#also for the record molly ends up shipped with bella

[rai-knightshade-art]

"I got my ticket for the long 'way round, the one with the prettiest of views; it's got mountains, it's got rivers, it's got sights to give you shivers, but it sure would be prettier with you..."

This oc has been living rent free in my head for weeks now and I'm about to make that everybody's problem! More about her, the concept that spawned her, close ups, and more below the cut; image id in the alt text!

(Also, for the record: they're girlfriends your honor 🥰.)

The Concept: alright I'm not gonna actually copy-paste the entire concept i have for this story here because it's long, so y'all are getting the quick and dirty tl;dr version from the get go. You're welcome. Tl;Dr: Pitch Perfect 4 but it's a next gen movie focusing on Bella (Stacie's daughter) as a senior at Barden and her adventures co-leading the Bellas and Treblemakers because the college has had some budget cuts and decided they didn't need four acapella teams and smushed the two rival groups together. Shenanigans ensue. Also there's a co-protagonist, Molly, an incoming freshman who's excited to join the Bellas because shock! Amazement! Not at all predictably, she's a Legacy just like Bella! (And unlike the rest of the teams actually they're all new except for one of the Treblemakers who's Donald the Rapper's son.) In fact, not only is she a Bella Legacy, she's technically a Treblemaker Legacy through her dad; her arc centers on the mystery of who could possibly be her parents among the original/second gen Bellas and Treblemakers?? (Admittedly it's not so much a mystery as it is a fakeout cause the clues dropped are just ambiguous enough to cause confusion on whether she's Emily's daughter--presumably with Benji based on the love of Star Wars--but close with Beca and/or Jesse as an aunt and uncle, or if she's Beca and Jesse's daughter who spent time with Uncle Benji and/or Aunt Emily. The answer is the latter btw the girl loves juice pouches way too much to be anything else but a Swanson.) The answer is revealed at the very end after the Bellas and Treblemakers have finally learned to work together and have won Nationals. We finally get the cameos from the original stars as they come to congratulate the new kids, including Stacie (who's very very proud of her daughter going out with a win!) and, of course, an absolutely ecstatic Jesse with a pair of twin boys in tow, followed shortly (after a brief but forceful phonecall with an assistant over a run-over flashdrive of music) by Beca.

The Characters: I say characters cause while it's mostly miss Molly taking up this page, there are a couple secondary characters that can be mentioned here too.

Molly (Swanson, tho that wouldn't be revealed at first): one of our two main characters, she's a 19-year-old freshman at Barden going into Music Education (she's always wanted to follow in her parents' footsteps into music but she's not particularly keen on being a celebrity like they are; she'd rather nurture a love of music through teaching, like her parents did for her). She's a veritable ball of sunshine with a love of juice pouches and Star Wars, has a near-encyclopedic knowledge of every single John Hughes movie (though Ferris Bueller's Day Off is her personal favorite rather than the Breakfast Club, something that she and her father have weekly play-fights over), a very sarcastic and dry sense of humor, and a love of mashups and remixing (and also checkered or plaid-patterned flannels); she is truly a mix of both her parents. She's also super excited to be a Bella! She doesn't mention she's Legacy to anyone but Bella (who she meets at the club fair and immediately clicks with) because she wants to get in on her own merits (rather than by being THE Beca Effing Mitchell's daughter), though that little tidbit of information quickly becomes impossible to hide when the first group activity they perform is to harmonize When I'm Gone and Molly's fully moved to tears. 🥺 Also of note, Molly is a Mezzo, a bit higher than her mother's Alto.

Bella Conrad: our other main character (and likely the one we would see first), this is none other than the same baby Bella from PP3! She's all grown up now at 22 and finishing up her senior year at Barden, and currently the only Legacy Bella (until Molly comes along of course) as well as a co-captain of the group along with a couple other seniors. She's much more reserved compared to her outgoing mother or the energetic Molly, but she's sweet in her own way and always eager to lend a helping hand or guide a new Bella into the group. She's a math major, intending to get a job teaching high school level math (something she and Molly bond over quickly). She is a Soprano.

Julian (Donald's son): a secondary character, he's the leader of the Treblemakers and a close friend of Bella's. He makes up the third leg of the little Legacy Trio and happily welcomes Molly into the group, subtly encouraging Bella to make a move on her quickly growing crush on the other girl as well as working as a voice of reason among the turbulent Treble-Bella combined team. He's very level-headed and holds rank as the best beatboxer on the team. Besides being a beatboxer, he is also a Baritone.

The Close Ups:

[saintsenara]

opinions on bill/fleur/draco, remus/molly, and a little gross, but in my opinion, a god-tier, superior ship- luna/garrick ollivander

i am absolutely shrieking at these, pal - not least because it's absolutely beautiful [i think...?] to find another person suffering from the lollivander delirium.

[or it's a sign that hell will never be in want of sinners to fill it...]

fleur delacour/draco malfoy/bill weasley

bill and fleur are demonstrably a hot pairing, and i am sincerely invested in the combined power of them overawing draco, who is canonically weak-willed and annoying and would, i think, rather enjoy being told that in a safe and consensual environment.

fleur's brandishing a riding crop and telling him to stop pretending to be the sexiest blonde in the country when he isn't even the sexiest one in the house. bill's demanding a lifetime of service [wink wink] in exchange for the whole "letting greyback into hogwarts" thing.

they're very happy.

remus lupin/molly weasley

i'm actually very taken with this one, on the basis of @whinlatter's excellent meta on lupin and molly's canonical relationship. as she notes, molly is the person who is there most for lupin in the period from the end of goblet of fire onwards - and lupin is someone whose life has been so unstable and so devoid of [above all] domestic comfort that molly's provision of exactly that is something which clearly means a tremendous amount to him.

i am on the record - as any good tomarry girly must be - that the series really overlooks the value of love-as-comfort in its prioritising of love-as-sacrifice, and that the transformational power of being warm and well-fed and appreciated is something which deserves more respect as a concept in fics.

molly being able to offer this to lupin really has the potential to be something quite beautiful - not, perhaps something epic and exciting, but something which is love nonetheless.

and, of course, if you're less inclined to sincerity/prefer your beauty laced through with mischief, you can just make it a sort of mammy-kink thing. slay.

luna lovegood/garrick ollivander

the three of us who back this ship are eating good!

my justification for it - as i've said here - is that i think luna's whole... vibe works best in ships which pair her with a condescending older man, in a trope used with great effect throughout the western literary tradition.

my belief is that luna and her eventual canon husband have a friedrich bhaer/jo march meets bella baxter/duncan wedderburn flavour, but i also think you can take it sadder and more messed up in a sort of maxim-and-the-second-mrs-dewinter or effi briest/baron innstetten way - and have her patronised to by and in thrall of an older man who has taken advantage of her transparent naiveté...

ollivander is a really interesting character because - as harry notes in philosopher's stone - of his slightly voldemort-ish attitude towards magic: that is, the idea that the character of magic [i.e. whether it is dark or not] is of secondary important to the power of the person performing the magic. i can definitely see him using luna's more spacey beliefs as a springboard for him to convince her of this worldview...

[floralege]

all the ships !

who’s more likely to find who wearing their clothes?: i feel like brigitte has a blast putting pru in designer clothing, considering that’s how they met. bonus is catching bee in pru’s band t-shirts. fern has made a lifestyle of stealing liam’s zeppelin shirts. also just thought of rome in a suit and had a heart palpitation 

who enunciates hand holding?: this is mick and daisy, who are probably met with playful disgust. shut up, we’re gonna hold hands. 

who likes having their hair washed by who?: jules n bella take dramatically long baths together, romy loves washing molly’s hair, fred probably plays with cameron’s hair and it makes her soft inside 

who likes to slow dance?: this screams scully n mulder, and mulder may initiate but scully digs it. catch fourteen year old mick asking brigitte to dance while delphine says that’s never gonna happen. oh ho HO how time flies. we all know gid’s got a romantic hard on for rome, so slow dancing under the full moon is a big must.

muse that’s more likely to fall asleep with their head in the others lap?: liam falls asleep all over fern while she’s on the phone with record execs, jesse literally thinks of jane as his personal pillow, jules and bella take turns sleeping on each other and make a big show of it 

muse that does all the cuddling in a blanket fort?: i could not tell you a single ship that would have a blanket fort??? maybe sadie and jimmy when they’re super drunk??

who hogs most of the covers at night?: your answer was pretty apt so i’m sticking with that 

muse who nuzzles the others shoulder to get them to give them a head rub?: sadie definitely, also jesse. daisy just does it instinctively for dom

how do they share a desert? two forks or one?: cameron and freddie share one fork and stuff each other’s faces, it’s adorable and we hate them. pru and bee start with two forks on opposite sides of the booth, til pru slinks over and they become giggling messes. 

who gets jealous more easily?: gideon was never too jealous before rome had james, and now he’s like, pathetic. also very annoyed that she never displays her jealousy. liam, we know this. mick gets a little :/ but also knows he’s literally not even really dating delphine so he gets over himself pretty quickly. sadie doesn’t get jeaaaalous exactly, but she also likes to pull the ‘he’s already got a friend’ card so 

who gets angered more easily?: gideon, liam, sadie, pru, scully is half mulder’s size and will fight anyone who looks at him wrong.

who gets the most shoulder rubs?: this one is longer than expected and also you got the right answer already so, cecile probably bc she is an angel 

what are there arguments/fights like? how often do they fight?: early liam/fern fights were built on jealousy n drugs and somehow always ended in sex unless liam felt like being withholding. tbh pru and delphine are soulmates but at some point pru will take pity on her brother and need to have a talk with delph like ‘so whats really gonna happen bc i’m starting to feel bad’ somehow! molly and romy are so cute yet somehow always have fights that hurt like hell 

who is more likely to throw things in fights?: bella, fern, gideon is like the 18th century version of that post where the girl framed the guy’s punch in the wall 

how do they make it up to each other/apologize after an argument? probably just sex all around. also expensive jewelry from grady. 

do they have nicknames for each other?: pru, bee, stills, fernie, molls, drunk sadie says ‘jimothy’ a lot, ivor was a big fan of saying ‘miss cece’ no matter what. obvs scully and mulder, but that’s too easy. when they’re sneaking around, dom and daisy probably had code names, and they were probably bad. they’re so anglo. 

caring for each other while ill, how does the other muse go about it?: brigitte probably gives pru the full pamper treatment, so pru pretends to be sick a few days longer than she actually has. munchhausen by caldwell 

who’s more likely to be patching the others wound?: fern has tended to many of liam’s bloodied knuckles over the years, ivor boxes now and then so he probably came into work very sore n bruised up and cecile took care of him. 

muse that says ‘I told you so’, after they come home from the beach and other muse is burnt to a crisp while whining how bad it hurts for not listening and putting on sunblock after the other muse repeatedly told them they’d get burnt?: well i read this in jane’s voice so very clearly jesse/jane content right there! 

your otp has a newborn baby, who gets up in the middle of the night when he/she cries?: freddie and cameron were both so excited when henry was born that they probs both jumped at the chance to do it bc they live in some little rose-colored world. daisy and dom have already Done That Shit and would cringe at the thought… also imagine them having some late in life baby after all that shit went down? camille and moises would truly be tormented. jesse would be the softest dad i’m :’)

what would they be like as parents?: like i said, jesse would be a soft dad ! so soft ! too bad his life is filled with fucking pain at every turn, he’s so good with kids. mick has a complex about his childhood, so he’d be determined to be a v attentive father. daisy and dom are messy as people, but they’re good parents who love their respective kids very much. as we’ve learned, liam and fern luv the kiddos but… can’t hack it for too long. 

what would they have been like as childhood sweethearts? dom and daisy are technically childhood sweethearts and… look how that turned out. jesse and jane would’ve build very intricate sandcastles together, which is very soft. pru/bee/mick/delph are kind of??? childhood sweethearts?? but they’re still figuring it out in their twenties so we’ll see where that goes. in the ethan’s gf au, liam n fern probs known each other as teenagers n she was always at rehearsals. love a throwback. childhood scully n mulder might’ve been way different, she would’ve actually believed back then. 

who initiates taking a bath together?: gonna devote this solely to romy/molly and pru/bee bc my gay ass wants f/f bath time together. for pru and bee, it’s cute but they gotta keep their voices low and it’s like that scene in friends when monica has to hide under the bubbles bc joey walks in, and mimi n moises are probably joey. romy and molly have wine and make a night of it 

who likes who playing with their hair?: DID WE NOT ALREADY DISCUSS THIS ABOVE SMH