#this drama is so good bc you really have to keep track of the details
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I've been suspicious of song han from the beginning. Song mo was treated so terribly by their daddy and all song hand had to say was "don't hurt him, please forgive him. "
I'm not sure that song han is more unhinged than song mo, bc her is far more calculating. Their biggest difference is that song han is selfish and song mo is not. I've seen people that song han's actions in ep26 don't make sense and align with his character, but I disagree. He's been the golden child his whole life, and never seemed to try to speak up for his brother in a meaningful way. I believed he cared about his brother, but nor more than his own ambition. When song yichun tipped him off about the attack on dou zhao, he could have done or said something to them, but didn't. He said enough to his father to make him look like a good person but then stayed his behind inside and out the way.
Song han is paranoid, manipulative, calculating, and obsessed with his identity. He probably knows more about his nominal mother's death than he told song mo. He directly caused his birth mother's death and allowed his father to die. I think learning the truth about his birth pushed him over the edge but he the core was there.
Song han was raised by song yichun and it shows. The propensity for blaming everyone but themselves, the selfishness, the obsession. Song mo was raised by his uncle, jiang meisun, and has his selfless and generally good bottom line. Both brothers are unhinged but the motivations are different. Song han is out for himself, but song mo wants to clear his uncle's name. Even in his first life, at his craziest, song mo still showed kindness. And in this second life, he wants to live for dou zhao. It'll be interesting to see song han's relationship with miao ansu bc she's offering to be a dou zhao in his life, and given the ep28 preview of him choking her out, he's too paranoid to accpet that.
I, for one, and looking forward to how everything resolves.
Yup, he's evil.
But he's also even more unhinged than Song Mo. I think he's genuinely mentally ill.
Not enough to interfere with manipulativeness (his remembering all those bits with Song Mo before claiming he will drown himself is not out of affection but calculating that SM won't let him die, plus he clearly let his dad die of a heart attack in prison) or feel pangs of conscience (he is distraught he inadvertently helped poison the mom) but he is a mess.
He's also inherited daddy's tendency to blame everyone and everything instead of dealing with things.
PS this broke my heart.
Without her, his life really would be so bleak as to be utterly insupportable.
#blossom#jiu chong zi#this drama is so good bc you really have to keep track of the details#song han is partially like this bc he hasn't been jumped enough in life. just like his daddy#i am very much looking forward to watching song mo beat the brakes off his brother#messy watches things and thinks thoughts
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As your not a big fan of fantasy books in general. What drew you into loving asoiaf? What got you hooked?
now that I'm invested in asoiaf I do genuinely like the fantasy elements of the story, but the stuff that really pulled me in was the human drama and political intrigue etc. I love the character work, almost all of the POVs feel fully realised and subvert typical tropes in really interesting ways (imo). I like the inter-generational drama (the reasons I like succession are v similar to the reasons I like the Lannisters), like if I want to understand Jaime and Cersei and Tyrion I can look to Tywin, and if I want to understand Tywin I can look to Tytos, and if I was to understand Tytos I can look to Gerold, like it's a russian doll of intergenerational trauma what more could a girl want.
and on that note I really like the scope! GRRM obviously feels this need to account for all details minor and major, so that even with everything that's already on the page there's room to extrapolate so much more. i mean here I am writing who knows how many words about a fake 20-episode long robert's rebellion tv series lol like this all happened before the series even starts and yet I hardly need to make anything up bc there is so much to draw on just based on all the random little details we've got here and there from characters reflecting on the same events from different angles, and trying to piece together portraits of the people who died based on the recollections of those on the page who remember them..... it is so fun)
and yeah usually I prefer to read about that kind of thing on a smaller scale but the drama that plays out in AGOT is so engaging that upon initiation I didn't find it so much of a chore to keep track of all the various houses and lands etc in order to understand the full implications of each thing that happened - it felt like it was worth the effort. generally it's the 'keeping track' of it all that I find grating about fantasy bc I really want to just get on with the story rather than keep on top of a hundred magic systems and sub-species of pixie.
and obvs asoiaf is low fantasy rather than high fantasy, i.e. there aren't intricate systems to the magic and or complicated genus for each of the creatures, so that made it feel a lot more accessible for me as someone who just isn't very interested in those kinds of details. Dany's magic is made up as she goes along, it's never explained, and that's the same for pretty much all the fantastical elements - it's very show don't tell. and even though when you count it all up there are quite a lot of fantastical features and subplots, taken together with the rest of the story it's more like.... seasonings I wouldn't usually choose but ended up liking just fine in this overall dish lol
and finally asoiaf just really appealed to me from a fannish perspective! I really hate when you're trying to dig deeper with a work and you quickly start to realise that the writer(s) just weren't thinking that hard. it feels like striking concrete with a spade, like it's a one-sided conversation rather than something both the writer and the reader are participating in. I think some fans are perfectly fine with that and good for them - who cares if the author built the work to sustain your analysis if you're just having fun doing it - but for me it's a complete killjoy, I end up v frustrated and like the work isn't worth my time
so here's GRRM who is so fixated on the finer details that he's churned out a history book like 700 pages long and a bunch of short stories and also another history book just to add a bit more texture to the main story. and I don't have to worry about network input or co-writers or actors' intentions or whatever other external conflict or influence cos for better or worse it's all his story. and that just suits me better lol, it's one guy and his shitty computer, and me reading the shit he wrote with it. pure and simple living in the moment no phones in sight
also jaime and brienne are everything to me xo
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ty! 🙏 (yea she won't see bcs I won't reblog lol), anyway she and some other friends we've been tight since teenage years (we're 30+ now), but she always had a bit of self esteem issues thanks to her mom who drilled to her that public image is EVERYTHING. (her family drama is insane too bcs her dad left them when she was born so she grew up with her mom and step-dad, who she learned at 20yo had a whole ass other family in the same town... They separated and her mom went deep into conspiracy groups, and I mean flat-earth level conspiracies 😭 we're a small Europe country this is not US.... Her mom is now secretly dating a twice younger guy who also has a wife and a baby kid....)
Anyway those insecurities would often be projected on her friends and it often felt like she's ranking us by "coolness", whatever that means. She's tall and conventionally pretty so sometimes she'd look at me silently and say "I'm so glad I have nice legs.." or shit like that. She'd also constantly call herself fat bespite being the skinniest of all. That type of thing, but we knew it's part of childhood trauma so we'd brush it off. Whatever.
Then she started dating a guy who's on a paper a perfect feminist but actually is just a loser asshole. He would give her only backhanded compliments, like if she was making a gourmet dinner for hours he'd go "mm it's not really good. But it's okay you tried and I didn't expect anything anyway. I still love you." 🤮 In front of all guests. And she'd laugh and say "yeah he knows me best I don't know much in the kitchen he's so much better 🥰" 🤮🤮 She had to BEGGG and NAG for a wedding ring because he didn't want to get married and they had many arguments about it! And she kept saying to us "I don't really love him but I'm not gonna get anyone else so.." 😬 Or "yeah I'll break up" but didn't mean it. Every time I was meeting her I got so upset because she didn't want help and she thoroughly enjoyed her shitty situation she herself created! So she'd beg to meet with me, trauma-dump and then leave all happy and relieved, and I was feeling like shit for a week until I decided I need to really distance myself because this wasn't normal at all. So we barely talked. She still invited me to her wedding which I attended but I won't lie it was hard watching all the picture perfect wedding when I knew all the shit behind it. (and that shit was to the level she once mentioned that she was feeling really sick from contraceptics but there was no other option bcs her feminist bf refused to use condoms 🙄).
She asked to meet for a coffee today, we haven't seen each other in a while and to be honest it was kind of nice, she seems a lot better now and a lot less of her bs, so I did enjoy listening that her life seems to go on track finally (they're buying a house that she always dreamed about). But I didn't push for details. We talked for 3h and not once did she ask how I'm doing. I used to be salty about that, but today I realized I don't really want her to know how I'm doing. I just don't care. I'm glad she's ok but I'm also a bit sad for past me, because honestly I could have stopped caring so much sooner.
Idk there's no ending message only that some people enjoy fucking up their lives and there's literally nothing you can do for them 🤷♀️
oh. my god. i dont even know where to start WOW
the family backstory hello???? insane start to just set the scene, holy fuck.
the boyfriend sounds like and absolute fucking loser asshole i hope he goes incontinent at age 35, refusing to wear condoms and esp if contraceptives make your gf sick is absolutely fucking vile jfc
but also the whole. some people just want to stay in shitty situations forever and keep complaining about it instead of changing anything and all you can do is watch them wallow in self pity for eternity. been there done that. had a friend whos bf treated her like dog shit and every other week theyd have a fight and break up and she sat sobbing on my couch for hours and id spend nights awake texting and calling and comforting her – only for her to get back together with him a few days later. i stopped counting how many times they "broke up". idk if she ever got out of it tbh, i broke off contact for other reasons so idk
but yeah :/ its not just relationships, i know people who are stuck in a variety of issues and shitty situations and some of them just. dont really put in any effort to get out of them? they just go "this sucks and everything is unfair anyways" and just call it a day with that.
you have to keep in mind ofc that its also not easy to break out of cycles but esp in cases like yours where she had the support to make it through an actual breakup, .... some people just dont want change. for whatever reasons 🤷🏻♀️
all you can do is let them make their own decisions and either keep showing support and offer a shoulder to cry on, or decide this is affecting yourself too negatively and distance yourself
#but also the not even asking how youre doing BOYYYY DONT I KNOW THAT ONE#that also seems to be a theme with people like this that ive met lmao they can talk all day abt how their situation sucks but will shoot#down any suggestion of help you offer and also never even care about you just themselves#sucks man :/#sorry youre going / went through that but also very good on you for having that last realisation 🫶🏻#asks#anon#txt
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here’s some goading you to talk about angel and clothes for hours 🙏
adsfsafd my pleasure!
being serious tho, I don't think I have anything new to add that hasn't been said before, but I mean I could talk for hours bc the subject fascinates me! Looking at angel's clothes is a good tool to interpret his emotional state, and he is a character that goes through a lot of states in the course of the show.
this got long ofc so I'm putting it below the cut
First let me say, Angel gives me the vibe of a person that as a little kid loved to play dress up with the clothes of his family, because secretly he loves acting and drama and art, and I think his father saw him one time with something of her mother on, and he screamed and unloaded his rage on him "a man is not supposed to do/wear that!" and well, this added to Liam's issues in the long term.
Ok, but that's just my head canon, what we do see in those few flashbacks before he got turned is that he is wearing a normal sort of outfit for the times, but he is usually wearing it in a messy way. He knows what he is supposed to wear, but he refuses to wear it right, just like all the other staff he knows he should be doing as a good man in the eyes of his father, but he refuses to do.
In this stage Angel is acting as a revel but only to a point that's not scary for him.
He was a big and healthy man, he could have run away from the town if he wanted to see the world, or joined a sort of boxing club if he liked to fight, or wore her mother's stuff if he didn't like his clothes, but that kind of rebelliousness takes more courage than he had, it also means taking himself more seriously, and it seems like until this point no one - not even himself - did. He lacked that confidence, so instead of trying to change hard things he didn't like, he chose escapism with sex and alcohol. He wore the clothes in a messy way, yes, but still in the same style he was supposed to.
Another thing to note is that Angel and Spike, wore light tones before getting turned, and then started to wear more dark colors and black.
Above that, Angel also starts to dress more elegant and sharp, and I'm totally blaming the need to impress Darla and exude power for this one.
The thing is Darla cares just as much, if not more, about clothes, style, and image as Angel. She probably had little choice about them in her life because of her profession and lack of money, so I like to think as a vampire she enjoyed wearing luxurious things, and of course the partner she made for herself had to get on track with the plan! it's funny, in the flashbacks you can easily assume they were color coordinating:
His red vest for her red dress. His black suit and dark blue scarf for her deep purple dress with black details. His greenish vest for her green dress. His gold vest for her gold dress
But one thing I'm sure of is Angel LIKES clothes and thinking about style/image... Even if Darla was the mastermind after this, I'm sure he enjoyed it and even learned from it.
Then after he gets his soul and becomes overwhelmed with guilt we see he barely cares anymore, it looks like he just grabs the simplest cheapest inconspicuous clothes available and runs with it. This gets worse when he tastes blood again and hates himself so much he starts living on the streets, avoiding absolutely everyone, he doesn't care about clothes OR being clean then
[ sidenote for his hair OH GOD when he was born it was normal to have long hair for a man, and he had a beautiful long hair! In the flashbacks as Angelus we see him keep it and just style it different depending on the times. But it looks like he cuts it really short, shortly after getting his soul back.
I can totally imagine his dramatic ass having a Mulan scene cutting his own hair while "not" looking in the mirror -also cursing himself for that- and being like "I don't deserve my long beautiful hair after all I did!!... And its not even in style any more btw".
But then like 100 years go by and having long hair as a man is normal again, and being that he successfully avoided so many years of evil doing, maybe he gets comfortable enough to grow it back in the 70's (but look at the horrors. I guess he forgot how to take care of it properly). THEN he tastes blood again -> hates himself more -> cuts his hair short again.
Then the first thing he does when he jumps into a dimension where he has a reflection is worry about his hair, lol He cares a lot about hair too]
Lets keep going. Sunnydale:
Angel gets some funding and a purpose, I think you mentioned this in your own post, he goes to get clothes directly out of a sexy male model magazine from 90s lmao. In my mind he is using the same logic as when he first got his soul back: grab the simplest cheapest inconspicuous clothes available and run with it, except! this time the objective is not to be inconspicuous and totally blend in the crowd, but to get this stylish teen girl to trust him.
I love the ep Lie to me, among other things, because it has one of my fave jokes with Angel(I don't mean that ugly brown shirt lol, but that's a plus). He goes to the club where a bunch of teens are pretending to be vampires, and he finds one dressed exactly like himself! This kid, that knows nothing of actual vampires, was able to deduce an old as fuck person who wants to blend in would probably look at those same magazines. So even if its not obvious you can still asume a lack of care about his outfits.
One thing to note is that Angel never stops wearing black and dark colors when he gets his soul back, and it makes all the sense in the world as a symbol, he is still a vampire, dangerous, intimidating, with a dark past. The soul doesn't make him Liam again. Same with Spike.
(also I just noticed how funny it was that the first thing Angelus did when he returned was literally change clothes in front of Buffy. He just changed personalities in front of her when he lost his soul, and now he was literally changing again, putting on his dark shirt in front of her as he told her lies to hurt her. ok . nice)
Then Angelus is the fun part. It's obvious that he shares the same brain, tools, knowledge and Taste, as Angel, but because of the "not caring about anything but having fun making others suffer" part, he has less repression! and because of that hard tendency in the buffyverse to have bad guys wear dark eyeliner, I can totally say Angel likes to wear make up, but he only allows himself to do that with no soul!
But not only that, we also see him experiment with textures, and sometimes flashy things like that weird belt in the s2 finale, and wearing more expensive materials like the silk shirts, plus rings and dare I say more fruity gestures? lmao call that old tv homophobia the way they would only let villains act kind of gay, but I'm a young bi woman from the now and I totally get to say those are also Angel´s gestures with less repression on them. I mean, he is finally being more expressive with his gestures in general instead of being a wall all the time, and he does this ?? this limp wrist thing and others ugh this single shot drives me insane
the way even Cordelia took notice of this
And if Angelus wasn't proof enough consider the way he was so eager to go undercover and pull a flashy shirt, like the Hawaiian shirts he seems to keep in his car for emergencies ??
And this time... those were his clothes... the other guy he was replacing wore something else
And if that wasn't enough, Cordy says this after Angel buys her clothes :
He likes flashy colors and clothes and style so much its unreal, but at the same time he is repression man ! So what he does is usually keep it simple. Simple and practical while tsill looking good.
After he gets his own show(maybe just after he and Buffy break up) he is more authentic in what he wears, goodbye male model magazines. Even if more boring or simple, his style is also more mature. He is struggling but on his way to building some self estime. He wears simple dark clothes of soft materials and usually a nice black leather jacket... you can tell he doesn't allow himself to have as much fun as he probably wants, but the simple clothes he has - as Cordy says- hung well on him.
Ok one last comment because God this is too long already.
I see Angel wearing expensive clothes as a way to symbolize corruption. He wore expensive clothes for the first time because of being turned and groomed by Darla, when he gets his soul back he never thinks of that again, and when he looses it with Buffy Angelus starts wearing more jewels and things made of silk, is season 3 and after in his own show he only starts wearing expensive suits once he makes in s5 the deal with the devil basically, but once he goes against them in the end he is wearing his common clothes again.
#thanks soo much for the ask it was fun#god sorry its so long like I wasn't kidding lmao#this literally took some hours to write#angel ats
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okay since i'm on my bullshit and people seem at least intellectually interested in the idea here's what i've got for tatum prescott-loomis:
sidney opts to keep the baby despite everything really bc she's just so sick of death and she hopes this can be like, a silver lining and such you know?
for max chaos we use my base set up for billy-- just enough about the end is changes to put some reasonable doubt on him being the killer but you know..... you know....... but it does mean he's alive and well to demand access to the kid and Be Insane (derogatory) with sidney about this. the kid is a factor in why on EARTH they'd go to the same college considering everything.
tatum is about 2ish when scream 2 happens. gets kidnapped on the night of the Big Climax by grandma who plans to kill sidney, take the kid and recoop her image by being like "the good grandmother". Deeply Cursed. tatum doesn't super remember all this outside of it being a Core Memory and an underlying mental vibe that plants fears in her.
scream 3, tatum 2 is about 4 and living with her mom in the middle of fucking nowhere. sometimes she lives with dad or he comes and stays with them. it's very insane. sid and billy are both maniacs about safety considering everything tho for different reasons. she's with sidney for the chase scene on the set which is what really puts the fear of god into her. didn't need to see the knife to know he was Evil Bad bc the Core Memory vibes had kicked in lol. for like basically all of scream 3 tho she's pm off screen except for that one bit since you know.... she's fucking 4. that was just bad luck and timing.
Gets shown stab at a sleepover she was invited to EXPLICITLY so the other girls could bully her with this and the whole "your dad's an axe murderer thing" it's honestly so fucking unhinge and experience she doesn't even feel attacked. like when a burn is so bad you don't feel it. mostly just doesn't recover from seeing people pretending to be her parents bone. the mom came in around then and mclost it on the kids and she Went Home. Haunting.
she DOES get the occasional shit at school about who her parents are. this IS a thing.
sid and billy with the most ACCURSED joint custody set up. his wife is the real GOAT here in managing all this drama lol.
scream 4, she's roughly jill's age, a few years younger i think? but like An Teen™. Bleached her hair for a buffy costume for halloween which billy FUCKING HATES SOOOOOO BAD. but sets her up to be marked as "the tatum" of the "remake" jill and charlie are making. went with her mom on the woodsboro book signing trip to visit relatives, see her hometown etc. Mistake. Billy is also here but for his dad's funeral which tatum also probably attends i guess since that's her grandpa rip. ends up brawling with jill at the end to protect her mom. is likely the one who kills her in the hospital too. tells jill to eat shit bc if ANYONE is gonna be the protag of the remake it's THE FRANCHISE BABY. likely after having had some convo at SOME point in the film bit in the hospital or earlier with her dad about killing and you know Just Doing It bc Fuck Em.
Likely has had at least one ghostface solo run. like a ghostface or 2 who gunned for her EXPLICITLY between 4 and 5. by this point she's just really come to accept this is just How Her Life Is and does like martial arts, self defense, weapons training etc. like just full on laurie stro.de/becky mode and prepares to be attacked at any time. naturally she survives this ghostface attack. mom horrified and glad she's safe dad proud about how beast mode she went. tatum just wants a nap.
in her 20s has a go bag that includes a bullet proof vest. basically has her own variation of the "ghostface fit" for when this shit goes down, which is a black track suit with white details. goes for this bc it's made for exercise and gives her some baggyness to obfuscate the vest. kinda makes her look like a prick but hey, it works. yes she has THOUGHT A LOT ABOUT WHAT TO DO WHEN GHOSTFACES CROP UP. IT'S AN EVER PRESENT FEAR IN HER LIFE. AND SHE'S CONSISTENTLY PROVEN TO BE VALID IN HER PARANOIA.
scream 5 and 6. basically kinda go the same as usual but there's EVEN MORE FAMILY DRAMA since she's there and billy's alive and sam's sam. tatum likes sam a lot and has no issues with her but it does cause the first real serious blow out between her and billy. the murder??? she could get past that (insane statement) but cHeAtInG oN mOm?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!1/!??!?!?!? WHAT THE FUCK DAD!!!!!!! 6 includes them reconciling and joining forces to beat the baileys to death with rocks alongside sam and tara. you know family bonding shit.
#pay no attention to the man behind the curtain / ooc.#meta / ooc.#one of my og inspos for her personality was the fucking scout from tf2 but naturally that's shifted around a bit#i'd now include some jamie from halloween vibes n shit lol#just a very rough outline. mainly focused on timeline and a few character things/moments
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F1 Re-Watch 2013: Round 2 - Malaysia
Happy Multi-21 Day to all who celebrate!!
Fun fact about me, I’ve never watched Malaysia 2013 in full. Until today.
For all the newbies who started following me over the winter break, my abridged F1 story is that I grew up watching F1 with my Dad, then stopped when he passed away in 2007, then started watch it again mid-way through 2013 thanks to one of my high school friends. The first race I watched after my hiatus was Spain, then due to the BBC rights deal where they only had half the races live, the next race I saw after that was Canada. Which Seb won, and I felt bad that people were booing him, so I decided to start supporting him as a result.
I was filled in on the whole Multi-21 drama later, and have since seen the highlight reel in my 2013 season review DVD. But in honour of the race’s tenth anniversary, I’m watching the race in full. So, this may or may not be agonising (live blog under a read more to avoid clogging up your dashes!)
Worth adding, I’m not going to discuss in detail who was right or wrong or whatever, this is simply a record of me watching the Great Red Bull Civil War of March 2013. (with snacks to stress eat obvs)
This liveblog is once again brought to you by F1 TV Access, truly one of the best purchases I’ve made all year.
Anyway I’ve put my big girl trousers on and pressed play and THE OLD F1 INTRO I MISS YOU SO. Proper core memory right there.
Also also Sepang is a banging circuit and I miss her :(
It rained half an hour before the race???? oh jeez
Seb on pole, about to go and commit crimes
AHHHH JENSON!!!!
also remember when Checo drove for McLaren??? wild times.
I do really want to re-watch the 2013 season in full since there’s races from the first half of the season I missed, but that’s for a later day today is dedicated to the drama
Helmet watch: Seb’s blue chrome helmet is super pretty
[Formation Lap]: Everyone on inters bc of the aforementioned rain. Malaysia 2013 really was going for the That Bitch title of 2013.
ayyyy Toto sighting
“This should be a cracking motor race” Oh Brundle, if only you knew what was about to unfold
[Start/Lap 1]: Seb keeps P1, Mark into P2 bc Fernando got a little too frisky
oh rip Fernando’s front wing
Jenson into P5. Yeah that feels good.
Fernando re-took P2, I don’t think he knows half his front wing his hanging off.
[Lap 2]: Oop there she breaks.
Ah, not telling your driver they have a broken front wing. Just Ferrari things.
[Lap 3]: Did not notice Lewis getting up into P3 as a result of Fernando’s DNF.
Meanwhile Rosberg and Jenson are having a little fistfight. Nico won P4.
The supposedly fun part of watching this race for the first time is that I know exactly what happens between Seb and Mark, I just have no idea when. It’s like jaws and a jack in the box combined.
oh man I do not miss the old graphics of having the grid on the bottom of the screen, and waiting for your driver to come back up and hoping they were in the same place
[Lap 5]: ROCKY!!!!!!
Rocky team radio, feels good feels organic. (Don’t make me pick a favourite Seb engineer I love them all equally)
oh Kimi’s gone rallying on the apex of one of the corners.
[Lap 6]: Seb pits for mediums! First onto the dry tyres
oh jeez he just lost three places between corners bc of how slippery the track still is
[Lap 7]: RBR: Mark stay out it’s too wet in sector 1!! Meanwhile 5 or 6 cars come into the pits for slicks
Seb up into P7, which becomes P6 as Lewis pits.
dfaeguighush Lewis drove into the McLaren pit box 🤣
I lowkey love it when drivers do that
“Felipe Massa is now the fastest man on track” 2010s F1 intensifies
Live Nicole Scherzinger reaction to Lewis’ pitstop
[Lap 8]: Hiiiiii Bono!!!
Gotta take all the nice crumbs before the race turns round and stabs me
[Lap 10]: oh wow James Vowels was already head of Merc strategy at this point.
[Lap 11]: ANYWAY, after the pitstop shuffle Mark is in P1 on hards, Seb in P2 on Mediums. I’m anxious.
The race has calmed down now it’s dry but I am not calm as I’m now waiting for the jump scare to happen.
[Lap 12]: Meanwhile Lewis is a second faster a lap than Webber. Drama.
Rosberg sets the fastest lap, while munching on popcorn probably.
“They’re telling Webber he will not be challenged from behind by Sebastian” Oh. Oh no. It’s coming.
It’s only Lap 14
*chuckles* I’m in danger
[Lap 15]: Rosberg continuing to set fastest laps. Mostly unbothered.
Mark is 2.2 secs ahead of Seb who’s 2.1 ahead of Lewis.
I’ve also finished my snacks.
[Lap 16]: And Kimi gets past Perez for P9.
Aaaand a Romain Grosjean fastest lap.
[Lap 17]: Still all quiet on the Red Bull front. I’m still anxious.
I’m pretty sure there’s one maybe two more rounds of pit stops to go
Seb’s now 2.5 seconds behind Mark and 2.7 ahead of Lewis.
[Lap 18]: Livery watch: as much as I’m a black Merc apologist, I miss the silver livery with Petronas green sidepods, it’s soooo pretty
Back in the good old days when team could actually have full liveries and there wasn’t all the exposed carbon nonsense we have now :)
[Lap 19]: “Paul needs to establish himself” Don’t worry Brundle he’ll be your colleague at Sky in a few years
[Lap 20]: And Mark pits for mediums.
Imagine telling an F1 fan in 2023 that Mark only did 11 laps on a set of hards at a race in 2013, there certainly is something to be said for Pirelli I’m just not sure what.
[Lap 22]: And Lewis makes his second stop for more mediums. He drove into the proper pit box.
[Lap 23]: Seb pits for hards! He stays in P2.
Still no signs of violence yet.
Meanwhile Jenson is still in P5!!!
“They [McLaren] can see bright skies on the horizon, and challenge Ferrari in China” yeah lol that didn’t happen.
[Lap 24]: “3 second gap, save your tyres” Seb is two seconds behind Mark dfvdsvsgig
[Lap 25]: “If he’s saving his tyres he’s producing a muck quicker lap time with it” Seb’s barely a second behind Mark at this point I’M VERY ANXIOUS
[Lap 26]: The gap between the RBRs is 6 tenths of a second. Mum please pick me up I’m scared.
Meanwhile Lewis is just over a second behind Seb.
Rocky telling Seb to save his tyres, I don’t think he’s listening.
1.8 seconds covering the top 3 cars. oh boy.
[Lap 27]: Seb still 6 tenths behind Mark. *distressed yelling*
If there’s a big gap between laps it’s because I have my hands over my face in distress.
[Lap 28]: Jenson still in P5!!!
“Mark is too slow, get him out of the way” oop there’s Bastard Seb.
Gap now up to 1.4 seconds.
*half race distance klaxon*
Jenson in P5 while all of this is unfolding, an unbothered King.
[Lap 31]: Lewis makes his third and I’m guessing final stop for Mediums
“Look at Nico Rosberg” Must I?
[Lap 32]: Mark now in for his final stop for hards
JENSON IN P2 STOP THE RACE!!!
“The biscuit barrel is not just full of custard creams” Crofty???? That was meant to be an analogy about teams doing different strategies but I really don’t know man.
[Lap 33]: Seb pits for hards. And he’s in P4 behind Lewis now and barely in front of Rosberg.
JENSON’S LEADING!!! STOP! THE! RACE!
[Lap 34]: Lewis already being told to lift and coast to save fuel. oop.
“Button leads” INJECT IT!!!!!
Malaysia 2013 giveth and Malaysian 2013 about to taketh away.
[Lap 35]: And Mark gets past Jenson into turn 2
Hulkenberg and Kimi racing each other coming out of the pitlane svheghaeugh
And Jenson pits. It was very fun while it lasted.
NOOOOOO unsafe release his tyres aren’t properly on 😭
[Lap 36]: Oh yeah Ross Brawn was Merc TP in 2013, I always forget that. Toto joined Merc as his deputy I think before taking over in 2014.
[Lap 38]: “Sebastian Vettel the meat in the Mercedes sandwich” fic writers start taking notes
Meanwhile Hulkenberg and Kimi are still fist fighting over 8th and 9th
[Lap 39]: Seb up into P2.
[Lap 40]: “Sebastian Vettel has just reduced the advantage Mark Webber has by 8 tenths” There’s jaws music playing my head now fwiw.
Niki sighting ❤️
[Lap 41]: Now Rosberg is closing up to Lewis for a double serving of teammate on teammate violence
[Lap 42]: Oh Lewis pits again, that’s a fourth stop
Man if a driver has a four stop race in 2023 they’ve had a shit show but it seems perfectly normal aeogvaheoh
Meanwhile Seb is still catching Mark
[Lap 43]: And Seb also pits again for Medums, as does Rosberg. Seb stays P2 and Rosberg stays P4.
Livery watch: the glossy soft metallic blue with the purple accents is the superior RBR livery change my mind.
[Lap 44]: And Mark pits for hards.
And he barely came out the pits in front of Seb.
ahhhhhhhhh I think we’re in violence territory.
HELP
[Lap 45]: The gap between them is about half a second dvbaheuhs
(For anyone wanting to watch the race back for whatever reasons, the Civil War starts at around 1hr 26mins)
Presidential alert THE MERCS ARE FIGHTIIIIIIIING
and cut to mildly distressed Merc mechanics
Love that the internal Merc drama was completely overshadowed by Seb and Mark, truly no one was doing it like them
[Lap 46]: AH SHIT SEB AND MARK ARE WHEEL TO WHEEL
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Seb into P1. idk if there’s actually been the Multi 21 call yet. bc comms aren’t calling for Seb’s head as of yet.
Man that replay is yeah... violence
[Lap 47]: oop yellow flag, fits the mood perfectly.
Oh it was for Maldonado.
Live Adrian Newey Reaction.
and Live Ross Brawn reaction to the Merc on Merc violence.
[Lap 48]: Wait this race was on Ted’s birthday??? HBD TED!!!!!! 🎉🎉🎉
[Lap 49]: Still no Multi-21 name drop... was this something that came out after the race??? bc I’m sure there’s an actual Multi-21 radio message.
“Pastor Maldonado with an attack of the gravel rash” Thanks Crofty.
[Lap 50]: Massa passes Kimi for 6th
Yeah Seb’s 4 secs ahead of Mark now so surely that’s it????
so where’s the drama???
I can’t have zoned out bc comms would have yelled if Seb got past
[Lap 51]: Oh Rosberg asked to get past Lewis and Ross Brawn straight up said no. oof.
[Lap 52]: Yeah comms are dissecting the Merc drama but not Seb and Mark so I think they didn’t hear the Multi-21 radio call aeughaeuhg
Oh I wish that were me
[Lap 54]: Man Nico and Lewis are still nose to tail it’s like the precursor to 2014-16
Was there something in the water at Malaysia or did the racing gods just wake up and choose violence
Ted sounds so sad about Jenson’s mechanical DNF, a whole mood
[Lap 55]: Seb a whole six and a bit seconds ahead of Webber.
Perez pits????
Oh he had a 30 second gap to P10 nvm
Rosberg is still around half a second behind Lewis. Britney be bitching.
[Lap 56]: Will Lewis have the fuel to finish the race though???
[Finish]: SEB WINS. IT’S OVER.
Lewis P3, Rosberg P4. Cut to some eerily silent RBR and Merc pitwalls.
I don’t think Crofty knows about the Multi-21 message he hasn’t said anything about it.
😳
Did I zone out and miss it?????
Yeah Crofty thinks RBR are mad because Mark and Seb nearly took each other out not bc of the Multi-21 call OH BOY
Oop here’s the cool down room.
Bastard Seb is hot. sorry not sorry.
dbshbuhgru Seb and Adrian just chatting tyres. Still no Mark yet.
I’m watching this with very nervous laughter.
“Multi-21 Seb, Multi-21″ OOP THERE IT IS.
There’s so much tension in the cool down room it has its own gravitational pull.
ah the German anthem my beloved.
The Austrian anthem my belothed.
There is not a single smiling driver on that podium this is so awkward aevheugh
Okay there’s one (1) thrilled Merc mechanic, good for him!
“But was he [Seb] told to hold station?” Yeah they didn’t play the Multi-21 radio during the race.
God this is the most awkward champagne spray I’ve ever seen.
The drivers left the podium aeiihgaeghs
Oh they’re back.
Mark flung away his podium cap into the crowd jeeeeez
Tag yourself I’m Brundle trying to fill the conversation with fluff bc he can pick up the awkward tension a mile off
“It was very close wheel to wheel racing” YOU DON’T SAY SEB
Mark meanwhile looks seething.
“So you were surprised when he came passed you” YOU’RE TELLING ME BRUNDLE DIDN’T KNOW UNTIL THE PODIUM INTERVIEW ABOUT THE MULTI-21 CALL????????
Welcome to F1 the drama never stops.
Live Nicole Scherzinger reaction 2
Lewis saying nice things about Nico. That feels weird post-2016.
Well. That happened. ngl it felt less stressful knowing that they seemingly didn’t play the Multi-21 radio call on the global feed. Honestly the actual race itself was pretty dull until the RBR/Merc infighting.
Still I’m going to got for a lie down now.
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going by collective memory which is a spotty thing at the best of times, i think part of it was the move of fandom off of Livejournal. A lot of non-fandom content either had already abandoned it bc it was going downhill, or didn't leave until well after, and either way didn't migrate alongside the fandom migrations. I lost track of it, and while I knew some other multiples in Ye Olde Dreamwidth RP after the migration, there wasn't really a community anymore. The best way I think to get an idea what it was like is to find old archived sites and blogs that were live in like 2001-2004ish? I know scrapes-and-bruises [dot] neocities [dot] org has a pretty extensive list of archived plural/multiplicity-related sites and blogs, I found it looking for something else but it looks pretty good and I recognize some of the sites. But it was just... idk people WOULD introduce individual system members sometimes, but it was just as common for a system to just run their site/blog AS a system and you wouldn't know much about individuals, there wasn't really a pressure to disclose that, or your trauma, or what-have-you. There was definitely some drama, some folks were very against the idea of "naturally occurring" multiplicity, but large swaths of the community were supportive of it so it didn't feel too pervasive. it's hard to put a finger on exactly why, but the current community feels more like a content mill than a community. Like everyone's expected to Perform Plurality For Their Audience or some shit, you know what I mean? I didn't used to feel like I had to perform it correctly in order to be multiple. 🎆
That makes sense, tbh. If the community moved to newer sites there'd be disparity between the existing community as they tried to get set up again, archive important things, and whatever existing community may have been on the sites they migrated to.
I agree that it feels kind of content-mill-ish. This happens in other tags where people post in the tag because they have xyz identity and not because the post is actually super relevant or needs to be in the tag, but like... I go into the pluralgang tag and I see people posting updates about specific internal things in their system, posting about how they got a new headmate 3 seconds ago and want to introduce them, posting apologies for things, and it's like. I don't know how to describe it, but it's uncomfortable. I really don't need to know about the internal happenings in your system, and neither does the rest of the pluralgang tag.
We post about stuff going on in our system, but that's more because this is our personal blog where we blog about whatever we want, including IRL stuff, and not because we... idk, feel the need to meet a quota of posting about headmates before we're a Real Valid System. (I have no idea why people feel the need to post about every single thing that happens to them in every single plural tag.)
I also definitely think there's influence from young people joining the plural community? No fault on their part but for a lot of like, newly discovered 13-14yo systems, they're not really in a position to speak to their family or friends about plurality, y'know. But (and I think this is a thing most new systems do, not just young ones) they really want to be validated in their identity as plural, especially if they've tried to gauge how family or friends might feel and gotten a resounding "even if it were real, you're not plural". They discover that they're real, and they want to keep being real: they want other people to tell them they're real, because so far other people have told them they're not real, or that being real means being someone else entirely. (This happens in the queer community too, and seems to manifest as people only being able to tell other queers that they're 'valid', and seemingly unable to make any other positive comment.)
And so you end up with people wanting to talk about every single headmate in excruciating detail, and every conversation between those headmates and every headspace discovery, but more than that they want to be part of a community where they can talk about everything and everything is acknowledged, validated, and loved on a personal level. I don't think plural tags are a great place for that. Best of luck to them, of course, but in my experience trying to make a community that is like that just ends up being even more gatekeepy, presumptuous, and toxic. (Speaking from experience.)
#🎆 anon#answered asks#plural culture conversation#<- the tag I'm using for this#We're still undecided on if we actually want to make a thing for people to know more about specific headmates#or if we just want people to validate our existence now that we've decided to be public about our systemhood.#Even though we don't self-fakeclaim anymore. Not even in moments of depression or weakness.
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Any cute fluffy bl recs (preferably kbl)
i'm at ur service anon 🫡
idk what series you have seen so i'm going to include some popular ones and then delve into the obscure <3 btw its been awhile since ive seen some of these and my memory is bad. so take things with a grain of salt;;
kbl:
semantic error - very popular for a reason, its super cute w/ an enemies to lovers storyline, definitely fluffy at the end
roommates of poonduck 304 - rom-com style roommates/coworkers fall in love, honestly i just love jiwoong in this role, there's a third act fight i find annoying but it doesn't drag the series down!
the new employee - SO good. feels very genuinely lgbt as opposed to just bl (if that makes sense). refreshing communication.
love tractor - receives a million stars simply for having the cutest main love interest of all time. hes adorable. city boy meets country boy etc etc
choco milkshake - disclaimer: weird premise of a guy's pets come back as humans. additional disclaimer: i did almost cry. its really well acted and super cute and fluffy.
all the liquors - the plot makes no sense but the main characters are so charming that you look past it.
tinted with you - mr. park junhee goes back in time and meets a prince. its short but tbh one of the better paced mini kbls since it keeps itself contained.
nobleman ryu's wedding - another historical one, ft han sejin. i don't remember all of the details of this one but i do remember it being sweet. there is a random love triangle though so...be advised
mr. heart - han sejin is in this one too! sports/ track theme. basically the quintessential fluffy kbl mini-series.
love class - apparently a second season is coming soon?? anyway fluffy college bl.
others i think you might like! (under a cut bcs this post is getting long.)
jbl:
Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard? (aka cherry maho) - quintessential fluffy office romance with a hint of supernatural elements, very quickly cemented itself as a classic
kieta hatsukoi - quintessential fluffy highschool romance, i love aoki sm and all the characters are charming
Mr. Unlucky Has No Choice but to Kiss! - college romcom with supernatural elements, the characters are so earnest that you cant help but root for them despite their flaws
bokura no shokutaku - cutest fluffiest drama featuring food and warmth and found family
taiwanese bl:
plus and minus - my favorite hidden gem of all time. childhood friends to lovers and its done so well. disclaimer: the 3rd act breakup is stupid.
about youth - simple and sweet
#sorry i am a rambler so ofc this got out of hand. LOL#answered asks#thank you for the ask! hopefully there are a couple of these you haven't seen before and can check out!#so many of these shows blend together into a amalgamous mega bl in my mind so i had to consult mydramalist ORZ
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Fic Finder
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1. I'm hoping you can help me find a modern hospital AU that I vaguely remember but don't have a clue who wrote it. Wei Wuxian is a hospital volunteer (very good with young patients) but also a long time patient (maybe cancer) who encounters Lan Wangji and his family. I'm not even absolutely sure it's Lan Wangji who's the patient. However, it was clear that living to an old age was definitely not guaranteed for either. Lovely story, so I'd be very grateful if someone can track it down.
FOUND! some things go forward by everythingispoetry (T, 73k, wangxian, modern, hospitals, teenage drama, slow burn, hurt/comfort, happy ending, Mojo’s post)
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2. Hello! I'm looking for a fic - WWX returned to Cloud Recess and has been staying at the Jingshi with LWJ. But he thinks he should move out so he moved to a guest room. I remember a scene where LWJ came rushing in a panic because he thought WWX left :(Thank you!! @kayechan-blog
FOUND? can i look the other way by shipyrds (G, 2k, wangxian, post-canon, misundesrtandings, fluff)
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3. hi hello🥺 I need your help finding a fic, maybe you've read it!!! All I remember is that xicheng go on a much needed vacation but on their way they meet two kids and end up adopting them. I can't find it anywhere😭😭 @hissingfire
FOUND? For the heirs to come (be brave) by velithya (E, 24k, JC/LXC, post-canon, canon typical violence, smut, hurt/comfort, insecurity, fluff, accidental child acquisation, found family, PTSD, grief/mourning)
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4. Hello! I'm looking for a fic that I don't recall in nearly enough detail to even know where to start looking. I just remember this one specific scene where wwx is injured(?) and manages to climb up the stairs to cloud recesses, but he's not allowed in bc he's only allowed in for the winter/when it snows. I think it happened to be the day before or something? And the juniors discover him outside and are outraged. Does anyone recognize the fic? Tysm!!
FOUND? Scenes From Three Winters by LtLJ (G, 12k, wangxian, post-canon, romance, family feels, family issues, family drama, PTSD, body horror, bad parent LQR, happy ending)
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5. Heyo Mod L! I’m looking for a fic where WWX and the Wens moved to Yiling. It started as WWX teaching the kids how yo write and escalated from there. He has a small school there and JC came to see when he found they weren’t paying taxes? Please help me and Thank you!!
❤️ Just as the Snow Melts by draechaeli (T, 66k, wangxian, my post)
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6. Hello i'm trying to find this fic which i suddenly remember while reading Like Rabbits by Setari I'm saying that cause i think the fic i'm looking for is similar in terms of them having multiple kids but WWX going to gusu to ask for help cause there's a wangxian baby on the way/is born but WWX and LWJ already had a couple of kids that WWX keep secret (i think) so he gone to gusu to ask for LWJ to help care for the kids. Timeline events wise i think it's when the Wens and WWX are living in the Burial Mounds i'm not really sure on that. It's been a while back since I've read that fic the details might be completely wrong from what i said vs the actual events in the fic. Also sorry if that's short on details but that's all i remember and hopefully the fic i'm looking for isn't just a figment of my imagination.
FOUND? The Third Time by CordeNarcissus (M, 12k, wangxian, ABO, mpreg, unplanned pregnancy, marriage, everyone lives au, alternate endings)
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7. Hello! Im looking for a yizhan fic (please just delete this ask if it's not within the bounds of the blog but if it is, plspls help me find it) It's a getting BACK together fic, future (?) fic and all I can remember is Yibo is almost retired, living somewhere where there are mountains (?) And xiao zhan just keeps on dropping by without a heads up, and sometimes even waits for him. It actually takes a while for them to get back together or even kiss againI really want to re-read that delicious pacing of a fic, thank you so much for your hard work! <3<3 (Is it obvious that i would die without this blog, i love you all so much) @losing-victor
FOUND! A Long Time Ago… We Used to be Friends by DeviyudeThoolika (E, 49k, WYB/XZ, slow burn, angst)
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8. LWJ is the head of the Lan, who were devastated in the war against the Wen. None of the other clans protected them, despite both them and WWX requesting. LWJ asks for WWX's hand in marriage. Everyone thinks it is to punish him or get revenge, but actually it is because WWX snuck out to help the Lan and Jin-asshole was going to have him killed for it. @fightmehomework
FOUND! golden when the day met the night by Anonymous (not rated, 67k, wangxian, slow burn, sugar daddy LWJ, light angst, fluff, eventual smut, WIP)
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9. hi! i was looking for this one wangxian fic that’s inspired by a richard siken poem or something like that, but i cant find it :( so i was wandering if anyone remembers the title or has the link
FOUND? drop me down to the dream below by AroPeterWam (E, 44k, wangxian, time travel, comfort, angst w/ happy ending, reincarnation, dimension travel, sick WWX, noncultivator WWX, WIP)
FOUND? the landscape after cruelty, which is, of course, a garden by Folderol (G, 3k, WWX & WQ, burial mounds settlement days)
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10. Hi! Can you help me find a fic where Lan Zhan is a God of Death or something close to that wherein whenever lwj touches smth, it dies. I remember reading it on AO3. The story goes something like lwj accidentally touched wwx and then wwx dies. :(( Thank u so much!
FOUND? Destined to Meet You by Reader997 (E, 30k, wangxian, hades/persephone au, mpreg, first time, childbirth, smut)
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11. HELLO!!! love all the hard work that you do!!!!!! i was wondering if anyone has the link to a wangxian fic where lwj’s mom lived in a cottage (?) and was sick, so wangxian moved there to help her, oh and it was an modern au, and i think had only one chapter out of 2 when i read it, that’s it thank u so much!!
FOUND? paired wings soaring by typefortydeductions (E, 33k, wangxian, modern, domestic bliss, slice of life, angst & fluff & smut, hurt/comfort, kissing, BDSM, light somnophilia)
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12. Hello, here's one for the next Fic Finder post -- It was a TGCF crossover where Wei Wuxian's soul, during the 13 years he was dead, was being kept safe by Hua Cheng. Hua Cheng was willing to intervene on WWX's behalf because Lan Wangji prayed to Xie Lian for the safety of his soul, and Hua Cheng approves of other people who worship Dianxia. I read it back before I knew anything about TGCF, and I'd really like to read it again! @mikkeneko
not FOUND happiness, with you by glowelegans (M, 5k, wangxian, TGCF crossover, grief/mourning)
'happiness, with you' does not seem to be the one I'm thinking of, though I'm happy to read it too! The one I remember had WWX talking to Hua Cheng throughout most of it, in some kind of spirit-trapping pouch or vessel in Hua Cheng's possession.
FOUND! The Pros and Cons of Keeping Wei Wuxian's Spirit Hostage by cringewerewolf (T, 12k, wangxian, hualian, angst, suicidal ideation, humor, happy ending)
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13. Hi! This is such a great resource for finding fics y’all do so much. I’m looking for a fic where most of the ensemble cast is in acting school together and the final production of the semester is Much Ado About Nothing, and WWX and LWJ play the leads. Could you help me find it? Thank you!!! @waterlilyvioletfog
FOUND? too wise to woo peaceably bybhere_perishing (M, 43k, wangxian, modern, college/university au, drama school, actors, slow burn, enemies to friends to lovers, pining, getting together, angst w/ happy ending, fluff & smut)
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14. hello! I'm looking for a fic where LWJ sleeps with Burial Mounds era WWX. It was not a very long fic, and they were not together. LWJ does not go to the Burial Mounds. I think they meet up in some dusty room in Yiling. He may have talked to Wen Qing about WWX's condition and that he needs to dual cultivate. There was definitely mention of what terrible shape WWX is in after his fall into the Burial Mounds, broken bones,I think it mentioned his wrist held together with resentment. @significanceofmoths
FOUND? A Cup of Tea by Silvers_Hidden_Corner (Silver_Flame_2724) (E, 4k, wangxian, burial mounds settlement days, dubious consent, aphrosidiacs, porn w/ plot, dual cultivation, WWX has new golden core, communication, fix-it of sorts)
FOUND? sometimes my hands don't feel like my own by northofallmusic (tofsla) (E, 8k, wangxian, resentful energy tentacles, tender body horror, weird sex, golden core mad science, relationship negotiations, chronic pain, sex magic)
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15. Okay I really need your help!! I know I've seen you answer this on a fic finder post before but I've been scrolling through for HOURS and still haven't found it 😭 basically the fic is an arranged marriage between lwj and wwx and wwx has a really hard time adjusting to cloud recesses. Lwj and lxc try their best to help him but lqr is punishing him for every small little thing. I think there's a scene where wwx breaks down while getting fitted for new clothes maybe? I remember near the end jc comes to visit and lqr comes to apologize while he's there and wwx just starts crying bc he thinks lqr is going to make him leave just as he and lwj finally got close. Please please help me find this fic!!! Thank you so much for all you do!!!! @dekus-gonna-wreck-you
FOUND! Mourning Robes by Starlight1395 (T, 17k, wangxian, arranged marriage, no sunshot, angst w/ happy ending, hurt/comfort, depression, dissociating, fluff)
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in honour of finishing inkspell, here are some basta observations I picked up along the way. also, inkspell spoilers warning! i also have MANY MANY thoughts so i’d love to hear what you guys think to some of the questions raised
“He hadn’t changed: the same thin face, the same way of narrowing his eyes, and there was an amulet dangling around his neck to ward off the bad luck that Basta thought lurked under every ladder, behind every bush.” — pg.138
“Basta’s left hand was bandaged, Elinor noticed when he took his fingers away from her mouth.” — pg.139
“‘I’d have been here much sooner, believe you me, but they put me in jail for a while on account of something that happened years ago. No sooner was Capricorn gone than all the people who’d been too scared to open their mouths suddenly felt very brave.’” — pg.140 (see they never tell us WHY he was in prison, do they? the possibilities are endless. we know he committed atrocious things, like arson, but imagine if he got put in jail for something completely different…LOL)
“‘You wouldn’t believe how often I’ve told him there’s nothing to be ashamed of in going to jail, particularly when your prisons here are so much more comfortable than our dungeons at home.’” — pg.140 (OHHHTMGOD MEME IDEA)
“Basta flung his arm so roughly round Orpheus’ neck that his glasses slipped down his nose.” — pg.141
“‘Hold your tongue, Basta!’ Mortola interrupted him abruptly. ‘You’ve always liked the sound of your own voice.’” — pg.141
“‘Well, Silvertongue, I’m sorry it’s taken some time,’ he said in his soft, cat-like voice.” — pg.180
“‘My son always said revenge was a dish best eaten cold,’ observed Mortola.” — pg.181 (question. did basta find out about mortola’s true identity between inkheart & inkspell? do u think he realised it when mortola cried when capricorn died?)
“Basta passed a finger over his throat and winked at him.” — pg.186 (wink 2 LMAO)
“Basta bent down and picked up a rusty helmet lying at his feet. ‘What do you expect me to say?’ he growled, throwing the helmet back into the grass with a gloomy expression, and giving it a kick that sent it clattering against the wall. ‘Of course it’s our castle. Didn’t you see the figure of the goat on the wall there? Even the carved devils are still standing, though they wear ivy crowns now — and look, there’s one of the eyes that Slasher liked to paint on the stones.’” — pg.190
“‘So Basta was right after all. He’s dead, here and in the other world too.’” — pg.191 (interesting….so Basta knew Mortola’s plan wouldn’t work? he just wanted a ride home?)
“‘I’d really like to know what happened!’ he muttered. ‘I always said Capricorn wasn’t here, but what about the others?…What are we going to do if they’re all gone?’ Basta sounded like a boy afraid of the dark. ‘Do you want us to live in a cave like brownies until the wolves find us? Have you forgotten the wolves? And the Night-Mares, the fire-elves, all the other creatures crawling around the place…I for one haven’t forgotten them, but you would come back to this accursed spot where there are ghosts lurking behind every tree!’ He reached for the amulet dangling around his neck, but Mortola did not deign to look at him.
“‘Oh, be quiet!’ she said, so sharply that Basta flinched.” — pg.192
“‘You’re going to leave them here?’ That was Basta’s voice.” — pg.193 (at first I was like oh so he has a heart….but then he was mean to resa straight after this 🙄)
“‘Sorry, but he must have overlooked me, shut up in that cage as I was,’ purred Basta in his catlike voice.” — pg.377
“‘Wasn’t it Mortola who had you put in the cage to be fed to the Shadow?’ Basta just shrugged his shoulders and flung back his silver-grey cloak. Of course, he had his knife. A brand new one, it seemed, finer than any he’d ever had in the other world, and undoubtedly just as sharp.
“‘Yes, not very nice of her,’ he said as his fingers caressed the handle of the knife. ‘But she’s really sorry.’” — pg.377 (okay so it SOUNDS like he threatened/made some kind of bargain with his knife, but I strongly doubt that considering how afraid he seems of her?? i know he’s technically working for the adderhead but even by the end of the book, it seems he is far closer to mortola than adderhead. what is their relationship? or does he sincerely think she’s sorry/has deluded himself into believing such? UGH SO MANY QUESTIONS)
“Basta had always liked describing his own and other people’s abominable deeds in detail.” — pg.378
“‘But we’re not going to shoot you.’ Basta came a little closer to Fenoglio, his face as intent as that of a stalking cat.” — pg.378 …. living for all the cat references tbh
“‘He wants you to crawl on your belly to him, that’s what our noble lord and master likes. But never mind, he pays well!’” — pg.378 (yes basta all abt getting that bread LMAOOOO)
“He slowly drew the knife from his belt. Its blade was long and slightly curved.” — pg.379
“‘Hey Basta, I know you like the sound of your own voice.’” — pg.379 (AHAHAHAHA HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE CALLED OUT BASTA ON THIS NOW? IVE LOST TRACK)
“With a regretful sigh, Basta put the knife back in his belt. ‘Yes, very well, you’re right,’ he said in surly tones. ‘I need to take my time with this sort of thing. Questioning people is an art, a real art.’” — pg.380 (LMAOOOOOOO HE IS SUCH A DRAMA QUEEN)
“Basta. The same thin face, the same twisted smile. Only the clothes were different. Basta was no longer wearing his white shirt and black suit with the flower in his buttonhole. No, Basta now wore the Adderhead’s silvery grey, and he had a sword at his side. With a knife in his belt too, of course. But he was holding a dead chicken in his left hand.” — pg. 455
“‘Yes, they are!’ purred Basta. ‘The little witch, and the fire-eater into the bargain. It was well worth the wait. Even though I’ll probably never get that damned flour out of my lungs again.’” — pg.455 (ok….so who’s gonna draw basta sitting amongst the flour AAHHAHA)
“‘Servant? Who’s a servant here? Just listen to him. As bold as if he’d never felt my knife! Have you forgotten how you screamed when it cut your face?’” — pg.457 … don’t call basta a servant…..noted
“‘Oh, don’t look so disbelieving, little witch, I still can’t read and I don’t intend to learn, but there are enough fools around the place who can, even in this world.’” —pg. 457 (i wonder how much capricorn influenced basta’s views on reading. because capricorn said that he learnt how to read from a maid, right? so basta certainly wouldn’t have trash-talked reading in front of him. and even after living in OUR world for nine years, I’m still surprised that he never attempted to learn, given how dependent we are on it. anyway my headcanon is that he secretly wants to, but doesn’t want to give others the satisfaction of knowing they have something he doesn’t. also nobody he knows would be willing to teach him (unless he threatened them) bc of his obviously violent and short-tempered nature…and learning requires so much patience. still, though, would love a fic of basta being taught how to read in secret and having some kind of positive interaction)
“‘You’re even more talkative than you used to be, Basta.’ Dustfinger’s voice sounded as if he found this tedious.” — pg.458 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH IM DYING. honestly the animosity between them was just. A+++
“Basta was in an even worse state. He was sitting close to Mortola, his face so red and swollen that Meggie almost failed to recognise him. But he had escaped death once again. Perhaps the good-luck charms he always wore worked after all.” — pg.526
“The sunlight falling into the room made Basta’s face look like a boiled lobster.” — pg.575 
“Basta put his hand to the amulet hanging around his neck. It was not a rabbit’s paw, as he had worn in Capricorn’s service, but something that looked suspiciously like a human finger-bone.” — pg.581 (THIS STILL IRKS ME SO MUCH)
“The Piper straightened his back, as ready to attack as the viper on his master’s coat of arms…He was a good head taller than Basta.” — pg.582 WHY DO I KEEP FORGETTING HES NOT TALL LMFAO
“The two men were standing so close that the blade of Basta’s knife wouldn’t have fitted between them.” — pg.582 HAHAHAJAHAAJAHAHHAAHAHAHAH PKESJENE I LOVE THIS SO MUCH … IMAGINE BASTA SQUARING UP W HIS NOSE JUST SMACK BANG IN THE MIDDLE OF PIPER’S CHEST OR SOMETHING
“The Piper struck Basta in the face so hard that his head hit the door frame. Blood ran down his burned cheek in a trail of red. He wiped it away with the back of his hand. ‘Take care to avoid dark corridors, Piper!’ he whispered. ‘You don’t have a nose any more, but one can always find something else to cut off.’” — pg.582-583 THIS SCENE WAS SIMPLY……CHEF’S KISS
are you serious is he dead??? WHAT. okay I knew dustfinger’s love for farid would be the end of him and basta being the instrument to rip that away from him was totally heartrending. i WISH it had been more climactic? like dustfinger unleashing his fury and fighting basta, blind with anger and grief. THE DIALOGUE POTENTIAL BETWEEN THEM AS THEY FINALLY TALK ONE-ON-ONE, and then some revisiting of the scene where dustfinger has the opportunity to kill basta but AGAIN withholds because killing is not in his nature….THEN MO IN SHINING ARMOUR SWOOPS IN TO DO THE JOB
now, off to inkdeath!
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Since the release of the cast featurette video, I've received a ton (like srsly, A TON) of asks from lovely anons sharing their opinion about Alex and Michael, what they hope to see in S3, and what - in their opinion - either character should do or is supposed to do in order to be "worthy" of the other, or good enough, or when either will have himself redeemed enough to move forward and start a relationship with the other.
And while I appreciate y’all sending me these asks (thank you 🥰), I haven't published them bc I don’t really want to have this discussion (which is quite heated going by some comments 👀) this close to S3, and I want to keep things as positive as possible here (mostly for myself, really, my mental health is not in a good place atm, and I’m clinging to every shred of good). So, in lieu of replying to each of these asks individually, here’s how I see and handle it: I'm 100% Team Could We Both Stop Keeping Score, meaning, that for me it doesn’t matter anymore who did what, said what, was hurt by what, was [supposedly] hurt more, misunderstood what, and so on.
They have both said and done things in the past that hurt the other - sometimes on purpose, but more often bc they are terrible at communicating, Michael had to hide a huge ass secret from Alex, Alex was stuck with an employer he couldn’t just hand a two weeks’ notice, they both had traumatizing childhoods, etc.
But most importantly, they have both suffered from bad and forced writing that made them say and do things that made no sense, that made them look like an asshole or cruel, or like they don’t care and have no emotions like a normal person.
I'm not saying that either of them's without fault and of course, everything that has happened in canon has been written by someone. They are fictional characters, they depend on being written.
But you can either write them with the love and care they and their story deserves - or you can force the worst tropes on them, drown them in stereotypes, deny them to show perfectly valid emotions, drag things out for the ~drama of it all, and make them act a certain way "for the plot". Sadly, the latter happened to them a lot, especially in S2.
Personally, I prefer to go into S3 calling things “even” between them [to give Chris a chance to tell their story with more kindness and care, and I don’t expect him to clean up every detail of the huge MESS he was left with after S2]. All I want to see this season is Alex and Michael (re-)connecting, healing, thriving, and then loving each other.
Of course, I also want them to talk about the past to avoid making the same mistakes again. It’s okay if they apologize to each other for some of the things that happened (as long as it’s not a one-sided thing where one takes all the “blame”), and it’s okay for them to bring things up that went sideways. It’s important even.
But I don't have expectations or "demands" for either of them to act a certain way or grovel. They have both experienced so much trauma and pain, some of which they even share. I don't want either of them to suffer anymore 😔
For me, neither has to "earn" the other's affection or the right to be in love and be loved. There’s no way to “unwrite” the past 2 seasons in a satisfying way, and thus I’ll be okay if S3 lets some things “slide” in order to get them on track to the happiness they deserve.
And that’s my two cents on the topic. BRB hoping they’ll spare them more emotional cruelty. 🤞
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cloudtail’s daughter: jayfeather
alright, strap in, it's time for jayfeather. i've been holding it in on him for what feels like forever now; he's ya boy's favorite character
also, aside from dove and ivy, he's the character with the highest volume of changes to canon. even above cloudtail and brightheart, because they continue their lives, it's not a big deal. and lion and cinder go to the tribe, but like, that's it. (i'm figuring out if jay goes with them over the course of this essay. i think i said he did in holly? but he literally hasn't been mentioned once in that arc because there's a lot going on.) anyway lion and cinder don't get up to anything. but jay's priorities shift and we see that in his books. i'm really excited to write him but i need to finish arc 1 lmao.
but first, same deal as always. this is part of my cloudtail's daughter au, where dovekit and ivykit are born to cloudtail and brightheart. i don't know how well this will read preemptively, but i suspect it will be rather dependent on the others. cloudtail's daughter: dovewing and/or the long post that explains it are both good places to start, see the cloudtail's daughter tag on my blog.
[2.5k words, 14 minute read, one of the last warriors essays on this blog. i'm going to finish out with my character essays and then everything will be on new sideblog. so check out @mallowstep for more.]
section one: the leafpool business
at the beginning of this series, leafpool and jayfeather are on bad terms. they will stay on bad terms for basically the entirity of the book series. while one of my main complaints with po3/oots is the lack of acknowledgement of adoption, jayfeather has been lied to by his mother and his mentor, something neither hollyleaf or lionblaze have to contend with, and then his sister kills herself over it. obviously she doesn't, but from his perspective. so he blames leafpool because he was really close to hollyleaf and now she's gone, and it's his first real loss, and there's so much going on.
and so he's a grouch and he's unhappy and he's just trying to function when his whole support system has been dismantled over the course of what, like, a quarter moon? yeah so dovekit and ivykit are like "wow what a grouch he sucks" the same way they don't realize prey is dying of thirst & etc.
for the most part he's j chilling and then hollyleaf comes back and man is it some family drama. unfortunately it's postponed til book 4 because hollyleaf and jayfeather have journeys but anyway i'm getting ahead of myself, because this section should end and unlike the hollyleaf essay i want to actually have decent organization.
section two: hollyleaf is away (but jayfeather doesn't get to play)
holly, cinder, and dove go to deal with beavers. we only get jayfeather through lionblaze in the books, but jayfeather is...conflicted. he got his sister back and lost her again and oh i should say. i think jayfeather and hollyleaf are the closer pair of the siblings. not that they don't love lionblaze the same, but you know how cats pair bond? like, it's usually a trauma thing, but even in feral cats, you see very close friendships. anyway yeah so for other au's i've been sorting siblings n denmates into pairs for this purpose (mostly jaywing au because there's a lot re. dovepaw and jaypaw and remember they are reincarnated siblings they've got a close bond going.) and it's kind of...i don't know my point is jayfeather misses his sister because she's like, his best friend too. or she was. and then she died and now she's back and she left again, and lionblaze is more concerned about cinderheart, so jayfeather just comes off as grouchy all the time. but really he's lonely and sad.
so yeah, jayfeather is kind of moping around camp and then the tree falls and whoops now briarpaw/light is parapalegic.
and uhh this goes more or less as in canon but we don't get pov which is fine bc u can sub in canon. but jayfeather? he's still a sad boy but now he's a sad boy with purpose and that makes all the difference
yeah he's close with her. they're sweet. it's sweet. he's pressured by brambleclaw to take an apprentice. he's bristly and angry and "you're not my real father" you know?
beaver crew gets back. jayfeather, who had missed holly, is back to being angry for...angst and plot purpose, really.
but you know, when you love & miss someone and they leave and they come back and somehow that's worse because now they can leave you again? and you can't tell them you want them to stay because you're angry and hurt but you want them to stay? god i'm excited to write these chapters i love emotional turmoil.
he's protective of briarlight, he's trying to keep dovepaw from being a medicine cat, hollyleaf is apologizing but he's not ready to hear it and lionblaze and hollyleaf are beginning to reconnect and it feels like betrayal. so when cinderheart and lionblaze go to the tribe, he tags along. everyone, uh, strongly encourages he go. he is the big grouch.
section three: time travelling times
okay so the timeline for these books is...messy. if you track the chronology of my writing, it's messy. which is to say, i was thinking i could put forgotten warrior and distant whispers over the same time span, but that actually doesn't work, as i review my notes for FW because a big part of it is ivy and holly's relationship. so. fake news. whoops. that sucks.
or maybe it doesn't? idk i don't usually tell linear stories. i like messing with emotional impact of events. so writing 600k of very linear story telling is very not easy for me. but i'm trying.
right so basically the official order of events until i change my mind again is as follows (names abbreviated as DIHLJC because they're all unique): DCH returns from beavers, DILCJ go to tribe with some other random warrior undecided, J + rando return, JH start awkwardness (beginning of TFW, middle of DW), DILC return (end of DW), time travel stuff (middle to end of TFW). hopefully that was intelligble, but it is admittedly 85% for my own benefit.
alright so we've covered during beavers, now jayfeather and hmmmm let's say, uhhhh, let's say they go with, literally any interesting background character, uh, bumblestripe! he doesn't do anything in this au bumblestripe goes with them. also since his name starts w b i can still write DIHLJCB and have things be unambigious. and it means there are fewer bs in thunderclan and trust me you don't know how frustrating the existence of like 6 b characters is.
alright so we really have 3 sets of two pairs of cats here. maybe i won't go w bumblestripe, bc he doesn't have an existing relationship w jayfeather. i dunno. i'm a big fan of jay & briar, whether as a ship or just besties, but that's just out, and hollyleaf can't come a) because i said so and b) honestly maybe she can? actually wait hold on that solves my problems. hot damn so 6/6 of the pov cats go to the tribe and this will be one of the only times all six characters are plot relevant at the same time. but i'm going george r r martin on it and seperating the books not by time but into DICL + JH because they're two completely separate character arcs that happen to take place at the same time. (don't worry i'm going to resolve the fallen leaves thing. in this essay ig bc i've already covered hollyleaf.)
okay so yeah hollyleaf is sent bc jayfeather isn't planning on staying w tribe for long time. just short time. and he's all "firestar why"
"well jayfeather," firestar says, "you don't talk to your family."
"i talk to dovewing," jayfeather says
"you're not related to her," firestar says
"there's a whole prophecy about how i'm related to her," jayfeather says
"you know about that?" firestar says
and that's how the cat gets out of the bag.
so anyway. jayfeather and hollyleaf are sent because...hold on, spinning the wheel of reasons for a character to go on a field trip...because...because...because...because...jayfeather had one of those dreams. i don't know. rock or something. now he's going.
they get there, and this is where the books get a lil time wonky, bc jayfeather and hollyleaf stay for like a moon, during which jayfeather goes back in time. i think.
i haven't worked out the details and probably won't until i do an updated au synopsis because it's hard to keep track and i'm more concerned about character through lines. like, jayfeather does this and he feels sad, and hollyleaf is sad about her ghost boyfriend, and they're travelling back together, and hollyleaf is his sister and she doesn't make him feel like he needs protection and lionblaze is bad at that, and they start to talk again.
and yeah, they bond. again. it's kind of, on top of their old bond? like they don't repair anything, they bond like strangers. but it's not nothing, and that matters.
so jayfeather gets back, and we're moving into book five, and i don't remember when the last time i made a section break was or what number we're on, so...sorry.
section ???: old man yells at cloud
alright it's finally jayfeather's moment. you know, he's one of my favorite characters, and he only gets a book and a half. "but mateo," i hear you saying, "doesn't every character get a book and a half? and more importantly, 6x1.5 is 9, so how does every character get a book and a half?" well, yes, every character does, but dovewing and ivypool are relevant in books 1-3 and 6, cinderheart in 1-3 and 5, lionblaze in 1-3, and hollyleaf in 2-5 (and has a critical role in 1 and 6, just no character development), while jayfeather is just really essential to books 4-5, and has a background role in 3. that means he's about equal to lionblaze. he's equal to lionblaze. as far as the numbers go, i cannot tell you. it's a mystery.
right so the reason for this is because (a) jayfeather doesn't do that much in oots. i love him, but he's not, like, super important, and (b) he's going to work better in these books if he's concentrated. because his big theme is his relationship with hollyleaf and the past. they're both kind of stuck in it but in different ways. and that prevents them from ever properly healing. so jay never has a full arc in this. i mean he has a full arc, it's just not a satisfying one. and that means he's sort of got to be put in the containment units.
so anyway, he gets his real big moments in the fifth book, when he's reuniting starclan. i think this is one of the riskier decisions on my part: we'll see whether or not i can deliver on him the way i plan to. but i think i can pull it off so that his arc is more meaningful condensed as such.
right. so. jayfeather is decided. he is going to fix starclan. because dead cats need to get thier shit together and he dgaf.
he spends a decent amount of time arguing with yellowfang and bluestar, because basically no important cats have died. at least we're in omen of the stars so it still makes sense? i have no idea why yellow/blue are still so important. please kill more important cats. it makes us feel things.
but feathertail is also probably going to be involved, i don't know. i haven't read these books (specifically, books 4 and 5 of oots) in forever so i don't really remember what happens. but he's kind of, super done with everything. i think he'll probably try to get the support of mothwing and kestrelflight (which is canon i believe?) and try to work as a team. i feel like there's weirdness w shadowclan too i should sort out.
so yeah, there's some medicine cat bonding, everything is OK, sol is happening? but cinderheart is dealing with that. jayfeather is naturally very upset about disconnects with sol but like he's also dealing with stuff i...i really need to reread outcast and sign of the moon. well, they're on my list after "all of these fucking riverclan novels like why they don't show up in the main series but i still have to read a bunch to be able to write them that's not fair."
alright, well, with that very vague description of what happens, moving on, the prophecy gets revealed to the clans at a whole in like...the ending eighth of this book. trying to maximise the amount of exposure to other clans without messing with the pacing.
so jayfeather and undecided warrior B (definitively not hollyleaf) go to windclan. jayfeather is...very unhappy about this. he does not want to leave. thunderclan is his home, and he's blind, and it's really hard to adapt to a new space and he thinks everyone is going to treeat him badly.
and well, if you've read my culture posts, windclan is....very pro-medicine cats and pro-prophecy cats. funerals. mourning. prayer. is probably the best place to start, but to get to the meat of it, start with general clan culture. to summarize, windclan: religious. but kind of like catholics, they don't believe in an individual connection with starclan. only leaders, and medicine cats, and very rarely members of prophecies have a connection. so. jayfeather. he's twice over. that's very cool to windclan.
so cats are kind of falling over themselves to help him, and like. i mean jayfeather is a grouch and he hates that he needs someone to help him through the territory, but at least they don't treat it like a chore, or like he's pitiable. this is a desirable task. apprentices want to know about his powers. and kestrelflight is a respected part of the clan, arguably more important than onestar, and jayfeather has never really gotten over being shoved in the healer hole as a child like it was lesser or easier to be a medicine cat, and so it's a big change.
and yeah. so i mean. an unobservant reader might say jayfeather has sufficient ego. he does not need stroking. they, of course, would be wrong.
jayfeather has a complex, but it's not an ego issue. he's...he's been denied everything he's wanted, and he's jaded, and weary, and he's never really believed that his clan views him as able and equal. in canon, at present, he's lost almost every cat he's every cared about. alderheart is his strongest remaining tie, and his fear at losing him, but willingness to let him leave, is very telling.
so yeah, jayfeather enjoys being accepted. anyone would. he doesn't really have confidence issues, but....argh. i know why this is good i swear it'll come out in the writing.
anyway, that's...that's pretty much it. jayfeather? done.
#warrior cats#warriors au#warriors#hollyleaf#jayfeather#q#mine#txt#13th#March#2021#March 13th 2021#cloudtail's daughter#essay#long
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Realm of the Quarantine Reread End-of-Book Questionnaire: Royal Assassin
Any differences between your first/previous reading experience and this one?
Not as stark a difference as with Assassin’s Apprentice, but definitely still there. Apart from all the obvious stuff, like feeling much more attached to the characters already and picking up more details, I think the biggest change was a complete lack of patience for the teen romance drama lol. There was a decent period where I was feeling quite frustrated with it. Not that I loved it the first time round, but back then I had a very different view of how it fit into the story. I saw it as teaching Fitz a depressing lesson of what it really means to be a royal bastard and a king’s man. Fitz’s literal need (for all he knows he would have been killed if not for his deal with Shrewd) and sense of duty to put his loyalty to his king and country first creates a relationship that is toxic, turbulent and built on lies. And teenage horniness masquerading as love. I saw all that the first time and thought it was just something he had to go through. Now I know it’s something he never really goes through but rather grips onto, romanticises and ultimately goes back to. I know the point of that is meant to be that he finally gets to have something for himself, but why it had to be Molly specifically??? I have very few qualms with Robin’s writing choices overall, but why she chose to write their relationship this way if they really are meant to be is beyond me, especially when so many of her other romances are written so well - it feels like it can’t possibly be unintentional. For most of this book they’re either fighting or fucking and honey! That ain’t love! Hell, Fitz all but sees her as just another demand on his time as the book goes on. But he can’t let her go because she’s the one thing he can point to that makes him feel normal. Not happy, not cherished, not safe. Normal. She’s simply a refuge from his real life. He literally says to Chade “I need her.” I find that so telling, man. It’s not really about her, which is a shame because Molly is great. They’re just really not good for each other.
So yeah. It’s just kind of trying to read all the Fitz/Molly stuff when you know and don’t like what it ultimately culminates in. At the same time… Bee… So I will always be conflicted lol. I just can’t separate the events of Royal Assassin from the furious disappointment I felt when I finished Fool’s Fate. Perhaps I’ll have a new Fool’s Fate experience this time that will make the next re-read a bit easier in regards to Fitz and Molly? But I won’t bet on it lol.
Anyway. It’s not as if I haven’t already said just about everything there possibly is to say about Fitz and Molly yet I also feel like I could go on about it forever. Luckily this is kind of as bad as it gets in terms of how much “screen time” they actually get (apart from Fool’s Assassin maybe? But they don’t bother me too much in that) so yay! I made it! And hopefully it’ll be a good few books before y’all have to endure my ranting about it again :)) Also hopefully this doesn’t give the impression that this read was more bad than good? It was mostly just a particular angsty chunk before they properly get together that was a bit of a slog to get through, but overall I really loved reading this book again and got a lot out of it.
Something you can’t believe you forgot
That Molly punches Fitz in the face hard enough that he bleeds and that Fitz fully intended to punch the Fool for asking if Molly was preggo before seeing he had already been beaten. I pretend I do not see it.
Favourite character introduction moments/scenes
Omfg I was just about to say “huh we didn’t really get any major character intros in this book” bitch Nighteyes???? But in my defence I just. Cannot process the fact that Nighteyes is only really in 3 of 16 books he just feels omnipresent to me BUT his introduction is most definitely iconique and god I love him and he made me cry eight thousand times!
Favourite character arcs
Speaking of Nighteyes: what a glow up. He goes from angry, scared, untrusting little bb to……. Nighteyes. Like. How does one even describe the kind of person Nighteyes becomes. He’s just Nighteyes and I love him with all my fuckin heart!! He is Fitz’s constant… He is wise… He is silly… a comedic genius…… a big, open, unconditional heart. Incomparable. I can’t believe I’ve seen ppl saying they dislike/d Nighteyes……. Honey…… it’s called taste xx
Favourite quote/s
Again no tabs so it’s a bit harder to keep track but there were a few that stuck out enough to copy down. There are a lot of iconic quotes in this book that get shared a lot so I only bothered with ones I didn’t remember.
- “I wince to think of the price willingly paid for loving me.”
- “My soft, clean bed beckoned, like a soft, clean tomorrow.” (mood)
- “I looked and saw they were both made of hungers, like containers made of emptiness.”
Favourite relationships
Kettricken/Verity obviously. I was shocked by how little time they actually have together being in love before Verity leaves??? Because all I remembered was how strong their love is. But the whole journey towards that love is what makes it stand out as an actual compelling story in its own right. This is definitely one of Robin’s greatest skills as a writer; giving the minor characters depth by giving them their own relationships that grow and change and have a life of their own outside of Fitz. It makes the world feel so much more alive.
Also Burrich/Fitz in this book continues to be bittersweet, but with a lot more sweet in there than usual! They fully start out this book as a team. Burrich calling Fitz “FitzChivalry” makes me fuckin emo and idk why even. Burrich does seem to start seeing Fitz a lot more as his own person in this book which changes their dynamic in some rly nice ways. The fact that towards the end of the book Burrich even uses the wit to help Fitz is enough to make me cry tbh - and writing this has made me realise that I’m officially past any uncomplicated good times between Burrich and Fitz y’all mind if I fuckin die real quick!!
Fitz/Verity is soy pure and beautiful. Fitz and the Fool is always, always compelling and complex and tender and perfectly mysterious. But overall you’d have to say Fitz/Nighteyes, hey? They are literally meant to be, in a way so straightforward and undeniable and beautifully simple that I never really know what to say about it. Little brother!!! :’) They literally make me cry all the frickin time lol rip!
Favourite setting
There aren’t that many to choose from in this book! Ima go with the skill river bc hey, Robin’s magic systems are so unique and beautiful and the fact that the skill is written as a kind of a place is really frickin cool and deserves a shoutout.
Favourite chapter
The final chapter (not the epilogue) ummm broke my heart but it is written so beautifully, oh my god, it’s like an out of body experience. I feel like this is kind of when RotE becomes RotE - the first time it really goes to that place that is so fitting yet so unexpected, so beautiful, so tragic, so awful, so visceral. Making use of the genre to really test the limits of humanity; to see how far you can bend a person without breaking them and then refusing to turn away from the consequences. Idk man!! I don’t know how to describe it without sounding like a pretentious dick but it really is that intense and strange and overwhelming for me. There is something in that moment, when Burrich pulls Fitz’s body out of the earth and Fitz/Nighteyes is recoiling from it and deeply terrified… Something about the enormity of the existential questions raised converging with the pinpoint specificity of it all being wrapped up in the story of a character that feels so real and who you care about so deeply… It’s almost written like a horror scene, but that’s not quite the feeling. It’s just the RotE feeling; there are multiple throughout all five series, and it’s what makes these books unlike any other.
Most loved character
Fitz, Nighteyes, the Fool all had my entire heart this book. The Fool is just so sad and pathetic and literally must be protected!! I think I’m kind of obsessed with Burrich? Also I think I almost forgot how much I love Kettricken? She’s a complete badass of course but she’s also got the biggest goddamn heart like…. Who said she was allowed to be such a beautiful person???
But god, everyone. I love them all.
Most hated character
What can I say? Regal is disgostang. Wall Ass a close second.
Raise your hand if you’ve been personally victimised by Robin Hobb (most heartbreaking and/or visceral moments)
Shall I list just a few? :)
- Burrich screaming at Fitz through the bars of his jail cell, horrible things you can’t help but feel are at least a little bit true
- Burrich sobbing over Fitz’s dead body repeating, “You aren’t dead, you aren’t dead.”
- Fitz going to Nighteyes before everything went down on the night of the coronation and just fuckin hugging him really tight
- Fitz trying desperately to leave his broken vessel behind but not quite being able to disown his body
- The Fool being beaten
- The Fool being beaten again
- The Fool sprawled and weeping across Shrewd’s dead body
- The Fool really believing for a moment that Fitz had betrayed him and killed Shrewd
- Fitz tending the Fool’s wounds………. bitch….
- Chade giving Fitz a chance to escape with them and Fitz going to kill Serene and Justin instead
- Idk why this is even that sad but Nighteyes saying the only person he loves is Fitz!
- The entire incident with the forged ones literally tearing apart a three year old girl, which I had completely blocked out until now :)
- The fact that Fitz continues to be reminded and traumatised by this incident for the remainder of the book beCAUSE HE IS A GOOD BOY. A VERY GOOD BOY WITH A VERY GOOD HEART.
- Fitz repelling at Nighteyes to try and force their bond broken
- LITTLE BROTHER
- WOLVES HAVE NO KINGS
- High off his face Fitz calling Patience “mother” no shut the fuck up!!!!
Details, observations, spoilery notes made with the benefit of the full picture
- I’ve been trying for ages to decipher when the Fool started falling for Fitz, and I think I’m officially putting my money on their last interaction in AA. “I wish I had a place that was as much me as that place is you.” I mean. If someone said that to me… I’m not a slut but who knows, ya know? (I know this is more a note for the last book but I thought of it while reading this book. So shh.)
- It’s so clear to see this time how much Fitz’s sense of self and politics are affected by his time in the Mountains. He obviously feels much more inclined to their way of thinking about royalty and sacrifice and equality and returns to Buckkeep with a self-respect he’s never really had before. Weird how being among people who don’t just think of you as The Bastard will do that.
- It’s no wonder Fitz becomes so fixated on Molly; he literally has almost nothing else to occupy him and no companionship when she suddenly shows up
- It’s gross that he spies on her, obviously, but you can’t not take into account the fact that Chade has been teaching him since he was ten that this is justifiable behaviour; a reasonable way to gather information and get what you want. Fitz’s lack of social awareness goes further than him just being a little awkward; he has literally been trained to believe the only thing wrong with stalking would be getting caught.
- I’ve seen a few people talk about the fact that Regal isn’t appropriately punished as if it’s bad writing and like, while it is frustrating, it is supposed to be frustrating - it is not a plot hole. It made sense to me the first time I read it and it was even more obvious this time; Regal has the loyalty of the inland duchies. If he were to be publicly punished those dukes would rally behind him and raise hell, and Regal would no longer need to play the part of the dutiful prince. Even if Regal died a “natural” death - something I can’t see Shrewd or Verity orchestrating anyway - the inland dukes would feel that they no longer have a Farseer on their side and may, again, raise hell. It’s a delicate balance that would be outrageously difficult not to topple if you removed Regal from the equation. There is a lot more to it than I’ll bother writing here but yeah. I don’t really know how people can read this book and think that Regal retaining his life and position is some sort of lazy plot contrivance. It was all set up in the first book dude.
- Fitz and Nighteyes meeting in this book is the perfect metaphor for our need for connection versus the fear of inevitable loss. Fitz’s experience tells him that entering into a bond with an animal can only end in pain, yet he can’t resist it. In real life this is especially true with humans and our animal companions, since they almost always have a shorter lifespan than us; signing up to love them is signing up to lose them. But the same is also true of our relationships with other humans. And like Fitz, we have all had our fair share of loss and pain. We all have our reasons to be afraid of the connection we naturally crave. Sometimes we give in to the fear to the point of holding ourselves back from it entirely. That’s where Fitz is at when he meets Nighteyes. But what’s so beautiful about their arc as a metaphor is that it suggests that these connections, if we submit to them, are what keep our vital spark alive. Even when Nighteyes dies later in the series, the sentiment always remains, essentially, “It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.” Ya boi is projecting bc it’s hard to be vulnerable and make friends as an adult, but I think the observation stands. Love and connection and vulnerability are key threads that run throughout all of Fitz’s story, but in this book it is best represented through him and Nighteyes.
- “I hoped I would not become too adept at lying to myself.” Honey, you got a big storm comin.
- Very inch resting (gay) that Fitz finds it hard to meet the Fool’s eyes. I know almost everyone does bc his eyes are weird, but I reserve the right to reach and I will absolutely NOT be accepting criticism.
- I find it interesting that Fitz says Kettricken’s wit is not strong just because she doesn’t use it exactly the way he does
- I know it’s not meant to be funny but……. The way Fitz described losing his virginity had me literally laughing out loud
- Fitz was really like “okay i better go break my bond with Nighteyes” just cos he and Molly fucked. Teenagers don’t deserve rights.
- You know what? I really, really appreciate how fucking weird these books are lol. What other author would use their magic system to have their characters accidentally intruding on each other’s awkward sex stuff? Okay, maybe a few, but they would do it to be like, edgy and sexy. Robin Hobb just does it to make you cringe so hard you lose several years off of your life.
- But seriously, even apart from the cringe stuff, these books get so strange and out there and like! That’s what magic is for!
- Bruh. When Fitz is like “omg poor Verity…. He’ll never have what i have with Molly” I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone encapsulate the self-important delusion of teen romance so perfectly lol. Wow.
- Okay some Fitz/Fool stuff that made me lose my tiny mind. Sorry.
- Fitz literally said about the Fool “he burned too brightly” I WILL DIE.
- Fitz is always like, irritated by the Fool… yet positively delighted by his presence at the same time…… okay bitch
- Inch resting how Fitz has always been uncomfortable with the Fool getting serious. I don’t quite know how to put my thoughts on this into words so like. I’ll just put it there. Make of it what you will.
- “Sit on my clothes chest and take your shirt off…” i stopped fucking breathing noah fence
- “I ran my fingers lightly down the line of his jaw, and around his eye socket. At least no bone seemed damaged. ‘Who did this to you?’ I asked him.” my GOD this is literally textbook gay/romance. It hurts me. It physically hurts me.
- Straight from my notes: “I can’t even focus on reading this bc it’s the first time they are tending each other’s wounds and I am a homosexual!” and “the gays are quaking!! (it’s me I’m the gays)
- Okay wow! I think that’s it! Hello if you made it this far! Hope this was remotely coherent and I’m always keen to hear your thoughts on my thoughts :)
Anyone doing a reread feel free to fill this out! You don’t have to use the tag :)
#rote#realm of the elderlings#royal assassin#royal assassin spoilers#fitzchivalry farseer#realm of the quarantine
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🌸┊ FRIENDLY REMINDER: this is a headcanon for my muse only. please do not take claim to it as your own.┊ 🌸
HEADCANON: THE MATCHMAKER
WARNING: This post is bound to containt SPOILERS & what’s more will be long. I will place it under a read more. I apologies in advance, because it might seem a bit scattered brained & its something i can gladly talk about in detail if anyone wishes to ask me questions on the matter.
Now to fully explain about the reasons for this HC, you have to understand that Mulan has an EXTREME dislike towards the matchmaker in general & will go out of her way to avoid one if possible.
To begin with, her dislike of one began when she was a small child. she had seen the village girls, while growing up, get dressed up all trying to impress this one woman who seemed to never once show any form of kindness to them. she would watch them be chosen, ALL OF THEM fearful that they would be rejected & ruin their families honor by not appeasing this one person who had a LARGE amount of control over their lives. over the years, especially when she had been told by her parents that she had been MATCHED, this feeling of dread and disliked continued to expand, but she knew that she had no choice but to uphold the tradition & agree to go meet with her.
Considering her culture & how everyone, including her parents are traditional, she had been taught that a woman could only bring honor by marrying & baring male heirs into the world. & since Mulan is a girl, she would have been forced to learn from a young age to act more ladylike ( learning to make clothing or sow dresses, flower arraignments, cooking, dancing etc ), instead of following her passions ( such as martial arts, reading and writing, & basically all the things her father taught her, despite the fact that he had told her to hide it ).
To further look into this, let me quote the actual film for 2020 because it really does give good insight to the attitude of how & the way that most woman had been forced to think:
❝ Quiet. Composed. Graceful. Elegant. Poised. Polite. These are the qualities we see in a good wife. These are the qualities we see in Mulan. When a wife serves her husband, she must be silent. She must be invisible. She must be… ❞ - 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐫 2020
LETS BREAK THIS DOWN EVEN FURTHER because boy oh boy do i have a lot to say about it ( i promise to keep my opinions on the matter minimum ), due to the fact that its a huge part of why Mulan dislikes one & because it helps shape her personality.
First of all, as we all know, Mulan is the eldest child. She has a younger sister which of whom she is extremely protective over & though she does not have a brother, you see her step into the roll of a son at a early age. Why? her father, a former war general ( i have it HC that he stepped down when she was 15, bc his injury became to much & because he somehow offended the emperor aka a fact based off the legends ) & because he is the only male on the farm, she felt the need to help him & so stepped up to the plate to take over as much chores as possible & to learn from him the ways that a male heir would. In truth, she is lucky, for her father, raised her to not only learn to read & write as a male would have, but so too did he teach her martial arts ( not as much as she had learned in the army, but enough to realize her talent ).
You have to understand, Martial Arts in of itself, is a VERY DISPLINED practice. it requires structure & the ability to completely focus on the task at hand until it becomes second nature to the person who is practicing it. This is something one would practice for hours on end & each martial artist, actually incorporates their skills into their every day life routine. aka how you see her jumping off of roofs so easily.
Something to explain further on why i am saying why her QUIET NATURE is extremely relative is the fact that, in Martial Arts, you do not want to be loud. the more quiet you are, the more highly regarded you are because you can be used for stealth missions & no one would see or hear you coming if you are well trained. each step they take, they are trained to take quietly. their breaths, must remain even & their stamina building skills are essential to this, because it would do a warrior no good if you are heavy breathing all of the time.
Another thing to remember too, Mulan was raised to remain quiet in general. In fact, its a huge part of her personality. When she is angry, she grows even more quiet ( considered to be a scary quiet bc of the fact that her features turn icy & that she could easily take you down without even blinking an eye ), when she is happy, YES she gets joyful and child like sometimes, but her tone always remains that of an inside voice. very rarely does it go loud into what one would consider “yelling” because she does not like to raise her voice in such a manner & if she does happen to do so, it bothers her to the point where she will walk away.
Part of the reasoning for this, is because a woman should look soft, feminine & should not complain. They must take care of the chores, and are expected to remain composed, so that they do not disturb the household. Another reason for this too as far as she is concerned is that she finds it unnecessary to be loud in order to get her point across.
As far as Graceful & Elegant is concerned, hell even Poised. Take a look at any C-drama, and watch how the girls act in it. The way they flutter their fans. Move within their Hanfu. True, some girls are louder then others, but in reality, they are trained to move the way they do, so that way they can look attractive & appear delicate. This makes the “man” want to protect his woman & as they joked in the animated version of mulan “Want to go to war for you”. In the animated version, it came off as a joke, but in reality, it was anything but.
Men were expected to go to war, to fight for their country & are considered to be the providers, who must be obeyed. they are taught from a young age to prove themselves both mind & body, thus their training with martial arts & why they are chosen to go to some of the best schools. It is the women who were expected to raise their sons, & to take care of the household & the parents on the husbands side of the family, because as a woman, once married, she is sent off to live with them. & should the husband die??? she’s expected to stay there ( & if she never gave birth to a son, is considered a shame upon their name ). something else, as a FUN fact for you if her parents want her to remarry, bc her husband died & she is still young enough to bare heirs, they would have to BUY her back & pay the husbands family off so they would release their claim on her.
TO GET BACK ON TRACK HERE, during the scene where mulan is with the matchmaker, you can see the nervous behavior of all of the family involved. she is dressed within fine silk, her hair put in a perfect way. her waist needing to be “small” & her features pale with makeup on. this is not only discomforting, but for someone who hates makeup in general, she did not feel like herself.
What’s more, take a look at her family. her mother would not let her eat, moved her along quickly, & sat there with the perfect poise, despite the fact that in her eyes, you can see the nervous nature. her sister, who is younger then her, is present, why? because she will eventually have to do this too & she is a female within the family. she does not move, simply must sit there and stare, watching mulan despite knowing her sister does not want to be her. Her father? outside, waiting nervously as he is hoping for good news.
I won’t go into to much detail, such as the spider & the fact that mulan showed her skill within martial arts ( & it had been ruined because of her stupid hair ), but instead focus on what happened afterwards. As she is leaving with her family, trying to preserve what dignity they had left, the woman calls out:
❝ Dishonor to the Hua family. They have failed to raise a good daughter! ❞ - 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐫 2020
THIS IS THE WORST THING SHE CAN POSSIBLY SAY. no man, upon hearing she had failed the matchmaker, would want her. what’s more, to bring shame upon her family name, especially as the oldest, could do damaging effects to her younger sister in the future & hurt her father’s reputation further.
Honor is a huge thing & the fact that hers had been stripped away so publicly, is not something she will ever get over. Nor forgive. In the movie, when Commander Tung expresses to Mulan, while she was still under disguise, that he wanted to bring her to meet his daughter and his own VILLIAGE MATCHMAKER -- - it should further show you just how big of a deal their words are within their culture. to not use one is almost unheard of.
I am going to skip ahead a little. At the end of the film, the reason why the matchmaker fainted, btw, is not because she was overwhelmed by emotions at seeing Mulan winning back her honor in a completely unique way -- - but because she is now UNTOUCHABLE by her words. her claim upon her honor means nothing. her sentence to her failure no longer matters. Not only that but Mulan now as a WAR HERO & future agent for the emperor himself, would no longer meet the requirements to be matched by her.
Why? because no village boy would meet the expectations of matching with a war hero like her. Especially when the emperor himself wants her to join so badly, he sent his best men, a new weapon & spread the words in front of the entire village, instead of just having them ask her in private.
Because i legit made this so lengthy, allow me to add one more thing into the mix. Mulan with her husband Hanzo ( @koeii ) did not ask the matchmakers permission or approval. In fact, she out right skipped that step in general, not because their marriage in the main verse was a secret, but because she refused to value the opinion of her.
For the record as well, when it comes to her marrying Jesse ( @huckleberrytm ) & Vanitas ( @kukyc ), she too will not use one regardless if her parents ask her to or not. for in her opinion, she has chosen to marry for love & not for the sake of tradition.
I am going to end my little rant or tirade. Long story short, Mulan has a deep dislike for a matchmaker & will not usually like to deal with one OR even suggest to others that they find one. she will avoid it at all costs & if brought up in a conversation, aka with family, she will try to change the topic so that she can avoid being asked when it is she will choose to get married, considering that she is passed the traditional age.
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omggg could you imagine if they did something with the 3 little pigs with the wolf idk what the plot twist could be im not that creative. or they could have done the something with wolf in sheep's clothing or the Shepard boy n the wolf with David bc he an actual Shepard child
*cracks knuckles*
The Three Little Pigs storyline – should have been revenge tale.
We’re in Storybrooke, now. The curse broke, things are starting to settle back to a new normal again… but, just in the background, there are a lot of people realizing who they are, who they were, and who their enemies were, in this new reality. Unfinished business are starting to become a problem.
Three brothers have been hunting the Wolf down since before the events of Red Handed, but they could never get close enough to her (or piece together that Red was the Wolf). But now, it’s after Child of The Moon, Red’s poorly kept secret is officially out to the whole town, and now these three men are out for revenge.
(We could make them police officers, to honor their past professions in FTL, but that’d complicate the pig analogy, sooooooooooooo)
Their grudge is clear: back when she had no control, Red’s wolf destroyed their village, their homes, broke apart their families and left them with nothing. They never recovered, and now they want to make her pay.
***
An episode with three acts. Each for every brother’s attempt at trapping and hurting Ruby. Each is more effective than the last, until the final one manages to seriously get to her.
The B story is her private reaction to it all, talking to Belle about it, trying to come to terms with all that her wolf has done before she could control it, and Belle reassuring her that she’s not at fault, and shouldn’t punish herself.
***
First one. They track her down during one of her morning runs. The camera follows her stupidly fast pace, until it reveals a man hiding behind a tree, just watching her, learning her routine. He has an rope in hands.
The next day, he sets a trap in the track, just hidden in the dirt. She comes close, earbuds in. She runs to it, he pulls at the rope, she trips and falls hard, rolling far and skipping painfully on the ground.
Before she can understand what happened and move to get to her feet, a giant rope nest thingy rises from the dirt, swapping her inside, pulling her up and hanging her from this tall tree, much like Charming once trapped Snow in FTL.
She’s all what the fuck. The guy approaches, she’s still like what the fuck.
He shares his grievance. He explains he was from a family of feared and respected hunters, in charge of their village. He tells her how the Wolf attack destroyed their lives. How they lost the respect of their people. How they lost the respect of their peers, their loved ones, the respect they had for themselves.
Her hearts breaks a little bit more. She apologizes and explains she had no control over the wolf, but he is beyond reason, he’s all rage and wounded pride.
He takes a taser from his back pocket and steps closer to stun her, still going on about this ruined life and her fault for it, but she’s had enough. She’s fuck no.
With hardly any force, she rips through the net and falls perfectly on her feet, in front of him. (It looks absolutely bad-ass and effortless and she kinda knows it) He is shitting his pants now. She was just protecting his ego, pretending to struggle with the rope.
She sighs, “I’m really sorry”, and disappears running. His plan has failed.
B plot: Ruby talks to Belle, over tea and crackers, about all this sudden drama. Proper Red Beauty content is ahead.
***
Next act. Ruby is still feeling bad about it. All the things she's done as a wolf are starting to pull her down again. It’s a shitty day to serve costumers in the diner, but she has to occupy her mind somehow, or she’ll sink.
This strange guy sitting in the far corner keeps studying her, creeping her out. He smells kind of weird, too. She doesn’t like it, but she tries to ignore him.
Her shift is over, she’s cleaning up the diner, and goes to throw the trash out. Her hearing picks up some strange noises coming from inside. She rushes back in.
The same weird guy from before is waiting for her inside the empty diner, a barrel by his feet. The whole place smells weird. Like alcohol and gasoline. And it’s all him.
She frowns. He explains the same tragedy from the last guy, but this time in more detail: the lost sentimental possessions and the crushing poverty they faced afterwards, the crippling hunger, the violence born out of desperation, and the depression.
She apologizes again. This is killing her. “I’m sorry”
But yet again, it’s in vain. This brother doesn’t want her apology either. He takes the barrel in hands and pours the liquid on the floor. This is definitely gasoline. Ruby panics.
He explains that he lost everything to the wolf. His livelihood, his home, his belongings. And he’ll do the same to her.
Ruby tries to reason, but the guy won’t listen. He grabs the lighter. She runs to him in a flash and takes it out of his hands, stunning him with her speed. But he was ready for it.
He had a silver knife tucked in his jacked, and he slashes at her, cutting her arm. Silver hurts like a bitch, but Ruby doesn’t have the time to complain. The guy tries to cut her again, but she pushes him a little bit too hard towards the exit, a growl barely contained in her chest.
He bursts through the door and falls on his back on the ground outside. Ruby steps out of the diner, holding her injured arm.
”Please. Stop. I’m sorry”. She sighs again, and closes the door.
B plot. Belle takes care of Ruby’s injury, in the closed library. Ruby explains she cleaned up the diner, so even she couldn’t smell the gasoline. She doesn’t want Granny to worry – or worse: pay for her mistakes. She couldn’t bare see her grandmother losing the diner over Red’s actions. This is tearing her apart.
Belle promises she’ll be at her side, no matter what. That they’ll talk to David and sort this out, so the men don’t bother her again.
Little did they know, the last brother was listening in by the window. Oooooh.
***
Final act. The last brother.
Ruby takes a few days off work to clear her head and calm down. She spends her time with Belle, in Belle’s home. They talk and have a good time, unaware that the last guy is watching their every move.
The next night, he has a plan.
Ruby is out grocery shopping. Picking the wine and the cheese, when her phone rings. It’s Belle. That’s odd. They weren’t supposed to meet for another two hours. She picks it up, but a man’s voice is on the other line.
The final brother. Ruby almost drops everything. The man tells her the full story. He tells her of the night the Wolf destroyed their village, and it’s all the same from the two brothers before: lost respect, lost possessions, but this time… he reveals they lost a forth brother, the oldest one, who tried to face the Wolf.
Her stomach turns.
Ruby knows where this is going, she can hear Belle’s muffled grunts in the background of the call. And she barely listens to his rambling, as the man continues explaining his plans for revenge – she’s running full speed to Belle’s home.
The door is locked, but that is not a problem for a wolf. Even with an injured arm, she pushes with enough force to break the lock and open the door. She steps in. Everything is dark. She can make out a few sounds in the silence. She walks up the stairs, where she can hear Belle’s breathing sound more erratic.
She’s at the living room now, and she can smell more than Belle, and she knows the guy is in there. “RUIRYY” is the muffled sound Belle can make, through her gag.
The lights turn on and Ruby’s sensitive eyes take a moment to adjust. Belle is tied to a chair and the last brother stands next to her. Behind him, the other two, looking angrier than before.
She pleads with them to let her go, but again – it doesn’t work. The second brother holds a knife to Belle’s throat, while the last one steps forward.
“You took everything from us”, he says, and walks to her.
Ruby prepares to engage, but before she can decide on a plan of attack to take all three, a weird hissing noise rises from the ground, and soon the room is filling up with purple smoke. Wolfsbane. She’s heard of this. She knows it’s not good news for her.
She tries her hardest not to breathe. She tries to fight, even then. But the final brother is prepared. He presses a device, and a loud LOUD high-pitched noise shakes the sound system around them, turning Ruby’s gifted hearing into a disadvantage.
She tries to push through, but it’s getting harder. The second brother nudges the blade closer to Belle’s skin, and Belle’s gasp is Ruby’s undoing. She breathes in to call her name, and the smoke gets to her. She’s choking, coughing. She falls to her knees, holding her throat.
Everything goes black.
***
Hours pass. She wakes up.
Now Ruby is tied up too, but it’s finally a decent job from the kidnappers. Thick chains around her, locked to a pipe. She’s facing them, facing Belle. Belle was crying.
“I’m sorry,” she says, voice hoarse and out of breath, “I’m sorry, please, do what you want to me, but please don’t hurt her. She’s got nothing to do with it! Please”
“Our brother asked the same,” is the cold response to her.
She tries to break the chains, but she’s weak from the wolfsbane. It’s useless.
Meanwhile, in true TV Show fashion, Belle is secretly working on the knots on her wrists, as the older brother goes on with his revenge monologue.
Ruby is devastated. She keeps apologizing. She keeps bargaining for Belle’s life. Nothing.
Eventually, her gaze falls on Belle, and they make eye contact. They know each other well enough now, that they can communicate without words. Ruby notices Belle is loosening the rope around her wrists, and Belle points her eyes at the window. Belle has a plan, it seems. Ruby follows the order, and looks at the window. The moon is waning. It’s not full, but it’s enough.
Ruby breathes in, worried. Are you sure about this? is the mute question she shoots Belle with her eyes. Trust me. Is Belle’s reply. Wait for my signal. She tells Ruby, with a tilt of her head towards the knife held close to her neck.
Ruby nods.
The last brother is still on about their tragedy, but Ruby hasn’t been paying attention. She’s got her eyes on Belle.
A frantic moment of waiting, and Belle manages to free her hands, but she doesn’t move just yet. Ruby waits. Belle looks at her in the eyes, and nods. This is it.
Ruby breathes in. She looks back at the man. “I’m sorry,” she says.
“Stop saying that” He replies. Then, it all happens at once.
Belle uses her free hands to take her gag off and hold on the second brother’s arm. She bites down on his hand, canines and all, hard. He drops the knife and screams in pain.
The other brothers turn to the commotion, and Ruby takes the opportunity.
She transforms. The chains explode (yep, they wouldn’t have held in Child of The Moon, after all, good to know) There’s a low, thundering growl, and a huge wolf stands where once Ruby was sitting.
There’s a palpable shift in the room, as the three brothers freeze in fear.
Belle is still tied at the waist, and the brother closest to her realizes it, and tries to recover from his hurt hand and grab the knife back. Belle kicks it away, under the furniture.
Ruby’s wolf runs to Belle, and rips the rope with its teeth. Belle exhales, and stands up. She taps the wolf’s head, like a dog. We’re meant to understand, then, that Belle is familiar and comfortable with Ruby’s wolf.
Most importantly, Ruby is totally in control.
And so the scene is set. Belle stands next to a giant wolf, as it stares around the room at the three brothers, who are now shaking, shrinking in fear.
“She’s in control” Belle finally says, and the younger brother jumps at the slightest noise. “Now, she finally is”
They look at the wolf, and it seems surprisingly human, now. Nothing like the beast that tore their lives apart. It’s not even growling, not even showing its teeth, not even its posture is aggressive. It truly looks like a big muscular dog.
The wolf understands their train of thought. It walks closer to them, slowly, carefully, trying not to make a sudden move.
And, like it did with David, it sits down and bows its head. The wolf is whimpering, and it’s a sad, vulnerable sound, coming from a large beast:
I’m sorry.
Silence. The brothers are resistant, still. Belle stares them down, walking next to the wolf. She’s more threatening than Ruby, at the moment.
“You’ve suffered enough. But so has she. You have no idea.”
Silence.
“Please.”
The oldest brother steps back, and it’s the cue for the other two.
“We can’t forgive her,” he says. Yet, there is a hint of a truce in his voice.
The wolf lets out a breath that sounds like a sob. Belle strokes her head again.
“Neither can she,” Belle sighs, “But this won’t help you. Any of you,” a moment, and Belle looks down at Ruby, who’s still bowing her big head. “I beg of you, leave her alone. Our old lives have taken enough from us. We have a new chance, now. Let’s make it better. Please.”
Tense, tense silence. It holds for too long.
Blue and red lights come in through the window, and the sirens sound a single alarm. The police, or David, was alerted, and is coming to help.
The brothers look at each other. Shit.
And they run out. The older brother holds for a moment longer at the door, looking back at Ruby. We can’t decipher his expression completely, but it’s not the same as before. Maybe, he finally listened.
But we don’t know. They disappear.
Belle is left alone with Ruby. She looks down at the wolf, now sitting defeated on the floor. She pats her head. “You did good,” she reassures “You did good”
Zoom out, and the scene ends on a low note.
***
The next day. They’re at the diner. Granny and David are being filled in. They have already expressed their worries and disgust over the men’s actions, and David promises that he’ll look into it.
Ruby shrugs. She says something that supports her stance of “Regina thought she was punishing us by erasing who we were. But I think she underestimated how much crap we wanted to forget” -- which is a CANON LINE, actually said. But is a prelude to that -- it’s the first time Ruby shyly voices that opinion.
It worries David, Granny and Belle.
But Belle, always the optimist, gives her a side hug. Ruby looks down at her, and it means a lot more than a simple look. She sees the Belle that saved her, just the night before. The Belle that stood up for her, protected her and comforted her.
Her green eyes light up. “Thank you”, she whispers to Belle. And Belle recognizes the weight and the sentiment there.
She nods, “Always”
Belle looks away and continues her conversation, but Ruby’s eyes linger on her face. The expression that once was of sadness and hurt, turns slightly happier, more grateful. Maybe this life is not so bad...
And the episode ends with a hopeful Red Beauty vibe.
Fin.
#im sorry for who's on mobile cause the cut doesn't work#i wrote a lot#NOW ASK ME ABOUT THE SHEEP AND THE WOLF STORYLINE CAUSE I HAVE SOME IDEAS TOO#Anonymous
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Listen To Your Heart || St. Berry
Date: December 13th. Late afternoon
Location: McKinley High School & Rachel’s house
Starring: Rachel Berry @starberrycupcake & Jesse St. James
Notes: Jesse shows up at McKinley after hearing Rachel is banned from seeing her boyfriend. He offers to help her study.
Warnings: partial song fic bc it’s glee (gross)
Rachel Berry:
Rachel had begun the year determined and not distracted by anything and now here she was, almost the end of the first semester of her senior year completely consumed with something other than the future. It had felt so good to be so focused on Hunter and absolutely nothing else but now that she was grounded until her grades were up, she was frustrated with herself. She didn’t regret being with Hunter in the least bit. She’d had the best, most wild three months of her entire life and she wasn’t about to regret any of it because of school. She would just have to pull herself together and quickly get her grades up and she and Hunter would be off to starting their future in no time.
Her teachers were seemingly exasperated with her constant requests for extra credit and make-up work so she could hopefully pull her grade up before her GPA dropped significantly. Though reluctant, they still gave her a much needed chance and she knew that if she could just get it all done she would be set and she could see Hunter on her birthday without having to sneak around. It had only been a couple of days but knowing she couldn’t see Hunter made her want to see him even more.
Rachel was just finishing up glee club when she sent a text to her boyfriend, letting him know she was finally out of class and was thinking of him when she bumped into a familiar face right outside the door, almost knocking her phone out of her hand. “Oh! Jesse!” She glanced around to make sure her glee peers were nowhere to be found. “If any of the New Directions see you, they’re going to flip out on me.” She let her eyes trail up to his face, her demeanor softening a bit. “What’re you doing here, anyway?”
Jesse St. James:
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m here to see you, of course,” Jesse replied with his usual confident demeanor. He had been waiting right outside and as soon as he’d seen Rachel come out of the room, he was right in front of her. He didn’t care whether or not any of the other New Directions’ kids would’ve spotted him. “I’m not here to spy but you were amazing in that last number-- someone might want to tell Finn that he was a little pitchy on the last refrain because he probably doesn’t even realize.”
Jesse smoothed out the front of his jacket, playing with the ends of his chiffon scarf for just a moment before smiling at Rachel. “Vocal Adrenaline is taking a break from rehearsals today-- a rarity-- so I thought it'd be the perfect opportunity to see you. Is your boyfriend going to mind if I'm here to see you?"
Rachel Berry:
Rachel felt a little apprehensive about seeing Jesse at all much less alone, especially considering the smile that involuntary spread across her face at the way he told her he was there for her. Their history was complicated and Jesse had a great track record of making her feel on top of the world and then ripping the rug out from under her. For some reason, however, she trusted him each time. Even now despite her apprehension she could feel the trust.
Rachel chuckled, shaking her head. “Finn was fine, he’ll be ready by competition. We did win Sectionals after all.” A cheeky grin spread across her face as she looked at her former lover but it quickly faded when he mentioned Hunter. She felt mildly uncomfortable in that moment, thinking she should maybe tell Hunter about this little run in. “I’m sure Hunter wouldn’t be thrilled to know you’re here, especially considering that I’m grounded and not even allowed to see him.”
Nibbling on her bottom lip, Rachel glances around again before sighing. He had come all this way to see her. “I can’t really hang out too long because my dads will be home in a couple of hours and I’m supposed to be home when they get there…” she offered, letting him know that if he wanted, she could make the time for him.
Jesse St. James:
“Congratulations on the Sectionals win, by the way. It’ll be fun to see you and your boyfriend go head-to-head at Regionals; I’m sure we’ll be seeing you at Nationals again this year,” Jesse grinned. Upon hearing that she and Hunter were banned from seeing each other due to her being grounded, an idea popped into his head. Any time an opportunity presented itself to Jesse, he was raring to grasp it at first chance.
“So let’s go to your house,” Jesse suggested, completely unbothered with the fact that he just invited himself over to Rachel’s house. “I’m sure your dads will be supportive of you getting homework help from me; I did go to college, after all.” Of course he intentionally left out the fact that he’d dropped out because he didn’t actually go to his classes. But that wasn’t a necessary detail right now.
Rachel Berry:
“Thank you,” Rachel grinned. “It will be a lot of fun because he’s as competitive as I am. That is if the Warblers even let him stay long enough.” She rolled her eyes, sighing as she thought of all the drama that Hunter had been through so far this year. “Of course I’ll be at Nationals. I have to win, it’s crucial to my reputation-- if I can start out in the Broadway scene as a national show choir champion it’ll be extremely helpful in getting the respect that I deserve.”
Rachel raised her eyebrows at how forward Jesse was, though it shouldn’t have come as such a shock. “Jes, what makes you think I can have anyone over if I can’t have my boyfriend over?” She asked him, nodding her head towards the way she would begin to walk. “Wait, you want to help me with my homework?” She giggled. “Do you even know anything about Trigonometry?” Rachel couldn’t remember the last time - if there was ever a time - that Jesse even talked about homework or anything that wasn’t related to show choir or Broadway. “I have some make-up homework- I actually could use help on it.” She said as she approached her locker, opening it up to grab the homework she needed to take home. “I had thought about sneaking out to Westerville but I don’t really have a way to get there and back before LeRoy and Hiram get home so..” She shrugged.
Jesse St. James:
As Rachel walked towards her locker, Jesse accompanied her and met her pace. “Yeah, I’m great at math,” he boasted, though he honestly couldn’t say what he knew what trigonometry even looked like. “It’s just like, adding and subtracting stuff, right? How hard could it be?” At the mention of her going off to Westerville, Jesse nibbled on the inside of his cheek. He wanted to say something about how that was a bad idea and Hunter was causing her to neglect her studies but he thought it wiser to keep his mouth shut.
“Oh, before I forget,” he spoke up as she rummaged through her locker for her things. He pulled out a slim jewelry gift box, held closed by a simple gold ribbon. “I brought you your birthday present in case we don’t see each other before then. I figured you could use the pick-me-up after being grounded, too.” He handed off the box, giving her an expectant look for her to open it now. He looked happy and hopeful as she opened it to reveal a necklace with a small gold star charm.
Rachel Berry:
Rachel shook her head as a giggle fell from her lips. She wasn’t sure if he was joking or not but she was among towards him being serious which was no help to her. Still, it would be nice to have the company for a little bit. She was about to speak again when Jesse interrupted her by pulling out the small jewelry box.
“What’s this?” A grin spread from ear to ear as she closed her locker and took the gift from him. When she opened it up to reveal the golden star, Rachel’s stomach flipped. “Oh, Jes…” her grin faltered a little bit as the weight of the gift settled in her. It was incredibly sweet and it made her heart skip a beat. “You shouldn’t have, I can’t accept this..” she tried weakly to deny his thoughtful gift. “It’s too much.” Her brown eyes looked up to meet his, her voice soft.
Jesse St. James:
“Stop it, it’s your birthday gift,” Jesse pushed, taking the gift box from her and stepping behind her. “A girl such as yourself should have the best accessories to accentuate your beauty and talent.” He helped to put it around her neck and once he was done, he returned to stand in front of her to get a good look. “See? It looks perfect.” You look perfect.
So it was probably pretty obvious to everyone that Jesse still had feelings for Rachel but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do nice things for her-- especially since the gift was for her birthday. With Hunter out of the way for the time being, he knew this was his chance to get back in Rachel’s good graces and establish himself as her close friend. “So? Are we going back to your place to study?”
Rachel Warbler:
Rachel bit down on her lip as Jesse moved to slip the necklace around her neck, placing her hand on the small gold star that now rested on the base of her neck. It was the sweetest gift anyone had ever given her. When he came back to get a look at her, a blush painted her cheeks at his words. Shaking her head gently, Rachel smiled at him. “Thanks, Jesse. I really love it.” She felt the warmth in her cheeks spreading down her neck, the effect he had on her was obvious and she was regrettably transparent.
When Jesse suggested going to her house, she let out a soft sigh, checking the time. “I suppose, but you have to leave at five. You can’t be there when my dads get home, I’m walking a fine line and I don’t want to not see Hunter until we graduate.” She explained as she gathered her things, closing up her locker for the day. Hunter. She again felt compelled to let Hunter know that Jesse had showed up. “And you have to help me with my homework to some extent- no distractions.” Rachel pulled out her phone as she led the way to leave the school, sending a text to Hunter to give him the heads up that Jesse showed up at McKinley and was giving her a ride home. “Can I get a ride home?” She asked Jesse, glancing over at him. “My dads dropped me off and I’m supposed to get a ride from Kurt but there’s no need for him to go out of his way since you’re here.” She smiled.
Jesse St. James:
Jesse grinned ear to ear when Rachel finally agreed to him coming over. Even if it was a few hours, he’d take what he could get. “Yeah, of course. My Range Rover is parked right over here,” he gestured in the direction of his car once they were outside. “I promise I won’t do anything to distract you but I also wouldn’t be opposed to singing with you if you wanted; it’s been a while since we’ve had a duet together. You know our voices sound phenomenal together.”
When they both got into the car, Jesse’s phone connected via bluetooth and he scrolled through his music, looking for the perfect song for such an occasion. He knew the Rachel Berry he loved-- who also loved him-- was in there somewhere… He just needed to coax her out. The opening melody of Roxette’s Listen To Your Heart started playing over the speakers as Jesse started driving out of the parking lot and towards Rachel’s home.
Rachel Berry:
A smile spread across Rachel’s face when Jesse suggested singing with her. It had been a bit since they’d had the pleasure of singing together and she would be lying to herself and everyone else if she said they didn’t fit together vocally. He was the only person that could ever keep up with her talent. That is, until she met Hunter. “I suppose a harmless duet wouldn’t hurt.” She said as she got into his car, settling in and buckling her seatbelt.
When she heard the first note of the song flow through the speakers, her stomach clenched and she glanced over at Jesse, a small grin tugging at her lips. She knew the song and she knew it well, obviously. His choice of song wasn’t lost on her and she knew that she shouldn’t lead him on-- but she also couldn’t resist a chance to belt out one of her most favorite classics. Shifting in her seat a little, she folded her hands in her lap, closing her eyes.
I know there's something in the wake of your smile I get a notion from the look in your eyes, yeah You've built a love but that love falls apart Your little piece of Heaven turns too dark
Jesse St. James:
Jesse had known that Rachel couldn’t resist this song. When she started singing in that crystal-clear voice that Jesse adored so much, he couldn’t help but to smile and nod his head. He kept his eyes on the road but glanced over to her whenever he had the chance. These days, it was rare for him to hear Rachel singing unless it was at a competition. Singing with her was an even rarer occurrence.
When the next verse started, he sang along with her. Just like the first time they sang Hello together in the music library those years ago, their voices melted together beautifully.
Listen to your heart
When he's calling for you
Listen to your heart
There's nothing else you can do
While stopped at a red light, Jesse looked over to her and when he caught her gaze, smiled brightly at them. Regardless if on a big stage, in the choir room, or doing a little karaoke in the car, Jesse always enjoyed singing with her.
Rachel Berry:
When Jesse’s voice melted with hers during the chorus, Rachel couldn’t stop the smile that appeared on her face, looking over to Jesse to catch his eye when they were stopped.
Sometimes you wonder if this fight is worthwhile
The precious moments are all lost in the tide, yeah
They're swept away and nothing is what is seems
The feeling of belonging to your dreams
She kept her eyes on Jesse as she sang with him, giving it her all as usual. She could feel something crawling up from the depths of her heart, something that was supposed to be shoved deep down to never be touched again. It felt good to sing with Jesse but for a brief moment as she looked to the man next to her she saw Hunter- the mirage taking her breath for a split second. Rachel shook her head, she sang with other people all of the time, it didn’t mean anything because it was Jesse.
The only man who’d ever come close to knowing her as much as Hunter did.
Jesse St. James:
Jesse was in high spirits as they continued to harmonize through the song. He liked the way she looked at him when they sang to each other. After the song eventually came to an end, Jesse turned down the volume as the next track played.
“Still as amazing as always; it’s a wonder why you’re not already on the fast track to Broadway,” he said to her. They were just a few blocks away from her house by now. “It’s too bad you can’t pass all your classes by just singing… You’d be valedictorian.”
When they pulled up to the house, Jesse parked his car in the driveway. It’d been a little while since he’d been over to her house-- not since when they were still dating each other. It almost felt like stepping into a timewarp, into the past.
Rachel Berry:
Rachel blushed again for the second time that day when Jesse complimented her, giggling softly. “That’s really sweet.” She said, looking over at him as he parked. “What about you, though? You’re equally as talented as I am...if not more so. You shouldn’t be here in Ohio-- you should be in New York already.” She shook her head, her tone serious. “I know Vocal Adrenaline is important to you...but they’re holding you back.”
She knew from the times they’d spoken that Jesse wasn’t back solely for Vocal Adrenaline-- but for her. “You can’t let anything-- including me-- hold you back.” Nibbling on her bottom lip, she grinned a little, reaching over to place her hand on his. “You’re too good for this place, Jes.” Rachel gave his hand a gentle squeeze before moving to take off her seatbelt.
Jesse St. James:
Jesse was quiet for a moment after Rachel told him that he shouldn’t let anything hold him back. It was nice that someone believed in him-- that he was destined for bigger and better things than Ohio. He squeezed her hand back and smiled at her. “This is just a temporary gig-- another credit I can list on my growing résumé,” he insisted, knowing that he couldn’t be confined to such “small picture” ventures.
When they exited the vehicle, Jesse let Rachel lead the way up the path towards the front door. “But for the record, it isn’t you that’s holding me back,” Jesse clarified, pausing for a moment to clear his throat, “New York is still my future. You’re part of that future, too.”
Rachel Berry:
Rachel paused briefly with her keys in the door as Jesse reiterated that she would be part of that future. It was sort of flattering that Jesse was so adamant. She may be part of his future career-wise but romantically she just couldn’t do it. Anytime the thought tried to crawl out from the back of her mind all she could see was Hunter. “We will take over the Broadway scene,” she chuckled, opening the door to let them in. “Our names will be in everyone’s mouth.” She dreamed for a moment about her and Jesse being friends and being a powerful force in New York together.
“You and Hunter getting along is crucial, though, or it’ll never work.” Rachel cleared her throat as she led him into the dining room, placing her things on the table. She was suddenly very aware that she was alone with Jesse and it made her palms a little sweaty. “So, uh, trigonometry…”
Jesse St. James:
"Oh, definitely. The first time you have a leading role, you and I will win for Best Actress and Best Actor; we'll do so much press as the two ingenues from Podunk, Ohio who made names for themselves-- together." Jesse followed Rachel into her home, also acutely aware that with her parents not present it made them very much alone. He took the time to take a look around, familiarizing himself with how things looked similar to the last time he was here. Nostalgia washed over him, picturing his teenage self with a doe-eyed sixteen year old Rachel Berry singing duets together around the piano in the living room.
Jesse forced himself to step away from the past, aware that he needed to put himself in the present to continue being part of Rachel's life. "So what's Hunter's plans? College in New York? He probably wants to do something boring like being an accountant, right?"
Rachel Berry:
Rachel chuckled to herself as she took a seat at the table, noticing the way Jesse skirted around her prompt for the homework help that he’d come for. She should’ve known better-- Jesse couldn’t actually help her with her homework. He just wanted to spend time with her and if she were being honest, she did, too. She wanted to spend time with him without Hunter around so she could assess Jesse’s actual intentions and feelings and if he could actually handle just being her friend.
“I told you, we’re moving to New York. He’s wanting to go to Cornell- which, admittedly, isn’t ideal because it puts two more hours between us than we have now but it’s not like we can’t make it work. We’ll meet halfway most times, I’m sure.” She said, having not given much thought to their future other than the fact that they were going into it together, even if it meant being apart for a few more years. “His father wants him to go into the Navy, follow in his footsteps. But we haven’t talked about that much, though.” Nibbling on her lip, Rachel tried to push the thought from her mind as she usually did. She hoped that when the time came, Hunter would choose her over the Navy without prompt and she didn’t have to be that girl.
Jesse St. James:
“Navy?” Jesse murmured to himself, wondering how that would impact Rachel’s future. “So he’ll be on a boat somewhere? Like a sailor out to sea for weeks and weeks at a time..? Doesn’t sound like fun.” He finished perusing through the living room before returning to Rachel’s side at the dining room table. Her books were spread out on the table and when Rachel opened up the math book, his eyes became wide like saucers. He couldn’t make heads or tails of what he was looking at, but he wasn’t about to make that apparent.
“A sailor and a broadway superstar don’t really mix, do they? It’s not exactly the ‘Broadway power couple’ I envision when I see you walking down the red carpet at events.” Jesse flipped through the pages of the trigonometry book, eyes scanning the content to see if there was even a little bit of something he understood so he could help.
Rachel Berry:
Rachel sighed, looking down at the table as Jesse mentioned Hunter being away for long periods of time out in the middle of the ocean. She really hadn’t taken a moment to sit alone with those thoughts and really assess. She thought being grounded from Hunter was bad, but what about when he was shipped off somewhere and she couldn’t speak to him every single day whenever she pleased? She suddenly felt nauseous.
“M-maybe it’s not ideal. But it’s what he wants...he doesn’t hold me back from what I want.” She was trying to convince herself rather than Jesse. “If...if the Navy is what he wants to do then I can’t stop him.” Rachel trailed off, thinking of the first date she’d gone on with Hunter when they had discussed their lives. “Though...I don’t really think it’s what he wants really. I think his dad is more or less pressuring him into it.” As these thoughts began to nibble at her anxiety ridden brain, she wasn’t so much focused on getting to her homework. Glancing over at Jesse, Rachel shook her head. “Do you know anything about the Navy? Do they, like, go to actual war?” She realized then she had little to no knowledge of any military branch.
Jesse St. James:
Upon hearing that Rachel wasn’t especially supportive of Hunter’s decision to join the Navy, Jesse thought to himself that perhaps he found the fracture in their seemingly perfect relationship. It would be cruel to manipulate Rachel, but honesty was the best policy… Being upfront with her about his opinion of the military wasn’t the wrong thing to do, right? “Oh, I’m pretty sure people in the Navy go to war,” he answered, leaning back in his chair a little. “I mean, I only know from television but there’s a bunch of ships and submarines in the ocean watching the Koreans, right? It’s like, an island, right? So it’s surrounded by water. Isn’t the US. on the brink of a war with them right now?”
He backed off a little when he realized he might be scaring Rachel. “Maybe you can convince him not to join the military. The guy’s in show choir too, right? I mean, there’s no way he can get into NYADA but lots of actors hack it in New York without an education. He could totally get an ensemble role.”
Rachel Berry:
“War?” Rachel asked, looking at Jesse with her forehead wrinkled, the nausea turning her stomach again. “L-like, war?” She shook her head, imagining the worst case scenario. There was a vivid image in her mind of her in New York, alone. And then another of her coming backstage from curtain call of one of her shows to a phone call letting her know that Hunter was dead and never coming back. She took a shaky breath, closing her eyes and shaking her head as she tried to calm the anxiety that was rapidly building in her chest.
“Uh, yeah,” She cleared her through, pressing her lips together as she looked down. “He’s extremely talented. He’s better than me, even. Well...at least just as talented.” Rachel explained, rubbing her hands over her face, taking another breath. “I just don’t…” She tried to get the images out of her head again, sighing. “Maybe...maybe he won’t go. Maybe he’ll change his mind and realize that it’s not his dream and he’ll find something else. Y-yeah...maybe.” Rachel placed her hands down on the table, sitting up a little straighter, visibly uncomfortable, anxious. She didn’t want to think about this anymore, it was scaring her and she didn’t have Hunter there to comfort her and talk it through. She didn’t want to have an anxiety attack in front of Jesse, either, regardless of whether or not he’d seen it before.
Jesse St. James:
Jesse mentally kicked himself when he realized Rachel was on the verge of an anxiety attack, clearly caused by him. “If anyone can convince someone into doing something, it’s you. If he really likes performing as much as either of us you can convince him to do something else with his life. Besides, who goes to college just to waste it in the military? That’s just dumb…” Maybe he would talk to Hunter too; it was the least he could do after making Rachel unnecessarily worry. “I mean, weren’t you just talking about Ohio and Vocal Adrenaline holding me back? Don’t be surprised to run into me this time next year because I am definitely going to New York, too. Even if I have to bus tables while I go to every audition out there, I’m going.”
His tone about New York was much more self-assured than before and it was all thanks to Rachel’s words. She had an innate ability to cheer anyone on, right beside them. Even if Rachel wasn’t actually doing anything, she really was a driving force for Jesse to find his place. He just hoped that when he landed on his own two feet Rachel would be standing right beside him.
Rachel Berry:
Rachel just nodded her head as Jesse tried to talk her down from the looming anxiety attack. “I guess. I...I don’t even really want to think about it anymore.” She tried to get the jarring images to leave her mind as she took a deep breath, appreciating the way Jesse changed the subject.
“Y-yeah...I know you’ll be there. I don’t doubt that.” She looked over to Jesse, placing her hand on his. “That’s why it’s important to me that we all get along. We’re going to be in each other’s professional lives at the very least.” She said, giving him a gentle smile. “It’ll be really nice to have a familiar face to work with, I’m glad it’ll be you. I mean that.”
Jesse St. James:
Jesse nodded a bit when she agreed that they’d all be in New York together. At least while Hunter was in college figuring his future out, Jesse would be the third wheel; he had that much guaranteed for him and he was completely fine playing the slow game. Rachel had almost gone back to him once before, so it was only a matter of time. “Right? The three of us will be bonafide New Yorkers in no-time. Now c’mon, I promised to help you with your math homework so tell me what chapter you’re on and I’ll look up the answers on my phone.”
He was satisfied that he managed to talk her down a bit and she was smiling, so he took it as a good sign. Her worries were obviously still there because a matter like that wasn’t going to be overlooked; Jesse knew her too well to know that he’d inadvertently planted a seed of anxiety somewhere in Rachel’s brain. One thing was certain to him, however: if Hunter was going to commit to the military, things might not work out for him and Rachel. That was the golden opportunity Jesse had been waiting for.
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