especially seemed disgruntled when you made any mention of doing anything with anyone else. Your friends, his friends, even your own family weren’t safe from his ire.  

When He was here you would do everything together, yet now that you tell him about all that you’d been doing, there is a slight but noticeable edge when he speaks to you over the phone. Everytime you mention how you went to the movie theater or you went to the record store or the bookshop, it was almost always met with a solemn “we used to do that together.” 

You would have gone with him, had your parents let you, and He knows that so you don’t understand why he’s so sore about the fact that you’re not simply sitting on your hands back home waiting for him to return. 

So in an effort to spare his feelings you asked him about the things he was doing, you even go out of your way to say how happy you were when he was telling you about all of the fun things he had done on the road. You’re happy to hear it all and you thought 

You miss him just as fiercely but you don’t want it to stop you from living. 

But when you got your acceptance letter, you saw the writing on the wall. You both were going in different directions: you were going to be studying, were barely going to be home and his star just kept growing and growing each day taking him further out and making him harder to reach. You know you wanted this and you begin to suspect you may want it more than you want to stay with him, if staying with him meant being alone all the same. 

This was only confirmed in the weeks leading up to Prom when you couldn’t get a straight answer out of him of whether or not He would be able to make it. It was on you to practically plan everything down to what he would wear, while his whole contribution was to show up- maybe?

Whether He did show up or not that night, you thought the result would be the same with you officially breaking things off between you two. But you still held out hope that at least if he did come you would have one last good memory. 

And to your relief He does make it, but he’s a little off the whole night. Not in the sense that his mind is elsewhere, more like he’s trying to commit everything about the night into memory, and looking at you with sad eyes when he thinks you’re not looking. 

It all comes to a head when you’re parked outside of your house, and you’re sitting in a loaded silence with him at the wheel. He’s gripping onto that thing for dear life and you’re wondering if maybe you should save it, but you think you know yourself well enough to know that if you don’t say it now, you won't say it ever. 

So as he’s opening his mouth to say something, you cut him off with his name. 

“...I-I got accepted to Southwestern,” you blurted out to him and He looked so confused at your admission, but you push through. “I start in the fall, so I’m not gonna be home much anymore, and with y-you being on the road so much, I think it best that we-”

“Marry me,” he blurts out, panic etched across his face.

Your jaw is left practically on the floor as that was the last thing you ever expected out of his mouth. 

You would later find out that he went to Prom with the same intention as you did but it was in that moment that he realized you weren’t going to wait for him to come back did he want to lock you down. But you didn’t see that in the moment. 

What you saw at the time was the declaration that he was just as committed as you were, and so overwhelmed by the love you still felt for him at the time, you had no choice but to give an emphatic yes to him. 

“We’re gonna figure this out baby,” He promises with a kiss. 

That was the first time you tried to leave him.

“-Danny’s a real good singer Aunty. He told me he lives in Neverland and one day he would take me and-and he told me this is the only place in the whole word that they sell peanut butter cups,” you would hear as you made your way up the stairs connecting to the apartment above the store. You look into the small kitchen where you see your little girl sitting on the counter talking her aunt’s ear off idly dangling her little feet while holding a spatula you're not entirely sure is necessary. Gina looks over to you and gives you a playfully exasperated look, and you simply shrug your shoulders before moving into the small kitchen to pepper your little one's face in kisses. 

“Alright sticky missy,” you announce, blowing a raspberry on her cheek and swiping the utensil out of her hand as she trills in delight. “You go wash up for dinner now, ya’ hear, and go wake up Aunty, I think she’ll feel alot better seeing you.”

“Ok Mama,” she says. She is utterly fearless as she slides herself to get off of the counter, and lands on her feet below. You can’t help the swell of pride that bubbles up in your chest seeing it, how brave your little girl is. You hope that you can take it as a sign that you’re doing ok at this motherhood thing. 

Gina likes to say that you were just as bold at that age with the confidence of someone so sure they can take on the world, and in quieter moments she’ll lament how you lost that in you. You would be offended if you didn’t already know when exactly you lost it. 

She had always been your favorite Aunt until you were about twelve and and your father would coldly tell you she died and was in hell now. Rather than a funeral, the family got together to destroy her things and swear to never speak of her again. 

That didn’t stop her from visiting you one last time and telling you she was moving down to New Orleans with her friend Susan. She would take you to your favorite bookstore one last time in Memphis and promised that if you ever needed a place to stay, to not even hesitate to come, because she knew better than anyone what your family would do to girls who stepped out of line. 

For years the only evidence that she was even alive was the annual birthday and Christmas gift you would get from her all under the guise of Nancy Drew books stamped with the name of a bookstore all the way in New Orleans. You cherished them and it’s one of the few things you took after your parents kicked you out. 

You only wished you had taken the offer when your father had kicked you out and you were forced to rely on someone else. 

“So I hear you broke another heart,” Gina idly says as she starts scooping some rice onto a plate.

You let out a long sigh, “When did Jenny find the time to tell you?” You’re more amazed than annoyed considering she didn’t leave your sight once down stairs. 

“Jenny?” she says, raising a brow. “No Sue told me earlier how Lou from King’s Cafe ‘s been askin’ after you.”

Lou who always had extra beignets to give away when you took Rosie for a walk in the mornings. He recently asked if you had ever been on the Algiers ferry, and how beautiful it looked at night.

…You’ve been taking a different route to the playground since then. 

“Is my love life just everybody’s business,” you ask frustrated that you weren’t even given a five minute break from this. 

“In this house: yes,” she states, a grin on her face. 

“Gina if this is about me movin’ out, you can talk to me, I’m a big girl,” you insist, trying to deflect and not have to think about it anymore. 

“Sweetheart,” she says solemnly, placing a hand on your cheek. I may not be your mama, but I do think that you need to think about what’s best for Rosie,” she insists as she puts place mats down on the table. 

Gina’s a little closer to the situation than Jenny, as she had asked no questions as to why you all of a sudden needed a place to stay far from your parents with nary a husband or boyfriend in sight to take responsibility for the baby growing within you. She had also been the one to help spread the tragic young widow narrative, and for as much of a gossip she can be, you know she’s a steel trap for secrets that matter. 

“What does me getting, or not getting, a boyfriend have to do with Rosie?”

“A boyfriend? Nothing,” she dismisses. “A husband on the other hand…”she says with a smile.

“Don’tchu come talkin’ to me ‘bout gettin’ a husband,” you say, handing her another plate of food. 

She laughs at that, “It’s not just about you gettin’ a husband, it’s about Rosie gettin’ a father,” she insists amused at your mulishness. 

“Not you too,” you mourn what you thought was going to be a quiet evening. 

“I’m just sayin’ that every child deserves two parents,” putting the lid back on the pot. 

“She’s got three mama’s,” you counter.

“No,” she says waving the wooden spoon in front of your face. “She’s got one mama and two grandmas that spoil her rotten behind your back.” You open your mouth to protest, until she quickly follows up with, “Oh speak of the devil herself,” as you see your little troublemaker dragging Susan by the hand to the table, whom you had to bully into taking a rest to somewhat alleviate the migraine she had been having for most of the day.

Your daughter can talk for hours if left unchecked and you're eager to hear all of it as she bounces from subject to subject at the dinner table. You had always felt somewhat guilty intruding on their space, but Gina insists nothing of the sort and Susan jokes that the two of them are getting the full kid/grandkid experience through you and Rosie, since the traditional way ain’t for them.

Between bites she regaled the three of you with all that she did today which included seeing a dog, the playground being shiny, spinning around so fast on the merry-go-round she almost went into space, made friends with some of the ducks, saw another dog, Danny gave her his popcorn, got a lot of candy from the candy shop, and gave some jelly beans to the last dog she saw today, but only the green ones she doesn’t like, and then feeling bad about it and giving it some of the red ones to even it out.

She doesn’t mention anything to you about asking Jenny about why she doesn't have a daddy, and you breathe a sigh of relief at the first break you’ve had all day. Some may say you indulge her too much, but all three grown women at this table know exactly how it feels to have their thoughts and feelings ignored, and you all had come to the mutual understanding that Rosie would never have to feel this way in this house.

“Mama, I forgot to tell you,” Rosie states after she shoveled the last of her food into her mouth. “Barbie got a new job today!” she delights as she thrusts the doll in your face. 

“Really?” you say trying to match even a quarter of her excitement. “Is she mmm… a firefighter?”

“No!” she squeals, delighted in the game you play with her. 

Making a big show of putting a finger to your temple and closing one eye, apparently deep in thought, you ask, “Is she a… detective?” 

“No that was yesterday!” she’s practically buzzing to tell you, but holds it in to keep this game going.

“Oh!” you say, pretending to have a lightbulb moment. “She’s a wizard!” You know your daughter well enough, so you’re reasonably confident in your guess knowing that Jenny took her to see that Disney movie today. 

“No,” she laughs, “She’s an actress, but she also sings in all her movies.”

“O-oh,” you say, genuinely caught off guard by that. “Why’s that?” It’s certainly not an unusual thing for a little girl to declare, but for your daughter it most definitely was. When she declared what Barbie was going to be it was always influenced by something she saw that day. Sometimes she was a baker, sometimes a ballerina, even one memorable time a bus driver, but this is a first. Even when she has seen movies with actors in it she didn’t quite understand the concept that those aren’t their real jobs on screen, and she would pick that, which is why you guessed wizard.

“Because Danny does that,” she declares, as she starts to make Barbie dance on the dinner table.

And then it made sense, your daughter’s friend, Danny, who according to Jenny, has a penchant for making up stories. To your daughter the boy’s been a cowboy, a soldier, he’s as strong as superman, can play any instrument, and now apparently is a famous actor. 

You give an amused huff, “I see Danny’s at it again,” you state, as you take her plate. It’s a literal miracle that Jenny’s impromptu trip to the candy store didn’t spoil her appetite, and but you don’t know how much of an appetite she’ll have for dessert so you decide to just split a slice of King cake with her. 

“At what mama?” she asks as Gina wipes some of her food off her face. 

“He’s telling stories again,” you say as you bring Gina and Susan their dessert plates. 

“No he’s not,” she states, furrowing her brow, and you can’t help but quirk a smile at how stressed she looks as you sit down. “I saw it myself.” 

“I’m sure you did, but Honey, it's just… sometimes boys have a habit of telling… tall tales,” you suppose that’s the nice way of putting it. It’s a fine line you walk with her, wanting to have her believe in herself most of all, but also wanting her to not believe everything she’s told, especially by boys. You’re the textbook example of what happens to supposedly smart girls who get in too deep with charming boys.

“But it’s true mama,” she insists, raising her voice a bit. 

“Sweetheart, I think he means, he wants to be that when he grows up,” you try to gently justify, as you subtly try to nudge the fork closer to her. 

“No mama, I saw it,” she asserts, getting progressively more upset defending her friend. “He is a famous actor and he was singing and dancing at the theater.”

“And I’m sure he’s gonna be a big star one day when he’s all grown up,” you try to assuage how worked up she’s getting. “But I don’t think he’s one right now.” 

“No mama!” she yells at the top of her lungs, angry tears streaming down her face. “You’re a liar!” You feel your stomach drop to the floor and she herself looks shocked at what she just said. She proceeds to cry even harder before turning tail and running straight into the room you share with her and slamming the door as hard as she could. 

When you were far enough away, and somewhat comfortable in your new environment in Your Aunties home, the first thing you did was read nearly every book about motherhood you could find. You were determined to do this right as you had made the unilateral decision for your baby to only have one parent. So you decided as a means of making up for it you would be all the parent she would need. 

Doubt creeps into the back of your throat that you made the wrong decision and that you in fact were not enough on your own and that she never would have done that if He were around. 

“You want me to go talk to her?” Gina would ask after hearing your door slam shut. 

As bad as you want to say yes from the exhausting day you’ve had so far, you’re not about to foist your duties as a mother off onto her right now. She understands but you don’t miss the pointed look she gives to Sue, as she walks away to clean up dinner, and you bury your hand in your face hoping if you wish hard enough this day will finally come to a close. 

“I remember the first time I yelled at my mama,” Sue off-handedly says after a few minutes. “Always too scared that that wretched woman would beat me black and blue if I was ever less than perfect,” she takes a sip of her tea. “And she did just that when I got fed up with all her teasing about me getting a boyfriend.”

“I… I don’t understand.”

“What I’m gettin’ at is… I was never comfortable enough with my own mother to be angry with her.”

“Am I bad at this?” 

“You’re still new at this Hon,” she reassures you. “There's a big difference.”

Despite the fact that Gina was the one related to you by blood, Sue’s the only one in the world who even has an inkling as to what exactly you left behind. And that is only because she was a front row spectator to it.

You had managed to get permission to leave the hotel room for a few hours while He was on set that day. He had brought you down from Memphis, not wanting you so far out of reach and yet you were still pretty much kept confined. You had long since exhausted the books you had brought for the trip, and you were practically itching to get out. 

Books were your only escape from this place. Where you could vicariously solve a mystery or meet royalty or stop a war or any other number of exciting things in your head. But inevitably you close the book and the story ends and your back in this fucking hotel room. 

You realize by getting more books you're just masking a symptom rather than actually treating the illness. You couldn’t take it anymore and had begged Him to at least let you go to a bookstore to keep you occupied, because by that point you were willing to pay the price for it. 

Sue had been the only one in the store the day but you hadn’t really taken notice of her, your eyes had been darting around everywhere trying to find Gina. Sonny was in there as well, as you were only able to bargain your way to being in here and picking out the books, but not enough to be able to enter the store alone. Sonny had been the one to pull the short straw and had been put on Y/N duty today. Usually that consisted of sitting in the hotel and making sure you didn’t go anywhere while also completely ignoring you.

Everybody knows the story of the last guy that paid a little too much attention to you. You still couldn’t look at raw ground beef without crying.

Outside of the occasional gathering you don’t really interact with anybody out of the immediate vicinity of home. It’s funny how He can put you in a room filled to the brim with his people yet make you feel so alone at the same time. It would be amazing if it didn’t make you feel so awful at the same time. 

It’s a terrible thing He does, but it’s made all the worse that so many people can see what he’s doing keeping you prisoner and isolated and yet no one will ever dare breach it 

If anything they actually help him as they all report to him practically what you did that day, do their best to talk you out of leaving the room, and even when you do insist on going off on your own, the men are quick to remind you that He won’t like it one bit. They won’t physically stop you, (they know the worst thing they can do is put their hands on you) but you know that’s where their “help” begins and ends. 

At one point you even tried to play ball and asked for His permission last time you were in LA and you had wanted to go to the Griffith Observatory. You had asked in advance, agreed to only being there for two hours, and even gave in to being essentially chaperoned from a distance. Initially He had agreed to the terms and You thought you had done good and maybe you were finally coming to somewhat of a middle ground with him. 

But in the days leading up to the trip He would ask for favors in return. They all just happened to be things you had refused to do for him up until that point. When you refused He would at first seemingly accept your answer, and then He would idly remind you of your upcoming trip before asking you again. You weren’t stupid enough to miss the connection and so you did what you thought you had to do for just the slightest taste of freedom.

Who are you kidding?

You practically begged and did tricks for Him like a dog for just the slightest bit of slack on your leash. 

You could barely move the morning of the trip both physically and emotionally drained from what he had you do the night before, but you still persevered if only to make all that you went through worth it.

It wasn’t worth it. 

Everything you saw that day was completely soured by what you had to do to get there. Every step felt like agony, and you had to make a conscious effort to not walk funny. And before you knew it the two hours were up and Red was telling you it was time to leave. 

You don’t know what’s worse, the punishments or the favors. 

You had to go the favor route today as otherwise he would have simply sent for someone to get you whatever books they could find, rather than letting you pick. You already know you’re going to get it when he finds out you went to a different bookstore than initially planned. You thought you could at the very least make it worth it by seeing one familiar face, but even fate denied you that as Gina was nowhere to be seen. 

It was cold enough to justify wearing something to cover up most of the bruises, but that didn’t mean they were all hidden. You wouldn’t know it at the time but your skittishness coupled with the bruises struck a chord with Susan before you fully checked out of the store.

“I’m sorry if this sounds like an odd question but ummm…” you say, glancing around, making sure that Sonny was too far to hear. “Does Gina work here?”

Sue immediately tenses up, and you curse your caginess, as you reassure her that you’re Gina’s niece, Y/N. She seems to relax hearing that so at least she knows that you try to maintain a good relationship, sporadic your letters may be. 

“What happened there honey?” she asks, gesturing to your wrist that has a ring of bruises on it, which you quickly move to hide. You internally curse yourself for your sloppiness. He doesn’t mean to hurt you but he tends to lose himself and be a little rougher especially when he’s worried about something else. 

He’s been a little rougher for a few months now.

“Oh-ummm,” you steal a glance at Sonny, who was making his way to the counter. “Yes I am ready to check out.” Gesturing to the three towers of books you’ve managed to accumulate.

This doesn’t go unnoticed by Sue nor does she miss Sonny's statement of remembering the rules as to what you’re allowed to get, if her disapproving look is anything to go by. He’s fine with you reading but doesn’t like you reading books that will put “ideas” in your head. 

You don’t exactly know what that means as the standards seem to change depending on His mood and it’s always a gamble as to what he will or won’t allow you to have. You fear the day He grows the same hatred for fictional men that he has for any man within your vicinity. 

You're genuinely sad when it comes time to pay, (Well Sonny pays, He doesn’t like the idea of you handling money), and then Susan does something you could never have anticipated in a million years as Sonny grabs one stack and goes to put it in the car. 

You wished it had been anybody but Sonny that day. His last girlfriend, whom he swore he was gonna make Mrs. Sonny West, had made the mistake of trying to befriend you outside of gatherings. She stopped by the house frequently just to visit and even invited you out to the salon. 

And it was your mistake to believe you could have a friend that he would finally approve of. Friend or family, He eventually found something to disapprove of for everybody close to you previously. You thought that because she was already nominally part of the group, it would be fine to go.  

He made it clear by the time you got home that it wasn’t. 

You never saw her again after that and Sonny’s resented you ever since. You can hardly blame him, it’s easier to point the finger at you for not anticipating the unspoken rules, as opposed to the man who signs his checks and makes the rules. 

You know that even the slightest toe out of line will be reported back to Him in the worst light. So you had to be on your best behavior. 

“Y’know I highly recommend this book,” Sue says, sliding the book she had been reading at the counter to you. 

Wide Sargasso Sea, the cover reads.

“Oh thank you but I already paid,” you say, almost afraid of this conversation. “And besides I already have enough books.”

“Sweetheart you can never have too many,” she insists and without looking opens it up to the first page where you see a little handwritten note. She closes it up before you can see what it says and slyly slots it in the middle of a stack. 

Later on when you feel sufficiently safe enough to look at it you nearly burst into tears.

In case you need help

feel free to call

(xxx-xxxx)

Such a small thing really, but it’s the most human connection you’ve had with anyone else but Him in a long time. 

You spend the next hour or two committing that string of numbers to memory before you proceed to rip out that page, shred it, and flush the remnants down the toilet. 

Even when you were burning the number into your brain, you never thought you would have ever had the guts to use it. Back when you thought you could accept what looked to be your fate. 

It would be unfair to say it was all bad, after all there was a reason you did fall for Him in the first place. When you would read mysteries and He would listen to you criticize the culprits' plans and schemes and he would look in awe at how you would’ve gotten away with it. Or how fun it was to sneak out with him, your family none the wiser. Even when things got bad and it felt like He was the only one that would talk to you for days, you cherished it because it truly felt like he was your life line. 

When things were good they were great, it was just when they were bad did you start to recognize them. 

Things were bad a lot towards the end. 

Gladys had been one of the few willing to go to bat for you, and perhaps the only one who He would listen to. She was the only one who could set him straight when he got huffy at the thought of you having some basic independence of being able to go outside and not needing to be watched like a child all the time. 

She was the one you went to with your suspicions and early symptoms, when you were too afraid to go to the doctor that reported right back to Him. 

She had also been the only one who knew your fears about having this baby. In your mind there were a total of two possibilities for the life the baby would live. One that they would live a life like yours, isolated within the walls of the house under their fathers obsessive gaze, never to experience the outside world. Or two He would hate the baby on principle and see it as just competition for your time and attention like he did with everybody else.

She did her best to try to quell your fears, trying to assert He would never do either of those things, especially, the last one. 

But you saw it in her eyes how she knows how sour He would get when he would come home to find you playing with his younger cousins. How He gets when someone new so much as looks your way a beat too long, or has the gall to get your attention.

How you’re barely allowed to talk to other girls your own age and that’s only saved for special occasions when his friends bring their girlfriends and He’s otherwise occupied. And even then He has a penchant for just removing you from them just to have you sit with him, and you’re out in the awkward position of being the odd one out in his group.

How when you did gather up the nerve to bring up the topic of babies to him one night his answer was “I ain’t ready to share ya’ darlin’, I don’t think I’ll eva be.”

But your most hard-hitting evidence was what happened to your dog, Hardy. He had been an old stray you saw skulking around the property, and whom you took in when He was touring. Hardy didn’t have much of an interest in running around or playing fetch, just sitting by your side and eating treats. 

Everything was good until He returned. You knew it was gonna be trouble the moment He walked through the door and saw you scratching the dog’s belly. Inspite of the fact that Hardy was usually tolerant of strangers, something about Him immediately put the usually placid dog on edge. You immediately got to work on trying to find some sort of compromise in regards to him, and offered everything from making Hardy a permanently outside dog to even being willing to have him be boarded with a family member while He was home. 

You had asked Gladys where Hardy was the very next morning when you couldn’t find him anywhere, only to be told that He had taken him out for a walk. You didn’t have the heart to be told a lie when He returned alone.

He started taking you with him at that point, and you hardly knew a moment's peace after that.

Your attention is not your own to freely give away, let alone your affection, He expects it all to go to him. He did lord knows what to a dog that had had the misfortune of occupying some of your time when he was there, you hardly wanted to chance the life of a baby that would need all of it. 

However in spite of all of that, you thought with her by your side you would be able to weather his reaction, whatever it may be. Even if your worst fear came to be and He didn’t really want anything to do with the baby, you could at least have someone to love the baby just as fiercely even when you were otherwise occupied by Him. It wasn’t necessarily fair, but you could somewhat see the function of it, and in spite of the weariness he’s instilled in you by that point, you were still reasonably confident in your ability to plan for the long term.

And then Gladys died.

And you were left to navigate the hardest thing you could face alone. 

“Ain’t nobody ever talks about how hard this can be. Or how easy it is to mess up,” Sue continues as she polishes off her plate. “But maybe…” she prods. “If you had a partner to help ease the load, you wouldn’t doubt yourself so much.”

You groan at this point wanting to truly be done with this day already. “Not this again,” you bemoan. 

“Honey,” she says with a firm but comforting grip on your shoulder. “I know a thing or two about leaving bad things behind, but I do think sometimes you need to let someone else in to help you recover,” she says. And almost like they rehearsed it, Gina comes in with a mug of tea, and a kiss to Susan’s forehead as she demands she go back to bed to rest up.

You want to argue back that you did a good enough job of recovering by yourself, but that’s hardly fair to say considering how you were about as helpless as Rosie herself that first year and a half you were here. You had thought that you would’ve been out of here maybe a couple months after giving birth, and been in a completely new place with no ties whatsoever. But the reality is that there’s no possible way you or Rosie would have survived without the help they were so willing to give. 

And that’s all they’re trying to do now. 

You take a minute to fully gather yourself, as you realize you being upset won’t help Rosie in the slightest. You also pick up the slice of cake, as you don’t want her to think she’s being punished for being upset with you. 

You find her hiding underneath the blankets of the bed you share with her and you can only hear sniffling at this point. You try to approach this delicately, as this is new territory for the both of you, so you place the cake on the nightstand, crawl underneath the sheets with her, and allow for her to come to you. Luckily you don’t have to wait for long.

“Mama!” she cries as she buries her face in your bosom, her tears already soaking through the cotton material. “Mama, I didn’t mean it! Please don’t be mad! I’m sorry Mama! Please don’t leave.”

“Sweetheart it’s okay,” you reassure her, running your nails up and down her back, as it always did the trick of settling her down when she was a baby. “Mama’s not goin’ anywhere without you. I’m always gonna be with you.” You hardly put her down her first year of life, going against all the books and holding her at just about every possible moment, so you can hardly fathom where she got this idea in her head that you would leave if you got upset with her. But remembering what Jenny had told you earlier, you have the sneaking suspicion it is related to her noticing the lack of a father in her life. 

“I’m sorry mama! I’m sorry…” she repeats over and over again, and for each time you make sure to reassure her that nothing she could ever do would make you leave. 

Finally when she’s tired herself out and her eyes are red and raw do you finally speak. “Rosie, it’s okay to be mad, but it’s not okay to be mean, because you’re mad,” you say softly to her running your nails on her back, something that has always soothed her. 

She rubs her eyes and wipes her runny nose before looking up at you again, and gives a groggy “I understand Mama.” 

“Good,” you say, kissing her forehead. “Now can you help me finish this cake.” 

You see her eyes widen before she eagerly grabs the fork and dives right in. With your help, it’s not long before it’s almost entirely gone and when she takes that final bite of the cake she goes wide-eyed sticking her fingers in her mouth to pick out the errant piece. “What’s this Mama?” she says holding the little porcelain baby up. 

“Oh you found it Rosie,” you say excitedly, “This means you’re going to have good luck.”

“... Like a wish?”

“Sort of,” you answer.

She gives an excited shriek before she clasps the little figurine in her hands and whispers something almost inaudible to it, with the only recognizable words being “Danny” and “Neverland.” You’re slightly disappointed that your lesson hadn’t quite landed today, but you choose to leave it for now, as you don’t see the harm in wishing to go to a non-existent magical place. 

Once teeth are brushed and pajamas are put on, Rosie settles into bed, but not before making sure you’re not about to break your long-held tradition of storytime. She’s the type of kid who when she likes one story she demands to hear it over and over again. 

And lately she’s latched onto Rapunzel. 

The whole concept does unsettle you greatly, for how close it is to your story. But whatever qualms you have with the story you’re not gonna deny your daughter, because your problems are your own cross to bear, not hers. 

As you read it you get to the part where the witch mother casts her out of the tower and she wanders the forests with her children. You wonder if Rapunzel ever found joy in those years away from the mother who isolated her, away from the prince who could have taken advantage of her. She survived not only on her own, but kept others alive as well. WHat did she do? Did she forage and hunt for her babies, did she find a village where she could work to support her family? 

Sometimes you wonder if she did truly live happily after the end of the story, or if she traded one cage for another as you did before. 

Your daughter is long asleep by the time you reach the happily ever after part of the story. She’s still in the habit of sucking her thumb at night, so you gently remove it, and put one of her favorite stuffies in her arms. And that marks the end of your daily duties, so in theory you should be able to finally fall asleep and be done with this day. 

In theory.

In actuality you creep out of the bed you share with your daughter into the single bathroom of the apartment. Usually her steady breathing tends to be enough to get you to fall asleep, it’s been that way ever since she was a baby, but you’re left feeling agitated having had to think of Him more than usual today. 

Not just because of the song on the radio, but Rosie’s outburst reminded you far too much of her father. It feels like the worst injustice that she mimics someone who isn’t even here.

Now that ain’t my fault now is it darlin’? A familiar voice whispers in your mind. You feel a shudder run down your spine at the thought of him, not to mention the way you shamefully feel yourself pool within your underwear. You slide down the bathroom door, out of sight of the mirror, as though that will prevent you from facing what you’re about to do. You even close your eyes for good measure as your hand reaches your folds and your fingers caress the slick outer lips of your pussy. 

You had tried to ignore this part of yourself for so long. You justified it during your pregnancy, as your body had been making you want to do other stupid things like sleep right in the middle of the store or eat paint chips. Even after giving birth and your inner feelings remaining unchanged, you justified it by thinking you were just particularly lonely, and for all that he kept you isolated, you were never alone when you were with him. Or that he was the only man you ever knew that way so he’s all you had to go off of in order to satisfy these urges.

For as much as your mind curses Him for ever coming into your life, even after all these years, your body has yet to catch up. 

You’re far from unique in your desire for him, but it’s especially shameful for you as you know what he’s truly like. It’s like scratching a mosquito bite, you may know that it’ll just make the itching worse, but dear god did it feel good in the moment. 

But even that is far from an accurate description as you plunge your on fingers into your sopping channel in a poor imitation of what you remember. 

You bite your lip in an effort to keep noises at bay but it just makes you concentrate on the wet squelching sounds echoing through the bathroom as you plunge your fingers into yourself. The sharp sting of pain forcing your mind back to where you experience the most of it. 

“You’re so sweet darlin’,” he purrs, his jaw glistening from your juices having just made a feast of you for the past hour or so. He had made it a game to see how close he could bring you without actually letting you cum, something he tends to do when someone looks your way for a little too long, as though he means to re-establish his claim over you. That only he can give you pleasure like this but take it away on a whim if he chooses. 

“No more…” you beg, new tears forming and following the trail previously set, your lips undoubtedly bruised from how much you have been chewing on them throughout. “Please,” your thighs aching from the death grip he has them in, undoubtedly leaving bruises for you to feel in the morning. 

“Alright,” he says seemingly conceding. But before you can breathe a sigh of relief, he continues, “we’ll switch it up for tonight.”

He flips you over to your front, spreads your legs wide open again, and dives right back in. 

You can’t help the way you’re left trembling from the memory, but what does shake you somewhat is the when you realize that it’s not simply the ghost of the memory that is making you feel that bruising pressure on your inner thigh, but in fact your own hand keeping it there. 

Still the masochist within you that yearns for the ghost of a man you once thought you knew takes a hold and refuses to let go now that you’re so close to release. So you give in and continue your frantic movements biting down hard on your lip to prevent any errant cries from leaving, and grip onto your thigh for dear life, even now trying to deny yourself that you want him here with you.

As you’re coming down from your high, you fight back your tears of shame. Trying to remind yourself why you left in the first place. How for all the moments he made you feel amazing, they weren’t worth the amount of grief he caused you on a near day-to-day basis.

Grief he’s still causing you more like it. 

You don’t think you could have written a better love story in the beginning. You met him when your eyes locked on each other from across your favorite bookstore back in Memphis. He had oh so shyly approached you and asked what you were reading, a bit starry eyed as he listened. Back then and arguably still the concept of a man listening to you was such a novel and unique thing to experience. 

It progressed from there, hand-holding in the school hallway, shared milkshakes at the local diner, and Sunday dinners with his family. Of course there were the less than wholesome aspects of your relationship of stray hands when no one was looking and heated kisses after a particularly rousing performance.

Truly the hallmarks of the greatest love story the world had ever seen. 

If only you knew how wrong a love story can go, because your story went very wrong. 

You vividly remember your first time with him.

Undoubtedly the cruelest thing he ever did to you.

You were never supposed to find out about the other girls, well that’s not true. The newspapers sure knew about them but he had convinced you that it was all nonsense and that he would never do that to you. All of his friends knew, hell even some of their girlfriends knew, but ideally you were never supposed to find out. 

But the only chink in the armor was that there was in fact someone who had wanted you out as soon as he stepped in. Fact of the matter is that he was practically giddy as he told you what your fiance had been doing on the road up until that point. You were heartbroken and humiliated as to what he did and even more so when you learned he had been gearing up to break up with you the night he proposed, but only stopped when he realized that you wouldn’t be waiting for him, once his career settled.

He had been calling your house non-stop and sending his friends over all with the mission to coax you into talking to him. Worse still he even got your own friends in on it and now you can’t have a single conversation with any of them that doesn’t turn into them telling you how sorry he feels for hurting you and how he desperately wants you back. 

The only people, aside from his manager, that were happy at this development were your parents. They had liked him up until he started to really take off in his career, and they wanted none of the controversy, especially when it came to your squeaky clean, good girl image they had for you. 

They’ve been walking around with the smuggest “I told you so” looks ever since you announced that you were done with him. If only they knew their good girl had been sneaking in her boyfriend for the past three years and had a whole routine for doing so.

But the downside to this is that He was just as aware of the routine as you were. And despite it having been awhile he evidently remembered enough as he stood outside your window, right after all the lights in your house had gone out. 

“Get outta here,” you hiss at him, opening the window just a crack. “You’re gonna wake up my parents.”

“Baby I gotta talk to you,” he pleads, his face utterly heartbroken. Guilt eats at you, knowing how there were days you wished you could go back to not knowing at all. But then you get angry at not only him but yourself for these thoughts. 

If only all of your love for him had died the moment you found out, you would’ve had the strength to shut the window on him that night, and your life probably would’ve taken a very different course. 

But no, you’re hurt and you felt that you had to have the final word. “Talk to one a your other girls,” you say as you move to close your window but he beats you to it and ends up opening it wider, allowing for him to fully step into your space. 

“Get out,” you say severely. “Get out, or I’ll scream.” 

“Darlin’, please listen,” he begs.

“Don’tchu ‘baby’ ‘darlin’ me,” you whisper-yell. 

“I swear things’ll be different this time round,” he pleads, clasping his hands in yours. 

“I’m done with your nonsense, I want you outta my house and outta my life.” tears are already streaming down your face and you make no motion to wipe them away. If he’s gonna hurt you like this he deserves to know. 

He looks at you. Truly looks at you and sees that you’re dead serious about this, that for you there is no coming back from this. 

“Okay,” he says solemnly, looking down at you more defeated than you’ve ever seen him, unfelled tears doting his eyes, and his bottom lip trembling. 

That takes you by surprise, but you try not to show it. “Good,” you say, trying to stamp down the urge to be mad that he’s not fighting harder. There is a hurricane of emotions going through your entire being, hating him and loving him at the same time, but you recognize that you don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of being able to sort through said emotions while he’s here. 

“But…”

“But?” you say, confused as to what more there is to say. 

“Let me have you,” he begs breathlessly, stepping closer to you, boxing you into the wall behind you. “Just for tonight,” he clarifies as though that’s gonna make it better.

That offends you but you can’t afford to raise your voice so you hiss at him that it’s not as though you didn’t offer when he was here. “I ain’t ever gonna forgive myself for bein’ so stupid and steppin’ out on you, I-I thought I had more time, tha-that we’d got the rest of our lives together,” he says his voice painfully small, and his eyes pleading with you to agree. 

Your heart swells hearing his words, pleading with your brain to forgive him seeing how much pain the thought of never being with you again is causing the both of you. Another, unmentionable part is also hounding your brain to accept his offer if only for the fact that you had wanted this yourself for so long.

“If-If I do that…” you say in a low voice, your face burning as to what the both of you want but aren’t saying aloud. “Then you’ll leave and never come back?” though even as you say that you’re not exactly sure how you feel over that prospect.

“Just one night sweetheart,” he begs, giving you a quick desperate kiss to your lips. “One night to know what a life with you could’ve been like, and I’ll be outta yer hair forever,” he says with a quick peck to your lips. 

He makes it almost sound romantic, not like he’s quite literally backing you into a corner, and coaxing you into something you’re not sure you want just so that you would finally know peace from him. But that's far from your mind as that little bit of contact does something to you and it’s like opening the floodgates for all the feelings for him you’ve been trying to bury. 

It feels like you're transported to almost a year ago when, he would sneak his way back into your room after having said his goodbyes to your family and parking his car around the corner out of view. How you both move your blankets and pillows onto the floor to avoid the creaky springs of your mattress, how you both keep your voices low, and muffle most sounds with the pillows, how he kicks off his shoes and unbuttons his shirt before slowly undressing you, your body being treated like a present to unwrap. 

Like this it’s easy to forget what he did, easy to forget the pain he’s caused when he’s treating you so sweetly. Kissing every inch of skin, nipping at your sensitive skin every so often, before laving at the bruising area with his tongue. You bite down on your lip hard, willing yourself to keep a cap on the filthy moans and declarations of love alike. 

You had done things with him before but it had never felt quite like this. He had always been insistent that you wait until the wedding night for that, wanting to savor you and all you had to offer before the time came. Which made it feel all the worse when you did find out about those other girls. Your friends had tried to justify it by saying that he was just getting in some “practice” for you, but that hardly made it feel any better. 

But the way he touches you, so sure of his newfound skills, it’s almost easy to forgive him. He treats you almost deceptively sweet, and for as hard as you try to keep yourself quiet, you admittedly don’t do a great job at it. But you manage to keep a good enough lid on yourself. But as it goes on it feels like he himself forgets that he had to do the same, as moans and groans alike continue to escape from his mouth. 

That should’ve been your first clue that he was up to something, but by then as he continues to bury himself deeper and deeper into you, you can’t focus on much else. Had you been thinking straight you would remember he arguably has better control of himself than you do, as he often would tease you over it. 

But in the moment that’s not what you’re thinking about. All you had on your brain was him, and how good and right he felt.

If you could go back in time you think you would’ve strangled your younger, far more naive self, as now in retrospect it became clear what he was planning on doing. He had no qualms to exposing what you had done already with him if it meant merely getting a chance to talk to you, why wouldn’t he take the opportunity to go full scorched earth if given the chance. 

He continues his steady rhythm, and when he whispers in your ear, “It’s only ever gonna be you, darlin’,” you find yourself letting out a silent scream. Your eyes screwed shut, so lost in the pleasure of it all, you would only get the tail-end of the disdainful look he would give upon failing to get you to crack. 

Still you vividly remember how conflicted you did feel in the moment, how for all that it felt good, it also made your stomach turn, for all the hurt he’s caused you yet how deceptively sweet he could be to you. It just gave you a serious case of whiplash. 

But you were so focused on keeping as quiet as possible not even being able to fathom the heap of trouble you would be in should your parents ever find out. You could hardly fathom the agent of your destruction laid within you, but it wasn’t until it was too late did it truly click. 

That devious look he had in his eyes, the one that spoke nothing but trouble. The very same look that seemingly first trapped you all those years ago when you caught it staring at you from across the bookstore. He picked up his rhythm, not allowing for you to fully recover, from the last time, as he pistons into you seeking out release for himself.

You were so dizzy in that moment you didn’t register how he raised his hand onto your night table, before quickly slamming it three times into the wall. 

The very wall you shared with your parents. 

Even in the moment you didn’t fully recognize what he had just done, everything sort of blurring together. Before you can even hope to get your bearings, he’s spinning the both of you around so that you now were on top of him, his fingers digging bruises into your hips, as he thrusts back up into you, no longer trying to feign tenderness, as he seems to rip another climax from you as he lets an unrestrained groan fall from his lips, while your inner walls tighten around him. 

Even in your haze, you realize that this is bad, and you manage to gather yourself enough to slap your hand over his mouth, but that does little to muffle the singer. Especially as it seems as though he's hellbent to be heard. “What did you just do?” you ask unbelieving, frozen in fear even as you hear the muffled shouts of your father through the wall. You feel underneath your palm as his mouth curls into a grin, as he shudders and you feel his hot seed burn you from within. And that’s when you hear the powerful footfalls of your father burst out of his room before he slams open your bedroom door. 

You can only imagine the image you make at that moment, naked sitting astride the nearly fully clothed boy you had sworn up and down for weeks you were done for good with. “What in the hell is going on in here!” your father shouts at the top of his lungs.

Everything after that happens in a blur of your fathers harsh shouts and the sharp sting that comes from your mothers hand across your face as she calls you a whore. By the time it’s all said and done you’re on your knees at the front door begging them to let you back into the house. 

“Take her with you,” your daddy practically spat at him as he tossed you to your knees outside of what was once your home. “I didn’t raise no whores, and you seem to now be in the business a collectin’ them.” 

You can almost hear the sound of a rattlesnake as his arm coils around your shoulder, laying his jacket over your weeping form like a gentleman. “Don’tchu worry baby,” he whispers in your ear. 

He’s almost angelic in his appearance, playing the savior role well, having escaped your home relatively unscathed and in remarkably high-spirits for the situation. But you don’t have much of a choice in the moment, remembering Gina’s words of how easily this family will toss aside wayward women, but it never truly sunk in that you were liable to become one. 

He would tell everybody that your daddy had thrown you out after asserting that you still wanted to be with Him in spite of all of that he’s done, and your folks practically disowned you for it. You let him say what he wants because you don’t see a point in telling the truth and if you’re being honest, part of you wants to believe it. It was a far more romantic story than what had actually happened. 

As you’re coming down from your second and somehow less satisfying orgasm, does the guilt start to creep in. Even after all these years you still yearn for his touch. 

But that is so much easier to admit than the alternative of missing Him.

It eats at you that you still think of Him like this after all that he did to you, and worse still it’s almost like you want him to come back.

Your heart practically leaps out your chest when you hear a soft knock at the door and for one horrifying second you think you’ve somehow summoned him to you. 

“Mama…” you hear a small voice whimper behind the locked door, and you breathe a sigh of relief. “Mama, I threw up.”

You don’t know if it’s a consolidation of three different people telling you the same thing in one day, the culmination of your late night loneliness for the past four or so years, or the noxious fumes of the truly unholy combination of stomach acid, red beans, and Jelly Beans that you had to clean up in your sleep deprived state, but you come to the conclusion that you can no longer do this by yourself. 

Being a mother tended to be enough of a deterrent to most men in the city, which didn’t bother you one bit, but it did make you feel all the worse when you did meet the few who were still willing even after learning about Rosie. 

Sam or Lou may very well have been as nice and understanding as they seemed to be, but because of Him, you now look suspiciously at every man trying to get close. 

Perhaps the women in your life were onto something and it is about time for you to move on with your life. Because if you resolve yourself to being for all intents and purposes a shut-in who never knew another man’s touch other than His, then you ran for nothing. 

So it’s with a semi-defeated sigh that you tell Jenny the next morning to send over Lee’s friend to the shop while you’re working to “see how it goes.” 

You do admittedly put a little more effort into your appearance than you would on an average day and you perk up every time a man who looked close to your age walked in. But if any of them were sent by Jenny they didn’t mention it. 

You only ever had one boyfriend when you were a teen, so it feels more than a bit intimidating to go into this, but you can’t deny yourself a life anymore. 

Afterall if you don’t then you may as well have stayed in Memphis. 

The day goes by and of the few men that do enter the shop, of the few that seem interested in you, none of them knew who Jenny was.  

It’s well past closing and feeling both tired and rejected, however the bane of your existence you call Jenny has yet to return, so you instead just flip the sign without properly locking up and hope they’ll be back soon. This isn’t necessarily unusual but you’re just eager for this day to end and hope that a nice cuddle with your daughter will be enough to lift your spirits. 

But for now there are books that need to be out back.

Soon you finally hear the shop bell ring, but instead of the comforting tiny footsteps or the recognizable clack of Jenny’s heels, you instead hear an unfamiliar pattern of heavy footsteps over the low volume of the radio. You look between the shelves from where you’re stocking books in the back and while you can’t make out specific details you see what is undoubtedly the shape of a man standing at the counter. 

“I’m sorry Sir,” you announce still from behind the shelf. “We’re closed for the evening, but please feel free to return tomorrow.” 

“Oh I ain’t going anywhere sweetheart,” a voice drawls.

A voice you would recognize anywhere.

You think you begin to understand at that moment why some animals will chew off their own arms to escape a trap. After all, what is a limb or two in the face of inevitable doom? And even when they do eventually die, they will at least go with their head held high knowing that they did all that they could, because better dead than captured.

But you stand there frozen, barely capable of breathing at a steady rate. You feel like every drop of blood has been drained from your body. Like someone reached into your lungs and snatched the air right out of them. Like your bones have lost all integrity and you’re only kept standing by the mere fact you don’t want to draw attention to yourself. 

He is here. 

Elvis is here.

Not only that but the footsteps getting louder tell you he is getting closer. 

Fuck.

Your mind is going a million miles an hour to try to get out of this, but all of them fall flat when you remember your daughter is not here and if you were to run that would just leave her in his clutches. So rather than act on any plan, you walk out from behind the bookshelf, because there is no point fighting the inevitable. 

You’re hoping your look isn’t so much deer in the headlights and more awestruck and in disbelief that he found you. Which is true to some extent as you thought you had been so careful all these years, so all you can muster out when you see him for the first time is a pathetic little “h-how?”

Your hackles raise slightly as you see him reach behind him, and to your surprise he pulls out an old battered copy of Nancy Drew. You’re so confused for a second until you recognize it as yours. 

One of the many that Gina would send you periodically when you lived with your parents.

One of the many that had the name of this very store stamped to the inner cover. 

One of the many you took with you when you were kicked out.

One of the many left behind at Graceland. 

Fuck.

You want to kick yourself both for being so careless in your haste to leave, but you have no time for that as he says, “I ain’t as smart as you baby, but I figured out your breadcrumbs eventually.”

He thinks you wanted him to find you. 

Didn’tchu though?

“E-Elvis…” you whisper, the single name somehow feeling wrong as it comes out of your mouth. You’ve avoided even thinking about it all these years, as though if you try hard enough you’ll be able to purge him from your mind and thus from your life. As though simply uttering it will somehow summon him. 

That theory isn’t disproven as he, as usual, wastes no time in getting straight to what he came here for, his long legs carrying himself to you as he moves to engulf you within his arms. You stave off the immediate instinct of putting your hands up and allow this to happen, remembering what used to happen when you would deny him. 

He even goes so far as to spin you around, and you lose your footing and have to rely on him in order to not face plant onto the floor. But this works all the better to create the image of the long-lost lovers joyfully reuniting after so long. 

But as he gazes into your eyes, it isn’t fully complete until he leans down to capture your lips. You would like to say you had to force yourself not to flinch away, but even you would know you’re not that good of a liar.

It’s a kiss for the ages truly, both all-consuming and yet leaving you longing for more. The pitfall of having denied getting close to anyone these past few years now show themselves full-force as you on instinct lean full-force into his touch, and welcome his kiss, even fully knowing how precarious your situation is.  

All these years you never could’ve imagined how much you could miss touch- how much you could miss his touch. The kiss itself isn’t even broken until he roughly moves you against the bookshelf and forces his thigh between yours and your left gasping for air as you feel him for the first time. 

And you can’t help the little whine that leaves your lips before you gather yourself once more to look him in the eyes. 

“Did’ya miss me sweetheart?” he whispers against your lips. 

“I…” you say, tears welling in your eyes. “I’ve thought about you every night.” 

This is not a lie.

His fond expression doesn’t crack an inch as you say that, but before you can sigh an internal breath of relief, you feel a tight grip on your wrist as well as on your jaw.

“Then where’ve you been all these years,” he says, low and dangerous. 

It’s certainly not an unfair question to ask. But you’ve been prepared to answer this question since the moment you stepped foot outside of Graceland for a quick errand.

You don’t know what he knows yet, and that’s terrifying.   

“I…I…” you say in a quiet voice, all your years of preparation failing you when you needed it the most. 

In the back of your mind, though you are loath to admit it, you think you always knew this day was coming, that he would find you, and the only thing you could do was to try to lessen the blowback you would experience. It’s why yours and your daughter’s last name is Love. It’s why you never tried to get involved with another man. It’s why you even made that goddamn deal in the first place. 

“I’m going to disappear,” you say, casually taking a sip of your tea, not truly a fan of the taste, but lately it’s been one of the few things your sensitive stomach could handle. “And you’re gonna help me do that.” You couldn’t just ask anyone for help on this, you were surrounded only by sychophants who would do practically anything for Elvis, so you had to look elsewhere to the person whose only side he was on, was his own. 

“And why would I help you?” The Colonel said, idly stirring his coffee, but obviously trying to mask the spark of interest in his eyes. For as much of a slimeball as he can be, you would be a fool to not acknowledge that he’s a decent enough businessman at the end of the day to recognize  a good deal when he sees one. 

“Because you want me gone as much as I wanna be gone,” you state. He hated that Elvis kept you around, even more so when Elvis made it clear he had no intention of staying a bachelor once he finished service. 

Truly under any other circumstance he would be the last person in this house you would confide in, but though your desires were very different they did often run parallel. Something you realized when he talked Elvis out of eloping right before he got shipped out and into a long engagement. Truly the greatest boon you’ve been given since you’ve gotten here, the lack of recognizability or association with the rockstar will serve your purposes all the better.

“Can’t argue with that logic girl,” he says, taking a bite out of the muffins you had baked this morning as a peace offering to him. “Why do you even need my help?” he questions.

“Because I need someone to make sure that he doesn’t ever find me,” you declare, you had practiced this in your head so many times, too afraid to ever voice it aloud or write it down should any of it get back to him. Even an Ocean away you still feel his breath on the back of your neck, with the only safe place being inside your head. 

You had excused yourself from following him to Germany by feigning sickness with the promise that you would join him as soon as you felt better. Which wasn’t hard to do considering your symptoms before he left, left you practically bedridden.

Ever since you figured out your… condition (it felt too scary to even think in your head, let alone voice out loud), your mind had been running rampant with all of the possibilities of how he would react. None of which you're willing to risk coming to fruition. 

“And if I said No?” he asks, but from the look in his eyes he’s all but ready to pack your bags himself. Part of you feels guilty to leave the boy you once loved with such a man, but you have bigger things to worry about now. 

“You’re absolutely free to say no, Parker,” you assure, but he’s savvy enough to know that’s not the end of it. You don’t know whether it’s you mimicking the late Gladys Presley, or something that comes natural with becoming a mother, however you do know you need to assert yourself now of all times, not just for your sake but your baby’s. “Regardless of your help or not, I’m gonna to leave. Now whether I’m gone for twenty minutes or twenty years, will all depend on you, but know that this will also determine how long you’ll be able to keep your position as Manager.” 

He seems to bristle at your words, “And how do you figure dat Lil’ Miss?” he says with a dangerous look in his eyes as you seem to threaten the only thing he happens to care about. But once you do explain it he looks at you with no small amount of respect in his eyes as he mulls over your plan. “Quite devious,” he comments, literally tipping his hat at you. “I think I’m beginnin’ to get what he sees in you.” 

You're far from proud of your plan, and the slimeball’s admiration of it doesn’t help either, but you know for a fact it will work, and Parker is gonna make damn sure that he doesn’t ever find you. 

You made that plan practically bulletproof, but you never factored into account that you would choke in the moment that it truly matters. “Elvis I…” you trail off, trying to swallow the lump in your throat, clutching your hands on his shirt to keep yourself somewhat steady, trembling from the effort it takes to maintain that makeshift barrier. You’re either about to give the performance of a lifetime or… or…

No 

You can’t think like that otherwise…

This has to work. 

Your brain is going a million miles a minute, trying to remind yourself that you have to make this work if you have any hope of getting out of this without him ever having a chance of finding her.

But in real time you watch as this notion turns to ash in your mouth. 

You feel as your blood freezes in your veins when you hear the door slam open only to be followed by the familiar little dashing footsteps. Your heart drops into your stomach as you hear your daughter stop dead in her tracks and you want to throw up at the thought of him laying eyes on her. This is truly what all your nightmares have been building up to, but even they paled in comparison to the reality of what would actually happen. 

“Danny!!!” she squeals at the top of her lungs, before sprinting right into the arms of the man you were so desperately running from. You’re too shocked to do anything about it at the moment, and only watch in horror as something beyond your worst nightmare plays out before your very eyes. 

Even when your instincts kick in to keep her away from him, he casually moves your hands out of the way as he easily scoops her up and over his head, practically playing keep away as you try to take her back. “Is today the day!?!?” she squeals, wrapping her arms around his neck as best she could, giving him a kiss on the cheek, none the wiser at the danger the two of you were in.

“It sure is baby girl,” he says with a mile wide grin on his face. “Why don’tcha go pack everything you’re gonna need in Neverland?” You don’t miss the way his eyes slide your way, no doubt trying to gauge your reaction. 

She squeals in delight, as she jumps out of his arms and makes her way to the stairs, completely oblivious to your state. 

Everything your daughter ever said about “Danny” suddenly makes a whole lot more sense, and you can’t help but want to kick yourself for not paying attention. You thought she was safe with Jenny, you want to throw up at the thought that you unintentionally sent her into the lion's den without her.

She doesn’t even have the decency to face you in that moment, seeing her right outside the window, in Lee’s arms -or Charlie as you would later learn- pointedly not looking in. 

You don’t have the luxury of being mad as you feel his attention focus back on you in that moment. 

“Now…,” he says as he brings your face closer to his, tenderly grabbing your chin, wiping away a tear. “You wanna try again, sweetheart,” he grins maliciously, knowing you’ll have no choice but to be “honest.” 

And that’s it you have only one card left to play and you pray whatever forces that have written the story of your life will be merciful and let this plan work as you hoped it would all those years ago.

You fall to your knees and begin to sob uncontrollably into your palms. It’s actually easier than you had initially hoped, it in fact takes more effort not to cry when you think about him. It’s a miracle you’ve been able to stay this intelligible up to this point.

“Elvis,” you cry, trying to sound as pathetic and heartbroken as you possibly could. “Elvis I-I-I’m so sorry,” you stutter trying to really sell it. “He-he told me that you kn-knew and you didn’t want me anymore,” you hiccup for good measure. “Ho-how you couldn’t have a baby weighing you down, and that-that if I ever came back, he would make sure I would lose her for good.”

You start to hyperventilate, but it’s far from intentional, as you know your very life is at stake in this moment. If he doesn’t believe you… you can’t think like that. 

You know him well enough to know that he won’t believe your words specifically, but he does believe in the world he’s created in his head. That regardless of what you feel, what you say, or even what you do, you love him and want to be with him- always. It’s just others preventing that from happening. It was the women who tempted him on the road, and then it was your family speaking poison in your ear, and then it was the men he couldn’t trust to not look your way. It was never you personally, regardless of how he would sometimes lash out at you, you wanted to be there because he wanted you to be there. 

In the back of your mind when you had just barely begun to formulate leaving, you knew it would be foolish to believe there wasn’t a chance, no matter how slim, that he would find you. And you knew that it wouldn’t go without punishment should he ever find you should it ever occur. So you had to formulate a plan not just to leave, but how best to set yourself up if he ever returned. 

(There have been some nights that you lay awake believing that you prepared so well not because you were paranoid, but because it was an inevitability.)

You hear his clothes shift as he kneels down before you, and he takes your chin into his hand though much gentler this time. 

“Who’s ‘he’” he demands, voice as cold as a tomb. 

He’s buying it, you think, though you have no time to celebrate. You let out a truly pathetic little blubber through your tears, purposefully unintelligible trying to sell the emotions. 

“Who?” he asks, softer this time around, but no less urgent.

“The co-” you cut yourself off taking a deep steady breath. “The Colonel,” you whisper as though you fear speaking his name aloud will bring him to this very spot.

Parker’s far from innocent but you feel a slight twinge of guilt that his downfall would be for something he didn’t do as opposed to all the things he had done. But you can’t think like that anymore, it was gonna be either him or you. 

Someone would need to suffer because of what you did, and you would be damned before it was you or your daughter. 

And so Parker is now the villain who cruelly kept you and your daughter away from him, and not that you wanted so desperately to get away from him that you practically disappeared off the face of the Earth. But it seems like a fair trade. Parker loses his job, you lose your life. Maybe not in the literal sense, but in all the ways that matter you’ll be gone. 

You don’t relax at all when you feel him gently cup your face in his hands to softly wipe your tears away. You look upon the devastatingly handsome man, as he looks as if he means to take you in his arms to never let you go.“Don’tchu worry baby,” he says, wiping your tears away. “You don’t gotta worry bout that rat bastard no more.” You let out a small cry, hoping it sounds more out of relief than out of devastation to his words. “So now you and Rosie can come home,” he states with a delusional smile on his face. 

Despite the fact that you knew this would realistically end one of two ways, you can’t help but balk at the words. You try your best to smile at his words, but even you realize how hollow that gesture is, in spite of the part you know you’re meant to play in the moment, between the two of you, only one of you is an actor.

He’s having none of it as you feel the previously gentle hand cupping your face wrap around your throat. “Now. You. And. Rosie. Can. Come. Home.” he grits out, his grip around your neck tightening with each word emphasized. 

He knows what your answer is, no doubt he’s just trying to rub salt in the wound knowing that it’s not a choice he’s giving you. This is all the proof you need that he doesn’t fully believe you, but is willing to play along. Leaving may have been forgivable, staying away for so long is another matter entirely. 

He’s just punishing you for not being as enthusiastic as you should be at the prospect of coming “home,” as you should be.

You’re not playing pretend well enough.

“Mama!” Rosie squeals excitedly and when he lets go, you turn to see her making her way back downstairs, her favorite blanket now a makeshift rucksack of what you assume to be all toys dragging behind her. “Mama it worked!” she said, as she ran full tilt toward you, holding something in her palm. “Danny’s gonna take us to Neverland today.”

You see the little porcelain baby from the king cake and you find yourself wishing you were anywhere else. But you know better than to believe in wishes.

“Can we go now?” she says, her little hand grasping one of Elvis’ fingers and shaking furiously. “Now please,” she begs, before he scoops her up into his arms and propping her on his hip. He holds her close and you're forced to face what you have been ignoring all these years. The shape of the nose, the way her lips curl in such a specific way, there is only one place she could have gotten all of that from. It feels like just your luck that your child would be practically a carbon copy of the man you so desperately tried to get away from. Really it was only a matter of time before someone figured it out. 

“Now hold ya’ horses yittle,” chucking her under the chin in a far too familiar manner, as she giggles in his arms. “Yer mama’s gotta get ready herself.”

“I… do…” you say, playing along, trying to keep a cap on your distress for your daughter's sake. “I-I gotta pack a few more things baby,” you say, giving her a kiss on her forehead, hoping she misses the tears in your eyes. “I’ll b-be right back.” you manage to stutter out.

“Don’t worry sweetheart,” his voice so saccharine sweet it makes our teeth ache. “We’ll be right here.” 

As you turn around you feel a hard smack on your ass, and you fully stop, burning in humiliation that he would treat you like that, especially in front of your daughter. 

The humiliation only further ramps up as you walk up the stairs, and you can feel the slick already gathering between your thighs. Less out of titillation you believe and more out of a defense mechanism, knowing what will more than likely happen the second he's able to get you alone.

Or is it?

It doesn’t feel real as you step into the upstairs apartment, you see Gina at the stove and Sue filling out a crossword puzzle, her glasses threatening to fall off her nose, none of which suggests they have any idea of what’s going on downstairs. You’re almost angry about that, like it would’ve been easier to walk away from them if they had also been in on it as well. 

“Where’s Rosie so eager to rush off to?” Sue asks idly, not looking up from the paper.

“Oh ummm…” you say, trying to think on your feet for a decent enough lie. “ Sh-she’s going to a sleepover with-with Jenny.” 

You’re usually a better liar than this, but him being so close again has you all out of sorts tonight. Not to mention your mind is running rampant with all the worst case scenarios possible at the moment with the most egregious being that he’s gonna take her and run, forcing you to chase him down the same way he’s undoubtedly done for you these past few years. You’re practically feeling every second tick by, fearing the longer you take the greater the chances will be that they’re both gone. 

Is that how he felt when he was away from you? A small voice in your head asks. It’s an awful roiling feeling in the pit of your stomach, and you couldn’t even begin to imagine how it would feel if the person you loved most wasn’t where you left them. Would he be so cruel to do that to you?

“Did that fella Jenny setchu up with ever show up?” Gina asks, wiping her hands on her apron. 

“Ye-yeah and… and I’m gonna get dinner with him,” you swallow, the lie tasting like bile in your mouth. As you turn to your room, already mentally mapping where the important documents were in your bedroom, preparing to pack a few outfits for Rosie, and whatever other odds and ends you would need. 

Your answer catches Gina off guard, and Sue immediately looks up from the paper sharing a look with your other Aunt. “Ain’t that a little fast, Hon?” 

“Maybe…” you say, hesitating as you try to hold back your tears. 

“Ya don’t gotta go if you ain’t ready for it,” Sue says behind you, putting a hand on your shoulder, that you flinch away from. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong If it’s still a little too early for you.” 

That’s the worst part about it. You know they would fight tooth and nail for both you and Rosie if you just asked. But you know the type of mess Elvis can and will bring into this house should you decide to fight him on this. After all they’ve done for you, keeping them out of the type of spectacle he brings is the least you can do.

“I have to go,” you say sternly. 

One look at your squared back shoulders and your far away look they know there’s no stopping this. You hold back your tears as you accept their hug and accept their well wishes. You say your goodbyes promising to be back soon, unsure if you will ever see them again, and you put on your biggest fakest smile as you let go of them, wanting to at least leave them with one happy memory.

Relief floods your entire being seeing her at the bottom of the steps, only for the dread to return seeing him there with her. Especially when you hear the story he’s telling her. You don’t miss the glance he steals your way before focusing on your daughter once again. “I thought to myself, ‘thas the girl whose gonna be mine.’”

“Like-like love at first sight,” Rosie asks, and you can practically hear the stars in her eyes.

“Exactly yittle,” he drawls out. “Took her awhile to figure it out though but she learned eventually. Now we’re all gonna go home.” His eyes slide right off her and cut directly to you. Her eyes follow him and she quickly scurries off of him to reach you. 

“You ready Mama?” she asks you as she takes you by the hand leading you to the door where you see a car parked right out front.  It may as well have been a hearse in your mind. 

You pick her up and you look down the darkened streets and you briefly flirt with the idea of just sprinting and never looking back. But the hand on your elbow guiding you to the car puts a halt to those thoughts. 

You still don’t know how much of your story he does actually believe, so you sit yourself down in the car without so much as a fuss and resolve yourself to your fate. Though that doesn’t stop you from seating yourself in the middle and placing Rosie by the window, as you still aren’t totally out of the mindset of keeping her as far away from him as possible. Neither of them seem to mind as she eagerly presses tiny hands up to the glass in awe of the nightlife of New Orleans, while he slithers an arm over your shoulder bringing you closer to him. 

As you contemplate what your life will look like from now on, you pass by so many places you’ve become familiar with these last four years, but what nearly breaks you are the unfamiliar places. Record stores, movie theaters, restaurants, and so many other places you avoided all due to an irrational belief that he would somehow be there. You did your best to limit your time in the outside world to only when you absolutely had to be out. 

Maybe that’s why you were so willing to trust Jenny and her altruistic generosity to watch over your daughter and take her places you were too anxious to venture to. 

You caged yourself into your new seemingly better life, but you didn't live at all. You were hiding. Always so afraid that he would somehow find you, you neglected to live. You put yourself in a different cage and convinced yourself you were free. 

“Mama? Mama, why are you crying?” your sweet little girl asks. 

But you’re gonna do what you’ve always done for your daughter. What you’ve always done when it comes to Elvis. You’re going to play pretend. 

“Mama’s just so happy we’re going baby,” you say with a solemn kiss to her forehead as his grip further tightens on your shoulder. 

“I know what’ll cheer you up!” she declares and completely unaware of the salt she’s about to pour on your wounds, she pulls something out of her little rucksack. “Danny, do you know the story of ‘Punzel?”

“Can’t say that I do darlin’” he says, eyeing you over her head. She sets the Grimm fairy tale book down on her lap and opens it to the worn pages she’s seemed to memorize by heart. She proceeds to read to the both of you, in the sense that she recites the story she’s heard maybe half-a-million times before word-for-word, going off pictures more than the actual words on the page to know where she’s at in the story. You try your best to focus on the book for your daughter's sake, but it’s nearly impossible to do when you feel Elvis' familiar bruising grip on your inner thigh. 

You shoot him a look and grab a hold of his wandering hand, trying to signal for him to stop and pay attention to Rosie. He gives a mirthful smile to you as he feels the slick there and seemingly tightens his grip in retribution, as though he wants to get a head start on re-establishing his claim over you. You in response bite your cheek and bear it, until at one point it nearly becomes too much and one lone tear rolls down your cheek and onto the page of the prince wandering blindly through the forest.  

Your daughter is far too sweet for her own good, as she notices this and gives you a gentle pat on your cheek, trying to comfort you the same you’ve done for her before. 

“Don’t worry Mama,” she reassures you, mirroring what you’ve done for her when a story gets her a little too worked up. “They always live happy ever after.”

You give a shuddering sigh as Elvis finally let’s go of your thigh. You clutch onto that little porcelain figure in your pocket and hope she’s right.

You make it to Memphis in record time, Rosie having long since tired herself out, is wrapped securely in your arms, but you’ll find no suh peace with his arm coiled around your shoulder as he sadistically whispers how Rosie’ll have a blast meeting the rest of his family while the two of you get “reacquainted,” of course he used more colorful language but you don’t want to have to think about that for right now. 

When the familiar gates come into view 

“Ahh, my baby missed home that bad,” he whispers, giving a deceptively sweet kiss to your tear-stricken cheek. “Why don’tcha hand the ‘lil one over to me and you just head up to bed and get ready for me?”

Despite the questioning lilt in his tone you know for a fact he’s not asking. And so going against all of your instincts screaming in your head, you let go of your daughter and watch as he takes a hold of her. To your relief she’s at the very least on the same floor as you, but you can only hope that she, at the very least, will sleep through the rest of the night, because you doubt he’ll let you out even a minute sooner than he has to. 

The bedroom has changed in many ways since you’ve been gone, though the most striking thing  was how your side of the bed looks as though it were converted into a little shrine for you. Small baubles and trinkets you left behind on the stand, you even find an old nightgown of yours on your side of the bed, the last thing he ever saw you in. It doesn’t fit you like it used to, having and breastfeeding a baby will do that to you, but you put it on all the same knowing he will want to see you in it. 

Looking at yourself in the mirror, seeing your breasts straining against the silk material and the bruises peeking out beneath the scandalously short hemline, it really does settle in that this was all inevitable. This is the very same image you saw the night before he left for Germany.

The same image that confirmed your decision to leave in the first place. 

This moment, feels like the dread you always felt when getting to the last few pages of a book. As things were wrapping up and you would have to face the harsh reality of your situation...

You’re back in the fucking hotel room.

You won’t even have the luxury of daydreaming of your escape, because there is no world where you leave without Rosie, and he knows that. He knows she’s the reason you ran, and knows that without her you’re never gonna run again. That’s why he went to the lengths he did to endear himself to her first before you ever had an inkling as to what was going on. 

Your thoughts turn to Jenny, and how you entrusted what you loved the most to her, only to have her spit in your face by turning around practically handing her over to him on a platter. Either she knew that he was her father and didn’t bother to question why you were so desperate to get away that you faked a whole other life, or she didn’t and handed over your daughter to a stranger. You don’t know which is worse. 

You also can’t forget how she was perhaps the most vehement about you dating again, which you can’t even begin to understand if she was working for him the whole time. But you can’t put it above him that he wouldn’t have Jenny push the issue if only to further twist the knife if you ever did take up her offer. As though to remind you that you never had a chance of moving on. 

Because it always goes back to him.

You want to hide from it all and you give into the urge, and crawl under the silky sheets of the bed, for all the good it will do to protect you. 

Monsters don’t hide under your bed. They crawl into it. Those are your last conscious thoughts as you feel the bed shift 

“Welcome home Satnin,” he whispers before you feel the sheets being ripped away from you.

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[fantasyescapes17]

Scandal (Part 3)

The Viscount's sister with an enormous dowry, beauty and unmistakable talent- you began the London season as the most desired woman in any room. But Jeon Wonwoo (a man who would rather hide in the library than dance at a ball) is beyond your comprehension. Curiosity might have killed the cat, but it embroiled you into a scandal with a man you could never love.

Genre: Wonwoo x Female!reader. Regency!AU (It's sort of Bridgerton-esque in the sense that I give zero attention to historical accuracy and prioritize aesthetics lmao) You are Joshua's sibling so your maiden name is Hong but the reader has no other physical characteristics.

Warnings: This part has some discussion around character(s) struggling with mental health and dark thoughts including one or two which are not explicitly (but could maybe be perceived as borderline) suicidal.

Word Count: 7k+

Part 1 Part 2 Part 4

Series Masterlist [Reading Candle and Manners, the earlier installments in this series first is strongly recommended as main character dynamics are introduced there.]

The Jeons' countryside estate was vast and spacious. Mr. Jeon Wonwoo was the eldest son of a rich noble family and although his wealth could not compare to the fortune possessed by a Viscount- it was still nothing to sneer at. The Jeon manor towered over a lake and was surrounded by a pleasant little garden and blooming green fields.  

It was more remote than you had expected. The estate was followed by swathes of farmland and the nearest village was well over a mile away. 

It was late evening by the time your carriage rattled up to the front entrance. 

Mr. Jeon helped you down and you were greeted immediately by a host of servants that lined up outside the front gates upon your arrival. The head housekeeper hurried forward to greet you; she was an older woman with greying hair and a kind smile. 

"Mr. Jeon!" she welcomed him warmly.

You looked at Mr. Jeon from the corner of your eye, and were shocked to see him give her a small smile. You had never seen him smile other than a mere dispassionate curl of his lip or a smirk. 

This was a genuine, warm smile. 

"Mrs. Betsy. It is really wonderful to see you looking so well," Mr. Jeon greeted her kindly before turning to you. "This is Mrs. Betsy- she has been the head housekeeper at the estate since before I was born."

You nodded simply. "Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Betsy."

She beamed at you. You realised immediately from the warm reception and big smile on her face that she had no idea of the circumstances of your wedding. The household staff were evidently under the impression your marriage with Mr. Jeon was… normal. 

"We always knew Mr. Jeon would find a young lady that could persuade him to marry," Mrs. Betsy gushed as she took Snowball from your arms and led you up the entrance stairs. "Of course- I never imagined- is it quite true, madam, that your brother is a Viscount?"

Mr. Jeon was not far behind and he cleared his throat. 

"Mrs. Betsy…" he said in a gentle warning tone. 

The housekeeper blushed. 

"My apologies, Mrs. Jeon. We are merely curious about the young lady that could capture our master's heart. Supper is ready; you must both be very tired from the long journey. I will show you up to your rooms and the ladies' maids will help you dress."

You were guided by the ladies' maids into a large bedroom that was beautifully decorated. The pastel-colored linens were fresh and the dressing table was ornate, spotless, and filled with everything you could need. 

Two maids worked quickly to help you dress for supper. 

"We have placed you in the master suite since the elder Mr. and Mrs. Jeon are settled year-round in London and rarely come down to the country," the maid informed you as she swiftly did your hair. "Mr. Jeon Wonwoo's room is adjacent and…" she trailed off and let out a giggle. "There is a connecting door between your rooms."

You looked towards the door and sighed in relief. 

Thank goodness. You would have preferred the bedrooms to be entirely separate, but that was wishful thinking. At least the servants did not expect you to share a bedroom with your new husband. A connecting door could easily be closed and you and Mr. Jeon could each retain your privacy. 

Once you had been allowed to change into an evening dress, you were guided down to supper by the maids. To your surprise, they turned away from the enormous dining room and instead led you into the garden. Underneath a large oak tree, the household staff had set up a small, intimate table, two chairs, and a number of twinkling candles. 

You swallowed nervously as all the servants left. 

Mr. Jeon stood and pulled out a chair for you. 

"I apologise if you are uncomfortable," he said quietly as you sat down and he took the seat across from you. "Mrs. Betsy took it upon herself to arrange what she believed would be a… romantic supper for our wedding night."

"She seems very thoughtful," you mumbled. 

Mr. Jeon nodded. "I did not think you would want me to inform the servants about the particulars of our marriage. They are unaware. But if this is uncomfortable for you, and you wish for me to ask them not to overstep-"

You shook your head. "It is fine."

Mr. Jeon relaxed into his seat. The distant chirping of crickets filled the silence of the evening. It would have been a very romantic dinner if the circumstances had been different. If you had actually married this man out of love, or at the very least some mutual admiration. The serenity of the garden at night, the way the candlelight cast teasing shadows over Mr. Jeon's sharp jawline and dark eyes….

He  reached across you to seize the bottle of wine on the table, and uncorked it in one fluid movement. 

"May I?" he asked, gesturing to your empty glass. 

"That is…" inappropriate, you caught yourself about to say. But it was not. You were alone in your home having supper with your husband. A little alcohol in his presence was nothing unusual or improper. "Yes," you corrected yourself. "Yes, please."

He poured you a glass and gave it to you silently. You sipped the wine and took a deep breath. 

"Mr. Jeon-"

He interrupted you. "You are free to address me by my given name. The servants will consider it strange indeed if you continue to call me Mr. Jeon in our home."

You bit your lip. Enough boundaries had been crossed between you both for one day, in your opinion. Intimacy of that level would not come easily. 

"Perhaps… in time."

Mr. Jeon blinked in surprise but did not press the point. He poured himself a glass of wine and sipped it quietly. You looked at the delicious food and then at the silent, brooding man sitting across from you. 

It was pointless to expect him to make conversation- you knew Mr. Jeon better than that. He was perfectly comfortable with silence. 

"Did you grow up here?" you asked lightly. 

He nodded. "Yes; my sister and I spent our childhood at this estate until I left for my schooling at Oxford."

"The housekeeper seems to know you well."

"She does."

The conversation died out. There was nothing left to do but sip your wine. The glass was soon empty and Mr. Jeon watched-but made no comment- when you reached for the bottle and poured yourself a second glass. 

Once the second glass had been duly ingested in silence, you could feel the light buzzing in your head and your tongue felt looser. 

"Of all the things I imagined about my future since I was a child," you began slowly, prodding at your half-finished  plate with a fork. "I could never have imagined that my wedding night would be like this."

Mr. Jeon raised an eyebrow. 

"Did you spend a lot of time as a child imagining your wedding night?"

You gave him a sharp look. "You are a man. What would you understand about what a young girl thinks about? Marriage is the singular most important event in a woman's life. Everything she does from the moment she is old enough to speak is all leading up to the eventuality of her marriage."

Mr. Jeon was silent. 

"Learn French, Latin and Greek- practice drawing, dress impeccably, smile the right way, practise the art of engaging conversation-" you trailed off and raised an eyebrow at your husband. "I am quite sure nobody has ever asked you to practise the art of engaging conversation, Mr. Jeon."

"Perhaps not," he remarked lightly. 

"I did it all. Every bit of it. Years of lessons, and practice and training to ensure that I was the most desirable young lady in the room. You might call it vanity, Mr. Jeon. But that is what young women are taught to value. Their beauty, their talents and their virtue."

"You still possess all those things," he told you quietly. 

"Yes," you said with a dry laugh. "And now I have no need of them. They are the most useless things in the world to me. They failed to protect me. For all their worth, they could not protect me from complete societal ruin caused by a momentary lapse of judgement."

Mr. Jeon's silence continued. 

"But," you said with a sigh. Your head was beginning to ache. "Of course, this is a waste of time. I will hardly find a sympathetic ear in you, Mr Jeon- a man who considers me so vain and spoiled that he believes I intentionally make my friends cry by attempting to outshine them at the piano."

"That is not-"

"And for your information," you cut him off with a frown. "I was not trying to make Miss Brooke feel inferior by playing the most difficult piece I knew. Miss Brooke was the last thing on my mind.  I was trying to flirt with you. All my attempts that evening had fallen quite flat and I thought at least an impressive performance on the piano would make you pay attention to me."

Mr. Jeon's ears had turned pink. He pressed his lips together and gently took your empty wine glass away from you. 

"I think perhaps you have had too much wine," he said softly. 

You bristled at the suggestion. 

"You need not worry, Mr. Jeon. I am under no delusion that I might have any impact on you. You are perfectly welcome to sleep in your own bedroom and go about your own business and seek… pleasure elsewhere, if you so choose. Please do not feel any compulsion to cater to my vanity. It is quite clear to me that our happiness is not to be found in each other."

His expression was unreadable. He swiftly corked the wine bottle and stood up.

"I think we had best retire for the night."

"That sounds excellent," you replied. You stood too quickly. Your legs felt shaky, but Mr. Jeon was by your side immediately and took your arm to steady you. 

"Careful-"

"I am fine," you mumbled. Your senses were flooded with Mr. Jeon all at once- his large, warm hands grasping your bare arms and his soothing scent invading your thoughts. You looked up at him. His dark eyes were watching you with a tinge of worry. 

"You will fall, if you are not careful-" he pressed. 

"I am fine. I can walk, thank you."

He released you. You stepped away from him and went upstairs to your personal bedroom, where you ordered the surprised ladies' maids to leave you alone before locking the connecting door between your bedrooms. 

—--------------------------------------------------------------

If the lack of marital relations on your wedding night did not make it abundantly clear to the household staff that something was wrong with your marriage, then your continued distance from your husband over the next few months was more than sufficient to send the message. 

Wonwoo threw himself into handling business and matters of the estate. His reasoning (though he never said so) seemed to be that the less you saw or spoke to each other, the less chance there was for conflict or arguments. He spent long periods of time away from home handling these ‘matters of the estate’ that you were told little about. On the rare occasions that he was at the manor, he locked himself in his study for hours on end. Sometimes it felt like you lived alone with the housekeepers and maids. 

There was nothing to do.  You were simply alone for the most part with nobody but Snowball and your increasingly melancholy thoughts to keep you company. 

Mrs. Betsy tried, the kind soul. She showed you the large library and persuaded you to take walks in the garden and engaged you in light conversation. She even insisted you accompany her on her weekly trip down to the village to buy supplies; but you found little pleasure in the activity. The villagers seemed wary of you and everyone involved appeared to think that the new wife of the local nobleman had no business walking around the vegetable market. 

Endless days turned to weeks and months. 

Nothing interested you. You received letters often; from Joshua, the Viscountess, your mother, and even Ella. But gossip from London was only a dull reminder of the life you had left behind. News that would have excited the old Miss Hong had almost no impact on the new Mrs. Jeon. Your responses to them were rare and brief. What could you even write about? There was nothing to report. Every day was exactly the same. 

Being alone with your thoughts was the worst part of this. Snowball was, of course, your companion- but his inability to converse or comprehend your emotions meant that even his presence could not drag you out of the downward spiral that you found yourself falling into. You were at the mercy of your own thoughts night and day. 

Was this life? Was this how it was to be? 

What were you even living for? 

The question cropped up in your mind often and you contemplated it deeply; not out of despair but as a genuine, genuine curiosity. You could not return to London society, but at the same time, you had no purpose here. You were married to a man who did not care to speak to you. Indeed, you were nothing more than a burden to Mr. Jeon Wonwoo. You ate the food he provided and sat in his drawing room and lived in his home without providing anything in return.

His home. 

For although the months passed, it only became increasingly clear to you that no length of time would ever make this place your home. 

You sat absently at the fireplace one evening, wrapped in a warm blanket and staring into the crackling fire while lost in your grim contemplations when Mr. Jeon entered the room. 

Snowball ran to greet him; the little Pomeranian had warmed up to your husband early on in your marriage. He gave her a little pat before turning to you.

“Have you had supper?” he asked you. 

You nodded. 

“Mrs. Betsy says that you have not moved from that chair all day,” he said slowly. You looked up at him. Mr. Jeon was in his riding clothes. He had evidently just returned from a journey. You did not know where he had been. His dark hair was tousled and his jaw clenched tightly. 

You blinked. “My apologies. Was I expected elsewhere?”

He stiffened. “No, I did not mean- are you well? The village has a doctor and if he is not competent enough, then we can send for one from the next town over.” 

“I am not ill.” 

“But you do not look healthy. When was the last time you left the manor?” 

The question should have made you angry. If you had been the same person you were before marrying Mr. Jeon, you might have issued a sharp retort about how your movements (or lack thereof) were none of his concern considering that he certainly told you nothing of his coming-and-going. 

But the anger would not manifest. It was as though the part of you that pressed the trigger on your characteristically quick temper had gone completely numb. 

“Two days ago,” you answered his question simply. “I took a walk about the gardens.” 

“I have told you before that if you wish to go anywhere, the carriage is always at your disposal,” he continued. “You need only inform the butler and he will have it brought out for you.” 

“I am aware.” 

You saw a flicker in his eyes; it was a brief flash of something that you could not place. A mixture of realisation, despair or perhaps even frustration. Mr. Jeon had always been a closed book to you. Living with him for months had done nothing to make his silences or intense looks easier to comprehend. 

There was nothing you understood about this man that you had not already known on your wedding day. 

“I insist that you go down to the village with Mrs. Betsy tomorrow. The weather is supposed to be pleasant,” he said. 

“Very well.” 

Mr. Jeon stood there for a long moment, watching you in silence before he turned and left the room. 

—-----------------------------------------------------------------

Mrs. Betsy was always in good humour. You were surprised that despite your long silences and reserved demeanour towards her, she never ceased her attempts to engage you in pleasant conversation. There were entire days when her voice was the only cheerful one you heard. 

She rambled on eagerly about the seasons’ cabbage harvest as you walked around the market with her. Cabbages were not a topic that interested you; but then again, nothing seemed to pique your interest of late. You held Snowball’s leash loosely in your hand. The spoiled little pup refused to move past the butcher’s stall, so you paused to purchase a scrap of meat for him. 

“Miss! Could I pet your dog?” 

You turned and saw a young boy of barely eight or nine with a bright smile on his face eyeing Snowball. He was accompanied by an older woman who looked horrified. 

“Fred!” the woman scolded him sharply before offering you a clumsy curtsey. “My sincere apologies, Mrs. Jeon, I am afraid Fred is a little outspoken. I will ensure he does not trouble you again-” 

“Not at all,” you reassured her lightly. “It was polite of Fred to ask permission before approaching. You are welcome to pet Snowball, Fred. He is very friendly.” 

You did not say what you wanted to say- which was that this young boy was the first villager who had treated you in a friendly manner. You could not blame them for their wariness. Your husband was the local nobleman and controlled their livelihoods, so it was natural that they feared offending you. Fred, however, was delighted to kneel down in front of Snowball and scratch him behind the ears. 

“Are you his mother?” you asked the older woman who stood back and watched Fred anxiously. 

She shook her head quickly. “No, Mrs. Jeon. My name is Sister Lynn. I work with the orphanage."

“I did not know there was an orphanage in the village.” 

Mrs. Betsy spoke up brightly. "Indeed, there is. It is small but very well managed. Mr. Jeon's grandfather established it many decades ago. Even now, it survives almost entirely on donations from the Jeon family. There are about 11 children there currently and Sister Lynn runs it  single-handedly." 

Fred looked up at you with a toothy grin. "We have a dog at the orphanage as well! His name is Tucker. He would love to meet Snowball!"

Sister Lynn laughed nervously. "Fred…"

"I think it is an excellent idea for Snowball to meet Tucker," you replied simply. "Lead the way."

Sister Lynn seemed anxious as you followed Fred to the orphanage. She was certainly not prepared for an unexpected visit from the wife of the orphanage's primary benefactor. The orphanage was a quaint little house on the edge of the village and you felt a sudden warmth emanating from the place the moment you stepped through the opening in the fence. 

"Everyone! Come meet Snowball!" Fred called out eagerly as soon as he entered the drawing room. 

But Sister Lynn had had enough. 

"No. First you will all stand in a line and introduce yourselves to Mrs. Jeon," she ordered all the children who came running up. The children hesitated and organised themselves clumsily into a  line in front of you. The youngest boy was no older than four, and the eldest was a pretty young girl who looked just over fourteen. 

They went in a line to state their names and ages- and for the first time in what felt like months you allowed yourself a small smile. Their clumsy curtseys and stammered introductions were the picture of innocence. For a few brief moments, the creeping dreary thoughts that had so thoroughly invaded your mind were kept fully at bay. 

Once the introductions were complete, the younger children ran to surround Snowball. Your Pomeranian, delighted at the attention, lay down on the carpet and freely offered his belly to the children for pets and scratches. 

"The children seem quite happy and well cared for," you remarked to Sister Lynn. Her eyes widened and she seemed almost relieved at your words of approval.

"They are a wonderful bunch, Mrs. Jeon," she replied warmly. 

"What happens to them when they become of age?" you wondered. 

"The boys usually leave for work- Mr. Jeon is usually kind enough to find something for them to do to earn their keep. The ones who are good at numbers are hired to help with accounting for the estate, and the Jeons have even helped others acquire jobs in London as clerks and bookkeepers."

You nodded. "And the girls?" 

"Some of the girls get married- others go on to become seamstresses or take other simple jobs. I wish I could do more for them. Some of them are very clever and could probably go on to become governesses if they only knew a little French and had someone to teach them drawing and music."

You raised an eyebrow. "You cannot find them tutors?"

Sister Lynn flushed. "The best tutors are teaching young noblewomen such as yourself in London, Mrs. Jeon. Even if we had the money I could never persuade anyone to come out to the countryside to teach our young girls. But they do a very good job of teaching themselves with books."

You nodded. "That is admirable indeed. I should like to see what they learn."

"Marie is our brightest one," Sister Lynn told you before calling over the eldest girl. "Marie! Escort Mrs. Jeon into the study and show her your books and writing, my dear."

Marie came over and curtsied prettily for you before guiding you into the schoolroom. She was an intelligent, soft-spoken young girl and she showed you some of the poetry she had written. 

"Your handwriting is excellent," you told her kindly. "As is your English. These are the books you use?"

Marie nodded at the shelf of textbooks. You pulled one down and frowned. 

"This geography textbook is almost 15 years old. Are you still learning from this?" you asked her.

Marie blushed. "It's the only one we have, Mrs. Jeon," she admitted shyly. "Sister Lynn does her best to educate us, but there is only so much she knows, and there is no school nearby which will accept girls."

You nodded. "I see."

Marie guided you into the next room. "And here we have the playroom-"

You froze. The playroom was a fairly large room filled with toys and drawing boards and unfinished art. But the first thing that caught your eye was a large wooden piano in the corner of the room. 

"You have a pianoforte?"

Marie nodded eagerly. She hurried over and pulled out the stool in front of the instrument. "It was donated to the orphanage by the Jeons' a few years ago when they redecorated their manor. They had no room for it-  and there was nobody in the family who liked to play. I taught myself a song from an old piano book I found. May I show you?" she asked hopefully. 

You nodded. 

Marie blushed but sat down in front of the piano and played a simple tune. She was shaky- her fingers were not always in the right positions and it was evident that she had no formal training. But it was a pleasant song all the same. 

"That was very well done," you told her. "You learned that yourself from a book?"

Marie nodded. 

Mrs. Betsy, who was standing a little distance behind you, gave you a smile. "Do you play, Mrs. Jeon? I am sure a Viscount's sister would certainly have been taught to play at least in her youth."

You bit your lip. "I do play.'

Marie's eyes brightened. "Would you play something for us, Mrs. Jeon?"

Sister Lynn was about to scold her for making an inappropriate request of her benefactress but before she could get the words out, you had seated yourself in front of the instrument. The keys were old and worn but it was evidently still an excellent instrument. 

It had been months since you had touched a piano but your fingers danced over the instrument as though you had practiced the tune just yesterday. It was pure muscle memory- some of the happiest times in your life had been spent in front of the piano, and for a moment you almost forgot where you were as you allowed your fingers to dance on the keys to their heart's content. 

The children burst into applause. 

You let your fingers fall from the piano and turned to see everyone watching you. Marie was staring in awe and Mrs. Betsy had a warm twinkle in her eye. You felt a sudden rish of adrenaline. 

For the first time in months, you felt alive. 

Sister Lynn rushed over to you. "Mrs. Jeon, that was the most beautiful performance I have-"

"I am afraid I must leave now, Sister Lynn," you informed the older woman briskly. "But there are some things I will require from you."

Sister Lynn nodded. "Of course, Mrs. Jeon."

"I should like a list of any textbooks in the schoolroom that are over two years old- I will have them all replaced myself, as soon as possible. And you will need to make room in the girls' schedules for extra lessons. I think French on Wednesdays, and music on Fridays would be suitable."

Sister Lynn looked bewildered. "Extra lessons? But who will teach them?"

"I will."

—-----------------------------------------------------------------

Teaching the young girls at the orphanage was, at the least, a welcome distraction that kept the melancholy thoughts from consuming you for a few hours every week. 

Mrs. Betsy was happy to ensure that the carriage was ready and waiting to take you into town every Wednesday and Friday. She could not accompany you herself, since her duties did not permit so much leisure- and perhaps it was for the best. Mrs. Betsy's presence was not unpleasant, but you were still uncomfortably aware that her loyalties lay with your husband. 

Marie was your star pupil. You could tell that the young girl admired you greatly, and she was a very fast learner. Hardly two months into your lessons she was reciting French poetry with a near-perfect accent and was a better piano player than Miss Brooke could ever hope to be. 

You returned from your lessons one Friday evening later that winter to find that Mr. Jeon was, to your surprise, sitting in the drawing room. He seemed tense. 

"I thought we might have supper together," Mr. Jeon suggested to you lightly. The words were calm, but you saw something in his eyes that was familiar. Something that was often reflected in your own eyes.

It was a familiar kind of sadness. 

"Of course," you replied. "I will dress and join your shortly."

You noticed the stiffness in Wonwoo's shoulders as he sat across from you in the dining room. You both ate in silence; not unusual for the few meals you shared. He looked up at you about halfway through the meal.  

"I received a letter from my friend, Mr. Kim Mingyu," he informed you slowly. "The social season in London has come to an end, as you know, and Mingyu will be stopping by our estate tomorrow evening and spending a night here before resuming his journey through the countryside."

You nodded. "Alright."

"You have no objection?"

You blinked at him. "This is your home. Why should I have any objection to you hosting your friend in your own home?"

"Because-" Mr. Jeon began, but stopped himself. "Never mind. I only wanted to ensure that we would not be causing you any discomfort. You need not dine with us if you do not wish to."

You nodded. "I am sure as old friends, you would have much to discuss. I would not want to be in the way."

"That is… considerate of you."

"Of course."

Mr. Jeon took a deep breath and turned his attention back to his meal. You watched him silently for a few moments. He was ever the brick wall; as always, you had no idea what went on in your husband's mind or what he thought about. 

But this silence… it could not go on forever. 

"I have been visiting the orphanage," you told him slowly. "A few times a week."

Mr. Jeon nodded. He did not seem surprised. "I heard. Mrs. Betsy mentioned it to me. And my clerk informed me of the books you purchased for the schoolroom."

You flushed- suddenly realising that you had spent money without consulting Wonwoo. You had been so accustomed to the Viscount covering all your expenses that the thought had not occurred to you that Mr. Jeon was now responsible for your finances. 

"I should have spoken to you-"

"Not at all, " Mr. Jeon cut you off. "If I had known that the schoolroom needed new books, I would have purchased them myself. And in any case- it is equally your money to choose to spend as you see fit."

You swallowed. "Right. Thank you."

He simply nodded. The rest of the meal passed in the usual silence, and you both went upstairs to your separate bedrooms. 

—------------------------------------------------------------

You were acquainted with Kim Mingyu from past social seasons in London. You had danced with the man at a few balls, and remembered him as a very handsome, charming and easy-going gentleman who had a reputation for capturing and breaking the hearts of London's young ladies. 

The Kim Mingyu that arrived at the Jeon estate on horseback the next evening looked nothing like the man you knew. He appeared, to put it simply, to be on the receiving end of  heartbreak for the first time in his life.  

"Mrs. Jeon," Mingyu greeted you with a stiff nod as he descended his horse. There was no smile on his face and he looked tired. "I apologise for intruding upon your hospitality at such short notice. I hope I am not disturbing you."

"Not at all, Mr. Kim," you greeted him politely. "You are most welcome."

"We will not disturb you. There are matters of business we wish to discuss, so we will be dining at the inn tonight," Mr. Jeon informed you as he laced up his riding gear. The stable boy brought out another horse for your husband. 

You nodded. "I see. Very well."

The two gentlemen rode out without further ado. One of the maids standing near the foyer was pink in the face and clearly suppressing a giggle. You raised an eyebrow at her. 

"And what is so amusing, Rosie?" you asked her lightly. 

Rosie blushed. "Sorry, madam. I was only remembering the last time Mr. Kim was here at the estate. It was when he and the master were on break from their studies at Oxford. They drove out to have dinner at the inn a few towns over but the elder Mr. Jeon had a manservant follow them and discovered that they had gone… well, certainly not to the inn."

You blinked. "Sorry?" you asked, confused. "Where had they gone?"

Rosie blushed further. "Miss, I really can't say- please don't make me. Mrs. Betsy would have my backside if she found out I was telling you-"

"Is Mrs. Betsy your employer?"

Rosie hesitated. "No, madam. You are.'

"Then tell me."

She twisted her hands anxiously and then spat out "They had gone to see some… ladies of the night. Mr. Kim admitted that it was entirely his fault and the elder Mr. Jeon was furious, so he had Mr. Kim banned from the estate."

You felt nauseous.

"Ah. Yes, I see," you replied awkwardly. 

Rosie's eyes widened. "I am sure that it is not where they have gone now!" she cried. 

You gave her a sharp look. "Of course not," you told her firmly, though you felt absolutely none of the confidence that you displayed. Regardless of what your husband was or was not doing, you could not allow a servant to gossip about it. "Mr. Jeon is a married man."

Rosie nodded. "Of course! Of course, Mr. Jeon is a very honourable gentleman and I am sure that even on that night in question-"

"Thank you, Rosie. That will be all."

You quickly walked away from the maid, who looked horrified. You had not seriously considered that your husband might be using ladies of the night, as Rosie called them, to satisfy his carnal needs- after all, the two of you had not even consummated your marriage. You had even told him on your wedding night that he was welcome to seek his pleasures elsewhere. 

You tried to push the thought from your mind as you had dinner and went to bed early. But sleep would not come. 

You laid awake for what felt like hours, straining your ears in an attempt to hear the noise of your husband going to bed in the adjoining room. It was almost midnight when you finally heard the sound of Mr. Jeon’s door click- followed by complete silence. You tossed and turned restlessly before rising and putting on your dressing gown and going downstairs. Sleep would not find you tonight. You passed by the drawing room and were surprised to see that the fire was still lit and there was someone inside. 

Mr. Kim Mingyu sat in front of the fire, staring into it deeply as though it held the secrets to eternal life. 

“Mr. Kim?” 

He jumped and turned to face you in a sluggish manner. Mr. Kim’s  eyes were unfocused; and as you took a step further into the drawing room your olfactory senses were assaulted by the pungent smell of whisky. He relaxed when he saw you, and turned his face back towards the fire. 

“Mrs. Jeon- I apologise if I woke you,” Mingyu mumbled. 

You shook your head. “Not at all. Is everything all right, Mr. Kim? Is there a problem with your accommodations in the guest quarters? I can wake the household staff if you require something.” 

Mr. Kim did not turn his eyes away from the fire. “No. I don’t need anything. I don’t deserve anything,” he said as his head fell back onto the armchair. “I am a monster.” 

He was evidently very inebriated. You crossed the room and stood precariously behind a sofa to keep some distance between you both, but be in a better position to address the man to his face. He slumped back in the armchair with a groan and turned his unfocused eyes to look at you. 

“A monster?” you asked lightly. “And what have you done that is so monstrous?” 

Mingyu chuckled. “Greed, Mrs. Jeon. I was greedy. I saw something that was not mine to take but I simply could not resist. I took advantage of her innocence, I knowingly crossed the lines of friendship and played with her emotions -and now she believes herself to be in love with me.”

You raised an eyebrow. “She believes herself to be in love with you?” 

Mingyu scoffed. “She doesn't know what she speaks of. She is too innocent to comprehend how valuable she is. She is too naive to understand love.” 

“I pity her,” you replied simply. “It would be very painful indeed, to be in love with a man like you.” 

Mingyu frowned. “What?” 

“I don't blame you,” you continued. “It is how you gentlemen were raised. All your life, people have told you that you are more intelligent and logical and rational than women so you have grown to believe it. You presume to think that you are guilty of manipulating an adult woman into falling in love with you; as though she was stupider than you.”

Mingyu frowned. “I never said she was stupider than me. She is certainly much, much smarter.” 

“Then if you had an iota of respect for this young lady, you would do her the courtesy of believing her when she says that she loves you.” 

Mingyu said nothing. He turned away from you and stared back at the fire. He was silent for a long moment and then he took a deep breath. 

"Those…" he said slowly, "may be the wisest words I have heard all day."

"I assume you had not consulted any women."

"You assume correctly," he replied. Mr. Kim turned to you with a small frown. "You are a clever woman, Mrs. Jeon. Far too clever to be wasting away in a remote countryside estate in a marriage you never wanted."

"And you are too clever to be running from a woman who loves you and finding meaningless comfort in the company of a prostitute."

Mingyu let out a hacking noise that was halfway between a laugh and a cough. "A prostitute? Strange words to call your husband," he remarked. 

You flushed. "I was not referring to Mr. Jeon. I am perfectly well-informed of what dinner at the inn really means."

Mingyu let out a proper laugh. "Oh, Mrs. Jeon. I have overestimated your cleverness, then. I really hope you do not think that Wonwoo is enjoying his time at brothels. I will be extremely concerned by how little you know your husband."

You stiffened. "He is not an easy man to get to know."

"Certainly not. He will go to any lengths to avoid talking about his feelings and he builds not just walls but fortresses around his true emotions. But surely you knew that before you married Wonwoo?"

"Our marriage was not… you know the circumstances in which we married…" you mumbled. 

Mingyu nodded. "I do. I also know that Wonwoo carries with him the burden of having ruined your life and stolen your happiness from you, perhaps forever. The man is drowning under the weight of his guilt."

You stared at him in disbelief. "I never once blamed him for-"

"You did not need to. Wonwoo may appear stoic, but he is a victim to his own conscience. In any case, I can assure you that he is not touring brothels while you sit here. He is aware of how miserable you are and it only serves to enhance his own misery."

You wrapped your dressing gown around yourself more tightly. 

Could it be true? If anyone, anyone could give you answers about what Mr. Jeon hid behind that sharp, unreadable face then you would have expected it to be Kim Mingyu. But how could it be possible? Wonwoo had shown no signs of guilt. He had never once apologised for any of the circumstances leading up to your marriage. 

In fact, your husband had gone out of his way to avoid you, to leave you alone in this empty haunting manor and let you wither away in loneliness. 

But what had you done? You blamed him for being distant and difficult but what efforts had you truly made to understand the man you married? You had simply drowned in your own misery and conveniently accepted the walls he put up between the two of you as fixtures. 

You were complicit in the ruin of this marriage. 

"It is late," you said shakily. "I must-"

You were cut off by a noise- you turned around and saw Wonwoo enter the room. His eyes looked tired and he carried a candle in his right hand. A small frown appeared on his face.  

"What are you both doing awake?" he asked doubtfully. "It is past midnight."

Mingyu stood up from his armchair unsteadily. "I was a little drunk and I sat down here for a while. I must have made some noise that woke you both up. Sorry; I'll be going to bed now."

He stumbled out of the drawing room. Mr. Jeon turned to you with a worried frown. 

"Are you all right?" he asked. 

You nodded. "Yes- of course. Snowball was growing restless in my room so came downstairs to let him out and stopped to speak to Mr. Kim when I saw him sitting here."

Mr. Jeon nodded. "All right. We should return to bed."

He turned to leave. The dim light of the fire lit up the profile of his handsome but tired and worn face. How had you not seen it before? Mr. Jeon carried a sadness within him too; one that had not been there before he married you, and which was growing darker and heavier day by day. 

"Wonwoo," you whispered. 

He froze. His face was turned away from you but you could see the way his broad shoulders tightened and his entire back stiffened underneath his white cotton nightshirt. 

You had never called him by his name before. 

After a long moment, he turned and looked at you. The remnants of surprise had still not faded from his eyes.  

"Yes?" he asked gently. 

"The… the children at the orphanage are putting on a performance for the village on Saturday evening. They have been practising hard all week. I thought, perhaps… it would be encouraging for them if you attended. If we attended."

Wonwoo stared at you. You saw the brief flash of emotion cross his face before he could control it and you knew that he understood your intentions. He understood that this was not a casual suggestion. This was not about the children, or the orphanage. 

This was you taking the first step in your marriage. 

"Of course," Wonwoo said finally. "That sounds wonderful."

You released the breath that you had been holding. 

"I will let them know. They will be very excited, I am sure."

Wonwoo nodded. He opened his mouth for a moment, and then paused, almost as though he had reconsidered what he wanted to say. Then he gave you a small, careful smile. 

"Good night," he said. 

"Good night."

—----------------------------------------------------------

A/N: I'M SORRY THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO END IN PART 3 BUT BEFORE I REALISED IT I HAD WRITTEN 7K SO PLEASE DON'T KILL ME, I PROMISE I WILL END IT NEXT CHAPTER (I think)

#wonwoo scenarios #seventeen scenarios #wonwoo angst #wonwoo x reader #seventeen x reader #seventeen fluff #seventeen angst #regency!au #seventeen fanfiction #seventeen imagines #seventeen fanfic #seventeen imagine

[howlingday]

Have you ever feel that Jaune got to much focus? I mean he's called a main charater (for better or worse) in a show called RWBY. About Team RWBY. It's just looking at both sides as much as I like Jaune maybe their was or still is to much focus on him.

Hardly.

Tell me something. Did Sasuke get too much focus in a show called Naruto? Did Knuckles get too much attention in the show Sonic X? What about Harry Potter? One Punch Man? Hey Arnold?

The Jaune "getting too much focus because the show is called RWBY" is the saddest, weakest excuse ever uttered. Jaune is a main character, along with Ren and Nora, who, need I remind you all, got plenty of love and attention despite not being "Team RWBY"?

Now, does the FNDM give him too much attention? My second favorite tag on this hiellsite is "jaune arc," AFTER "rwby," agrees with this statement, and to be honest, I don't think that's a problem with the show's writing as much as it is with the audience's reception of him.

There being "too much focus" on Jaune is only in comparison to the weaker writing for the "main characters" because the show puts more effort into the action and the plot than into the development of the core cast of Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang.

Ruby has silver eyes and is supposed to be the hero who saves the world, but it wasn't until Volume 9 that she really got a solid win for her character.

Weiss comes back home in Volume 7 and her biggest character moment is when she's stopping her father's escape. Then... nothing.

Blake and Yang are by far the worst because their characters are now wholly reliant on each other. And before that, Yang's character was reliant on Ruby while Blake's character relied on the White Fang plot, which ended in Volume 5, and Adam, who died in Volume 6.

But what about Jaune's character? Well, let's see; Jaune was the loser everyman character who acted as the foil to the prodigal child of destiny that was Ruby Rose. His partner, Pyrrha "Invincible Girl" Nikos, takes him under her wing and trains him as her mentor. She then dies, leaving him to train and grow on his own despite his team being there, whereas Ruby loses her entire team and gets their help to accomplish reaching Mistral.

...Typing this out, yeah, I would say Jaune got more thought and effort put into his story and character development, but I don't think it's "too much". If anything, I'd say the issue is RWBY didn't get enough. All we got for them were flashy moves and kicks and bruises, but it's all shallow, surface-level development. Looking back, I see RWBY as the same people as they were at Beacon, while Jaune has completely changed since his initial appearance.

And again, that's not Jaune getting too much attention. It's just RWBY never really grew up right.

#rwby #jaune arc #my thoughts #character analysis #my critique #ruby rose #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #yang xiao long

[skyeblue8]

𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐎𝐥𝐲𝐦𝐩𝐮𝐬 𝐯𝐬. 𝐇𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐮𝐯𝐚 𝐁𝐨𝐬𝐬 (𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐬)

Whether or not you're all familiar with the Webcomic, Lore Olympus is an award-winning comic created by Rachel Smythe that's essentially about a modern retelling of the Hades and Persephone myth with various other Gods and references in it, and what not. And, assuming you have a critical eye when it comes to writing, it's has become wildly disliked and even hated by a lot of critics and former fans due to the butchering of myths and gods (and a religion), unlikeable characters, poor character design, poorer handling of sensitive topics like SA and racism, and overall the author's inability to listen and take critism that would've helped her improve.

The reason I bring this up at all is because I have the nagging fear that Helluva Boss and, by extension, Hazbin Hotel, are going to be doomed to fall into the same pit of failure as Lore Olympus is, mainly due to a nagging pattern that I've noticed between the two:

The Writers. The two are relatively close in age and, in my opinion, immaturity in writing as evidenced by the various plot inconsistencies, character treatment and development, and poor world-building established in both media. On top of that, however, both have a significantly bad reception to criticism of their work in any way, shape, or form. We've seen this before in how Viv herself states that she's been told that she can't take criticism well since she was 17.

Now, it's one thing to have these claims as a teenager, it's another to have them as a fully grown adult and not learn to mature past this issue by now. The number one issue with ignoring criticism for so long, especially in your very popular work, is that eventually, it's going to show. Sooner or later, many of your fans, regardless of how they felt about your work prior, are gonna notice small flaws that gradually become bigger and more glaring the longer they are ignored.

Time and time again, this issue has arisen in Rachel Smythe's work, both in design:

As well as writing...

Speaking of which, I'm beginning to see a similarity in their writing issues in the fact that, evidently, neither creator had/has any set plan for how their stories are gonna be told. Readers of LO have seen that from the frequent additions of various, random plots with the previously established plots having not been concluded in a meaningful or tactful way, and we see this with Vivzie and Season 2.

Going off this, both Vivzie and Smythe show blatant favoritism towards their main characters or love interests that prevent other characters from having their own development (i.e., Millie), as well as keeps the main couple from having any sort of flaws that the audience would perceive as truly bad, thus removing any nuance to them.

We see this in Persephone and her character:

And we see the same with Stolas and Blitzo, mainly in regards to Stolas' past and situation with Stella, as well as Blitzø's own past as we're made to constantly feel bad for him despite him not being the victim. It's made worse since we've yet to know what he did to every single person he's wronged, but, for that, I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt until we see more of Season 2.

Lastly, and probably the most glaring thing for me, both Smythe and Vivize take inspiration from real-world religions (RS –> Greek Polytheism; Vivzie –> Christianity/Demonology). These religions are both widespread in their popularity and, thus, are important to millions around the world. Because of this, both should surely have a sense of obligation to not bastardize the stories and characters they referenced in their work and/or should make their likeness relatively similar to their original works so others who know of it are familiar with the characters.

Both creators have failed to do so at some point in time and have gone so far as to push the blame on their audience rather than admit fault and work to improve.

Viv with Beelezbub

And Smythe with Persephone and the other gods/Goddesses:

Worst yet, both use social media as a means of weaponizing their fanbase against those who have a few critiques about each work of media. Now, what I can say for Viv is that the severity of these issues hasn't fully hit her yet, whereas Smythe, despite her awards, is feeling the brunt of her poor writing choices from former fans and readers. While Helluva Boss is more new and doesn't hold as much overwhelming significance to me, I've been with Hazbin Hotel since the beginning before the pilot even aired.

It's because of this that my greatest concern is that if Viv doesn't start seeing through these issues within Helluva Boss and, really, herself, then both shows may be doomed to fail, without Hazbin airing in its entirety. Worse yet, it would be a major blow for fellow indie creators who look up to her as an inspiration, so I really hope she doesn't reach RS's level of infamy in her work. 🙏

*PS: For a better Lore Olympus's viewing experience, I recommend this:

#helluva boss critical #vivziepop critical #helluva boss critique #hazbin hotel critical #helluva boss criticism #hazbin hotel critique #anti lo #Youtube #anti vivziepop #anti lore olympus

[theroyalmisfitmess]

[Updated as of 07/11/23] Reasons why I think Sid is the father

I don’t think other viewers can call fellow Sid-is-the-father theorists delusional anymore. The show is already building up the final contenders and I know in my gut they’re gonna be Sid, Jesse, and Ian. Hopefully we get S4 because I will update this whenever there’s a season break or a season ends.

Possible hints from the show (not the obvious and usually stated ones + not hints that could also apply to other contenders):

- When Sophie enters Pemberton’s to switch phones back with Sid, the engagement party crowd thought she was Hannah

- Sid remembered how much Tinder dates Sophie went on; he paid attention to her well (more on this later)

- Sophie and Sid both experienced relationship problems then found each other at the same time and same place. Sid later gave Sophie advice about finding the right person (funny enough, the advice parallels the situation because Sophie and Sid found each other at the right time to give each other advice)

- Two of Sophie’s by far most important love interests are connected to Sid—Jesse who is Sid’s best friend, and Drew who is a close friend of Sid’s wife

- Sophie remembers the Electric Slide; this time she is proven to pay attention to him

- Sid tells Sophie that he hopes the man she’ll marry will give her a better reception that what he and Hannah have

- If the father isn’t Jesse and Sophie is still married to the father, only Sid would be the perfect candidate to be understanding on why Jesse’s photo is on Sophie’s wall since he is Sid’s best friend

- The father is hinted to have loved Valentine’s Day even before he and Sophie even got together. Unlike the other guys, Sid’s memory for Valentine’s Day was always consistently good. Additionally, when Hannah walked in Pemberton’s to surprise Sid, only Sophie’s reaction was the focus

- Sophie and Sid both remember random facts they found out about each other offscreen; once again solidifying that they do pay attention to each other

- Sid somehow is the only character who has profound or notable interactions with both of Sophie’s parents

- In the episode where Sophie and her father made a popup, she tells her son it’s a story of how she met her father; in this episode, Sid is the only father optioj to interact with Sophie and her father

- Since we know that Sophie narrates the story, it’s important to note that she often emphasizes Sid’s stories by giving us in-depth insight despite their minimal interactions in episodes before 02x13. While she also does this for her other friends, it’s only Sid’s stories that we actually see play out long. To add, Sophie always paints Sid in a positive light in her stories

- In the disengagement episode, Sid and Sophie are implied to know a lot about each other (Sid knowing Sophie’s lock screen, Sophie knowing the password to Sid’s iPad); this isn’t really a hint but again, recurring theme that they pay attention to each other

- Both Sid and Sophie have this storyline where they are judged for their jobs/careers (and in the same episode)

- By 2x18 we see Sophie’s parents again and it’s Sid who primarily consoles them when they (along with Valentina) follow Sophie into Sid and Jesse’s apartment

- Sophie slowly bonds with Sid as each episode progresses and have more significant plots with him more than with Jesse

- Hannah assumed that Sid emotionally cheated on her with Sophie, and it was without reason. After this scene, we then cut to Sophie

- EDIT: Season 1 also had another cheating conversation between Sid and Hannah where Sophie’s situation with Jesse and Drew was the trigger

- Sophie’s son says that he thought it was a happy story to which Sophie replies it was, but we immediately get Sid crying over Hannah—setting the mood that it wasn’t really a happy night for everyone

- By 2x20 we have finally taken Charlie out as a candidate to be the father of Sophie’s child because it’s been confirmed that he ends up with Valentina (Side note: love this revelation. I was on a fifty-fifty with them but they fit well and love each other); Drew can also be taken out of the equation because of how future Sophie talks about him as a mere catalyst, but since there’s not an official confirmation we can just put him down the list for now

- Once again, it needs to be mentioned that the way Sophie talks about Sid in her story is always in a good light. She talks about the father so fondly and only Sid is the male character who is presented with so much emphasis about his personal life, his goodness, and his ability to have someone stir up their fondness for him

Parallels & Connections with HIMYM/Ted and Tracy:

- Alliteration names (Ted Mosby and Tracy McConnell, Sophie and Sid—if Sid’s last name also starts with a letter “T” like Tompkins then that would be interesting)

- Both are romantics. Sophie is a hopeless romantic who can’t find “the one” like Ted, while Sid is a committed romantic who is (and possibly going to be was) in a longterm relationship like Tracy

- Sophie and Sid swap phones, paralleling the yellow umbrella swap

- Sophie and Sid’s banters are very similar to that of Ted and Tracy’s

- Sid has Ted’s old room

- In connection to a point from the previous section, Sophie painting Sid in a picture that’s so positive and feeling untainted is very similar to how Ted paints Tracy in his stories—perfect, an angel, someone who no one could say something bad about, with great fondness

- Not directly related to HIMYM, but in the original HIMYM spin-off (How I Met Your Dad), the lead character Sally met the dad as she was preparing to get divorced. The script of this scrapped spin-off was reworked into HIMYF. I’m not saying it’s a direct answer, but what if the divorce storyline is gonna go to HIMYF’s only married main character father option?

- Sophie and Sid both play detective in 2x19. In HIMYM, Ted and Tracy have this running gag that they loved sleuthing

- Both Sophie and Ted went through all the lengths to get with Jesse and Robin, respectively. When Ted met Tracy he didn’t have to work so much, he just let it happen. Both shows work with a philosophy on how love is hard but loving is supposed to be easy. Both Robin and Jesse have complicated love lines with Ted and Sophie, respectively

Also if it’s any consolation, I previously took a film course for my major. So while I do acknowledge that I could be reading into things too much, I did have backing since I tried to incorporate the concepts to pick these things up.

#THE WRITERS ARE MAKING IT MORE OBVIOUS NOW #because why on earth would hannah assume it’s sophie #but that assumption aside #there’s just so many hints on why it’s gonna be sid #sid is the father #how i met your father #himyf #sid and sophie #sid x sophie #sidsophie

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Finally finished the outline of Daughter of the Rain and Snow and I know exactly how the ending is going down almost pretty much (details are blurry, but plot and character arcs are completely outlined and ready to write instead of just bullet points or vague ideas) so out of interest (won’t necessarily stick to it 100% but would still like to know) what would anyone like to see next if you would like to continue reading my stuff?

Explanations below cut

Sequel

I have every intention to write this one, I have characters but thus far not a main plot more of just the premise. Would follow Ahra, Evan, Yara, maybe Vix, and maybe Lilia as our young Dregs and start around when Kaz and Inej left for Ravka since the Dregs was kinda on the verge of collapse whoops. Can’t go into too much detail or they’ll be spoilers for the current fic but there’d be the opportunity for some Aimee and Kiada, and Kanej would still be present but they might not be in focus (again, can’t explain too much or they’ll be spoilers). There might even be some Fiona or some Maya stuff who knows

I really want to write this bc I really want to write Ahra’s story so it’ll probably end up coming around at some point but I realise it might not be the most interesting to y’all when it’s mostly ocs so yeah

Feliks had been more than lenient with Ahra. He’d been the only person who ever gave her a real job - playing her violin in the reception of the White Rose - and when things had predictably gone haywire he’d been good enough to only turn her away, not Evan too. Ahra hadn’t much cared for the job, she loved her violin but she did not enjoy watching the Rose’s clients come and go and she certainly hadn’t cared for having her skin paled and her hair Tailored white for such purposes, but it was easy money and enough to keep them ticking over as all of Evan’s funds petered away on overpriced little medicine bottles. She studied the thin stack of kruge in her hand, thinking of Kaz standing opposite her in the alley by the Slat.

“I don’t need your charity, Brekker,”

“And far be it from me to offer you any,”

Not charity, but she didn’t doubt Dirtyhands had his own purposes in paying her for a job she failed to finish. Still, cash was cash. And medicine was medicine. She tucked it back into her breast pocket and tapped it lightly, slipping round the corner and pulling a bone light from her jacket.

What Evan didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.

Helnik

This was an idea I had a looooong time ago and I shared a little snippet scene on here, but then I started writing Daughter of the Rain and Snow and never looked back. I really want to write this one I think it could be pretty cool, it would be relatively short set in between Crooked Kingdom and King of Scars and take place in Ravka; based on a headcanon I have about Nina learning how to use her new power and as a result of it experiencing hallucinations of Matthias being with her that she is fully convinced are real. Following Nina, Zoya, and Genya as they try to navigate this and worry that they shouldn’t let Nina got to Fjerda in this state.

“What time is it?” she mumbled into the cushions.

“A little after seven bells,”

“Saints, how disgusting,”

Nina sighed, in a mixture of content and tiredness. The luxury of the Little Palace was a mostly welcome change from crawling in next to Matthias in the tomb at Black Veil - or even of the hotel room at the Geldrenner. They’d shared a sofa, so close to each other; limbs entangled, chest against her back so she could feel his heart beating. A steady rhythm, no matter what he was feeling. The big bed here was more comfortable, but the closeness felt like an aching absence, as though the few feet between them spanned for miles. She reached out behind her and found something soft that she decided was his arm.

“Come closer,” she whispered, and she imagined the way he’d smile.

He would press her fingers to his lips and she would roll over to face him. She’d reach out and touch his cheek, and he would catch her hands in his.

“Witch,”

“Barbarian,”

“Little Red Bird,” he would say, just before his lips met hers

The sunlight would be warm and soft on their skin as they moved closer, as she felt his heart beating beneath her fingers.

But he hadn’t moved. He hadn’t come closer, or kissed her fingers, or brushed his lips against hers. He had not gently pushed her hand down towards his wrist so their fingers could intertwine.

“Matthias?”

Nina made the mistake of rolling over, and began to scream.

Wesper

There’s a line in Crooked Kingdom where Jesper says if Van Eck really couldn’t cope with Wylan not being able to read he could have told people he was blind, the point being that still would’ve been wrong but that everything he’d resorted to was unnecessary and Wylan shouldn’t feel like it was his fault. So this would be an au where Van Eck did exactly that and Wesper attend Ketterdam university together; Wylan grapples with his father being the worst and falling for Jesper as he fears telling him the truth, Jesper grapples with addiction and wanting to stay at university partly for the sake of falling for Wylan.

Jesper leaned in, pushing one of Wylan’s curls back off his face.

“It’s pity you can’t see how beautiful your eyes are,”

Wylan blushed, letting Jesper run his hand over his cheek and tilt his face up towards his own. Jesper leaned forward but then Wylan squirmed, just slightly, and Jesper tensed as he pulled his hand away.

“And me, of course,” he added, letting his voice take on a teasing lilt to brush past the moment, “It’s a shame you don’t know how gorgeous I am,”

Wylan almost smiled, but he had stepped away.

“I- erm,” he brushed his fingers through the lock of hair Jesper had moved and cleared his throat, “Excuse me,”

And then he was gone.

#six of crows #grishaverse #crooked kingdom #leigh bardugo #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #jesper fahey #wylan van eck #nina zenik #matthias helvar #kanej #Wesper #helnik #soc fics #Soc fic #six of crows fic #six of crows fandom #six of crows fanfic #grishaverse fandom #grishaverse fanfic #ao3 #ao3 fanfic #ao3 writer

[rose-tea-and-strawberries]

I'm kinda curious about your view on vil and your thoughts on the trauma he possibly or could have inflicted on Yuu during book 5.

I have this headcannon inspired by this one shot by uniquethingtastemaker

https://www.tumblr.com/uniquethingtastemaker/720073081338626048/neige-x-reader-white-beaches-and-a-spring-morning?source=share

The headcannon: Basically Yuu (who is female for this) hides the fact that she's a girl for safety reasons (I mean not only is Yuu magic less in another world, she's also in a all boy school. Yeah that doesn't scream good idea). The only who knows are the teachers, Crowley, Grim and later Ace and Deuce when she's comfortable enough to tell them. At some point before book 5, Yuu is allowed a small vacation out of NRC for the crap she had to deal with jamil in the previous book; during her vacation goes out as herself and runs into neige. They become friends and stay in touch with one another. Yuu made Neige promise not to say anything about her actually gender as a few know in NRC.

*Also have a headcannon where Yuu is a school idol like love live and secretly helps Neige and the dwarfs write a song and dance that works for them for VDC. Yuu and Neige were already writing a song together just for fun since Yuu missed being a school idol and hasn't written a song since coming to twisted wonderland 😅

Plus it's something she has a choice in and would fun doing with a friend. During book 5, Crowley literally forced Yuu's hand by threatening their plumbing and Vil just dub them the manager without asking if it was okay with them. There's also how forceful he was being. . . .

There's no rule that has she can't and she's not even in the group.

Sorry for rambling 😅

So I've written about my thoughts on Vil before and honestly he's kind of one of my - if not my most - least favourite character(s).

I've cut this up for length:

I know that he has a lot of trauma and that he's a character that lots of people can mischaracterize and hate irrationally but he just rubs me the wrong way - and I'm saying this as a former gifted child and as someone who has witnessed people go through burn out both in Primary and Secondary school. I feel sorry for him and I understand that the pressure of perfection can be an incredible burden to bear but the way he treats others is just so grating that I can't say I like him that much.

Honestly, Book 5 is my least favourite book (then it's 3 then 4) and I have so much to say for everything; the blackmail, Vil's behaviour, Vil cursing our food without telling us, having to share a dorm with Jamil when he used Yuu and endangered them for his own gain (and then Kalim for sweeping it under the rug), Vil almost making Deuce cry, the Neige hate, Vil facing absolutely no consequences for trying to murder someone and then nearly killing everyone and destroying a building.

Yes, I agree that Epel has a mindset of toxic masculinity and yes, it should be addressed and challenged. But Vil's military dictator training and forcing him to do things that he hates (and even making him hide his accent - something that connects him to the home and family he loves) is not how you do it. I don't despise feminine things like he does, but even I would hate to live up to Vil's standards every single day (especially when Vil degrades far more times than he praises).

Something I really really hate about the twst fandom is how lots of people put down Neige or make him the butt of a joke just to make Vil better. I've seen so many jokes or fanfics or imagines where Neige gets rejected or laughed at or treated terribly just so that Vil can be seen as superior and as someone who actually really likes Neige and has Snow White as their favourite princess ever since they were in reception, I just can't stand the Neige hate. Especially when he was almost a victim of a poisoning plot - as in Vil literally tried to kill him for absolutely no reason at all (before he then tried to kill us for 'seeing an ugly side of him' which we are supposed to forgive because of course we are)

I really loved that Neige story and I actually do headcanon that Neige and Yuu are really close friends and they text each other 24/7 (and also with Prince Rielle). I did make a #JusticeForYuu post where I said that I wanted Yuu to just send the entirety of NRC (minus Ace and Deuce) to coventry and not give them the time of day so I thought it would be just delicious if Neige is the one that helps Yuu with all things fashion related since he's just as famous (if not more so) than Vil with his own line of clothing and make up and would have access to things they would need.

And I think you somehow managed to read my mind because I have this Yuu that's a theatre kid (this is not relevant at all but this fem!Yuu was also Christine Daaé in her theatre's performance of Phantom of the Opera) with the voice of an angel that's best friends with Neige and the two of them totally duet together - I did kind of toy with the idea of Neige hyping her up to sing something for VDC as a closing performance and her blowing everyone away but I digress...

You know what? I am actually against the headcanon that RSA is filled with snooty, condescending, stuck up rich kids with a holier-than-thou attitude - I'm under the firm belief that the RSA students are actual sweethearts who are kind and caring and aren't the type of people who would inflict trauma on an innocent magicless teenager. The only reason why I don't want Yuu to transfer to RSA is because they'd have to leave Ace and Deuce behind (as well as the Ramshackle ghosts) and those boys are literally everything to me so I like to think that Yuu likes to go to RSA like once a week or something to spend time with people who don't try to manipulate or mistreat them.

I do have a lot more things to say but my brain has gone to mush and I can't think of anything so here

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst yuu #asks

[ungrateful-cyborg]

On Minfilia

When you take Minfilia at face value, she’s honestly a good character. And her writing is consistent enough that I can’t completely say that the way the community reacted to her was due to it but at the same time... it kinda is, in my opinion, and most of the arguments given to “hate on her” by people are mis-attributed griefs with the storytelling itself or the gameplay.

(The way some choose to mis-attribute it speak more of those people than of the story or devs, though.)

To me, Minfilia is a just and kind woman, if a bit politically naive, who tries her hardest to fill in the shoes of Louisoix when it’s very much not what she signed up for in creating the Path of the Twelve. It’s a hell of a role to take on at 22 (time of the Calamity, since she’s 27 in ARR) and she did an admirable job with it. You can understand why those who’ve known her for a long time feel like she’s incredible, given the facts.

But if you’re not a Legacy player, you don’t know those stakes, you don’t know her, and she doesn’t know your character either (she recognizes Legacy WoLs from what I've gathered).

So your actual introduction to Minfilia goes like this: you get told by Momodi that a secret organization is interested in hiring you and to go to Vesper Bay. You go there and speak to Tataru.

A summary in two screenshots:

The named Scion depends on where you started: Thancred for Ul'dah, Y'shtola for Limsa, Yda and Papalymo for Gridania. It's not Minfilia who recruits you, it's them. She just gets to make it official because she's the boss and got the last word.

And not only that but you've traveled to the town, then get to pass three doors (and two loading screens) in total before meeting her: to enter the building, to go to the basement and, finally, to enter her office where she's talking to the main Scions.

Which seems entirely trivial but I feel like it create a pre-existing distance before you even get to meet Minfilia.

In the Solar, she introduces herself, then immediately puts some distance between you and her by walking behind her desk—ironically while telling you that you're amongst friends—and starts her speech about the Scions, the Echo, the Primals and the fact that your Echo is especially strong. A speech she ends with this (notice the crossed arms—distance, again):

The next cutscene is about the perks of the job, settling once and for all that your relationship with her, even though she calls you friend, is transactional and hierarchical.

Which is fine, I'm not complaining. But she's our boss, which sets her apart from every other character in the story, Scions included.

The next hours are literally spent executing her orders, going back and forth between Vesper Bay and wherever she sends you (and we didn't have the aetheryte tickets until patch 5.3) until she gets abducted.

We meet quite a lot of NPCs who tell us that she's a great diplomat (something we didn't get to see so far since she doesn't accompany us on our diplomatic mission to talk to the Sylphs about Ramuh) and talented to bring people together (which is probably true but always happens off screen). We don't get to see it until well after they made her go from our boss to a damsel in distress we need to save.

To quote Erenville: first impressions last.

Especially when the story doesn't give you opportunities to change it for hours of gaming time.

She's not as passive as people tend to remember, but they botched her introduction to non-legacy players, in my opinion.

So I can't say it's entirely fair to pretend there's no reason to dislike her, or at least to not care much about her. There are other characters who play a similar role to her up to a point: the Exarch for example. But the Exarch goes, literally, outside to meet with us. We get to see him deal with Ranjit and the threat of Eulmore. By the time he needs saving, we've seen what he can do, even discounting his help in the first dungeon. I don't think he would have received such a warm reception if he'd just been waiting for us passively in the Ocular for the first half of Shadowbringers.

It's worth mentioning that the writers were working on the 1.X patches at the same time they were writing ARR, though. And to me, it feels like they either forgot or didn't care that new players wouldn't have a pre-existing rapport with Minfilia.

After all, Louisoix tells her in one of the short stories to wait for "one who bears the light". When we meet her in the Solar, we doom her: her role was to serve as a bridge between 1.0 and 2.0. To wait for us.

And we're here now.

(I don't think they meant to keep her around, even without the general disliking of her that players had—and that's probably why the twins were here from the start.)

#FFXIV #FFXIV meta #Minfilia Warde

[duckapus]

Horror Comedy AU where Ash Ketchum is an eldritch abomination spawned from an Unfathomable Void, but is still his usual self.

Basically, Delia was an Interpol Agent back in the day with luck just as strange as Ash's, and on her Last Job she got captured by a doomsday cult that was trying to summon a dark god equal to Arceus Itself and bring about the apocalypse. This doesn't work out, both because Delia's Aura awakens and messes with the ritual (I always prefer to think that Ash's weird ambiguous connection to Sir Aaron comes his mom's side even if in most universes she doesn't have a usable amount of Aura), and because the Void God they're trying to awaken helped Arceus create the world in the first place (and the two of Them kind of have a thing going on) so It wouldn't have helped them destroy it even if the ritual had worked.

Instead they only get a "small" fragment of Void Stuff that mixes with some of Delia's Aura to become a living mass of Darkness covered in writhing tendrils and glowing blue eyes that absorbs all the cultists, knocks out every Pokemon in the room, frees Delia, and shrinks down into the form of a human baby. Delia, being a Ketchum and a major character in a crack fic, promptly decides "my baby now" (to be fair she's not exactly wrong?) and leaves Interpol to reopen her late grandmother's old diner in Palette Town. She was planning to do that anyway even before ending up with a monster baby so it works out I guess.

Meanwhile, Giratina actually noticed the massive spike of Void that was Ash's birth and since the whole issue got resolved so quickly it takes a couple months for her to find where her new half sibling ended up (you read that right. She's the god of symmetry, Light and Dark are included in that, so Arceus and Void God both created her. Also I'm using she/her for Giratina because immortal genderless embodiments of universal concepts can use whatever pronouns they want), and when she does she offers to help him learn how to use his void powers...well, mostly. See, in this version of the Pokemon Universe not all Legendary Pokemon are gods and there are gods who aren't Legendaries, and the ones that are both tend to lean towards one or the other, so Giratina who's more Pokemon-leaning and only half-void functions very differently from Ash who isn't Pokemon at all and almost fully void, so there's some things she just can't help with.

Still, the fact that she's offering to help at all is a big relief for Delia who is doing great so far but would probably be in over her head raising what's essentially a Horror Movie Monster on her own, so Giratina makes semi-regular visits over the years both to help with powers and just to bond with her new little brother (and new mom because there is no way Delia Ketchum doesn't win her over). Also, absolutely no attempt is made to hide Ash's true nature both because I find it funny and because the Pokemon World is already weird enough that Palette Town having a baby demon just living there barely registers as noteworthy.

As far as Ash's childhood goes, it mostly follows the same beats as canon, though there are obviously some weird things that pop up. For one thing, one of his powers is that he can understand any language, including Pokemon. And, because they're sensitive to this sort of thing Pokemon can usually tell that he isn't human even without him using his more obvious powers, and that makes most wild Pokemon more receptive to him than usual.

Except birds. Birds really don't like him for some reason.

Also he turns out to have healing powers, which he finds out during that scene with Serena. Basically, he makes the cloth he ties her injury with out of some of the Void Stuff that makes up his true form, and by the time they get to Professor Oak both the cloth and the injury are gone. There are, however, side-effects, which Serena only finds out about after she moves to Kalos and Ash only finds out about years later when he saves Charmander. (I'll get to that later)

On to the first day of his Journey, things only go slightly more smoothly thanks to Ash and Pikachu being able to communicate properly, and they still get chased by every Spearow on Route 1 because all of them are trying to "Destroy the Void Spawn!" This means they still fall off the waterfall and get fished up by Misty, who gets the Full Horror Experience because after All That Shit Ash is worn out which makes him kind of Melty. And, well, Pikachu is injured, the Spearow are still coming, he can't maintain a coherent enough form to keep going on his own, and this is Season 1 Ash who can be kind of an impulsive jerk sometimes at what would normally be the bike stealing scene, so he kind of...possesses Misty and Books It.

And since this isn't a power he's ever used before and he's using it in a high-stress situation while injured, his control isn't the best, so she catches a glimpse of the Unknowable Truths of the Void, and that combined with her being there for the Biggest Thundershock Ever makes her a little...fanatical about Ash's whole Eldritch God Thing. They're still friends first and foremost and still develop something similar to their usual dynamic but the fanaticism is there, especially at the beginning. At least she's not worried about the bike this time?

Also when Ho-oh shows up he kind of visibly stumbles in midair because he was not expecting the Chosen One to be that! This is why we don't let the local Mew be the only one doing check-ins.

Anyway, Brock and Team Rocket are still their usual selves, apart from Team Rocket deciding to do research into how to fight demons so they'll actually stand a chance at stealing Pikachu so now they've got a Nacli (because salt) and a bit of an Exorcist Schtick going on.

The Charmander Incident goes a bit differently, because they just barely don't make it in time and Ash basically tells the universe NO and brings him back, which is how he finds out that his healing powers have side-effects because this time those effects are immediate. When Charmander's tail flame relights it's somehow black, he has what seems to be a new Ability that makes all his Fire-Type moves also do Ghost-Type damage, and as time goes on his scales darken until he has Shiny Charizard's color scheme. This goes further when he evolves, because he has some clear differences from a normal Charmeleon beyond just his colors, and he seems to now actually be part Ghost.

I also had some ideas for later on, like May being full of Ghosts because she's easy to get into but extremely hard to get out of or control, and Dawn being Akari who ended up as a Hisuian Zoroark and got back to the present the long way, but for now this is what I've got.

#pokemon anime #ash ketchum #horror #horror comedy #eldritch abomination #delia ketchum #giratina #arceus #the void #pokemon serena #professor oak #ash's pikachu #spearow #misty waterflower #ho-oh #brock slate #team rocket #team rocket trio #nacli #ash's charmander #may maple #pokemon dawn #pokemon akari #hisuian zoroark #i just thought having ash be an eldritch abomination but still fundamentally ash would be funny #this gets kind of dark but in a way that's usually played for laughs #if you're wondering how the trio got a nacli when they likely don't have a way to get to paldea #remember that online trading exists

[exitpursuedbyavulcan]

The Silver Dragon (7/?)

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x Original Female Character

Word Count: 3867

Story Summary: Lady Arianwyn Targaryen, the Lady of Runestone, was seeded by her father, the Rogue Prince Daemon Targaryen, in an act of unbridled hatred, and borne of her mother, the late Lady Rhea Royce, as a desperate grasp at revenge.

Ignored by her father, and alone following the death of her mother, she is raised in King’s Landing alongside her cousin, Prince Aemond Targaryen. As they grow, the two find themselves indelibly bonded. But their lives are far from the fairy tales they read, and as tensions in the family rise, they find their paths may diverge.

Will they be pulled apart when the dragons dance?

Chapter Summary: After overhearing a conversation between Prince Daemon and Corlys Velaryon at dinner, Aemond recruits Arianwyn to help him achieve a lifelong dream.

Warnings: None.

Series Masterlist

Author’s Note: I told y'all this would be long!

Taglist: @thelittleswanao3, @trap-house-homiecide

The Beach

The dining room at High Tide seemed warmer that evening, more inviting. Before, Arianwyn had only noticed the imposing pointed spires of the chairs and how the ashy wood of the table seemed to enhance the cold stone of the walls – a coldness reflected in her father’s eyes.

Now, as Arianwyn entered the room along with the Queen and Helaena, warm yellow candlelight filled the room, along with the voices of the gathered crowd. Having spent their tears at the funeral and subsequent reception earlier in the day, the family had moved on to cautious happiness. They still held each other for comfort – whether through embraces, held hands, or arms around shoulders – but rather than sharing their woes, they instead told stories of joy.

As she moved through the crowd, Arianwyn heard tale after tale of Lady Laena. Of her prowess as a dragonrider, claiming Vhagar, the largest dragon in the world, when she was only thirteen. Of how she had skillfully maneuvered the massive beast in careful dances with Caraxes, awing the royalty and nobility of Pentos. She heard of Laena’s warmth and grace, how she charmed everyone she met within mere moments. She heard of her deep love for her daughters, and how in her final days, she had begged Daemon to let them return to Westeros to raise the girls – and their unborn child – in their true home, among family.

How such a woman not only married but seemingly truly loved Daemon was beyond Arianwyn’s understanding.  

Still, Arianwyn listened with great interest to the stories of her late stepmother until the party was finally called to eat. Thankfully, Arianwyn was placed on the opposite end of the table as her father. The entire Velaryon family – incAluding, to the surprise of many, Princess Rhaenyra and her children – took the seats surrounding the head of the table, where Lord Corlys himself sat. For any other Lord, the consequences would have been severe for setting the King and his party so far down the table, but Viserys had always given the Sea Snake an unusual amount of grace.

            Arianwyn was comfortably seated at the opposite end of the table, among those she considered her own: the King and Queen, Aemond and Helaena, and even Aegon and Otto Hightower. If she focused enough on the conversation surrounding her, she could almost forget anyone else was there.

            Nevertheless, whenever she slipped into that sense of security and belonging, she was inevitably torn back to reality by Daemon laughing at the other end of the table. Arianwyn quickly decided that it was her least favorite sound in the world.

It was after one particularly infuriating bout of laughter from Daemon toward the end of the meal, as someone at his end of the table was telling a gruesome war story, that Aemond reached out to place his hand on Arianwyn’s wrist.

He had not seen her since the reception that afternoon. Nor had his mother told him anything about the meeting, but from the hardened look on Arianwyn’s face and the slight tinge of red around the rims of her grey eyes, he knew it had not gone well.

She froze at his touch, turning to look at him for the first time that evening.

He offered her a weak smile, but when she did not return it, his face swiftly fell into concern. “What did he say to you, Aria?”

“Not much,” she grimaced through her answer, dragging her fork through what remained of the pale pink frosting that had covered her dessert. “Nothing kind.”

Aemond dropped his hand. “I’m sorry,” was all he could think to say. His own father had not shown much interest in his younger children since the birth of Rhaenyra’s sons, but he still knew his father did love him. He could not imagine living without a father for so long only to have him be unkind when he finally showed his face.

He looked down at his own dessert, a small cake flavored with rich butter and vanilla and shaped to resemble a sea star. He had already eaten one of the five “legs” but now felt himself losing his appetite. So Aemond reached across Arianwyn’s plate to grab her fork and carefully transferred the cake from his plate to hers with both hands.

“Here,” he said. “You really liked yours, so finish mine.”

She did smile back at him then – she had never been so sad that cake could not cheer her. As she ate, Aemond found himself staring at her. She looked different tonight. There was a hard set to her eyes that had not been there before. It made her look older, stronger, and even more beautiful. As the thought crossed his mind, he turned sharply away. When had she become beautiful?

“How long do you think Vhagar will remain on my beach, Daemon?” Corlys asked his son-in-law. “Her presence here has started to unsettle my men. Especially with no rider to control her.”

Vhagar.Laena’s dragon – the oldest and largest in the world – was still here?

“I imagine she’ll depart with us tomorrow,” Daemon answered. “She followed us dutifully from Essos, so I imagine she’ll fly with us wherever we head next.” He smiled proudly as he lifted his cup towards his youngest daughter. “Our hope is that Rhaena will claim her, once she’s had some time to train with the Dragonkeepers.”

Aemond’s pulse quickened. Not only was the most fearsome dragon in the world here, on Driftmark, but she remained unclaimed. Adrenaline raced through his veins, but he forced his face to remain passive, as if he hadn’t just heard the answer to years of prayer.

He spent the remainder of dessert formulating a careful plan. When at last, their host stood from the table and began to invite his guests to the library for drinks, Aemond grasped Arianwyn’s hand with all his might.

“What is it?” she asked.

Aemond looked deep into her steely eyes, hoping that his voice carried enough weight in his voice to show her how serious he was. “After we’re sent to our rooms, wait half an hour, then meet me in the hall. There’s something I must do, and I need your help. Promise?”

For a few heart-pounding moments, she just stared at him, bewildered. But then she turned her head, examining him as if seeing his face for the first time. With a mischievous smile, she nodded. “I’ll be there.”

Aemond thanked all the gods –old and new – that Aegon was finally old enough to join the adults for drinks. He could not have stood his brother’s prodding and teasing as he tore through the books on the Velaryons and Driftmark that he had brought with him to pass the time on the ship. Nor did he trust that Aegon would have stood by while he snuck out of their shared quarters. If he was lucky, his brother would be so drunk that he would not find his way back until the morning.

He only had to wait in the hallway for a few moments before he saw the door to the girl’s quarters crack open. Ever cautious, Arianwyn glanced warily around the corridor before she emerged. She wore the heavy black cloak from her riding leathers, the thick material sweeping along the floor as she approached Aemond.

“I’m here,” she whispered. “What is this about?”

Aemond unrolled a piece of parchment he had tucked in his belt. On it was a crudely drawn map of Driftmark, with a large “X” marked just south of the castle. He held the map out, indicating the marked area with his thumb.

“There are only a few areas of beach large enough for Vhagar,” he said, excitement ringing in his voice. “I thought that since –”

“Vhagar?” Arianwyn exclaimed, looking up from the map to stare at her cousin incredulously. “Why would you want to find…?” Realization dawned on her face, followed immediately by an overwhelming dread. When he had asked that she meet him, she thought they would be sneaking into Lord Corlys’ private study to find a rare book, notthis. “Aemond, you cannot possibly mean to claim her!”

He sighed, lowering the map. A deeply pained desperation painted his face. “There are no more dragons in the world, Aria. If I cannot claim her, then I shall never be a dragonrider.”

“But you don’t know that for sure! Syrax and Dreamfyre could bring forth new eggs. And there are reports of wild dragons every year!” She pulled her cloak tightly around her as she pleaded with Aemond, the chill of fear creeping through her.

But Aemond only scoffed. “Rhaenyra will keep Syrax’s eggs for her own family. And any eggs from Dreamfyre would be set aside for Aegon and Helaena’s heirs.” He stepped toward Arianwyn, forcing her attention to his face. “Besides, do you really think I have a better chance of finding and taming a wild dragon than I do claiming Vhagar? She has been ridden by a Targaryen for nearlytwo hundred years.”

Arianwyn could not deny his logic, nor the determination on his face. She had never seen him so sure of anything. But she had seen the aftermath of his failed attempts at claiming other dragons – weaker dragons. She could not bear to see what Vhagar might do should she reject him.

“What about Baela?” she asked. “Vhagar was her mother’s. Surely she must have hopes to claim her?”

Aemond blinked as something like regret passed over his face, but it soon vanished, replaced by a resolute fire that set his violet eyes ablaze. His voice was cool and steady as he spoke, “If Baela is meant to be Vhagar’s rider, then she will not accept me.”

That was precisely Arianwyn’s fear. But as he held her gaze, unwavering, she knew that there was nothing she could say to dissuade him. “If I refuse you, and remain here, you will still go?”

“I don’t want to,” he said, “but yes. Ineeddo this. I have no other choice.”

Arianwyn nodded, attempting to calm her own nerves. “Very well. Then you will not be alone.”

Aemond, in the little time he had to prepare, had made an excellent plan, though Arianwyn was loathe to admit it.

 His map, which he had copied from the navigator aboard the King’s ship, indeed showed that there were only a small number of beaches on the island that would fit a beast as large as Vhagar. Only one was close to the castle. And, as Aemond reasoned, if the she-dragon was loyal enough to the memory of Lady Laena to follow her family across the Narrow Sea, she would want to stay close to them at High Tide.

So, Aemond and Arianwyn ventured through the dark corridors of the castle. They moved in complete silence, relying only on the tilt of a head or the subtle movement of their eyes to signal their route. Keeping to the shadows Aemond knew so well to avoid detection, they made their way to the Sea Gate, a covert escape route explicitly built for the Velaryon family in case of invasion.

The path led to a narrow stairway descending a steep cliff. Arianwyn’s first instinct was to call for Emrys to fly them down. But sensing her intentions, Aemond took her hand and squeezed to stop her. He knew that to do so would alert all those in the castle that something was awry. Nothing could jeopardize what he was about to do.

Walking hand in hand for balance, the two made their way down the stairs to the uneven rocks of the beach below. Though they were no longer at risk of falling, Aemond still held Arianwyn’s hand in his own. Curiously amused by his newfound confidence, she did not move to let go. Instead, she allowed him to take the lead, pulling her behind him as they made their way across the beach.

Rock gave way to loose sand the further they strode from the castle, slowing their progress. Tall, dry grasses and large patches of scrub were their only relief from the difficult terrain. With no sun in the sky, it was hard to tell exactly how long they walked on the beach.

Whether it was mere minutes or long hours, Arianwyn did not care. Though her heart pounded, anticipating the worn bronze scales of Vhagar over every dune they climbed, this was still the most peace she had since arriving on this gods-forsaken island.

She had only begun contemplating why she didn’t feel as afraid as she should when Aemond gave another sharp squeeze to her hand, pulling them both down to crouch beneath the crest of a large dune. Arianwyn shivered when he released her hand, pointing just ahead of them.

Vhagar.

Though she had long heard stories of the three great dragons that her ancestors had used to claim Westeros, nothing could have prepared her for the sheersizeof the ancient she-dragon.

If Emrys was large enough to carry two riders, Vhagar could hold an entire army. Her skull alone was larger than most of the dragons Arianwyn had seen, and just one of her massive, leathery wings – even folded in as she slept – was longer than Emrys’ wingspan thrice over.

As she beheld the beast, Arianwyn couldn’t help by wonder why Aegon and his sisters had stopped with the Seven Kingdoms. With dragons like this, they could have conquered the entire world.

She was broken from her thoughts when Aemond began to raise himself from the ground, his fists clenched. On instinct, she reached out to grab his ankle. He turned, looking down at her with a questioning gaze.

Though her heart was nearly bursting with things she wanted to say, all she managed to choke out was “Please.”

There were many requests contained in that one simple word.

Please. Do not fail, for I long to see you fly.

Please. Be careful, for I do not want to see you hurt.

Please. Do not go, for I cannot bear to live without you.

She could only hope that her voice was able to express it all before releasing his leg. Aemond smiled down at her. Then, he was gone.

Arianwyn could only watch as he made his way across the sand toward the sleeping beast. Her heart thundered in her chest, drowning out the sounds of the wind and sea.

Aemond approached slowly, though his steps were heavy in the coarse sand. Still, Vhagar did not wake. Even when the birds resting on her back flew away as the boy grew ever closer, the great dragon remained asleep.

He stopped, some twenty feet from her side, to gaze upon her saddle. It was made of a well-aged brown leather, and held on by countless ropes around the dragon’s chest, forming a makeshift ladder upon her massive side. His hands and feet itched to climb it – to mount the fearsome beast.

But he remembered his lessons with the Dragonkeepers well. Without a dragon of his own to distract him, for years he had little to focus on but the words of the monks. He would not mount her yet. Not until she was his, and only his.

Resuming his approach, he reached out his arm, adrenaline tingling through his fingers in anticipation. He slipped past one of the massive ropes, at last laying his hand on her scaly hide. It was not as smooth as Emrys’; each scale was rough and weathered – though whether by age or battle, Aemond did not know.

He was ripped from his thoughts when he heard a snapping behind him and looked over to see an orange eye, wider than a plate, staring at him. He stepped back as the great dragon lifted her head, nostrils flaring and teeth bared. Those golden eyes narrowed as she assessed the small creature before her.

Aemond knew she was relying most on a sense which he could not see. It was one of the first things the Dragonkeepers taught to young riders. Beyond their physical senses, dragons had the mysterious ability to gaze deep into a person’s soul, revealing their true nature and intentions. To fully bond with a dragon, an aspiring rider had to first acknowledge what the dragon saw.

Look at me, Aemond thought.See me for all that I am. I am the second-born son of Viserys Targaryen, and a Prince of the Realm. I am the descendant of your first rider, Visenya Targaryen, with whom you conquered this land. I am kin to Laena Velaryon, whom you so recently lost. I am the Blood of the Dragon, and I am here to claim you.

With a single, slow blink, Vhagar turned away.

Taking the gesture as an invitation, Aemond reached once more for the ladder.

But Vhagar whipped her head back to him, and released a low, rumbling roar. On her hill, Arianwyn could only watch and pray as the she-dragon opened her jaws and the night was illuminated by the fire churning in the back of her throat.

“Dohaerās!” Aemond shouted, raising a hand as he refused to shrink back. “Dohaerās, Vhagar! Lykirī! Lykirī!”Obey. Obey me and stay calm.

Though her fire still burned, Vhagar let it cool slightly as she again looked down at the boy in front of her.

His breath shaking, Aemond again reached out with his thoughts for the she-dragon, this time admitting to her the truth he had never given voice to before.

Look at me. See me for all that I am. I am a second son; I will never ascend a throne, and I will never wear a crown. I shall never claim glory as Visenya did, nor be as fierce and well-loved as Laena. Though I may ride you into battle, I will never conquer a land as you did with Balerion and Meraxes. When your legend is told, I shall be counted least among those who were blessed to ride you. I am fearful, and I am unsure. But I am the Blood of the Dragon. I am a true-born Targaryen Prince.

I am Aemond Targaryen, and I mean to claim you.

The shrieking roar faded in Vhagar’s throat, along with her fire. She brought her snout ever closer to the young Prince’s outstretched hand, until her warm scales rested against his palm.

As the contact was made, a surge ran throughout Aemond’s blood, warming him to his very bones. As the pupils narrowed in Vhagar’s orange eyes, he could almost hear a rumbling voice in the back of his mind.

I see you, Aemond Targaryen. And I claim you.

Arianwyn let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding as she watched Aemond at last grasp the ropes that hung on Vhagar’s side and climb into the saddle. She felt his joy reflected in her own face as he held the reins and commanded the Queen of Dragons herself.

“Sōvēs!” He shouted.Fly. “Dohaerās, Vhagar! Sōvēs!”

The earth itself seemed to shake as the dragon pulled herself up from where she had rested. She let out a mighty roar, nearly throwing Aemond and she shook the sand from her hide. But he hung on, gripping the horns of the saddle with all his might as he was at last carried into the skies.

Vhagar roared again, the sound almost like laughter. She looked back towards the boy in the saddle, as if to say “Hold on, little Prince. Let me show you how Laena grew to be so fierce.” The great bronze dragon climber higher and higher in the air, until the castle of High Tide looked a mere speck on the ground below.

Then, she dove.

The ground came faster and faster the closer they got, and Aemond realized with a jolt of fear that Vhagar was aimed directly at the hill were Arianwyn still crouched. Only moments before their impact, he gathered the reins and pulled with all his might. With an agility that far outmatched her size, Vhagar surged up at the last second to avoid disaster. All Arianwyn suffered was a light spray of sand as the end of Vhagar’s tail brushed over the dune.

Arianwyn at last stood as she watched the great dragon soar above her, graceful despite her massive size. Her heart soared in her chest as she heard Aemond’s screams of fear transform into whooping shouts of victory that echoed throughout the cliffs and waters of Driftmark. She had not felt joy like this since her own first flight on Emrys.

Vhagar continued out over the sea, an amused shriek escaping as she maneuvered through a flock of gulls. Eager to impress her new rider, she flew close to the surface of the water, tilting slightly to dip the tip of each wing under the surface before pulling up, a rain of her own creation falling from her back as she once more climbed toward the stars.

After a few more heart-pounding moments that seemed to Aemond to last both heartbeats and an eternity, he finally landed Vhagar back on the beach where they had left Arianwyn. He dismounted and walked to her head, running a hand over her snout as he whispered his gratitude in Valyrian. She let out a puff of hot air, warming him from the chill of the sky and mussing his already windblown hair. While affectionate, it was a gesture of dismissal. Vhagar was ready to resume her rest.

So Aemond patted her scales once more before running back up the dunes to meet Arianwyn. She stood atop the hill, hands clasped in front of her, entirely unprepared for the tight embrace he claimed her in, lifting her up and spinning her around the beach.

“Did you see, Aria?” he yelled, undeniable joy in his voice. “Did you see how she flew?”

Laughing as she slapped his back to be let down, Aria smiled through her words. “I saw! I saw it, Aemond! It was simply amazing.”

He beamed at her, cheeks flushed. “Let’s hurry back to the castle, I want to tell my mother straight away!” He retook her hand, running back across the beach as fast as he could.

They laughed the entire way, Aemond recounting his flight with all the dramatic flair he could muster, as if Arianwyn had not witnessed the whole thing. They did not quiet until they were back in the tunnel of the Sea Gate, and saw four figures running toward them.

It was their cousins – Jace, Luke, Baela, and Rhaena. They all stared at Aemond with a measure of surprise and fury. With the cold look in her eyes, Rhaena at last reminded Arianwyn of their father.

“It’s him,” Rhaena spat.

Aemond dropped Arianwyn’s hand, but did not slow his pace. He was a dragonrider now – the claimant to the largest dragon in the world. Say what they may, his cousins could harm him no longer.

With all the confidence of the world, he spoke: “It’s me.”

Next Chapter

#aemond targaryen #aemond #aemond one eye #aemond fanfic #aemond targaryen imagine #aemond targaryen fanfic #aemond x oc #house of the dragon aemond #house of the dragon #hotd aemond #hotd

[shepherds-of-haven]

I just played Chapter 8 and your worldbuilding was absolutely insanee, it's one of my favourite chapters so far. Could we also have Senua facts and lore, she was such a fascinating character.

Ah, that's so good to hear, I was hoping reception to Chapter 8 would be positive! 🥰 Thank you so much for your kind words!

As for Senua (I love her, she's a badass), I gave more details about here in the Q&A here, which I'll copy-paste below!

Could you tell us more about Senua? She's such a great character! I couldn't help but wonder when reading about her if she is, perchance, a distance ancestor of Red? (The irony in that would be amazing! Poor Red missing out on that adventure but actually being somewhat related to Senua? lol)

Yay, I'm so glad you liked her! I wondered if her character would be more divisive given all the shit she puts MC's party through, but I personally love her! XD Unfortunately, the "real" Senua never married or had children, so she's not related to Red! I imagine that she was the only child to commoner parents who didn't really have a strong Gift themselves (I'm getting the vibe that they were cloth merchants or something like that). Around the age of six, her unusually strong magic would have started manifesting itself, so after consulting with some local teachers, her parents decided to send her to the Mage academy Stavastre. Interestingly, I think she wouldn't have completed her education there, probably running away as a teen of seventeen before earning her graduation robes because she would have been frustrated by how stifling and traditional she felt the teaching style was; Senua was a pioneer and maverick even from a young age, and coupled with her enormous Gift, she would have insisted on experimenting with magic in ways that would have made her instructors extremely uneasy or disapproving. So probably in a fit of pique after failing another class or something like that, she ran off in a "fuck the system" rebel move and probably would have traveled around for a while, doing whatever the hell she wanted. I could see her working as a blacksmith's apprentice, a sailor on a merchant barge, a keeper at a menagerie--whatever captured her fancy! She was enormously inquisitive and her mind was hungry for everything: experiences, knowledge, meeting people, new sights and sounds, what have you. 

Eventually, however, she would have settled a bit more in temperament and realized that her true calling lay with magic. Returning to Stavastre wouldn't have been an option (she was also quite hardheaded and prideful), but hearing about Archmage Tangriel and the things that Saenreth was pioneering (they would have been on the absolute frontier of magic), she would have been eager to join people she perceived to be more like herself (innovative, fearless, radical, revolutionary) and would have joined the Crystal Tournament in order to secure her entrance. Notably, she wouldn't have been part of an official delegation the same way the Adepts from other schools were, which would have made them treat her a bit coolly (this gets translated into how MC and their group feel as outsiders during their Crystal Tournament); if Senua was strong enough to enter the tournament essentially on her own and without the backing of a school, the others would have considered her a threat or would have looked down on her for being so unconventional. But she would have swept the competition, and you know the rest from there!

After she left Saenreth, I'm not sure what happened to Senua. If you find Archmage Tangriel's journal at the bottom of the Cave of Many Mouths, he includes a page addressing her and voices deep regrets over sending her away. A few years after she leaves, of course, is when he enters the reclusive part of his life and ultimately withdraws from the teaching and public life entirely, living in his tower with mostly only the companionship of his spirits and a few apprentices. The doors of Saenreth ultimately closed as a school, and it was some time later that the Archmage--in his experiments to perfect a method of translocation that didn't require you to have been to your destination before--vanished entirely. 

As for Senua... we know she went to Armalenthieh, and it's my guess that she became an instructor there, with all the connections and resources and recommendations and accolades Tangriel would have provided her with. But probably the scandal of their rumored affair would have caught up with her even there, and she probably wouldn't have fit in as well as she could have among the staff there anyway, preferring to be left to her own devices and teaching only because it was required of her to keep her position. Although still strong-minded, she would have become more and more solitary as time went on, until one day someone discovered that her office was empty and that Senua had simply... left. The history books don't say what happened to her after that!

#Shepherds of Haven #Senua #chapter 8 #spoilers #heavy #alpha build #alpha preview

[moonlightsapphic]

Y'all, I find the reception of XO, Kitty so dissapointing.

TL; DR: The underlying homophobia/biphobia/lesbophobia/misoginy towards Yuri as potential and viable endgame which I don't think would have happened if she were yet another hot guy.

The straight-baiting marketing of this show was absolutely genius and I loved that Jenny Han, who writes the straightest central romances to ever romance (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, The Summer I Turned Pretty), actually initiated a series with such visibly queer storylines and then literally jumped into this sort-of-interracial, sapphic romance centered around a bi+ character. I could see Han trying to be more inclusive in her past on-screen works, but this was incredible.

No you don't understand. There was this point midway through the show where I thought I was in a fever dream and watching wishful fanmade content because I couldn't believe an IRL Netflix show could actually give us this. My mind was blown.

So you'll understand that I was fully bamboozled to see that social media is swamped with Min-ho fangirls pretending like Yuri doesn't even exist. I love Min-ho too, but am I the only one who also saw so many signs that point to a future Yuri x Kitty?

First, for the narrative satisfaction of their moms being best friends in the past!

... and to complete Kitty's coming of age! Kitty, growing up in the cisheteronormative Song-Covey household, made the oversight of initially operating under the assumption that she exclusively likes boys and that she has mastered the art of relationships. That's already been debunked partway by her breakup with her first boyfriend who was supposed to be endgame, and is only going to be sealed further if she ends up with a girl in a long-term relationship. (And no, of course she doesn't have to "end up" with a girl for her queer identity to be valid, but I think it just makes the most narrative sense to have that unfold in the story as her worldview alters.)

Here I present to you: my pet peeves in the XO, Kitty fandom

hyping up parallels between Peter x LJ and Minho x Kitty scenes claiming that this means Minho x Kitty may be endgame. They literally have to reach and dig for those because the most parallels are between Peter x LJ and Yuri x Kitty, right from the scene that they bumped into each other! Kitty has also shown zero romantic interest in Minho so far, as opposed to her very keen interest in Yuri.

People finally addressing the elephant in the room like "Ugh, Yuri is probably going to be endgame. 🙄 I want Minho instead!!" like it's such a disappointing or borderline gross outcome. Yuri is a much more intense enemies-to-lovers character than Minho. She is beautiful, kind, and fun with a little bit of bite, everything that Minho is plus Kitty is falling for her hard.

Being real here—If you think Yuri is a boring love interest or kind of a b*tch while Minho is simply a fun old enemies-to-lovers character, I am begging you to check your biases. You, a straight woman, may only see hostile fictional women as competitiion and hostile fictional men as ... well, kinda hot. However, Kitty is bi+ and she could see them both as viable romantic interests, equally. Yes, Yuri has done more malicious things than Minho, but then again she has had a harder time this academic year than Minho. You are obviously still allowed to like Minho better, as long as you're not dismissing the struggles of and flattening a strong female character. Misoginy and homophobia make an ugly combo, y'all. Trust me, you don't want any part in that.

(Additional unpopular opinion: I'm going to get crucified for this but I genuinely think Kitty is too boring for Minho in the same way that Dae was too boring for Kitty. He seems to be into her only from the Halo Effect. Minho is my child and I squeal whenever he's on screen and I hope to see him finding someone actually fun!)

Saying that Kitty’s crush on Yuri was just a token plot point with no real basis or depth. While there is some unrealistic family drama in the show, it's all still credible. Fiction is supposed to bring in imaginative elements and try to keep things grounded. Regardless, I'm never going to be the person who says that a wild and shocking bi- or gay-awakening is unrealistic. As a queer person, let me tell you that it is just as wild and confusinh for us IRL.

Besides, many cishet people actually do not care if (or is hateful when) the MC is bi, that I doubt how much it “helps” with marketing. (That's why queerbaiting exists, folks.) Also, have you seen Kitty in TATBILB? That's a bi preteen right there if I've ever seen one.

"Stop trying to invalidate other people's ships!" I will say this once: I don't care if you ship Kitty with Min-ho, or Dae, or anyone else that's not Yuri. I DON'T CARE! Frankly, good for you because straight ships have better luck out there anyway, ya know? I am simply begging you to not reduce a queer person's nuanced concerns about dismissal of sapphic fictional characters to petty fandom arguments. Read the room, guys. Please.

This is such a crucial show to many of us. I just want y'all to understand that this is just a little bigger than your celebrity crush on a hot guy whose character you're rooting for. We never, ever get contemporary slice-of-life romcom sapphic rep (and Netflix is notorious for cancelling sapphic shows, too). Please don't be dismissive of a perfectly good possible ending! We want to give Netflix every reason to renew this show, and give Han every reason to allow Kitty to flourish just the way she plans to! (This is me begging y'all to not influence the writers into swerving last-minute towards a sloppy Minho endgame, though I do trust her better than that.)

I hope that Netflix renews the show, even if it's through the excitement of straight people in denial LMAO. And then I hope it treats us with a glorious sapphic ending.*

*(Aaaand I can already imagine the cishet women in the audience complaining online about what a terrible person Kitty is for leading Min-ho on and then dumping him, and how she and Yuri are both awful and totally deserve each other. Music to my ears.)

#xo kitty #kitty song covey #min ho x kitty #min ho #gay #late to the party but whatever #i am beginning to see the sapphic edits now that we're a few weeks in but you guys should've seen the minho hype that first week #love him but did not ask to be whammed with minho x reader content all over my dash like #it made me question whether we even watched the same show #i was happy about it all anyway cause like love the man except for the swarm of minho and dae shippers that came @ me for my yuri hype #guys. the show was gay #have you SEEN kitty she is a disaster bisexual #get over it #anyway love yall keep watching ur lil gay shows #that's the end of my midnight rant #bi #queer #wlw #sapphic #lesbian #lgbtq+ #girls who love girls #pansexual #lgbt #yuri #girls love #gl #kitty x yuri #netflix xo kitty #bisexual

[drabbles-mc]

Far From Over (5)

Gilly Lopez x OC Josephine Costa

Chapter Index

Warnings: 18+, language, smoking

Word Count: 3.4k

A/N: nothing like the release of a breakup album to make me bring back my own personal favorite pair of exes 😂 it's been 500000 years since i last updated but enjoy this little chapter nonetheless! also enjoy a little guest feature from a little side character because i was thinking about her 😌 xo

Taglist now located at the bottom of the fic because tumblr has Formatting Fuckery going on but you can always comment/message if you want to be added to any of my taglists!

She looked up when she heard the door chime upon being opened. The breath she was taking in preparation for her standard greeting to people, asking them who they were here to see and if they had an appointment, died on her tongue when she saw who it was that had walked in. Bishop and Taza never had appointments on the books to see Antonia, but Josie had figured out quickly that they weren’t the people who got turned away because of something like that. It was uncomfortable at first but it didn’t make her stomach tighten anymore like it used to.

Her hand was already reaching for the phone by the time they were standing on the other side of her desk. She was able to get out a quick, “Hey guys,” before Antonia answered on the other end of the line and she switched tracks. “Hey, yeah, Bishop is here for you. Okay. Thanks.” Setting the phone back on the receiver she looked at them from the other side of the desk, having to look up just slightly from her seated position. “She’ll be out in a second.”

Bishop nodded but it was Taza that spoke up with a smile. “Appreciate it.”

It wasn’t any of her business, but she still ventured to ask, “Everything okay?”

The beat of hesitation that followed from all of them was just long enough for her to catch the differences in their facial expressions. Bishop’s face contorted into a pensive frown, like he was trying to figure out what her angle was in asking. The grin still on Taza’s face said that he knew that Josie was just being nosey because she could, because she had them more or less hostage until the mayor walked out to collect them. The look of slight surprise on Gilly’s face, however, had her wondering if he would be willing to give her any crumbs.

Bishop cleared his throat and shook his head. “All good—nothing you need to worry about.”

Josie smiled because she knew that she shouldn’t laugh. “Very comforting, thank you.”

Their conversation was interrupted by Peña’s shoes clacking against the floor. All four of them turned to look at her. The smile on her face was just enough to come across as professional, but Bishop knew her too well to be convinced that there was anything genuine about it. Josie had been working for the town just long enough to start figuring out the changes in the mayor’s posture and energy. Granted, in the current situation it didn’t take a pro to figure out that Antonia probably didn’t want to be dealing with whatever problems the MC was bringing to her doorstep this time.

Antonia took a breath, setting her shoulders back before she addressed them. “Something I can help you with?” she asked, voice tight but still professional.

The smirk on Bishop’s face was one that Josie wished she could slap off on her boss’s behalf as he said, “Yeah, you got a minute?”

Antonia lifted her eyebrows just slightly. “Nice of you to say that like a question, Obispo.” She motioned for them to follow her. “Come on.”

Silent but knowing looks were exchanged among the three men. Taza and Bishop started to follow Peña back towards her office but Gilly remained by the front desk with Josie. Once the three of them rounded the corner out of view, Gilly stepped up and leaned against the reception desk. His forearms were braced flat on top of it, one hand resting over the other.

Josie leaned back in her seat, a smile coming across her face as she looked up at him. “What super secret motorcycle business do they have to talk to Peña about today?”

Gilly chuckled and shook his head. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

Josie rolled her eyes with a grin as she toyed with the pen in her hand. “Actually I think if you told me then they would have to kill you.”

He laughed. “Yeah. That too.”

“Can I ask you something?” She paused and when she saw the amused look on Gilly’s face, she continued right on the way he knew she would no matter what he said in response to that. “Do they ask you to come with them to make you wait in the lobby while the grownups go and talk? Or do you ask to come along because you know I’ll be here waiting with you?”

He was shaking his head like she was asking something ridiculous, but the smile on his face was subverting it. “I don’t just—”

“Because I mean, I’m just saying, it’s not like you can weigh in on anything going on in there from out here. Unless you’ve got really good hearing.”

“I’m here just in case,” he said with a shrug.

Titling her head to the side, she mocked his shrug back at him. “Just in case what? Just in case Peña decides she’s into concealed carry now?”

That got Gilly to laugh in a way that he couldn’t hide. “You never know.”

Josie was laughing too as she said, “Yeah, that’s true. If Bishop was my ex-husband, I guess I’d be looking into that.”

He tried to stifle his laugh at that but wasn’t successful. “Damn, brutal.”

Her laughter faded into a hum. “I don’t hear you disagreeing, though.”

Gilly could’ve easily gone down the rabbit hole of that conversation, but he remembered where he was currently standing and stopped himself. Instead, he pedaled them both back to the original question that Josie had asked. “They don’t bother asking me anymore.”

Her brows met in confusion. “What?”

He nodded in the direction that Bishop and Taza had gone with Peña a few minutes before. “You asked if they ask me to come with them.” He shook his head. “They don’t bother asking anymore.”

Josie could feel her lips wanting to pull into a smile but she tried to fight it. “Why’s that?”

Gilly scoffed, gaze dropping to the woodgrain of the desk beneath his arms as he tried to keep his own facial expression under control. “’Cause they know I’ll fuckin’ come here—they don’t gotta ask.” He tried to say it casually but he knew that he didn’t quite come off that way.

She twirled the pen between her fingers as she nodded, feeling the traces of warmth creeping across her face. “They’re not worried that you’re out here fraternizing with the enemy when you tag along?”

The ease in her tone got him to meet her eyes again. “Didn’t realize you were the enemy,” he said with a laugh.

Leaning forward, she propped her elbows on the desk and clasped her hands, still holding her pen. “I just figured that was the general sentiment towards us here, that’s all,” she said sarcastically.

He laughed as he shook his head. “Trust me, you’re not the enemy we gotta worry about.”

“Oh, okay, so,” she unclasped her hands and pointed at him with her pen, a smirk growing across her face, “the fraternization is okay then. That’s what you’re saying.”

He gave a half-hearted roll of his eyes that didn’t stand a chance at being convincing with the grin that was on his face. It was hard to be convincing about anything when he realized how close they were now, each of them leaning farther than necessary from their respective sides of her desk. It’d take almost nothing for him to reach out and take her hands in his.

He fought the urge to do that as he said, “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Well, that works out nicely then, doesn’t it?”

Gilly opened his mouth to come back with something but before he could, the sound of Bishop clearing his throat as he approached with Taza and Antonia cut their conversation short. And even though neither Gilly nor Josie were technically doing anything wrong, they both recoiled from each other. Gilly stood up straight, and Josie situated herself back in her chair, not leaning so comfortably on the desk like she had been.

Bishop only looked at Josie for a brief moment before his focus landed on Gilly. “Good to go?”

He cleared his throat awkwardly as he nodded. “Yeah, yeah I’m good.”

There was a round of brief goodbyes, ones that never felt like they were being handled quite right. There were no clear compartments to put anyone in among them, which made exits a little odd to navigate. But it was over quickly and then the three of them were heading back out the same door they’d come in through. None of them turned to look back but both Josie and Peña watched them leave until they were out of sight.

When they were gone, Antonia turned and looked at Josie. Her expression was almost completely neutral, hard to piece apart. It made the unease in Josie’s stomach intensify more and more with each second that crept by.

She set her pen down on the desk before running her hand back through her hair. “I wasn’t—”

Peña held up her hand to stop her. She didn’t need an explanation. The reality was that maybe it would be better if Josie didn’t give her one. “I didn’t ask.”

“Yeah, but I know it looks like—”

“You can do what you want, Josephine. I’m your boss, not your mother. But I have to tell you—be smart. Be careful.”

Josie laughed nervously. “Thanks, but there’s, there’s really nothing going on.”

Antonia didn’t argue it one way or the other, simply nodding along. “Okay. Just keep that in mind, alright?”

When Josie gave her a nod in response, Antonia let it close out their conversation as she turned and started to head back to her office. Josie let out a quiet sigh of relief at that, dropping her face into her hands once she was out of sight. The only thing that got her to look up again was the sound of motorcycles flying past their building on the street.

The ringing of her desk phone pulled Josie back to the present against her will. She hadn’t even realized that her eyes were glued to the cellphone screen in front of her. The text from Peña was innocuous enough, just three sentences long, but three sentences was all it took to throw her right down memory lane whether she wanted to take that trip or not.

By the time she went to reach for the phone she’d already missed the call. She leaned back in her chair, cellphone still clutched tightly in her hand as she read the text again. “Heard through the grapevine that things have been rough there. Hope you’re well. If you ever want to talk you can call”

Josie didn’t even know what she was supposed to say to that. She didn’t know what she wanted to say to that. Peña had been gone from Santo Padre for months, and as much as Josie had hated to see her go, she completely understood it. She never pried more than she should when it came to whatever was happening with her and Bishop. She caught the overflow of it sometimes, especially after she had started dating Gilly, but Peña had always been the type to play things a little closer to the vest at work. It was the only way to stay somewhat safe and sane in the job. And even then, it clearly hadn’t been enough because she was gone now.

She typed out the starts to a few different sentences and ended up deleting them all because none of them felt right. Heaving out a deep sigh, she pushed her chair back away from her desk and stood up. She wound her way through the building until she walked out onto the steps. She quickly put one foot in front of the other until she was on the sidewalk right by the road. Pulling out her pack of cigarettes and her lighter, she sparked one up before hitting the call button at the top of the screen.

After a couple rings, there was a confused, “Hello?” greeting her from the other end of the line.

Josie chuckled, smoke creeping out past her lips as she did. “You should cut down whatever grapevines you’re still hearing things through. For your own sanity.”

It got Antonia to laugh, her tone easing. “I really don’t hear much anymore. I just,” there was a shred of a pause, “I had to call the bank about some stuff to finally close on the house out there.”

“Ohh, got it.”

“Yeah. You know how it is there. You’ll know everything even if you don’t want to.”

Josie hummed as she shook her head because she knew now more than ever just how right Antonia was. “I know how it is.” She pulled a drag off her cigarette. “You sold the house though?”

The sigh that Antonia let out sounded like one of relief. “Yes. Took long enough, but yes.”

“That’s good.”

“It is.” She paused. “How’ve you been, Josie?”

“Any chance you need an assistant at your new job?” she joked. She gave them both a beat to laugh before continuing. “I’m alright. It’s different without you here.”

There was a pause and Josie had to imagine that Antonia wanted to ask about what had been going on, with the town, with the club. How could she not wonder? But she didn’t ask. If Josie wasn’t going to offer it up, it was no longer her right to pry.

“That your nice way of saying better?” Antonia joked.

Josie laughed, shaking her head even though the woman on the other end of the line couldn’t see it. “No, no. If that was the case I would’ve just said better.”

“Nothing if not honest.” A beat passed. “Something going on?”

Josie let out a dry laugh. “It’s Santo Padre—there’s always something going on.”

Antonia didn’t let it derail the conversation. “Something going on with you, I mean.”

Josie took a deep breath. “Same shit. Sorry, if, um,” she tapped ash off the end of her cigarette, “me calling freaked you out. I saw your text and just figured, you know…”

“Don’t apologize. It’s good to hear from you.”

“Now who’s just being nice?” Josie joked.

Antonia laughed quietly. “Doesn’t mean it’s a lie, though.” She took a deep breath. “Look, I have to go. But really, I mean it, if you need—”

“I know. And, you know, thanks. But don’t worry about me or this place. Block the area code or something.”

“I’ll look into that. Stay safe, Josie.”

“Doing my best,” she said as she dropped her cigarette onto the sidewalk to snub it out.

They exchanged a quick goodbye before Josie hung up the phone. She tucked it back into the pocket of her slacks, not sure if she felt better or worse having had the conversation. She plucked her cigarette butt up off the ground and tossed it into the trash can before heading back towards the office building.

When she walked back in, she looked at the young woman sitting behind the desk. She briefly looked up when Josie came back in, but once she saw who it was she went back to her computer. Josie frowned slightly in thought. She thought about the mild panic that had been on Lena’s face when Gilly and Bishop had stopped by before. Even the first time she saw them Josie wasn’t sure she was ever that worried about them. Maybe she should’ve been. Maybe if she had been none of it would’ve played out the way it did and she wouldn’t be stuck in the position that she’s in now. She just hung up on one of the only people who had tried to give her an out from it all.

She wanted to say something to Lena, but she didn’t know what. She must’ve been lingering a little too long for it to be comfortable, because she looked up once more from her computer. “You okay, Josie?”

Clearing her throat, Josie nodded as she tried to get her facial expression back under control. “Yeah, just zoned out for a second there. Thanks, Lena.”

The last thing that Josie wanted to do was go back to her desk and work. There was a knowing twinge in the back of her mind that her focus was going to be shot for the remainder of the afternoon. Part of her wanted to just up and leave, but she didn’t really know where she would go if she did.

When she sat back down, she saw that whoever had called earlier left a voicemail. She didn’t recognize the number off the top of her head, but it was a local area code, so with a deep breath she took the phone off the receiver and hit the button to play it back.

The second that she heard her name on the recording, she knew who was calling and her stomach dropped immediately. “Miss Costa,” Miguel’s tone was as even and calm as it had ever been, “I guess I missed you. Call me back at this number when you get this. I think it’s time I sit down with our new mayor now that she’s gotten some time to settle in.”

The message ended and Josie all but slammed the phone back down onto the receiver. She huffed out a deep sigh, but it wasn’t enough to get out her frustration. Pushing her hands back through her hair, she grit out a quiet, “Fuck,” as she managed to set her hands on the surface of her desk without slamming them.

As much as she didn’t want to remain involved in any of it, she knew that right now there was no getting out of it. So she pulled her cellphone back out. Without thinking she went right to Gilly’s name in her contacts. When she opened their old thread of messages, though, she felt the cold sting of reality across her face—all of her last messages to him months beforehand never having gone through. She knew that it wouldn’t be any different now.

Pinning her lips into a thin line, she went and found EZ’s name instead. “Call me ASAP”. She knew that there was no guarantee of an instant response. For all she knew he was out in the middle of the desert somewhere with no service.

For the first time in a long time, luck was on her side. Before she could spiral out too far, her phone started ringing. She snatched it up off her desk before the second ring ended. “Hello?”

“What’s going on?” EZ’s voice came through from the other end of the line, a little breathless and Josie didn’t want to think too much on why that might’ve been.

She looked around to make sure that no one else was around. “The mayor.”

“What about her?”

“Galindo called asking to meet. I’m going to have to set him up with something or he’s just gonna fucking show up uninvited.”

There was a long pause and for a moment Josie was about to ask if EZ had heard what she said. Finally, “Set it up. Let them meet.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. See what she says afterwards and let me know.”

“Don’t you want to get—”

“We’re an easier sell if we’re coming in to solve a problem that she has.”

Josie scoffed and shook her head. “You’re just gonna give her a different one.”

The pause that followed let her know that EZ wasn’t looking for the extra commentary. However he must’ve had too many other things on his mind because he didn’t say anything about it. “Let me know when you hear anything else.”

She couldn’t hide the bubbling sense of frustration as she said, “Yeah, okay. Got it.”

EZ heard it, too. She could tell by the way he changed his tone when he spoke up again. It wasn’t quite apologetic, but something akin to it. “Josie?”

She sighed. “What?”

Whatever minute kindness he was going to try and extend, he backpedaled on. “Nothing. Never mind.”

For a moment Josie wished that he could see the way that she rolled her eyes at him. “Good talk.”

She heard the telltale breath of someone gearing up to say something to try and defend themselves and she hung up before he could even try. As she reached for the office phone on her desk to call Galindo back she couldn’t help but miss the days when she didn’t know much of anything at all. Back when fraternizing with the enemy was just a bad joke that got her and Gilly laughing harder than it should’ve because they were trying to keep each other on the hook.

@garbinge @artemiseamoon @proceduralpassion @nessamc @withmyteeth

@darqchilddaydreamz @kelpies-shed @fanfic-n-tabulous @mijagif @justazzi

@justreblogginfics @danzer8705 @camelia35 @choochoo284 @rosieposie0624

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#mayans #mayans mc #mayansmc #mayans fx #gilly lopez #gilly lopez fanfiction #gilly lopez x oc #oc josie costa #oc josephine costa #far from over #oc josie #my writing #fanfiction #drabblesmc

[rinbowaman]

My Girlfriends Roommate - Chapter 12 FINALE! (18+) Minors DNI

WARNINGS: Pain and breeding kink is strong with this one. Rough sex, rough, rough, and rough! There's internal monologue, mentioning of God, talking to God, talking to each other through internal monologue, emotional connection, and lots of graphic scenes that is descriptive. Again this was an original fic I drafted with the main characters names changed, they're ones i created entirely on my own and their personalities do not reflect any of the real person(s) that are Enhypen. Just wanna throw that out there.

There will be a sequel, that's another original piece I did that I'll have to re-edit, but I'll wait and see how this series does and how receptive it is. Sequel is My Roommate's Ex, its alot, ALOT shorter than this series, but is alot jucier (really juicy actually, alot of you will probably be shocked)

MGR pretty much did all the work as far as the build up and relationship development, which is why there are so many chapters.

With that said, if you enjoy it, please either message or comment so I know it will be worth my time to re-edit the sequel and other works that I have drafted years ago. :) Take care loves and remember to love yourself and MGR Heesueng loves you.

“God,

It’s been a while huh. Or maybe you never heard me to begin with. Its not my fault, I couldn’t reach out. I couldn’t get through to you. But I guess that doesn’t matter anymore because I no longer need an answer from you.

I used to think you were testing me. Wondered if you had other plans for me. Thinking you were telling me to broaden my horizons.

Remember all those “potential” candidates you put my way? You know. The ones that made promises that, no matter the time or distance apart, they would be loyal… humble…display unconditional love, yet they never followed through even when times were peaceful. Yeah, those ones.

I used to wonder “why?” Why was it so hard to find what others found so easy to throw away? My friends, my brother, my father…

Even for someone like Gabe, to earn Vicky’s trust and devotion and used it against her, when I was the one who yearned and respected it. To the point where, for so long, I repeatedly dismissed the acts of her betrayal when I secretly found out just how grounded their relationship really was, physically and emotionally.

Why was it so easy for everyone to find it, yet impossible for me when I was the one searching? As if I was doing all the work for them.

Maybe I shouldn’t had been so eager to crave companionship, but you made me that way, didn’t you? Hehehe. I could never understand why you gave me demons when I asked for angels. Whenever I saw the happiness of any man, God…only you know…I hated the world. The beasts inside me wanted to burn this whole place down and end it. I was tired of everyone getting the one thing I couldn’t.

Was it wrong?

Considering the number of times, I’ve been let down, was it wrong for me to secretly wish for the demise of other people’s happiness?

Was it wrong for me to get jealous when Jay’s smile grew wider, Sunghoon’s meaning in life grew deeper, or when Jakes voice got higher…was it wrong for me to feign happiness when I hoped for chaos and turbulence?

There wasn’t a day I wanted to wake up from sleep. At least then, I wouldn’t have to think about it. Just dream of it. It was less lonely that way. But now…I don’t have to look forward to sleep. I don’t have to be happy only in my dreams, do I?

I have her. The one you sculpted to be more beautiful than the sun and moon. Yes…her. Her in front of me.

She is the one and only thing that I had been searching for since I became a man. She is the shelter I was asking for when I am so far from home. She is the most beautiful inside and out, and nothing makes sense without her.

She is the sole comfort in my life, and for once, I don’t have to worry about a single thing. You gave her wings, yet she chooses to walk beside me.”

Heeseung’s momentum was the exact opposite of Samuels. You couldn’t help but compare the two, after all, Samuel was the only other experience you had, and within the eight months of your union, you shared that experience with him countless times. Every single moment where you gave him access to your womanhood, while it was pleasant, it wasn’t as invigorating as it was now. Even on nights when Samuel was a hard lover and less soothing in his performance, you had no idea that the vigor of any man could surpass the levels he displayed.

You didn’t know any better until Heeseung entered. He was rough, he was hard, and he was fast. He wasn’t making love; he was fucking you. But somehow, perhaps due to the level of sentimental connection that you both seem to share with each other, you just knew that while he was fucking you, he did so lovingly.

Everything you needed and wanted in life; he was fucking it into you.

He fucked the tears you cried that night. He fucked the smiles that were deceived out of you by Samuels lies. He fucked the pain of reading his words of betrayal. He fucked the joy you felt at having someone to come home to. He fucked the screams coming out of your mouth right now as he pounds into you, creating a soreness each time his groin slaps against you. He fucked the laughter you shared with friends and family during the peaceful moments in life.

But most importantly, he fucked all his love inside you; as well as the pain, jealousy, anger, and disappointment he experienced. He fucked every single ounce of it into your core and watched the true beauty of metamorphosis to occur as all his burdens turned into the gasping moans coming out of you, soothing and healing him.

With pleasure and pain, you took it all in helplessly as he fucked all his thoughts and desires. You not only loved every single bit of it, you wanted more.

He fucked roses. Roses you grew for Samuel, that you nurtured and watered with the tears you shed that night, all blooming because of Heeseung.

He fucked blue. The color of the sky, that you loved so much, is now the color of your energy.

He fucked the moon and sun. The eclipse of his heart embracing yours. He fucked you into Heaven and Earth.

Heeseung was doing more than just healing, he was showing the amount of love and devotion a man could ever develop for any woman. He was taking care of you in ways that no other man would ever be smart enough to do on his own. He fucks into you relentlessly, all things good and bad, and it was the most terrible and beautiful thing you’ve ever felt. The echoing voice translates the beauty of Heeseung’s love into to the deepest trenches of your soul, hoping that his heart would hear.

“He fucks me…he loves me. He shelters me by coating the skin on my body with his tongue.

God, he is fucking me and he’s doing it so good.

Oh God, I love it when he fucks me.

Could anyone with a human heart ever understand?

Could you? With your almighty heart and values in creation of mankind? Could you understand that what he is doing to me is the very thing I never knew I needed?

I don’t ever want him to stop. I want him to fuck me every day. I want him to fuck me every night. I want him to do everything to me. Just…want him to….fuck…”

His pace increases, his thrusts go deeper, and your head suspends your features to flush with the ceiling, moaning, and screaming. The vibrations of the echoes in your voice dances in the room, bouncing off the walls, the buzzing swims into both your ears as he holds you, steady as possible, while giving you everything he’s got. The ferocity of Greek Gods couldn’t even compare to Heeseung’s own.

The back of your head presses away from the headboard, you lean your face forward and introduce your cries into his mouth, engaged in the most passionate exchanging of wet kisses. The flicking of your tongues migrating from left to right, up and down, and in and out.

Your hands around his broad shoulders, your body lost all contact with the headboard as you have now completely relied on his body to fully support you. Not that it was a surprise, it was still impressive that Heeseung’s strength carried the weight of two bodies effortlessly.

You fall dense on his form; it was hard and warm. You were inching closer to a heightened state of euphoria as you bounced when you received each raging thrust.

The view of your hair flowing all around, dancing against your skin was a sight to behold. The sight of your breasts in bouncing motion from the thrusting impact enabled him to feel the desire to continue. But not just for the pleasure he was feeling from fucking you, it was so he could keep watching the evolution of your beauty taking place before him, all because of the awfully pleasant things he was doing to you. Things that are every father’s worst nightmare.

Your beauty just continuously amazes him, from the moment he met you he did everything in his power to not overindulge the mesmerizing image of you since he was trying to remain committed to Vicky, even if it was all mental. But he couldn’t, he wasn’t strong enough. You were intoxicating and no matter how he tried to distract himself from you, he was always brought back to your image.

Now that he got to see you in such a vulnerable state, he learned that you weren’t just beautiful when smiling, laughing, and looking at him intently with those dangerous eyes, he now discovered that you were just as beautiful, if not more so, when your face was stained with the pain of his penetration or the pleasure of him hitting your spot.

You were the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, an ancient glory of the world’s creation. Enabled by wanting to see more sides of you, he takes sinful act of performance to a speed that is unsearchable. And God, you lost it. Grabbing on to his chest, your strength drains out of you as your fingers drag down. You found yourself re-gripping your hold on his chest or his biceps, alternating as the high momentum of your bouncing form caused you to lose your handling. Your chest felt sore as you hyperventilate, and a combination of gasps and moans shot out of you violently.

“He fucks me.” “I fuck her.”

The slapping of on and off skin contact from his penetration accompanies your screams of pleasure. The feeling was so intense, and while you were pretty sure everyone could hear it, you knew that no one was going to do anything about it and, upon discovering his Heaven and Earth, you hope it stayed that way. The traffic of air escaping you causes your mouth to dry up, the flesh of your womb bruising from his explicit and merciless act; the moist flesh that binds around his cock continues to leak, allowing him to fuck you more easily, regardless of how tightly you were wrapped around him.

“He loves me.” “I love her.”

The sweat glistening your bodies, took part in transforming the movements from steady and neat to sloppy and shaky. Along with the explosion of pleasure and sexual power, you both were losing all sense of humanism, becoming animalistic and primitive instead. The mashing of his balls into your taint furthered the pleasure you were experiencing as you kept taking him in, permitting him to forge his sexual satisfaction inside your delicate and fragile body.

You never want to lose this. The thought of having him motivated you to raise and cross your arms around his neck; he knew the meaning behind this notion and just like you, he felt the same. Putting any remaining gaps in between your bodies to rest in peace, as he tightened his wrap around you.

His arms are parallel to each other as they remain firmly wrapped around your back, both hands reaching and touching your breasts from each side as he used the bulk of strength from his core to lift, pull, and push you up and down his cock, coating it with the slick gush of your pleasure. His knees were starting to grow weary from the strain of supporting you both, yet the pleasure of fucking you so beautifully gave him the strength to keep going.

“Please God, let him stay.” “I won’t leave you baby. I’m staying.”

Still exchanging the kisses, that have too now become sloppy, you began to feel like you were dying inside, the pleasure was too overwhelming, and you lost feeling in your fingers, finding it difficult to tell if you were touching his skin every time you dug the tips in. You have grown completely numb as your legs begin to slack off, their wrap around his waist loosens and the alternation of your bouncing of your body and the impact of his thrusts promotes them to slide and fall off.

Sensing you were growing weaker and faltering, he takes his arm and catches one of your legs from falling completely down, remaining hold of it. He places a reach around from the inside, placing his hand on your waist as his arm snakes your thigh, looping it from falling, maintaining some bit of integrity with the position as you continue getting fucked.

“I want him.” “I want her.”

You feel yourself growing too weak, your vision begins to tunnel as a thick ring of darkness slowly narrows your limited vision. Your arms wrapped around his neck begins to loosen and you found it more comfortable to place your hands back on his biceps, allowing them to rest on them since you lacked the strength to hold them in place. You can barely hold on. Your moans, while still maintaining volume, have decreased, the tone of your vocal cords no longer had the strength to push out solid sound, just a slight dying tone accompanying a whispering gasp as you took on ever other breath trying to find a way to re- stabilize your stamina so that it would match his.

A sudden swarm of defeat informs ceases you from doing anything. It was finally here.

You begin to feel the sharpness of your orgasm to penetrate deep into your stomach and chest each time his cock thrusted into you. Your legs shake violently, and your body is reaching a mode of panic as it jolts as you feel your hips gyrate against his groin. Though you’ve never experienced this, you knew of the feeling from the talk of friends, you were getting close. Really close.

Your body’s message to your brain is contradicting, it wants you to tell him to stop, to not proceed any further due to the overstimulation being unbearable. Yet, confusingly, it wanted him to continue, not just that, but it compelled you to move along with his rhythm and aid his quest for a release.

“God…please let him be the one and only one.”

“It’s me and you forever baby, I’ll always be the one to give it to you. Just me…and you….me fucking you… always.”

No words were exchanged, just the sound of your gasps and his groans and heavy breathing fills the hollowness of the room. Regardless, you both felt and heard each other’s tone of endearment as you communicate through the moans of pleasure. Your hips roll vigorously as you felt his cock begin to pulsate. He was also close, and his breathing began to shorten. His gasping breaths grew louder and more frequent, in sync with his thrusts. You loved the sound of his voice reflecting his actions towards you. It was capturing your independence and the sole entity of your being as you embraced the concept of being completely owned by him.

“I never want to be away from him.”

“Come with me.”

“I want to build a home with him.

"Marry me.”

“I want to carry his legacy.”

“Be the mother of my children.”

You both have reached the same altitude of the orgasmic high as his sloppy thrusts, receiving a boost of stamina from the turmoil of ecstasy in his core, become harder and faster. He was going into you deeper, to the point that your body reacted by jolting upwards. Your hands pushed against his biceps as you desperately try to remain suspended in hopes to inhibit him from breaking into you further, trying your best to prevent him going in too deep.

But Heeseung’s arm around your waist, which up until this very moment had been supporting you, works against you as he reaches up to the back of your shoulder, grabbing hold to push you down steadily and firmly, holding you in place as he continues his desire to extend his reach inside of you. He feels himself tearing your open parts that would be unreachable for any other man. He pushes, tears, rips, and separates you.

You found your voice as you let out a murderous scream, letting out everything ranging from yelling out his name and your desperate pleas begging for mercy, which he did not honor. To your painful horror he kept going while attaching his open mouth against your ear, placing soft kisses on your helix. Your remained facing off to the side, giving him full access to your ear as you try to find some sort of comfort from his kisses, in hopes that it would distract you from the pain. It didn’t, fact is, there was nothing that could ease, let alone save you.

You lose your mind. You lose sight, hearing, and the ability to think as your body is forced to take in all his power. The moisture inside you grows, it was your body’s response to the trauma, as if making it easier for him to slide in and out was going to help take the shock of pain away from him ripping into you, reaching a spot inside. A spot in every woman’s body that should never be breached.

The union of your fluids was formulating inside you, starts to seep out from whenever he thrusted, dripping down his cock and eventually creating a pool on the bed spread. Your mind has become blank with darkness, the pain starts to become tolerable as your orgasm trinkles in, starting off light and increases to the triggering point where the explosive punch from deep within your core takes place.

At that moment, the worst pain you felt at the hands of this man became worth dealing with as a nuclear effect causes your mind, body, and soul to be covered by a blanket of overwhelming pleasure.

Your scream was high in desperation from succumbing to that pleasure and pain. He loved hearing it, but he had, though barely, enough sense to stay mindful that you both were still in a dorm room. He loosens his grip and shoots his hand to extend passed the back of your shoulder, reaching from behind the base of your neck and around to the side of your face, covering your mouth. He loved the feeling of collecting your pants with his palm, the heat and condensation from it all being a mark of his victory.

Prior to muffling it, the sound of your scream brought him the most happiness he’s felt in a long time. He hated that he had to cover it, but he felt grateful that he was at least able to hear and memorize it before forcing it back into your mouth through the barricade of his hand.

Your body goes limp yet continues to shake in thunderous waves all over as the high from your intense orgasm pelted you with kisses of pleasure. It gave you wings. Heeseung’s orgasm follows suit after feeling the palpations of your walls clenching and pulsating against him at a rapid rate. There was an indescribable feeling of pleasure and joy within him as he felt the filtering release of his cum seeping deep inside you, painting your walls as white as the clouds in the sky.

All his children swim inside you, dancing joyfully upon finally meeting the warmth, comfort, and protection of their mother. Sealing your lips with another tender kiss, you both remain in position at a standstill. His cock resting inside you, you’re almost certain he was still releasing his fluid, which you willingly accept and take in. You receive his kiss as you enjoy the first and unfertilized stages from the act of procreation, and you embrace the concept of motherhood even if his offspring were in their microscopic form.

“My beautiful girl…I’m not going anywhere. You don’t have to worry about a thing. From now on, tell me what he’s done to you, and I’ll fix it.

Tell me you want a castle, I’ll build it.

Tell me you want the world, I’ll give it.

I’ll give everything, whether it’s my life or the sounds of the ocean, I’ll give you everything you want. It’s the least I can do, I’m so grateful.

I’m grateful to you.

I’m grateful to the love and creativity of your parents when they made you.

I’m grateful to him for giving you up.

I’m grateful to God for choosing you as his favorite. I’m grateful I get to keep you.

I’m grateful to the world, for once. I’m eternally grateful for finding you and even more so as I get to look forward an eternity with you.”

[grimmbitty]

Okay kind of a different post than my normal stuff but I did just want to put all of these in one place. These are my character analysis slides that I’ve been working on!

Breaking down the character of Billy Batson has been so fun for me, and its by far my favorite part of the writing process. So here’s what I have so far for my interpretation of the character.

Here is my first slide where I breakdown the basic overview of my story. Just outlining the basic plot summary, the story’s themes, and the basic character arc for Billy.

As you can see it’s very similar to the first movie I’ve just modified some things here and there to add my own fun twist to Billy’s origin story.

[ MORE SLIDES BELOW ]

In this slide is where I breakdown Billy’s passive motivation, something I see that is necessary for all superhero characters. Similar to Spider-Man’s “power and responsibility” thing, and similar to how Batman protects and values all life because his life was forever changed by a random act of violence.

I think Billy’s passive motivation to do good is really, deeply rooted in the injustice that he witnesses throughout his childhood. He’s especially receptive to the problems of children and other vulnerable groups because as a member of those communities, he knows they get overlooked often.

This next slide is my character breakdowns. This shows my main character and all my important side characters. They each have a lesson they inadvertently teach Billy, helping him along his path to become a good hero.

They each play a role on the team, giving them fun dynamics. This allows them all to have distinct personalities allowing for fun dialogue, banter, and character moments.

The only character you might not know on this list is Samara. She is my version of the character Cissie Sommerly. Cissie is a classic Captain Marvel character who’s most recent comic book appearance was 1978. Woof. So I thought it would be a fun idea to modernize her and bring her back into the spotlight, serving as a glimpse into the average Fawcett citizen’s reaction to the new hero, Shazam.

This next slide is a closer look into Billy’s character flaws. Showing how at first he is hesitant to being a brother and being a hero. It kinda explains the mistakes he makes at first that he has to learn to overcome, and shows how his introspection will help him accept his roles as both a brother, and a hero.

Next we have something that if I could add to the 2019 film, I would. I love love love the 2019 version of Shazam but if I could add a little more expansion of Billy’s mother into the plot, I would.

I think is really important to the core of the character. This next slide I like to call “The Dark Reflection”.

I think that upon meeting his mother, Billy realizes that they are scarily similar. That she was also selfish, careless, and only interested in meeting her own needs. This lack of compassion and responsibility from her are the reasons she ended up abandoning Billy, leaving him in the foster system once she was released from prison and having zero interest in raising him.

Billy sees the mistakes she’s made in life and realizes that he is making the same ones, prioritizing his own wants/needs over anything else, and being just overall emotionally detached.

This scares him into re-evaluating his own behavior and consciously choosing to become more compassionate for others and foster a real sense of responsibility to use his powers wisely.

Next up, we have what I like to call “The Pillars of Character”. These are the three main “pillars” I see that are most prevalent in Billy’s story.

It’s important to me that all three of these pillars intertwine with each other, hence why I wanted to explore a little more about Billy’s mother. Adding a little more flavor text to why she is Billy’s dark reflection really helped me keep a balance between these three aspects of his character.

I also just think having all three pillars effect each other keeps a nice balance between all the aspects of his character. Showing how his character flaws effect different parts of his life and how Billy learns to grow and change for the better.

In summary, this is what I have for Billy’s character breakdown, showing his character arc for his origin story and how he learns to grow into a hero. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed because I had a fun time making this! I also have a lot more to share like individual character sheets for Billy and all my side characters, Three act story structure break downs, and other stuff too. So if you like this one maybe possibly I could do a part 2 soon.

Okay byeeeee!! ⚡️💕

#billy batson #captain marvel #captain marvel dc #dc comics #fawcett comics #shazam #shazam 2019 #shazam: fury of the gods #Shazam:CoBL

[nyaagolor]

what do you think of Carmine and Kieran so far? My stance is that even though neither of them are abusive and do care deeply about each other (and seeing people say they are abusive, especially about Carmine, makes me really sad), I do think that their relationship is definitely NOT a "normal sibling relationship" and both of them do have a bunch of Capital I Issues. But them having Capital I Issues that complicate their relationship while still caring (which FURTHER complicates things) and not being bad people at all is what make them so interesting to me and it's a vicious cycle I LOVE VICIOUS CYCLES OF MISCOMMUNICATION AND MESSY RELATIONSHIPS!!! I'm so normal (lying)

absolutely adore them, Pokemon has really filled this game to the absolute brim with characters who 1. Behave like real people 2. Have actual personalities with arcs that don't act like complete archetypes. God fucking Bless.

The general reaction to the DLC tho has surprised me in the worst way possible. The characters in these games are significantly better written than any pokemon characters in the past but ultimately, they are still pokemon characters. Most of their personality traits are made abundantly and explicitly clear to the audience by the story's end. There is not much digging you really have to do here

And yet! I'm sitting here watching Carmine's reception and thinking back to Nemona, because both of them have a pretty clearly defined personality that I really didn't think were possible to misinterpret. Despite the fact that they are laughably easy characters to understand on a fundamental level people STILL have managed to mischaracterize them to the point of consistently putting discourse on my dash about it. "Carmine is abusive" Carmine is like 15. She is a teenage girl with a younger brother. This is how teenagers behave, especially insecure ones like Carmine is implied to be. She overcompensates and is kind of rude like 3 times and lets her caring nature slip constantly because she feels things extremely strongly. She gets really worked up over everything Because She Is A Teenager. I don't understand why this is difficult

I'm not even sure I would go as far as to say Carmine has Capital I Issues (tho that's a lil subjective, ymmv?) because everything just kinda feels like pretty typical teenager stuff? Like yeah she has issues but they're pretty much exactly what happened to like half the people I knew in high school. And honestly I adore that, it resonates with a lot of people and feels like a good representation of actual teenagers and their problems. It's not especially grandiose but it IS real. Her and Kieran's relationship having strain because they are both kids figuring out how to deal with each other and their emotions is a dope conflict to display in a pokemon game and I think fits in with the more grounded arcs and conflicts we've seen in the base game. It's nice

Kieran's fucked in the head tho idk what that bitch's problems are but I wanna watch him lose it. it'll be funny as hell. I hope his relationship with Carmine gets better but I want it to get worse first

#mod vex #ask #sorry this got long #i need people to be normal #please god.