#which is why eloping is just easier and better!

[llycaons]

and in canon I can't think of a single scenario that would have more weight or more emotional significance that the admission of the name of the song on the cliffside reunion after more than 20 years. there's no use proposing after that, they might as well get married right then and there

[mxllitiam]

I N T R O D U C I N G . . .

a m a r a s i l v e r h o r n .

GENERAL…

name : amara silverhorn. meaning : amara “everlasting” and "to love". nickname : mara, mar. age : thirty-six. birthdate : may 6th. zodiac: taurus sun, aries rising, taurus moon. gender identity : cisgender woman , she / her. orientation : lesbian. place of birth : district six. current residence : district six (+ the 75th arena, oops). occupation : tribute. blacksmith and manages a factory in district six.

HISTORY…

tw: drug abuse, addiction, classism. 

Amara Silverhorn is proof that not everyone has their destiny written in the stars; some of us just have bad luck.

Unlucky – she was born to a burning house. Her mother was a victim of the morphling abuse scene that the higher ups had surreptitiously installed all across the district. Her father was a victim of having a heart too big for his body. He fell in love when they were young and, much to his parents' dismay, she was pregnant before they could arrange a marriage. But they would never arrange a marriage anyway – her mother was only an addict, lost to the streets, while her father had a good name to carry.

The Silverhorns, the only last name Amara still carries, her mother's identity lost somewhere in her history. She was raised by her father and her paternal grandparents, often told the story about how they tried to help the poor young woman who gave her life, but they just couldn't. Amara doesn't believe that, half of the time.

Lucky – they lived a good life. She slept in a comfortable bed and had a house in the best neighborhood of her district. The Silverhorns were old money; not quite royalty within their lands, but well enough off that they could afford a comfortable living in Panem, which is more than most could say. She grew up proper and polite, for some time.

Unlucky – she became the black sheep. Her father remarried, and then she was the oldest of several siblings, and the bastard. This is no evil stepmother story, but Amara always had an inkling that she would always be the odd one out. This was clear when puberty hit her and she started asking questions, too many questions. Her family, their last name heavy with Capitol support, didn't appreciate all the questioning.

She was indoctrinating her younger siblings, her father and stepmom would yell at her. She had ideas that were far greater and better than sitting idly by and clapping as the Games went on. Every year during the reaping they would dress up in their best clothes, and wait with the crowd, only to hear some poorer kid get called. Their Silverhorn names each only once in the bowl, safely hidden in the sea of others. Her family celebrated the Games proudly every year, and hoped for the chance to win a lottery ticket.

Why should they be happy about the Games, when it was their people dying? Her family would insist there was a difference between us and them, but that never made much sense to Amara. They were all in the same boiling pot. When the lights were off in their house, and all of her siblings huddled around her, she told them the truth. All the stories she could remember, all she had ever heard on the outside, about the Games, the families who lost their kids, the districts destroyed, oppressed. Like telling ghost stories around a campfire.

Lucky – she falls in love with the most beautiful, incredible, perfect woman in the world. Yazmin brings light to her life in a way that Amara never expected to feel. It's a breath of fresh air, to be able to love like this. They elope, and move in together, and get a cat, and things feel so much easier now.

Amara had dreams of being a teacher, someday, but those fall through pretty quickly when she knows she could never teach the current curriculum with a straight face. It's not worth it, digging herself into a government she despises. She has no interest in making any waves. So she follows after her family's footsteps and works as the head of one of the manufacturers of transportation from their district. Nepotism gets her pretty far. She likes dabbling in blacksmith work.

In her free time, she worked with nonprofits – and mostly underground – organizations who helped part of the population addicted to morphling. She gave them her time and she cared for her people, in the only way she knew how. Silently, but with her whole self.

Unlucky – her name is plucked from a bowl. The air feels hot around her. Her wife's hand slips from hers as she's taken up to a stage. This is not supposed to happen – this does not happen to people like her. She's done everything right, she's played by their awful rules even when she didn't want to. She has a name and a hundred years of Capitol support under its belt, she's never spread her distaste very far, she's been a faithful servant until now. Her father is in the crowd, watching with mirrored horror in his eyes. This does not happen to them.

Unlucky – it has happened to her.

Unlucky – she's going to die.

[tlacehualli]

[ 🏃‍♂️ ] does your muse have escapist tendencies? (plus situational - does she elope while drunk? Upset? To mock people?)

Sombra's life is mostly ruled by different forms of escapism. There's a lot of trauma going on and she thinks very, very, very fast (thanks to the metal she drilled into her skull) so she's always doing something. Whether she's doing something with her hands (which she is always doing unless she's paying close attention to you which could be a good or a bad thing really), or sometimes it's just a large portion of her mind elsewhere dealing with some information she stumbled across, it's always, always, always something. The stillness of your mind can be hell if you have too many ghosts haunting you.

Outside of those everyday pursuits, she's got her addictions and distractions. Cigarettes is one. She isn't a heavy, heavy smoker, mainly because making her way out of the Talon base to a roof or something would take way too long if she was doing it every hour. But every once in a while, if she wants to step outside and take a breather on her own, do something ritualistic and relaxing, a cigarette is just the thing. The nicotine doesn't hurt either.

Caffeine is a big one, as anyone with insomnia can tell you. Makes it worse sometimes, sometimes it's better. It's at its most acute when she's working really hard on something and doesn't want to fall asleep. The tabs in her brain keep working if she's asleep but it's all the more efficient when she's awake and she prefers to sleep (and finds it easier to) if she doesn't have anything gnawing away at her mind.

Sex, drugs, and dance music are all up there for similar reasons. Well, the drugs are basically just weed and alcohol now that she's grown older and wiser in her late-twenties-to-mid-thirties, but still. When she was younger, she would avidly chase anything that made her feel so human that she forgot herself. The alcohol seeps into her bones and makes her charisma pop and she found herself the life of the party. MDMA made her feel her emotions all the brighter, fluffy and high up in the clouds, so connected to every breathing and living thing in a way shadows never get to be. THC wraps itself around her mind and she feels the beat of every song, the vibrancy of her sense of touch and taste and smell, making reality seem supernatural. As for sex, there's the push and pull of power dynamics which is intellectually invigorating, but further a sense of physical and emotional connection that she very rarely gets to indulge in. Outside of the act, she can be very cold and dismissive, but during, she's playful, honest, manipulative - in a fun way. It's supposed to be an escape and if both parties aren't having a great time, why bother?

[mcrcki]

"all the food here isn't anything like the food back home.. i understand why feyre had such a hard time adjusting back to being in the human realm before.. you know--" before hybern, before all of this.. cauldron, she was so tired of being upset over hybern, over what happened to her and nesta. of being treated like she couldn't handle the truth about her situation. "you can just say it. we can talk frankly to each other, i am fed up with everyone being afraid to just say what they mean around me. i can tell when people are picking their words carefully. so, which part of it do you want to just say? is it about grayson, or hybern." she had mostly healed from the grayson sized hole in her heart a long time ago, knowing that there was nothing she could do to save the relationship, not after seeing how he reacted to see her change. it still hurt from time to time but she felt more comfortable with that pain now. it was the same with the memories of the cauldron, or the war. everything got easier with time. "i don't think i've ever actually met your father, but he seems like a prick from what i've been told--" she muttered into her drink, shrugging. eleni deserved better than that, so did lucien. "i'll be holding you to that promise. now drink." she shoved another shot his way with a smile, one growing warmer and warmer as their conversation continued. one drink had turned into two, which became four and after that, elain had stopped counting, helping lucien keep pace with her. her eyelids felt heavy, leaning a head against his shoulder. "you know what i want to do? i want to move past all of this. i want to just.. get all this stupid fucking mate stuff out of the way, so that we can just actually get to know each other. without the pressure. i already gave you that basket-- let's just.." elain sat up, staring back at lucien as intensely as her current state would allow. "i say we just elope and call it a day. isn't that the same thing as being mates? we just get it out of the way, take the pressure off since it's already done! there's no 'what's the next step' or anything. it's already done. we should just get married."

lucien laughed at her comment. "the alcohol is very different here than what it is back home, but it isn't exactly bad." he'd been drinking for a long time - most of it was socially, but there had been a few instances in his life where he had used it and gotten so drunk that he couldn't walk or see straight. "elain, you don't need to explain anything to me, you loved him and losing him like that was traumatic - just like everything else that happened to you," truthfully, lucien didn't think that poor excuse for a man deserved to have ever held her affections - especially not after he cast her out during one of the hardest times of her life. it showed his true colours and showed what kind of man he was. "when you've been alive as long as I have and when you have a family like mine, sometimes running is the only option - that was how I wound up in both the spring and the night court, running from my brothers." lucien had never truly gotten along with them, feeling like he didn't belong in the family, that there was something different about him - but nothing had ever been said. "but I promise, I won't run, not from you," he didn't want to run from elain, she didn't deserve that - she's been through so much already, she doesn't need him making things worse by leaving every time things get awkward or hard. "we can be done with it - in truth, I had hoped that we would have been able to speak back home, to clear up everything, but then the war happened and everything else, we never truly got the chance without having someone breathing down our necks," while he did like everyone, to a degree - feyre more than the others, he was glad for some time to just speak to elain, with the two of them, no unwanted chaperones. "if that's what you'd like, that's what we can do."

[k-s-morgan]

Do you think that if Will had found out Hannibal was in love with him right on S2 when he was planning his revenge, he’d have used that as part of his revenge? Like honeytrap Hannibal for real and then betray him?

No, I think they would have probably eloped just as they'd been planning to! The biggest conflict of Will in S2 is his inability to accept that Hannibal loves him, which is based on Abigail's death. His revenge is not about the justice served for the sake of the greater good; it's not about Beverly or Alana or even himself - it's all about the implications of Abigail's death.

Will doesn’t understand why Hannibal killed her. It doesn’t make sense to him because Hannibal claims to have cared for her, and if so, what does his care mean? Will forgives things when he understands motivation for them, but he sees no motivation here, which makes him bitter and angry. He can forgive Hannibal who truly loves him - that's why he forgives him for Abigail's real death in S3, but he refuses to accept a monster who will tell him he loves him today just to kill him tomorrow.

Throughout the second half of S2, Will has these doubts. He knows that Hannibal wanted to help him Become. He knows Hannibal is the one who got him free and that he wants to be his friend - Will says this much to Chilton. Hannibal is not a psychopathic killer who’s doing things out of amusement and curiosity, he’s capable of deep feelings; he’s lonely and he loves Will. But then again, why did he kill Abigail? Why was he so cruel about it - she was killed sadistically, he cut off her ear and implanted it in Will? How can Will trust that such a person loves him when this is what he did to a girl he supposedly cared about? We see Will’s inner struggle in his insightful dream:

Will: I want an admission. Admit what you are.

When Hannibal doesn’t reply directly, Will amplifies violence.

Dream Hannibal: Why not appeal to my better nature?

Will: I wasn't aware you had one.

This is extremely illuminating. Will is in denial. He wants Hannibal to confirm to him that he’s a monster and thus not worthy of Will’s attention - Will is trying to literally torture the answer he wants out of Hannibal. Like he said to Peter in the previous episode, killing is much easier when you know how to feel. And Will doesn’t know how to feel about Hannibal, not until he finds a way to label him as a hollow monster.

But the truth is, Hannibal isn’t a hollow monster. And a part of Will knows it. That’s why as Will tortures Hannibal, Hannibal replies with love, not violence. I’ll include the deleted last sentence:

Dream Hannibal: No one can be fully aware of another human being unless we love them. By that love, we see potential in our beloved. Through that love, we allow our beloved to see their potential. Expressing that love, our beloved's potential comes true. I love you, Will.

Like Will suspects, Hannibal is doing everything out of love for him. He sees what Will is. He accepts it, admires it, and he wants Will to act on it. His motivations are complex and he refuses to give up his love even under torture.

A part of Will is probably overjoyed at getting this answer. But a bigger part is frustrated because it just complicates things. He would love to convince himself that Hannibal is soulless, kill him, and be done with it, but that’s not what he is and Will is lost in his conflicting feelings.

Back to your question: if Will knew for certain that Hannibal is in love with him, I think his conflict would be resolved. He chose Hannibal in the end even in spite of still thinking Abigail is dead and doubting Hannibal's feelings. So if he had a clear answer to his dilemma, I think he would have made his choice even sooner and he and Hannibal would have run away long before the events of Mizumono.

[shanastoryteller]

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈Happy Pride🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈 Can I request you continue the Time Traveller Nie Huaisang? Either that or the 'free brother one's

a continuation of 1

Wei Wuxian's plan is so bad that at first Nie Huaisang thinks he's joking.

"Do you have a better idea?" Wei Wuxian asks. "One that doesn't end in a bunch of our clansmen dying for no reason?"

"If we manage to kill the Wens-"

"We're not killing a whole clan all over again," Wei Wuxian interrupts.

"Especially since that clan is mine," Wen Qing adds mildly. "You said you wanted a coup. We're going to give you one. But to do that we'll need some firepower that we don't have right now."

Nie Huaisang has to remind himself that they're both dumbass teenagers and he's the adult here. "Why are you letting him do this? You're a doctor. Don't you have some sort of oath about not letting idiots kill themselves?"

"Not really," she answers. "But I'm not worried about that. That's why I'm going with him."

He stares. He really hadn't thought that this plan could get worse, but clearly he'd been wrong. "You'll die. You'll literally die."

"I didn't die last time," Wei Wuxian points out.

That's not as compelling as argument as Wei Wuxian thinks it is, because after he hadn't been dead but he'd been something almost as bad. "You don't need to go to the Burial Mounds to learn demonic cultivation. You invented it."

"Yeah, while I was in the Burial Mounds," he says. "Don't worry, this time will be better, since I still have my golden core and haven't just been whipped half to death. And I'll have a doctor! Who I won't let die. I think this is pretty responsible of me actually."

The sad things is that for Wei Wuxian, it kind of is. "And how are you planning to explain disappearing for three months? We don't have three months! The Wens will have already started gathering power by then."

"I can probably do it in a month this time around," he answers, which would be an absolutely insane statement coming from anyone else. "My old notes that you copied out for me helped a lot, plus the whole not being half dead thing. I probably spent a lot of time in the Burial Mounds trying to not die, and I'll spend a lot less time doing that this time around."

"A month is still too long for you both to go missing," he says through gritted teeth.

Wen Qing grins. "Oh, don't worry about that. We're going to spread rumors that we're running off together to elope since our families would never agree to arrange a betrothal. By the time they figure out that's very much not what we've done, I'll be the Wen Sect Leader and it won't matter."

"Lan Zhan agreed to shelter A-Ning, although I obviously didn't tell him why," Wei Wuxian says, then his brow furrows. "It was actually a lot easier than I thought it'd be."

Nie Huaisang has a moment of silence for Lan Wangji. The only person who's going to have a worse month than the two idiots who are purposely dropping themselves in the Burial Mounds is Lan Wangji who’s going to think that the love of his life ran off to marry someone else.

Oh well. One bad month is probably preferable to sixteen years of them, after all.

[evita-shelby]

Soulmates

Gif by @hvproductions

Something as simple as an introduction.

Who would’ve thought that was how she’d meet her soulmate?

Well, she’s known since puberty that the first words she’d tell him or her was her name, all soulmates did.

Her parents words had been ‘look where you’re going’ and ‘I’m so sorry, sir’. Feli's and her husband’s had been ‘are you Elena’s brother?’ and ‘are you Elena’s friend?’

Her grandparents had the best ones, she thinks, ‘That's not going to work’ and ‘Yes, I doubt we can hide my scar, we need a better lie’.

Hers were more normal, and that had disappointed her. ‘Eva Smith’ and ‘Thomas Shelby’.

The second he said his name something clicked as if now the universe made sense. She had felt it and he had too, but things would be extremely difficult. This was a business meeting and her uncle was very much offering her like a prized sow.

Oh no.

Thomas Shelby was her soulmate.

----

She opens the door before he even knocks.

Who else would come here at this hour?

“We can marry in January next year, that will give us time to get to know each other.” He said coming in from the rain.

Its November, in two weeks Eva turns twenty-three, and the last thing she wants is to marry a stranger.

“Why the hurry? We just met today.” She pulled the robe shut.

“Soulmates meet and get married, my parents eloped that same day, I heard yours too.” He goes straight to the liquor cabinet and pulls out the Irish whiskey imported straight from Ireland.

His brother John had married his soulmate and she had died two years ago. Now he had married a second soulmate ---which existed on very rare cases. Perhaps that was the source of his anxiety to marry her as soon as possible.

“We don’t even know each other.” They are the same height, which makes it so much easier for her to look at him like he’s out of his fucking mind.

“My middle name is Michael after my granda.”

He must be joking.

That is the only logical conclusion to this.

“My middle name is Leonor after my great grandmother.” She finds herself telling him.

And that was how it began.

[cadaveraaa]

At least from my perspective, I don't like it for two reasons: I consider it a toxic ship with no real romantic attraction and I'm not that big a fan of the enemies to lovers trope. I'm gonna stress now that this is all just a matter of personal opinion and I am fully expecting others to disagree with me. This is gonna be a long read (like, really really stupid long) so:

The latter is easier to address: idk I'm just not really into enemies to lovers. Like, it's a cool ship dynamic. I think there's a lot of possibilities and I think it can be done really well. However, I think it just rubs me the wrong way because I feel like it's often just an excuse to like make one character really mean and shitty to another character, and then justify it by being like "oh character A was in love with character B all along! they just didnt know how to express it!" which. no. that's just really wrong to me. If you like someone, don't be an asshole about it. Like that's just really weird and an asshole thing to do. Alternatively, sometimes I feel as though there's no real chemistry there and it feels forced to me.

Enemies to lovers can be done right when in my opinion, there is some sort of real redemption. I'm going to use Pride and Prejudice as an example. Darcy and Elizabeth were originally at odds. When Darcy confessed to her the first time, she turned him down. She didn't have any sort of attachment to him because he hadn't redeemed himself; Elizabeth only knew of Darcy as a selfish, cold, and rude rich guy who thought himself better because he was from one side of the train tracks and she from the other, so to speak. However, when it is revealed that Darcy actually saved the family's public image when Lizzy's youngest sister eloped with another man, even at the expense of his own, and when Darcy continually made to better himself by working on his flaws, that is when we see the two fall in love. Darcy redeemed himself; he overcame his flaws of pride and prejudice (haha title drop) in order to be worthy of Lizzy's love. Likewise, Elizabeth worked on herself, regarding letting go of her pride and realize she had been a fool when she had thought only negatively of Darcy when in reality, he had only been looking out for her family (and ofc most importantly, her).

So again, enemies to lovers can be done right (imo) when there is a redemption involved. So why do I think llorumi doesn't work as a ship? Because there is no real redemption involved. Harumi doesn't learn anything. Yea we get some half-baked "redemption" at the series finale, but it doesn't feel like a real redemption to me. We don't see her go on and grow. It's just an "oh btw guys shes good now! :D" which doesn't work for me. Maybe after seasons 8 or 9 or whenever she was introduced we had seen something from her like "hey, I realized I did things which were amoral and wrong. I hurt people because I was hurting and didn't know how to properly express my hurt. That's not an excuse, but I am working on bettering myself in order to atone for my past grievances" and then she went on to actually show improvement in her character.

This is why I think llourmi is toxic. There was no redemption from Harumi. She never really tried to better herself. She never learned from her past mistakes; she never learned from the hurt she caused. She just. Was good. And everyone accepted that. Which is good! It's fine, but it's not what I'm into; it just doesn't sit right with me. Harumi was mean to Lloyd. She used him, led him on, and never really apologized for it? (I put a question mark here because I feel as though I have seen something where she apologized, but I can't remember if that was an au or not. But even if she did apologize, I feel as though I would've remembered it better, especially considering my position on llorumi). To have them get together just feels weird because to me, she never grew. There was no change; she was still angry and lloyd never got an apology.

Also to me, it always seemed as though Harumi never loved Lloyd. He was a pawn; something she could use to achieve her ultimate goal. She didn't care about Lloyd, like at all. She was bitter and resentful; she was a traumatized girl with little to no therapy to help her process said trauma in a healthy manner, but she still wasn't interested in Lloyd romantically. Politically, yes, but otherwise, no. There was no room in her heart for her to have any sort of attraction to anyone; she was dead set on completing her mission.

All this to say I don't like llorumi.

tldr: i dont mind an enemies to lovers trope. It feels a little overdone to me, but it can be done right if there is a redemption involved; i dont see that in llorumi. harumis redemption didnt feel like a real redemption which to me kills any sort of romantic attraction. and i feel as though harumi never really loved lloyd. the end.

Probably a bad idea to ask, but that’s never stopped me irl

Note: asking this as a serious question as someone who is genuinly curious about the answer. I’m also not trying to start anything, I just genuinly want to learn. 

Is there a reason for why Llorumi seems (at least from my perspective) so much more hated than other enemies to lover relationships, especially in other fandoms? 

I can see the argument saying that “she’s still evil, it’s still toxic”, but most enemies to lovers tend to be shipped before redemptions too, so I’m not sure. Is it because it isn’t “from two sides” as much as a personal vandetta? Or do you, as someone who doesn’t enjoy the ship, not enjoy the enemies to lovers dynamic altogether? 

Again, not trying to start anything and it is not meant as offensive or taunting or whatever. Just genuinly curious to understand, even if you could consider me to be biased, that’s fair. 

[guzhuangheaven]

Guzhuang Appreciation Month: badass dialogues

(but in the novel)

legend of ruyi :: ep 5 // ep 78

This drama is so amazing, demonstrated by these two scenes. Here you have Ruyi and Hongli watching the same play at two different stages in their lives. In episode 5, they are still clearly in love and are happy watching the play together, leaning lovingly against each other and moving in unison as one. They are also being watched fondly by Aruo, who has yet to have ideas of betraying Ruyi. Many years later, in episode 78, we have Ruyi and Hongli watching the same play, but they are physically far apart and their emotional distance from each other is also clear on their faces. They are literally being divided by the presence of Ling Yunche standing between them.

I find the parallel between the closeups of Aruo and Ling Yunche the most heartbreaking, because Aruo, despite how happy she looks for them in ep 5, would eventually try to break Ruyi and Hongli apart. And yet for all her efforts, she never succeeds because Hongli never actually believes her. On the other hand, Ling Yunche never tries to get in between Ruyi and Hongli, but just the mere presence of him is enough for Hongli to drive a wedge between himself and Ruyi. The presence of Aruo and Ling Yunche in this scene drives home the stark contrast in how the relationship has deteriorated between Ruyi and Hongli, and how Hongli went from trusting Ruyi despite all evidence against her to believing the worst of her despite no real evidence. 

What is even more heartbreaking is the play they are watching. It’s not made very clear in the drama, but the plot of the play has great significance in the novel. The play they are watching is called 墙头马上 / Over the Wall and Atop a Horse. The play is based on the poem 井底引银瓶 Silver Vase at the Bottom of the Well by Bai Juyi.

The poem by Bai Juyi, writes of a broken relationship/friendship where two people once lived happily in harmony, then one person wronged the other, causing the other person to leave and never come back; the relationship is thus severed. 

When the poem was adapted into the play 墙头马上 / Over the Wall and Atop a Horse, the play tells the story of Pei Shaojun falling in love at first sight with Li Qianjin when she was standing by a wall and he was on a horse riding by her house. The two then eloped, and lived together for seven years, having two children together, before they were discovered by Pei Shaojun’s father. Upon the discovery, Li Qianjin was condemned for getting into a clandestine relationship and Pei Shaojun caved to parental pressure and divorced her. She went back to her hometown. Many years later, after having achieved political success, Pei Shaojun went looking for Li Qianjin again, and just happened to discover that the two of them were actually engaged as children. In the play, they then reunited, got remarried and lived happily ever after.

There is however a plot point in the Ruyi novel, where Qingying does not like the ending of the play, feeling that the happy ending was forced. In the novel, Hongli and Qingying only know each other in passing at first. Then on the day that Hongli chooses his wives, Qingying is made to attend by her aunt. Before the selection ceremony, everyone is invited to watch a play, and Hongli chooses Over the Wall and Atop a Horse. Qingying, because she dislikes the happy ending, asks the theatre troupe to change the ending of the play so that in the end, Li Qianjin does not actually get back together with Pei Shaojun but stays firm in her resolve to end the relationship between them. After the play ends, Qingying leaves before the selection, but Hongli becomes intrigued by her changed ending and chases after her. This conversation below ensues, in which you can see clearly how Qingying’s belief on the matter stayed constant with her through the years. In fact, she practically predicts her own fate later with her changed ending.

~*~

Qingying stepped lightly ahead, her gown fluttering in the breeze like a white butterfly in flight. Aruo’s face was robbed of all colour and she was crying in despair. “Gege, what is wrong with you? Everything was well, why did you change the ending of the play? If Huang Hou Niang Niang hears about it, what will you do?”

Qingying shrugged. “At most, Aunt will just scold me a little. I just don’t like that ending. Today, I finally got to see how it should be played out. I’m so happy!”

“Gege might be happy,” Aruo said miserably, “but today is the consort selection. If Gege you are not chosen, then what would we do?”

Qingying’s aunt had already intended her to be the Third Prince’s bride, and now that was not successful, she should be pushed to the Fourth Prince instead? If they needed this one forced marriage to prolong their family’s glory, would that mean all women of the Ulanara clan were little better than slaves? It would be better this way. Regardless of whether she succeeded at being chosen to be a prince’s consort or not, she got to see things done her way, for once.  

She only managed a few steps more when suddenly a voice called behind her. “Qingying Meimei!”

No one had ever called her that before. Everyone in the palace simply called her “Qingying Gege”. Curious, she turned her head to find that Hongli was chasing after her.

Thinking that he must wish to reprimand her, Qingying made herself as small as possible.

Hongli only laughed. “I chased after you to comfort you. Xiyue Gege was rude in speech, I feared that you would be offended.”

“Offended? About what?” Qingying asked in a low voice. “Fourth Prince, do you mean to mention the fact that I was rejected by the Third Prince?”

Hongli nodded, frowning. “I only fear such talk will destroy your reputation.”

Qingying laughed, all her teeth showing, against all rules of decorum, which seemed to astonish Hongli.

“I don’t care!” she declared. “There are many things that women can’t necessarily decide for themselves, such as marriage, or family. But at least, I can decide whether to mind those mocking talks, whether to care about them and let them hurt me.”

Hongli looked sad for a moment, whispering, “Your family…” But then he trailed off. Then, with a humourless smile, he said, “Over the Wall and Atop a Horse is the play I chose myself, why did you not like the ending and asked them to change it? I pick a plum blossom, lean against the wall. / You ride off among the bending poplars*. Is that not a lovely image?”

“Yes, it is very nice, it’s just…” Qingying thought a moment then said, “Over the wall and atop a horse we gaze at each other. / I know you, too, must be heartbroken*. From this beginning, the play is full of conflicts, ups and downs, all very compelling, yet in the end, there is a forced happy ending, everyone is forced to be happy, I really don’t like it at all.”

[* excerpts from the poem by Bai Juyi]

Hongli looked displeased, asking, “To be able to mend a broken mirror, husband and wife reunited and at peace again, is that not good?”

“When Li Qianjin was being insulted by Pei Shaojun’s parents, he did not protect her. He watched her leave in humiliation and did not stop her, as if all the love and years they shared did not matter. Such a heartless and weak man who dares not protect his woman, why would Li Qianjin want to get back together with him?”

Her voice was soft, but also full of conviction. Even though it went against Hongli’s beliefs, he wanted to keep her talking.

“To be reunited and together in harmony is the wishes of all families on earth. If Pei Shaojun is willing to start over, why would Li Qianjin not forgive him?”

“Why must a woman always forgive a man for his failings? Wouldn’t that teach the man that it doesn’t matter what hurt he causes? I don’t care, if he hurt her, she shouldn’t forgive him.”

“Women must be soft and gentle, and give into her husband. If she sacrifices a little, bears a little hurt feeling, they can be reunited, isn’t that happiness?”

“If she must be hurt, must sacrifice herself for this forced reunion, then it is already not a good marriage,” Qingying said stubbornly. “In my eyes, Li Qianjin is a woman who is willing to walk away, to severe the relationship, because all trust is gone.”

“If she walks away, wouldn’t that mean she spends the rest of her life alone? Everyone has their own difficult moments, if Li Qianjin is so stubborn, Pei Shaojun is put in a difficult position too.”

“Who isn’t in a difficult position?” Qingying asked. “If the woman can understand the man’s difficulties, can a man not understand a woman’s pain of being cast aside and humiliated?”

Hongli thought for a moment then laughed. “Qingying Meimei, you are much too unbending.”

Qingying merely nodded. “It’s better to live the rest of your life alone, rather than live to old age with someone who already betrayed you once. So it might be harmonious today, but if a conflict arises, what is to say Pei Shaojun will not just forsake Li Qianjin again? It is easy to change mountains**, that is the principle here.”

[** there is a Chinese saying that it is easier to change the course of rivers and shapes of mountains than to change the character of a person… aka old habits die hard but with more stakes.]

Hongli still did not agree with her logic. “Women should place obedience before all and be pliable. If she does not restrain herself and be more accepting for the greater good, then she would just suffer.”

“If one must accept being humiliated for a so-called happy ending, then I don’t want that kind of happy ending,” Qingying repeated.

“Then is Over the wall and atop a horse we gaze at each other so easily forgotten?” Hongli asked, astonished.

Qingyin turned and stared at Hongli. “If it is not easily forgotten, then why didn’t Pei Shaojun protect Li Qianjin? Hasn’t he too forgotten how they once loved each other when he cast her aside?”

Hongli could not argue against her, and finally admitted defeat. “Meimei, you really are something, I don’t know what else to say.”

Qingying laughed in delight.

“Meimei,” Hongli said, stepping closer to her, “you argued so animatedly, you must love Over the Wall and Atop a Horse. Why don’t we go back and hear the play again?”

Qingying hesitated, thinking that it would be a great loss of face if she were to return now. But Hongli was looking at her so earnestly, she found it hard to immediately refuse.

“I’ll go back first, and prepare good tea to wait for you.”

He said ‘wait’, as if he would not move the day along if she did not come. Her heart softened, and she suddenly stopped in her path.

…

[And then of course Qingying comes back to attend the selection. Hongli, who had originally intended to choose Langhua, changes his mind and chose Qingying to be his di fujin, but then Yongzheng interfered and put a stop to it… But the play is one massive foreshadowing plot device that doesn’t get explained much in the drama, but packs a punch when you read this scene.] -h

[lordelmelloi2]

Reines uses her unsavory jokes to cope with her history of being abused/almost killed at the hands of mage society

While we’re on the topic of Reines’ being absorbed in the Clock Tower’s politics and it shaping her entire worldview, this joke (one of many incestuous jokes she makes) is another big view into the way that she copes with it. 

Reines, who from a young age has had literally no choice but to participate in the Clock Tower politics because of Kayneth’s death, has been enmeshed in these issues from the start. The conservative notion of magic circuit distribution and treating people like simply a womb or a sire in order to better magic circuit distribution is something she’s well aware of, even more so because female mages are regularly treated like simply wombs that will help create even greater mages further in time. It is not uncommon for young mages, teenagers and adults, to be in arranged marriages to ensure political gain or for greater magic circuit count. 

I’ve spoken about it before, but Reines believes that mages are supposed to behave in a way that’s more beneficial to political gain rather than try to walk the boundary of humanity and magus. 

What this means for her, who considers herself more mage than human, is that she will readily joke from a political point of view - but more specifically joke about incestuously eloping with Waver. 

Waver, who considers all mages to be fundamentally human, is absolutely disgusted by it. And it should be noted as well that Waver also routinely teaches mages to consider their humanity a bit more as a fundamental of his practice in Modern Magecraft instruction. Waver may identify himself as a mage, but he is well-known for trying to balance what it is to be “human” with being a “mage”. He is more concerned with being effective because those he teaches are secure in themselves as people, rather than suffering under mage society’s ideologies that require one to basically consider themselves second to their pursuit of the Root or anything else. 

The issue with Reines is this, though. Why does she keep specifically joking about incest with Waver? 

Well, for a girl whose life is entirely dictated by political workings in the Clock Tower, who has exactly one person in a position of authority in her life who doesn’t believe in said politics and yet considers himself a mage, he’s an easy target. But more importantly, she wants to prove something. 

For Reines, who was almost assassinated at a young age, the notion of being protected by others on the basis of her being a human ... was basically nonexistent. She is 15. There is nobody who is stretching themselves thin to try and rescue her or even comfort her from the torment of the political workings of the Clock Tower. Her life is constantly at risk. There is no other option for her, she believes, than to consider herself a mage. 

But Waver is different. Waver, who calls himself a mage, acts so completely un-mage-like that he’s labelled a heretic. Not only that, he doesn’t hold any of the political ideology that denotes a “true mage” at all, and on top of that, he actively rebels against it, teaching the opposite in his classes. 

Reines wants a justification for the suffering that she went through. 

If she can somehow suggest that Waver is Just Like The Other Mages, she will be right, and the suffering she endured as a young girl at the hands of the politics of the Clock Tower would be justified. It would mean she could skip the work of having to ask why she had to go through any of it in the first place. It means that she doesn’t have to weep or mourn or get angry that she was almost killed, that she’s regularly almost killed, and she doesn’t have to think about how fucked up the place that she’s forced to exist in is. Reines does not have an out from mage society. She is next in line to be a Lord. For her to give that up would mean throwing the El Melloi house into even further disarray, and it might truly disintegrate the family and destabilize them enough to let them be totally wiped out again. 

She has an immense burden on her shoulders and she’s coping with it by suggesting to the only person in her life who would say “this isn’t right, and they shouldn’t do this to you” that in actuality, the people who want this Are right, and that what happened to her was simply a matter of course. 

It is very common for traumatized people to normalize the abuse that happened to them as a coping mechanism. It’s easier to normalize it than to fight against it, sometimes, because fighting against it means processing a lot of pain and having to face that the world was cruel to you. 

Waver, to her, is a figure who is in her own words “blindingly bright”. He represents a future and an existence that says that the world is not naturally that cruel, and that kindness should be the base standard of how one acts and carries oneself. 

She does not actually want to be hurt by him. But she feels, at this time, that she has no other choice than to suggest that he, too, would hurt her. Would drag her deeper into the abyss that is the political ideology that mages have - especially of the Aristocratic faction, the right-wing faction that the El Melloi family belongs to, the faction that 10 years ago told Waver that a mage’s bloodline is everything and that nothing else matters. 

One day she might find out that she’s wrong, and one day she might learn that she's suffering, and that she didn’t deserve to go through what she went through as a child, as a teen, and what she might go through in the future. 

Quite frankly, she just needs the right support, is all. And to know that she’ll be protected in the future. That’s all she really wants. It’s a very simple wish. But it would mean a lot to her, who was not protected in the past, and has to fend for herself as well. It would do her good to have the idea that a mage isn’t just a bundle of circuits reinforced to her. And it would also do her good to know that she is allowed to act like a teen girl at times, having girl’s talks with others, talking about nonsense, having fun. Gray provides her with a bit of an outlet, which is good, but really, she needs much more than this. Ideally she should be outside of mage society as a whole. But I suppose there’s a lot more work that has to be done before she can hope to be freed from any of that. 

[dialovers-translations]

Diabolik Lovers DARK FATE ー Kanato Dark [Prologue]

ー The scene starts in the Demon World

Yui: Haah, haah, haah...

( Just look at how red the moon is...The lunar eclipse is really still ongoing here in Demon World. ) 

( It still doesn’t quite click with me how the door in the manor’s basement connects to another world but... )

( For now, I’m just glad I made it here safely. )

ー The scene shifts to the forest

Yui: ( Now I just need to make it to the manor where everyone is. )

( But...Which way should I go? )

( I assumed I would just figure things out as I go but... )

...

???: This way, Yui-san.

Yui: Kanato-kun...!?

Kanato: Haah...I told you to wait...So why are you here?

Yui: ...W-Well...I got scared after all...I’m sorry...

Kanato: No need to apologize, really. 

I was just on my way to return to your side myself.

Yui: Eh...?

Kanato: While I did tell you to wait for me...

It would be foolish to assume a clumsy, slowpoke such as yourself can actually survive by themselves.

Therefore I was just about to be so kind to come and pick you up.

Yui: Kanato-kun...

Kanato: For one...You belong to me, so it only makes sense for you to be by my side.

You understand, don’t you?

Yui: Yeah...

( To think he was on his way to me as well... )

( It might be strange to feel happy at a time like this but...I truly am. )

Kanato: ...Fufu.

You look rather joyful now, considering you had a nearly lifeless expression on your face before I called out to you.

Did you miss me that much?

Yui: T-That’s, well...Yeah. I missed you, Kanato-kun.

Kanato: You are quite the handful. (1) ...Oh well, I guess it’s fine.

ー He steps back

Kanato: More importantly, let’s get going.

Yui: Yeah!

( I should be able to safely make it to the castle together with Kanato-kun. Aah...Thank god... )

Say, Kanato-kun. Is the castle far from here?

Kanato: Well, it’s decently far. I’m sure it’d feel like quite the trip with those weak, human feet of yours.

However, that doesn’t matter. We won’t be returning to the castle after all.

Yui: Eh...?

Kanato: The place shouldn’t matter to you as long as the two of us are together, right?

Besides, the castle is crawling with people who will only get in our way. Hence why we won’t go back there.

Right, how about we hold a picnic together? Yes, let’s do that.

Yui: ( I guess I should have expected this much from Kanato-kun... )

Sure, Kanato-kun. Let’s have a picnic together.

Kanato: Yes. Although that was already settled the moment I decided it, regardless of whether you’d agree or not.

Right, there’s lunar eclipse flowers blooming just ahead ofーー

???: ...Hehe...A leisurely picnic at a time like this...

ー Shin shows up

Shin: Guess you guys really have no idea what kind of situation you’re in, do you?

Yui: ( Ah, that transfer student...!? Shin-kun, was it...? Why is he here...? )

Shin: Kanato...was it? In what kind of way did Karlheinz raise you?

Kanato: ...Shut up...

Hmph...I thought you were suspicious from the first time I laid my eyes upon you...

So you are one of us ーー A creature from the Demon World after all, aren’t you?

Shin: Yeah, exactly. Or rather, I thought you figured that one out ages ago, but maybe I was wrong?

But you know...I’d rather not have you mistakenly believe we’re the same as you guys.

Yui: W-What do you mean...?

Shin: We are Founders. Those who stand above the Vampire race...No, above all other species in the Demon World.

ーー If I put it clearly like that, I’m sure even you two will be able to comprehend, right?

Kanato: ...Ugh.

Yui: ( Founders...? The ones Reiji-san mentioned...!? )

Kanato: I will admit...You smell different from us Vampires.

Let’s say I give you the benefit of the doubt and take your word for it...

So? What does that mean exactly then? 

Shin: ...

...Hehe...Ahaha!

Kanato: What’s so funny?

Shin: What do you mean? ...Haha...Seems like you’re still a kid both on the inside and the outside.

Kanato: Wha...!? 

Shin: Whatever, they say that when dealing with children, you have to explain it to them in a way even they can understandーー

ー Wolves start surrounding them

*GROOOOWL*

Yui: ( T-There’s so many of them...! )

( Then the ones who attacked Ayato-kun must have been Shin-kun’s as well... )

Shin: Kanato. If you hand over that woman without putting up a fight, I don’t mind letting you go unscathed? 

Yui: ( M-Me...!? )

Shin: What will you do?

Kanato: ーー No. I don’t know what your plans are, but she belongs to me.

Shin: Nnー ...That means you’ll meet your end here, but I guess you’re okay with that?

Kanato: Hah? Of course not.

I’ve heard enough. Let’s go already.

ー Kanato grabs hold of Yui’s hand

Yui: Ah...!

ー The two of them run off

Shin: Oh...? I guess you want me to play hide-and-seek with you?

Sure! Go ahead and show me your best hiding attempt!

I’ll make sure to find you before you get lonely and start crying! Ahahaha...!

*TIMESKIP*

ー The scene shifts to a cave

Yui: Haah, haah, haah...

I guess we should be okay after coming this far...?

Kanato: ...Yes...I can no longer sense those Wolves’ presence.

What was his problem...? He kept on talking as if he knows it all...

Yui: ( Kanato-kun’s upset... )

Say, Kanato-kun? You shouldn’t take his words to heaーー

( Ah, my foot...hurts...Seems like I badly twisted it somewhere. The second I eased up, the pain suddenly hit... )

Kanato: What’s the matter? Why did you suddenly go quiet?

Yui: Well...

( Kanato-kun seems really agitated right now, so I should probably keep quiet about my foot. )

It’s nothing. Don’t worry.

Kanato: ...Really? Your complexion seems rather pale though.

Yui: That’s...Um, I guess it’s from running so much. It’s fine, so don’t woーー Uu...

Kanato: ...You really are hiding something from me, aren’t you?

Yui: I-I’m no...Ow...

( I can’t...The pain keeps on getting worse... )

Kanato: ...Your foot...? Your foot hurts, doesn’t it? I’m sure it does. If you won’t tell me the truth, I’ll get mad.

Yui: ...Yeah...Seems like I twisted it at some point...

Kanato: I knew it...

Why didn’t you tell me it hurts?

Yui: I didn’t want to bother you with trivial matters...

Kanato: Trivial?

The fact you can barely move because your foot hurts is ‘trivial’?

For one, I’m long aware that you’re a hopeless, slow-witted klutz. 

Yet I’m willing to keep you by my side like this...

...Or maybe...

You look down on me as well?

Yui: Eh...?

Kanato: Do you think of me as an unreliable child!? Just like Shin does!

Yui: I-I don’t...

Kanato: Then why didn’t you tell me!?

Yui: Kanato-kun...

Kanato: Whatever...It’s fine. I don’t want to hear another word from you.

You are forbidden from speaking until I give you permission to talk again.

Yui: ( I guess right now, I have no other choice but to obey rather than to try and reason with him... )

Okaーー

Kanato: I said not another word, didn’t I!?

Yui: ( R-Right...I’ll just quietly nod instead... )

*Rustle*

Kanato: Hmph...

*HOOOOOWL*

Yui: ( Ah...! A wolf’s howling...They’re already this close...!? )

( O-Oh no...We have to make a run for it... )

Kanato: ...Those pests...Just how annoying are they?

If I recall correctly...Wolves are afraid of flames. If only we could light a fire somehow...

Yui: ( Can we even do that without the right tools...? )

( I was told not to speak but... )

Y-You know, Kanato-kun. We should probably think about making our escape insteaーー

Kanato: Why do you keep on opening that mouth of yours?

Yui: ...Ugh.

Kanato: For one...I’m well aware.

However...In your current condition, even just walking would be difficult, no?

Are you telling me to run away by myself? Don’t make fun of me.

Yui: ( Right. Kanato-kun’s trying to look out for me... )

( Yet I went and ran my mouth again. )

*HOOOOWL*

Kanato: ...Ugh.

Listen.

ー He steps closer

Kanato: If we stay here, they’ll find us.

So we’ll run as I carry you in my arms. Now, come here.

Yui: ( K-Kanato-kun will? But... )

Kanato: ...What’s the matter? Do you think of me as an unreliable weakling?

ーー Come here already. I shall give you permission to say ‘okay’ at least.

Yui: ( Kanato-kun... )

...Okay.

I’ll be counting on you, Kanato-kun...Ah, sorry, I just ran my mouth again...

Kanato: ...Well, I suppose it’s fine. You’ve been forgiven.

All you need to do is rely on and depend on me, without ever leaving my side.

*HOOOOWL*

Kanato: ...Oh.

Let’s go.

*Rustle rustle*

Yui: ( Wah...! )

ー The scene shifts to the forest

Shin: Fufu...Look at them frantically running away...Two lovers eloping together? Bullshit.

Good grief...But you know, Nii-san. Are you sure we should leave things like this?

Wouldn’t it be much easier to just capture them right here, right now?

Carla: ...It is fine. We can leave them be for now.

Shin: Hm...I mean, I’ll listen.

It’s kinda hilarious to see a little kid trying his best to be big and strong. (2)

Kanato, you better put your best foot forward for her sake. Fufu...!

*TIMESKIP*

ー The scene shifts to the living room in the Sakamaki manor

Yui: ( We’ve made it back to the manor in the human world, but it’s a complete mess... )

Kanato: Phew...Now that we’ve made it this far, we should be fine for a bit.

Yui: Yeah...

Kanato: What’s the matter? You look rather glum. Does your foot still hurt perhaps?

Yui: T-That’s not it. It has gotten a lot better already. It’s just, well...

Kanato: What? Speak up already.

Yui: ...I was just wondering if it’s fine for just us to return to the manor like this...

Kanato: Oh, so that’s it...

ーー There’s no issue.

For one...Everyone is way too cautious. I would never mess up the same way Ayato did.

Above all, we can enjoy some private time together here, can’t we?

You’ve got complaints regardless?

Yui: N-No. I’m not complaining.

Kanato: I thought so.

In that case, let us treat your injury at once.

Yui: Yeah...

( It’ll be okay. I’ll be fine as long as we’re together like this... )

( I’m sure everything will be just fine...Right? )

...

Kanato: ...

...Why do you make that face...?

Yui: Eh...?

Kanato: ...It’s nothing.

...Ugh.

Yui: ( Kanato-kun...? )

( I wonder what’s wrong...? )

ーー TO BE CONTINUED ーー

Translation notes

(1) More specifically, he calls her his ‘belonging’ or ‘possession’ right now, using the term 所有物 or ‘shoyuubutsu’. 

(2) Literally he says that it’s funny to see a kid stand on their toes and stretch to make themselves taller.

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<- [ Sakamaki Prologue ] [ Dark 01 ] ->

[agentrouka-blog]

1)I think that grrm is straight up writing a love story calling rhaegar love struck, him saying lyanna his last word, calling that loveshack tower of joy etc I don't think there's anything to read b/w the lines. Him crowning her qol&b was a political move to show Brandon that he was aware of southron ambitions & to back off with the alliance. I am sure there was mutual attraction b/w R & L and he crowned her for admiration too. But I don't think they fell in love nor do I believe they had any pl

2) plans to elope. I think he rescues her from kings's guards & keeps her hostage/leverage against southron alliance. He wanted to break L's engagement to Bobby to destroy STAB alliance. He also comes to know that brandon went along with his wedding to cat despite his warning at harrenhal. They fall in love during their journey to dorne wherein he comes to know that Elia & kids are hostage. Martells will ask him to give up lyanna. So they hide to protect her from aerys, Robert & martells.

Hi anon!

I actually like the first part of your ask because it adds a modicum of depth to Rhaegar's moves at Harrenhal, and acknowledges the way the Stark-Tully-Arryn-Baratheon Alliance formed an unsubtly threatening block against the Targs by literally encircling the Crownlands. (Though a better explanation is an attempt to acknowledge, rather than threaten, Rickard's and Jon's and Hoster's scheme.)

Where I think it is less solid is a couple of other points.

1) It erases the role of the prophecy that more than one source describes as very important to not just Rhaegar but the Targ monarchy as a whole ever since Jenny of Oldstones. Rhaegar and Aemon were exchanging letters about it as late as after Aegon’s birth, i.e. when Rhaegar was readying to abandon Elia after she almost died in childbirth.

Rhaegar, I thought . . . the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King's Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. (AFFC, Samwell IV)

2) It's a terrible plan in its conception and even worse in its execution. There’s a four-kingdom conspiracy going on, and Daddy Aerys just managed to piss off a fifth by snatching Jaime, and Rhaegar’s bright move with the flower crown is doing everything to convince the entire Realm that he is slightly unhinged himself.

As far as messages go, it’s completely ambiguious. Handing Lyanna the crown means.. he wants to kidnap her if Brandon marries Catelyn? Did he send him a secret letter to go with the gesture, or was Brandon supposed to read that between the lines?

Plus, “threatening” the heir Brandon is pretty pointless when it’s the father generation pulling the strings. The only relevant “head of a House” there present was Robert, his cousin, whom he had just succeeded in deeply angering. Not to mention confusing a sixth kingdom he depends on (Dorne). It doesn't break the alliance, it solidifies it. 

(Also, why on earth doesn’t House Stark properly protect Lyanna after this threat?)

Worse, when this fool-proof threat doesn’t have the desired effect, he does kidnap Lyanna to make her a hostage to force the Alliance to comply - except not only does he fail to tell her family, or to take her to KL, where she would be a “guest” of the official crown, he makes her his personal prisoner (once more proving he is as unhinged as Aerys) and drags her to... Dorne? Without telling anyone about it? And doesn’t rear his head again for months while the situation devolves into a Rebellion because obviously the kidnapped girl caused an uproar and he left Aerys to deal with it?

3) Rhaegar’s reason for suddenly abandoning his terrible but complex, time-sensitive and high-stakes plan is a sudden case of “in mutual love” with his teenaged kidnap victim? He just drops all of it in order to shack up with a fifteen-year-old in the middle of nowhere? He is scared House Martell will take his widdle mistress away while the kingdom is going up in flames? Really?

4) It makes Lyanna an absolute imbecile. Why would she fall in love with her kidnapper, who has a wife and children? She's 14/15 and he's eight years older and has demonstrated his gross lack of respect for her family and her values. What? This is not a “love story” at all. It’s two imbeciles absolutely out of touch with reality for no reason at all.

5) There's an easier explanation for GRRM describing him as love-struck: he can't say anything else without inviting questions. RLJ is still supposedly a secret, and there is no logical explanation for Rhaegar kidnapping a girl and then hiding her. The illogical explanations are "love", or the explicit secret intention of creating that third head of the dragon. Love is one of the un-universe explanations, and the easiest obfuscating answer GRRM can give. Plus, for all we know, Rhaegar himself did develop a creepy attraction to Lyanna. Something must have motivated him to choose her. But we don’t even know which name he whispered while he died. It’s implied but never explicitly stated that it was Lyanna. For all we know it was something entirely else.

This theory makes Rhaegar look even worse than the concept of his prophecy obsession. That one is, at least, consistent with itself, while this theory hinges on him being dumb as rocks and both so zealous as to start this confrontation and then so disinterested as to drop it entirely and achieve the exact opposite of his original intention, until he half-heartedly rides forth to fight and die at the Trident. (Why not just run off with Lyanna if he didn’t care abut any of it?)

There is no internal logic, and no motivation for this “love” that supposedly makes it a “love story”. So... no, I don’t think this makes any sense.

[cdyssey]

Need

Summary: After Nick arrives at the beach house, Frankie escapes to her studio to process her emotions. Post 7x04.

A/N: I've had such Grace and Frankie brain rot these past few days that I figured I should put it to good use and write another fic. It was really fascinating to try Frankie's POV. Lily Tomlin imbues her with a lot of subtle pathos that I totally wish the show would explicitly explore more.

AO3 Link

—

Frankie excuses herself to the studio for dinner, so she can process her very big, astonishingly inappropriate, and entirely overwhelming emotions without resorting to calling Nick a “wavy-haired, Pierce Brosnan wannabe douche canoe.” 

As delightful (and totally true) of a turn a phrase that it is, even she knows that saying it aloud would be trespassing a boundary that she’s sworn herself never to cross: Grace is married.

Unhappily married, maybe. 

Complicatedly married at the very least.

But until the day that they mutually say “I do” to divorce papers, there isn’t enough room for three people in the Skolka marriage, however much that Grace—bless her increasingly unthawing heart—tries to ensure otherwise. 

So Frankie lets the newly reunited couple have their dinner alone under the guise of a generosity that she doesn’t exactly feel, and she takes leftover pasta into her studio to moodily pick around the bowl until her fettuccine looks less like fettuccine and more like unevenly perforated confetti.

(Woo fucking hoo.)

After a few minutes of this aggressively unconstructive practice, she places her nearly full bowl on a nearby work table and stretches out across her paint-stained couch, staring at the ceiling and resisting the reactionary urge to light a joint. Mary J might help her feel better for the present moment, but tomorrow morning, she’d still wake up and feel invaded in her own home.

Paradoxically, she’d also feel alone, goddammit.

She pulls her shawl more tightly around her shoulders against an invisible and piercing chill.

Frankie hates feeling lonely.

She spiraled when Grace lived in the penthouse. She nearly self-destructed to fill the gaping void that her roommate, her friend, her practical and beloved soulmate left behind. There was a period where she didn’t wash her clothes and ate a lot of admittedly non-vegan takeout. There were nights when she’d lay awake in her awfully huge bed, staring at the empty space where Sol used to sleep, and have the familiar waking nightmare of spending her final years in forced solitude. She was happy with Jack, and then Jacob—sweet Jacob—came around too, and she did something she still feels fucking ashamed about: she hurt both of them, and she lied when she said that she had just wanted to have some fun.

She knows herself.

Intimately.

She‘d been scared of being alone again, so she tried to hold on to two people who were helping her to stave the awful feeling away. Those men wanted her, and Frankie used them. They wanted her, and she pathologically loves to feel wanted because she sometimes and irrationally fears that she might not be needed.

To be fair to her irrational fears, all the people she’s ever needed and felt needed by have hurt her before.

Sol cheated on her for twenty years.

Her own sons stuck her in a nursing home.

Grace just fucking left her.

She eloped in Vegas like a blushing twenty-one year old bride and just disappeared.

She says it was a mistake; she sat across Frankie in a sunlit restaurant and candidly told her that she didn’t like the person she had become when she married Nick.

And to be completely fair to her, Grace has been adamant about not wanting to leave again—so perhaps she never will—but if her husband is here to stay, it's also a distinct possibility that she’ll never have to make the choice to physically leave to… well… leave.

She can perpetually honeymoon with Nick and still call Frankie home. 

It could be a happy ending for Grace… and a fresh new hell for Frankie, who'd just started to feel secure again.

God knows she wants her best friend to be happy, but the big man in the sky must also surely understand that she had hoped that she alone could be enough for Grace, that this unconventional life spent together in the beach house—so crazy, so weird, and so inextricably entangled—would be their shared happily ever after.

But even as she thinks it, the vestiges of her clearly misplaced optimism begin to evade her, dregs now at the bottom of an already drained cup.

She and Grace aren't married.

It’s always been an objective fact.

Tonight, it feels more like an unpleasant reality.

When the door leading into her studio suddenly flies open, Frankie barely has enough time to swipe the back of her hand across her eyes before she sits up to find none other than the lady of the hour.

Her collared shirt popped up stiffly around her neck, a martini glass surgically glued to her right hand, Grace looks quintessentially herself as she walks in, even down to the minutiae of her trademark I'm-angry-at-the-world-and-everyone-in-it expression—brow furrowed and eyes Medusa cold. After all but slamming the door, she stalks over within a few clicks of her practical but unmistakably high heels.

“Well, hello to you, too, Sunshine,” Frankie greets wryly, hoping to hell and back that her face isn’t as red as it feels. 

It’s a tall order, though.

Alas, she was gifted (or equally cursed) with an exceptionally expressive face.

“Frankie, this is nonsense,” Grace says bluntly, using her martini glass like a pointer and leveling it straight at her head. “Come back to the house—your house—and have dinner with us.”

It’s the authoritarian nature of the demand that rifles Frankie.

Frankly, it pisses her off.

She’s always been a rebel contrarian.

“And by us, you mean you and your house arrested husband, right?” She returns evenly. She betrays herself by raising a single and devastatingly skeptical brow. “The man with whom you should be having a very emotionally honest conversation with right now about the parameters of your jacked up relationship?”

Grace shifts her weight from heel to heel and glances away a little too quickly for the gesture to be entirely natural. Frankie had blatantly stricken a pulsing nerve, and the guilt of doing so immediately swallows her. 

She shouldn’t be so hard on her friend.

(She doesn’t know why it’s permissible to be equally hard on herself.)

“Well, I tried to have that conversation, thank you very much, but then I ended up wanting to claw Nick’s eyes out.” The obvious follow up question must shine in Frankie’s face because sighing infinitesimally through her nostrils, Grace adds, “His attorney argued that my advanced age and apparent capability to croak at any moment were reasons enough to grant Nick leniency. They let him out so he could take care of me—whatever the hell that means.”

Her no-nonsense voice never falters as she delivers the brutal words, but her eyes undermine her, seething with emotion, simply roiling. They tell a story of horror and disgust and searing, absolute betrayal; they’re heavy all over with sadness and the indelicate trappings of all her raw and mercilessly exposed fears. 

Frankie understands immediately.

Nick used one of Grace’s deepest insecurities as a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Being eighty-two years old.

But perhaps more accurately, feeling like it.

“Oh, honey,” Frankie melts. She can do nothing else but melt, to be suddenly overcome with fierce, protective, and terrifying love for the woman in front of her. “That fucking bastard.”

Grace immediately laughs, the sound hoarse and watery and a little unhinged all at the exact same time.

“Tell me about it,” she half-smiles and takes the swearing as a rightful invitation to join Frankie on the couch. With a gentle clink, she sets her half-emptied martini glass on the table next to Frankie’s completely full pasta bowl. “I said the exact same thing.”

When she chooses to sit close enough that their shoulders are brushing, Frankie intuitively knows that this is petty defiance against Nick for daring to intrude upon them and the world they've so carefully created together.

She temples Grace’s nearest hand with her own in an attempt to silently communicate that this right here—whatever this is between them—is love.

“So, please”—Grace squeezes her hand back—“please don’t be angry with me… I… I didn’t want this. You know I didn’t want this. I don’t want him to even be here.”

Frankie stares openly at her best friend.

Wide-eyed and hopeful against her self-loathing, self-centered will, she searches her broken face like it's revelatory.

It's stunningly rare that Grace Hanson ever articulates her wants so clearly. Forty years of an emotionally repressive marriage did their number and toll on her. She pedestalized rigid decorum over every conscious desire. 

She played by the rules even if they hurt her.

And drank herself to oblivion on many a night to forget the very fact that she was hurt.

To deny herself the honesty she’d somehow convinced herself that she didn’t deserve.

“… you know this is your husband we’re talking about here, right?” It’s a rhetorical question. Frankie's pretty sure that they both fucking know that it’s insane that this conversation—that this entire situation as a whole—is happening. 

“I know,” Grace replies firmly. “Believe me, I'm well aware. But you’re… you’re my partner, Frankie, and if I can’t be upfront with you, then I don’t know who else I can turn to.”

The very word partner sends shivers down her spine, and the shivers collect like butterflies in her already churning belly.

It’s just a word, she tells herself. 

She scolds.

Grace doesn’t mean anything by it.

It's a label, and Grace doesn't do labels anymore.

“I... I wasn’t mad at you, Grace,” she finally admits. It's easier to do than questioning the extent to which her roommate would give up the world for her, but all the same, her voice is frighteningly weak, a pale imitation of everything Frankie usually projects herself to be: confident, cheerful, unshakeable, unshaken. Suddenly, it hits her that it’s been a very long time since she’s been so openly vulnerable, too. “I'm not even really all that mad at your jailbird husband either. I was just scared, and when I get scared, I skitter like a nervous little bug."

She shuts down.

She spirals.

She tries to put a smile on her face for the people who love her all the same.

And then she lies awake at night, drowning in the sheets of an empty bed.

Thinking about how she should probably tell someone that everything hurts.

But she’s Frankie, and she doesn’t do that.

Grace perpetually convinces herself that she doesn’t deserve honesty; Frankie has come to fear that no one wants her own.

“Were you scared of me?” Grace asks quietly, her grip so tight now that it almost stings.

“Frankie…” She presses when a few heartbeats of silence stagger by, limping painfully on all fours, pronouncing so many unspoken and profound hurts. 

“Of losing you, Grace,” she confesses, the words defeated and scraped raw. She forcefully tugs her hand away from Grace's just to temple her own hands together on her lap, to lick her sundry and shining wounds in a private corner. “I was scared of losing you, of being alone again in this big, empty house… and I don’t like being alone.”

She can’t bear to look at Grace as she says it, staring at the paint-flecked floor without ever really seeing it, her eyes burning.

She wishes they’d stop burning but feels the precise moment when they begin to leak anyway.

It’s all so embarrassing.

And childish.

Frankie is an eighty-year old woman, and she shouldn’t be upset over her best friend having a goddamn life.

She should be happy for her, fucking ecstatic.

And yet, she's—

But before she can complete the miserable thought, her body becomes aware of another sensation entirely—warm arms enveloping her from the side and inexorably pulling her in, turning the space that once existed between two bodies—between them—intangible, negligible.

Grace.

Shock turns into realization, and realization transforms into aching, sweeping relief.

It can only be Grace.

Grace’s soft lips pressed to her cheek.

Grace’s fingertips curling into the fabric of her dress.

Grace’s nose against her neck as she slides her sharp chin across her shoulder.

“I’m not leaving you, Frances Bergstein,” she declares. “Whatever happens between me and Nick, in the end, it’s going to be just you and me in this house that is our damn home. I swear that to you. I’d tell you every day just to prove it to you.”

Oh, these words.

These beautiful, tender, and long-needed-to-hear words.

They’re just words, she could tell herself again.

She could lie.

She could convince herself if she had to.

She could conveniently forget that Grace Hanson uses language carefully, that she employs every sentence with scalpel-like precision.

Or... more complicatedly still... Frankie could believe her.

Frankie could blindly accept these words for what they are, as manifest confirmation that she is loved by another—prioritized and cared for and needed.

She could be Grace’s partner and let that incredible word be electrically charged with so many complex and ridiculous and extraordinary ideas, none of which are traditional, and all of which feel true.

She could believe in her even if belief is not simple, even if belief is a product, first and foremost, of trust.

And Grace has certainly lost her trust before, but goddammit, she's earned it so many times, too.

“Oh, God,” Frankie laughs in such a way that it’s stupidly clear that she’s crying as Grace rubs slow circles into her back with her thumb. “This is all messed up. You’re the one with a house arrested, tax evading husband. I should be the one comforting you.”

“The house arrested, tax evading husband doesn’t particularly faze me,” Grace chuckles, her voice low. “Seeing you hurting and upset does. My priorities are remarkably straight.”

“I’m not sure you know the meaning of that word,” she smiles weakly as they slowly and clumsily begin to extricate themselves from their tangled embrace. 

It’s hard to find themselves again.

To be apart.

“But I do,” Grace protests, emphatic and indignant and maybe even a few shades righteously pissed. “You’re the person I wanna share this crazy life with at the end of the day and every day. Why is that so hard to believe?”

“Because every day is an incredibly long time to be with me,” Frankie offers meekly, giving her one more perfect and easily acceptable copout, a neatly packaged excuse. 

She can be too much.

She knows this.

“It’s just the right amount of time to be with you,” Grace murmurs, reaching up to brush an errant tear away from Frankie’s cheek, her thumb lingering, her quivering palm. “You’re kind enough to love me, and I’m lucky enough to be loved by you... so let me return the favor, Frankie. Let me be here for you."

And to Grace’s credit in this fleeting moment, she continues to hold Frankie.

It's a promise to never let her go.

[janiedean]

ooh so linked to the Brienne ask re: the kingsguard part. What are your thoughts on Aerys’ kingsguard, especially like Arthur Dayne who Jaime from what I remember has complicated feelings for but pretty much idolises him. And they’re so loved by almost everyone in universe!!! Like idk how to think about them really my feelings for them are also complicated

+ okay good because I honestly don’t see why people love them so much like most of the things we’ve heard about them are like. Objectively bad. And like yeah the idea of them is cool but well that can only go so far. also I’m sorry if these asks are a mess I’m exhausted!! ALSO I think you’re amazing for answering all of us anons with such detail I always love coming on to your blog

(putting both asks in the same place uu)

in order: the fact that they're loved by everyone in-universe and fandom actually likes them (or at least arthur dayne hahahahaha god) is like... some of george's best trolling because guess what the entire point is that they're supposed to look like amazing people/the real deal when instead they're all terrible the end - except again for the poor martell prince whom we don't know enough about and I'll give him a pass bc martell people are usually not stupid af but in order:

as I said george has made a point of stating that knighthood is a rotten institution and the kg especially aerys being like... what should be the highest honor for a knight is equally as rotten as knigthood in general and is made of people who do Not Deserve The Title - I mean again hey it's orders so marital rape is fine, hey we're leaving the 15yo to man an entire castle? WHY NOT, the king is mad? WELL WE SWORE TO SERVE HIM, like not counting martell prince there isn't one single person in the aerys kg except jaime who actually upheld the oaths they swore ie protecting the innocent so make of that what you will

the fact that jaime aka the fifteen year old is literally the only one who gets the job and then goes there like 'hey we're basically covering for marital rape what the fuck' and no one else bats an eyelid should already say everything there is to say about these people's moral standard

the fact that none of them actually stuck up for the fifteen-year old who was obviously not ready for the job nor tried to idk do anything to make it easier on him or whatever also says everything about their moral standard because honestly fuck you

the fact that everyone thinks they're amazing jaime included when they're all pretty much shitty is like... well, same as fandom does, which means that the readers bought what people in-narrative do... except that the moment you scratch the surface it's really damned bad

and I'm saying barristan is on thin ice because from his chapters you can see he's like... not a bad dude but like his reaction to jaime being in there still when he saw aerys is 'ah that fucker who killed the king and was so proud he had to try and get into it at fifteen'? like??? fuck you?? honestly the fact that all of them literally served a dude who put people on fire and was a menace/danger to the realm and then have the gall to think that jaime is the worst or who didn't like try to help him or anything while he was obv struggling with his vows and the fact that he was serving a madman says all about their moral standards, again

and honestly arthur dayne is the literal worst of all of them because like - first of all oh you knight the 15yo who goes along with you slaying bandits and you don't try to dissuade him from joining the kg? what the fucking fuck am I supposed to think - second of all you don't even warn him of what is expecting him when he joins when you've been there for a while? - but third of all which drives me insane and I hate that fandom sleeps on it and goes around happily like ARTHUR/LYANNA THE SHIP OF DREAMS... okay listen like I have literally zero investment in lyanna as a character or in r + l and I don't necessarily think he did everything - I think they had a mutual infatuation and eloped and she sorely regretted it and then it was on r. who shouldn't have like acted on it because he happened to be the 20+ year old with a wife and kids, but there's the whole tower of joy situation - in which sorry but we have arthur fucking off KL with other kg people and leaving all the others in the literal shit bc they'd have to deal with aerys and it'd be less of them than they should be, to go with rhaegar to the tower of joy to help him elope which whatever, and then lyanna was left there after r. had to go back... when her brother and father were burned alive and like if she knew that then I doubt she'd have wanted to stay and if she didn't then they withheld fairly important fucking information, so like he stayed there guarding a pregnant 15-16 yo who most likely did not want to be there and who is pregnant by his best friend whose family oh accidentally murdered half of hers........ and lyanna was there even after rhaegar died so I mean it's not like the moment he happened this dude goes and says 'hey maybe we should actually go back and see if we can solve this mess' no he kept her prisoner there anyway - on top of that... here I'm wildly speculating but: he had to know rhaegar was dead and when ned showed up if we are to believe him and idt he was unreliable on that... ned didn't want to fight him or kill him he just wanted to get his sister and leave and like he was most likely in love with ashara aka arthur's sister so why the fuck would he want to kill him right, and like rhaegar's dead and arthur has nothing to lose by letting ned up especially knowing that lyanna is fucking dying in childbirth like she's dying her brother's there just let him up and solve it later esp when the dude doesn't want to kill you....... but no ned had to kill him because he wouldn't budge and why the fucking fuck wouldn't you budge at that point? your side lost the war, the guy you were friends with that you did all of this for is dead, the girl is about to die at least let her die with her family, why? - only thing I can deduce from it: that rhaegar told him that the baby's survival was the most important thing because third head of the dragon blah blah blah and that if the war was lost to just grab the baby and lyanna if she survived and fuck off to essos until he grew up, except that lyanna didn't survive so the conclusion is that he tried to stop ned from going up there bc he'd have found out about the baby and tried to stop them and at that point who gives a fuck if lyanna died or not but he'd have liked... let her die and kill ned in the process and done that most likely, and sorry but when they knightly vows are, I would like to remind everyone, In the name of the Warrior I charge you to be brave. In the name of the Father I charge you to be just. In the name of the Mother I charge you to defend the young and innocent. In the name of the Maid I charge you to protect all women…. like... what, what exactly has this dude done that would qualify as that? because lyanna would be young and innocent and a woman and he basically is letting her die, that behavior does not qualify as bravery and he'd like... deny the kid a chance of growing up with his family period if he killed ned and he didn't seem to particularly give a fuck las we checked, and that's like not counting the whole 'oh I won't tell the 15yo who idolizes me that he's signing

his life away to trauma nor I will support him for shit when he does' part of it, but the tower of joy stuff is shady whichever way you look at it and honestly the more time passes the more I'm convinced this guy is just a complete pos and the worst of them all except gregor when it comes to like 'people thinking you're a good knight and you're actually a pos instead' and I'm dying on that hill until george proves me wrong

and on that the thing is that... I ranted about it once here but basically jaime idolizes the shit out of him because he never saw that even if his subconscious kinda knows because when he had the weirwood dream his greatest fear was confronting the former kg and everyone was accusing him of stuff he couldn't have physically prevented (more ranting on the weirwood dream here) and he's there like 'ah I wanted to be arthur dayne but I became the smiling knight instead' but like... actually he is more of a true knight than arthur dayne can ever hope to be? because like in the above meta I was talking specifically about how to pia he's like... better than arthur dayne, but like not to be that person but jaime who thinks he's the gregor clegane of his time and not arthur dayne, while arthur dayne was... doing the shady toj thing with lyanna - saved an entire city from aerys blowing it up - risked his neck for brienne even if he didn't even like her as in he got himself kicked in a healing stump when he couldn't even stand up for himself so she wouldn't be raped - risked his neck going back for her at harrenhal and jumped into the bear pit without even knowing how he'd manage it - was actually being a decent person to tommen until c. forced him to leave - the moment he saw what happened with pia he gave her her rapist's head when she's like a commoner no one gaf about and took her into her service - when his squire wanted to bed her he like told him to be kind to her jfc - is per tyrion the only relative who actually loved him/freed him/actually stuck up for him (and tysha is on tywin thank you all very much and jaime feels so great about it he doesn't think about it until he can't anymore) (also he was the one chasing the bandits away in the first place so he was probably there like oH I HELPED A MAIDEN too lmao god fuck tywin) - actually stuck for his cat vow bc he took riverrun without bloodshed - sent brienne after sansa with the magic amazing sword because he wanted to upheld their shared vow to cat going against his own family - the moment brienne shows up like hey wanna blow this joint and leave the army you don't wanna lead to find sansa he didn't even like blink before saying yes and I'm supposed to think that in between him and arthur dayne he isn't the only one who actually stuck to his vows as well as he could/knows anything about them/is actually a trueknight™? because lmao the fact that jaime doesn't fancy himself one because of aerys when everyone fancies arthur dayne one when the latter did absolutely fucking nothing beyond slaying bandits to put his money where his mouth was while jaime didn't even like brand himself like that and still did all of that and half of it was acting on instinct not even like doing the math before and *he* was the one wanting to be knighted at fifteen and took his vows seriously when oh wait knightly vows are basically the epitome of selflessness is like again grrm trolling the hell out of everyone characters included but it's clear from the narrative imvho and I can't wait for the moment he serves the just desserts and a) jaime realizes it b) everyone else in-narrative realizes it c) bran timetravels to the fucking toj and we find out what actually went down there and this saint arthur narrative is burned to the ground because honestly no

there, I think I spat out almost all of my venom XD

[bellatrixobsessed1]

The Killing Cure (Part 13)

This chapter is going to be a short (but hopefully sweet) transition chapter. I typed it up on mobile during my lunch break so I'm not sure just how short it actually is lol. I'm. Also posting on mobile so I can't add the read more line at the moment. Ill also fix the title and be posting this to AO3 later.

He isn't sure at which point in the night he begins doing so, but his hand absently strokes the woman's hair and back. Her skin is rather rough and somewhat dry. He wonders if it bothers her any. She takes a particularly deep breath before shifting in his arms and nuzzling her cheek against his chest. Her hair tickles his neck more than ever. Her hair, he notes, is actually rather silky. And when her fingers come to curl around his shirt he can't help but wonder what it might be like to tangle his fingers in those silky locks.

To let his hands roam away from her back and slide over her generous hips as he pressed a kiss to her collarbone and then her chest. The woman may have lost her height but her curves are as alluringly supple as before and he isn't sure that she realizes how stunning she is.

Privet as his thoughts are, his cheeks color. She had given him one kiss and now he is thinking of exploring.

"Winters?"

He jolts at the sound of his name. His heart plummets and his cheeks color further. For one but wrenching moment he wonders if she could some how read his thoughts. Maybe she can sense desire on him; she has probably be the subject of so much of it that she has a sixth sense for it, mutant or human.

"Are you still awake?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I'm just wondering…" she trails off.

"You have trouble sleeping sometimes, don't you?"

She hesitates for a moment before confirmingvhis suspensions. "I have dreams sometimes…"

He has a pretty good feeling that she means nightmares. "what happens in them."

She is quite for a very long time, long enough for him to suspect that she had fallen back to sleep. "I sometimes dream about my first transformation, Mother Miranda is watching me but she's... different. She's horrifying."

"More horrifying than she is in reality?" He grumbles before he can stop himself.

She nods. "Other times I just dream about how she is going to react…" she pauses, "how all of them will react."

"They're your siblings, they'll love you no matter…"

"They already resent me. We all resent each other. Hisenberg will be delight at my predicament. He'll…" she trails off into an exausted sigh.

"We'll worry about that when we have to. For now just rest up, we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow." He knows that it is much easier said than done. And maybe it annoys her because she pulls out of his arms. And yet she doesn't demand that he sleep on his own bed or the couch. She turns again to face him once more.

And to his shock, she nestles against him and drapes an arm over him. Her head rests against the crook of his neck. "Good night, Alcina."

She is already asleep.

.oOo.

Bidding her daughters a farewell when she isn't sure if she'll return is a hell of its own kind. More so when Bela inquires, "when will you be back, mother?" And even more so when Cassandra adds, "how long will we be with The Duke?"

She can only say, "I don't know, darlings. Make sure The Duke behaved himself."

"The Duke is always great!" Daniela declares.

And perhaps she would be more inclined to agree had she not overheard him gleefully sing-song, “Ethan…” he had added a wiggle of his brows. “I did predict that the two of you might elope one day.”

Ever the charming sort, the entirety of Ethan's face had gone red and he gave his head a quick rub. " W-we aren't eloping Duke! We're rescuing my daughter together."

Alcina sighs, "let the man think what he will." They haven't time to fuss over it and, resentfully, she can't promise herself that his statement won't become true in the future.

More resentfully, she can't even promise herself that she truly does resent it; despite it all, despite the attempts on his life, and the initial destruction he dealt to her life as it once was, the man has been good to her. Better than anyone has been in a while. Better than any of the men she ever knew.

The last thing she sees of her girls is The Duke putting one large hand on Bela's shoulder and the other on Cassandra's. Daniela is much too jittery and lively for the man to catch her at all. They stand at the window and watch her depart.

"It's harder when you look back, you know that right?" Ethan asks

The world outside is merciless cold and even under layers and layers of clothes, she feels it's frigid bite. The wind carries snow upon it as it whistles by. The only sound, until she cares to make noise of her own, is the sound of ice and snow crunching beneath their feet.

"It's hard no matter what, Winters."

[simonsrosebud]

Alright — this is very important — what’s the wedding party look like? Do either of them get walked down the aisle? What do the bachelor parties look like? What’s the first dance like? The cake cutting? OR! Do they just elope?

Either way, the most important thing of all — what are their vows?

i’m going to warn you:  i’m afraid this is going to be a very long post.

the wedding is in january, before playoffs have the chance to start up.  it’s easier that way also, because most of their friends either play exy or coach it, so they’re all off too.  and dalton’s professor friends are off for winter break.

that being said, they’re on a time crunch for bachelor parties.  and since kevin doesn’t drink or anything, the idea of the “typical bachelor” party is out of question.  kevin doesn’t care for a bachelor party for himself, anyway.

however, when andrew is added to a groupchat with the whole wedding party, he sends two texts.  not to the group, but to allison.  she’s the one handling it, anyway.

the first text is a link to elton john at madison square garden, the second is a text.  

hamilton on broadway friday the 14th, concert 15th.

(ik the timelines don’t technically match up, but since this is all fictional who cares)

it’s perfect.  allison checks with dalton to be sure, and he lights up.  apparently kevin has gotten really into hamilton because duh it’s history, and elton john is one of his favorite artists, especially after dalton introduced him to “your song” in college.

dalton goes with him because they know kevin would want him there, unlike normal bachelor parties where you spend it without your fiancé.

as for dalton’s, he gets taken to florida (it’s only like a 5 hour drive i think but they could fly also) and his friends, who for the most part are straight besides emmie, a blazing proud lesbian, take him to gay bars on gay bars, and then go to star wars land in disney world for a day- kevin’s idea.  dalton is very excited about this because in this ask dalton reveals he’s a star wars fan and says he’d like to go see it someday.  they also get drunk in disney, don’t worry.

they both have good sized wedding parties.  for dalton, it’s carmen, bella, and his best friends jenna, reid, and sam.

for kevin, it’s andrew, neil, and dan.  if anyone asked kevin in college if he’d thought she would be in his wedding party- or even if they’d leave college being friends, he would have said no, but he was stupid to think the foxes would ever lose touch.  if anything, he got closer.

he’s also gotten closer than he ever would have probably wished to allison.  there’s something to be said for the both of them having good taste.  all it took was one trip of clothes shopping for a banquet for them to realize they’d had a lot more in common.

the only reason they never realized it was because they’ve both got the same level of stubbornness.

which is why she somehow ends up being asked to be in his wedding party, too.

kevin isn’t worried about asking neil.  a little about andrew, but he can always get neil to talk him into it.  he stops them both from leaving after practice, one day.  “will you be my groomsmen?  both of you?”

neil really doesn’t look surprised.  not even phased.  he’d been matt’s best man, after all.  “yeah, sure.”

kevin looks to andrew, who hasn’t moved a muscle.

when he does, it’s to swing his bag around his shoulder.  "no speeches.”  and before he gets to the door.  “and no one’s wrapping their arm around mine down the aisle.”  and that’s more than okay with kevin.  he doesn’t really want them speaking, anyway.

and then there’s dan and allison.  he isn’t worried about them, so all he does is text them and they agree.

there’s no more than 70 people there.  the actual ceremony only about 30.  it’s not big by any means, but they didn’t want it big anyway.  plus, kevin doesn’t have a whole group of family to invite like dalton does in the first place.  he doesn’t mind, though, because he’s grown to consider dalton’s family his own.

kevin doesn’t get walked down the aisle.  he never saw himself doing that with a woman before he realized he was bi and could potentially marry a man, so he’s never cared for it.

wymack, however, officiates the wedding.  he’s very proud of it, too.  he never seems to show nerves, and he doesn’t let kevin know, but this is something that causes him great stress.  he can’t fuck it up.

he doesn’t, of course.

he’s standing beside kevin when dalton gets walked down the aisle by his mother, and kevin told himself he wouldn’t get emotional.

he lets out a breath and a soft laugh, then looks up at the ceiling to blink away the sudden wetness in his eyes.

when anne hands him off, she kisses kevin on the cheek and whispers.  “all yours now, love.”

kevin wants to kiss dalton so bad.  so so bad.  but he has to wait.  instead he gives him a wink and takes his hands.  he expects them to be a tiny bit sweaty like they sometimes are when he gets nervous, but they’re not.  dalton’s grip is firm, and the only thing kevin can see on him is glee.

kevin feels he barely can pay attention to the words his father is saying until it’s time for the vows.  he’s first.  he takes a deep breath.pays attention to what his father is saying, too busy staring at his fiancé.  until they get to the vows, that is.

kevin is first, and his heart has never beat this fast.  he memorized his vows, but just in case, he unfolds the paper from his pocket and takes the microphone.  “i’ve made plenty of bad decisions in my life.  going to the club the night before a game, trying to fix the kitchen sink by myself.”  he smiles when dalton laughs at the memory.  “d, i knew from the moment i told you about my demons and you stayed, that choosing you was the best decision i’ve made in my entire life.  your are the strength i didn't know i needed, and the joy that i didn't know i lacked.”  dalton mouths i love you.  “thank you, for supporting and loving me unconditionally, i know i haven’t always made it easy.”

dalton gives the slightest shake of his head at that one.  loving kevin comes as easy as breathing.

“thank you for showing me how to accept myself, and showing me what it’s like to find peace, to know what it’s like to feel wanted and loved.  thank you for helping me to better myself as a man and a partner.  you make me a better person in every single way, and i promise to put it all to use and give back every single day of our lives.  i promise to love you through every hardship, to love you for who you are and who you are yet to become.  i promise to support and help you in every new adventure, and to always be at your side.  i promise to be patient and loyal.  i promise to remember to show you every day how deeply i care for you.  i promise to share my whole heart with you, to love you fiercely— for the rest of my life.  as long as you’ll have me.”

dalton blinks away tears, and after taking a moment, he accepts the microphone.  "kev,” he whispers, and takes a breath.  kevin knows he has his written down, but he doesn’t take it out.  he doesn’t need it.  “i used to think that i just got lucky that some random hot kid asked me for help with his homework.”  kevin grins.

“but i’ve realized now that the universe put you in front of me for a reason.  you have filled my life with happiness and have given me a sense of peace that i’ve never known.  you are my best friend, my biggest supporter, and the best co-pilot in life that i could’ve ever wished for.”  he smiles.  “today marks the start to the rest of our lives, whether we’re ready or not.  i will not take our time together for granted. and because words can’t do it, i promise to show you, for the rest of my life, how much i love you.  i promise to encourage you to follow your dreams.  to support you through any of life’s obstacles.  i promise to make you laugh when you’re taking yourself too seriously.  i promise to hold your hand through the good and the bad, to keep you afloat when you feel you’re drowning.  i promise to share the weight on your shoulders like it’s my own.”

a tear drops from kevin’s eye, and dalton reaches to gently wipe it with his thumb before grabbing his hand.  “i promise to never stop making up my own lyrics to songs i don’t know. although, i know you wish i would.  i promise to look back on our lives when we’re old and gray and have no regrets.  i promise, from this day forward, kevin day, that you will never walk alone.”  he lowers the microphone, whispering.  “as long as you’ll have me.”

it’s a very emotional ceremony, that’s for sure, but they’re grinning by the time the rings go on, and dalton barely holds back from jumping kevin before he can say, “you may now kiss.”

kevin has his arms around dalton’s waist and dalton’s hands on his cheek and the back of his neck, and they’re both smiling into the kiss less than two seconds in.  but kevin doesn’t care.  dalton’s laugh is the best thing he’s ever heard and he relishes in it as he crushes him in a hug before tearing back down the aisle.

their first dance is to “your song” by elton john.  is it probably overused?  sure, but kevin isn’t into music enough to know or care about that.  it’s the song that

it’s always been dalton’s go to song to sing in the car, and whenever he does he tends to just kind of grab onto kevin’s hand while he sings.  he’s no harry styles but he can hold a tune just fine.

it then turned into a song kevin listened to on bus or plane rides, and when he entered the pros dalton started sending him voice memos on text of him singing like two lines from the song before his every flight.

kevin also played it in the car back to the cabin after he proposed.

it’s their song.

dalton pulls kevin to him for the first dance, with one hand holding kevin’s and the other pressed against the small of his back.  and dalton’s singing along just loud enough for kevin to hear.  it makes him smile at his dork of a husband, and halfway through the song kevin lays his head on dalton’s shoulder and slides his arms around his neck.  he closes his eyes and ever so quietly sings along.  

dalton kisses the side of his head and wraps his arms around kevin’s waist.

when the song is coming to an end, dalton kisses kevin and smiles as he sings the last lines to him.  “how wonderful life is while you’re in the world”

kevin smiles.  “sweetheart,” he whispers.

but then the song ends, and kevin leans back against their table as dalton takes the floor with anne for the mother son dance.  he sends a thought up to kayleigh.

“i’m incredibly proud of you.”  it’s abby at his side, sliding her arm around his waist.  she kisses his cheek.  “i know you know this already, that you foxes are family to us.  but... you have always been like a son to me.  and you always will, even if not by blood.”

kevin is looking at his feet, but eventually he meets her gaze.  “you’re the closest thing i’ve ever had to a mother.”  he squeezes her hand, and, “do you want to do the dance with me?”  he doesn’t know how he hadn’t thought of it before.

abby’s a little teary, but nods.

dan rests her head on wymack’s shoulder.  “he’s done good.”

wymack nods.  he doesn’t respond, because he’s got… something… stuck in his throat.  not emotions, definitely not emotions.

kevin smears cake all over dalton’s lips when they cut the cake, and in return he presses a messy kiss to his cheek.  it’s sickenly sweet.  the whole thing is, especially compared to the kevin day that some people know, and the one they see on television.

i can’t think of other things i may have missed, but please please let me know if there is anything else you guys want more insight on, or prompts regarding these!

oh yeah, kevin throws one of the bridesmaids little bouquets as a joke.

and carmen catches it.