#but i gave up partway through doing it LMAOOO

[vacantgodling]

I don't have that emoji but I'd love to hear a ramble about gothica

OOO thank you for asking jack!!

so gothica is a funny wip—in the sense that i deadass wasn’t supposed to get attached to the characters AT ALL (ESPECIALLY lennon god she is a Mess) because i originally wanted to write a “commentary” of sorts on dark academia literature: mainly the facet that the main girl character who’s usually in the middle of a love triangle is like. ngl kind of a bitch?? but no one ever views her that way. and i went into this with the full intention of that but what i ended up with is a ot3 and caring about them 🙄

cuz this one has a super official long summary i’ll post that and then some other rambles under a cut!

tw for (essentially) domestic violence and high schoolers getting freaky :/

THE SUMMARY

Lennon Rhapsody Granger has always struggled to stay out of trouble in school; it led to her parents divorce after the third expulsion, and getting sent to Holy Oaks Preparatory School by her stepfather after the fifth. Holy Oaks Prep is a reform school to “rehabilitate troubled youths to conquer modern society”, separated into a boys campus (Maple Wing) and a girl’s campus (Pine Hills). After orientation, Lennon is shown to her room and meets her dorm-mates for the semester Lauren Mortimer and Agatha Reuter. Lauren’s “boyfriend” from Maple Wing, Aurora O’Rion is visiting and he hides in Lennon’s closet when dorm inspection occurs. Lennon finds herself immediately drawn to Aurora and he seems to have no problem flirting with her in front of Lauren, which seems to immediately earn Agatha’s ire. During first lessons, Lennon ends up alienating herself/making a fool of herself in front of her peers and she decides she doesn’t need their good graces either.

The one person Lennon seems to get along with is Aurora; he frequents her dorm to see Lauren—though spends more time talking with Lennon instead—and the two begin to start sneaking out after curfew. Aurora seems almost untouchable by the rules and regulations of Holy Oaks and Lennon learns that it’s because he’s a treasured lackey of The Centurion who have their headquarters on campus. Lennon begins to accompany Aurora on his Centurion errands: intimidation, destroying evidence, etc, and grows to love the freedom being with Aurora provides—thus beginning to like him romantically in the process. The feeling seems to be mutual, and less and less does Aurora pop by to see Lauren. This causes friction between Lennon and both of her roommates and she begins to get into more trouble with their superiors, because Agatha, unbeknownst to Lennon, has been snitching and trying to actively sabotage her.

This doesn’t deter the two of them initially—at least until word of Aurora’s closeness with Lennon reaches the ears of The Centurion. By the time that Aurora recieves a reprimand to “mind his time wisely” he suspects that they may know of his budding feelings towards Lennon and are trying to remind him to take the easy way out so he begins to try and cut ties with Lennon, on the advice of his best friend and roommate, Morrigan Briarcos. Lennon however, is not so willing to let things go, and gets caught up in her pursuit of this “forbidden romance” despite the signs that Aurora and others may try to tell her, even Lauren offering her words of advice. Lennon and Aurora consummate their relationship, which only complicates things further because after that Aurora really begins to put distance between himself and Lennon. After not seeing Aurora for a few months after that, Lennon is captured.

Lennon is brought before The Centurion’s council where it is decided that for her grandiose crime of getting too close to one of their subordinates that she will be put to death. Lennon assumes that this is all a joke, until Aurora enters the arena that she’s being held in with his shirt off and fists wrapped. She thinks this is all an elaborate joke at first (despite what she’s already seen Aurora being capable of), but then begins to plead with him to spare her—that she loves him. But that does not deter Aurora. Aurora nearly kills her on their word but he opts to “let her bleed out” as a show for the council, leaving Lennon barely hanging onto life and in immense pain. When the council leaves, presuming she is dead, Aurora returns to clean up the scene but instead of disposing her body he brings Morrigan with him to administer aid; with the goal to help her escape to safety away from The Centurion’s clutches away from Holy Oaks to continue on with her life.

Lennon barely survives her injuries, but awakens in a hideaway with only Morrigan there with her, informing her that she’s been in and out of consciousness for two weeks and she would need intense physical therapy in order to recover enough to be returned to her family or a hospital. Lennon grapples with trauma surrounding the event, and her complicated feelings towards Aurora and the new feelings she is gaining for Morrigan who has been very vigilant in taking care of her. When she finally confesses her attraction to him, Morrigan shuts her down, revealing that he’s done all this for Aurora, who he’s been in love with for ages and that she needs to grow up because they tried to keep her out of this but she was selfish. This revelation is a shock to Lennon and she begins to examine how she’s been viewing and treating people for her whole life. In an effort to get Lennon out of Holy Oaks, Morrigan and Aurora decide they must disappear as well and the three of them strike out on their own, in an attempt to escape The Centurion’s clutches.

SOME RAMBLES

lennon rhapsody is deadass her first name, named after john lennon and bohemian rhapsody. her mother and father met and fell in love with music, and their second daughter who is len’s irish twin jude crahan is also deadass her first name. she also has a younger brother from her mother’s second marriage named jacob.

this story takes place in 2013 (oof). there is going to be a sequel as well that takes place 3 years after this so that begins in like 2017-2018-ish

the reason len’s mother got remarried is bc deadass len’s bio dad couldn’t take how rambunctious and fucking out of pocket she is. her behavior essentially tore their relationship apart and has greatly strained her mother’s relationship with her stepfather.

nothing “happened” in len’s childhood to make her like this. i purposefully am writing her as insufferable as i can.

len’s white, aurora is mixed, morrigan is black (they’re also the ot3 that comes out of this)

len has what we like to call “main character syndrome” where she really just Does Not think about how her actions have an affect on other people and she’s self centered, arrogant, and just kind of a piece of shit.

aurora isn’t any better bc he’s an entitled playboy who’s hit and quit like half of pine hills. but in typical dark academia fashion, len is “special”

aurora and morrigan have both been apart of the centurion since they were 5 years old. idk or really care what their goal is it’s just ur run of the mill scientology type bullshit idc

the thing is though they do dabble with experiments of human powers and aurora is one of those subjects. he has super strength and his eyes glow yellow.

in the confrontation between len and aurora in front of the centurion leaders, he breaks both of her legs. this causes her permanent damage and while she can use crutches, she is wheelchair bound going into the second book (and for the rest of her life).

though morrigan would describe himself as gay, len is his “exception” (genuine) even though he pretends to not like her in the second book.

the first book doesn’t end with them in a relationship but the second book they’re all clearly dating each other and on the run.

the second book centers around 2 plots which is (1) the centurion trying to hunt down the three of them before they can reveal their secrets to the world and (2) len’s parents and sister raising hell to find len because the school is being super shady about what happened to her. this literally gets national media attention and an investigation is launched into the school, which is why the centurion REEEALLY wants the three of them dead.

len reunites with her family in the second book as well and she realizes that they don’t hate her but her actions pushed her away from them. since everything in the first book len’s been working on becoming a better person and she finally apologizes for the first time to her family for not caring about their needs as much as her own. aurora and morrigan are also working on becoming better people too and they’ve worked on a Lot of communication to get here i’m proud of them.

morrigan doesn’t have special powers. he also hates when people call him mori but len and aurora do it anyway.

back to book 1 for a second, agatha’s family is associated with the centurion as well and she’s had a crush on aurora since they were kids. however despite having fucked half the campus, aurora has never looked at her or flirted with her even ONCE (mainly bc she’s the daughter of a council member she’s strictly off limits, not that she knows that). she’s made it her sole mission to sabotage every relationship aurora has ever been in and she succeeds most of the time (as in, snitching on len and aurora. though she wasn’t expecting them to reprimand aurora as well lol. aurora kinda beats her ass when he finds out she snitched)

lauren seems like a completely normal girl and why is she there that’s weird? it’s just cuz she’s a kleptomaniac and has committed arson like twice. she’s been working hard to do better for her family actually but yknow.

OOF okay i could go on for forever but i think ive word vomitted at you enough LMAO