#chapter 17

[welcome-to-the-petty-parade]

i am a big fan of Finrod. huge. no one has ever loved an elf like how I love that guy.

you will hear me screaming when whatever inevitable bloody end comes to him. i’ve come to expect most of the characters i love will die.

[paulinerspezi]

MY KING I LOVE YOU🙏🙏👑👑👑

[momo-no-tane]

[erinwantstowrite]

CHAPTER 17!!!!! they're my silly billies (you are ignoring that dick doesn't exactly look like himself here that's because i was pushing through art block when i drew the first image)

[saffusthings]

second chances

mob boss! lando norris x reader

part seventeen: dream a little dream of me

word count: 1.6k

warnings: tooth-rotting fluff

sixteen | seventeen | eighteen

The second date should’ve felt more awkward. It didn’t.

Alex had picked a science museum of all places—not exactly romantic on paper, but the look on his face when he pointed out the replica Mars rover was too earnest to judge. He had this habit where his whole face would light up like a lightbulb the moment before he got excited about something, and Y/N had already learned to clock it like a warning siren.

“So, technically,” he was saying, hands jammed in his jacket pockets as they strolled past a massive display on deep-sea robotics, “the algorithms used for this submersible’s sensor mapping were adapted from AI software developed for self-driving cars.”

“Technically,” she echoed, teasing, “you should probably just work here.”

He looked sideways at her with a crooked grin. “I applied when I was sixteen. They didn’t take me.”

“They’re clearly still recovering from that mistake.”

He tried to play it off cool, but she caught the slight flush of his ears.

She liked him more than she expected to. Not in the way you decide to like someone—more like how you step outside one day and realize the air smells like rain and suddenly, you’re soft and open and all the windows are down. He was like that: unexpected and quiet and warm around the edges.

They made their way through the rest of the exhibits in no particular order, weaving between dwindling crowds of families and groups of students on field trips, neither of them in a hurry. He let her take her time at the forensic anthropology section, where she ran her fingers along the raised edges of a reconstructed skull, and she let him lose himself in the physics wing, where he explained, with ridiculous enthusiasm, why the double pendulum was so cool. It was there that the nickname Professor Albon was born.

At some point, he took her hand. It wasn’t a big deal. He just did it naturally, without hesitation, like it had already been a habit, and for a moment, that simple touch made her feel warm all over.

They ended the night sitting cross-legged on the floor of the museum café, long after it closed, surrounded by vending machine snacks and a half-solved crossword puzzle she’d found in her bag. The overhead lights buzzed faintly, casting a dim glow over the abandoned chairs and tables, but neither of them seemed eager to move. They laughed about everything and nothing, the kind of laughing that came from being tired but happy, the kind that made her lean into his shoulder without thinking.

"Okay," Alex said, tapping the eraser end of his pencil against the page. "Eight-letter word for ‘illuminates or clarifies’?"

As she took a moment to think it over, Alex watched in his periphery as she counted off the letters of her word on her fingers. "’Explains’ fits," she mused, popping a purple skittle into her mouth.

"Hmm." He scribbled it in. "Not bad. Maybe I should keep you around."

"Yeah, yeah," she nudged his knee with hers, grinning. "You just like me for my crossword skills."

"Wrong. I like you for your crossword skills and your terrible puns."

“My puns are great, thank you very much.” She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.

He liked her brain. She liked how funny he was. They made a good pair—two academically overworked people who laughed at obscure engineering memes and played footsie under café tables without meaning to. When they said goodbye that night, he kissed her like he was trying not to smile through it. Like maybe this could really be something.

It felt easy.

And in the days that followed, it stayed easy. He texted her every night.

alex: Made the Mars rover jealous. Can’t stop thinking about you.

Y/N: did you just say that unironically. because I might have to stop seeing you on principle.

alex: Too late, I’ve already added you to my will. You get the Lego Technic collection.

Y/N: wait nvm i’m back in

They made time. Even when they both shouldn’t have.

He’d bring her coffee before her class–something with cinnamon and oat milk in it. He’d scrawl dumb physics jokes on the lid just to make her roll her eyes. She started keeping his schedule in her head without meaning to. She knew which nights he had his advanced systems class and which ones he spent buried in the lab. He’d text her when his simulations crashed at 3AM. She’d send him memes about courtroom drama tropes in return.

He had an engineer’s sense of humor—dry, sneaky, often deeply specific. It took a while to catch on, but once she did, it felt like discovering hidden easter eggs in his sentences.

“You know,” he’d murmur as they lay back in the grass near campus, watching clouds roll over like they weren’t chilly out here in the autumn breeze, “you statistically reduce your lifespan by two minutes every time you eat instant ramen.”

“Cool. So I’ll be dying a noble, sodium-rich death then.”

He turned his head toward her, smiling with closed eyes. “Hmm, a martyr.”

“A hero.”

“Buried with your books and MSG packets.”

She shoved his shoulder. He let her.

On Thursdays, she’d sit outside his lab, cross-legged on the cold tile floor with flashcards in her lap, quizzing him on his presentation slides about failure analysis and impact resistance.

“Okay, explain to me like I’m five—what is a stress-strain curve and why should I care?”

“Because,” he’d say, crouching in front of her with a smirk, “it tells you how close something is to breaking.”

“And that’s relevant to your research…?”

He gave her a confused look, until it turned sheepish as he scratched the back of his neck. “I’m… not entirely sure about that bit, actually.”

She started looking forward to the moments in between—the walks across campus, the shared bag of chips while sitting on the hood of her car, the ridiculous voice memos he sent when he was overtired and delirious.

They kissed in stairwells and library corners and once,perhaps ill-advisedly, on a park bench in the middle of a thunderstorm. The rain had soaked through their clothes, cold and unrelenting, but he had just looked at her and said, "I think we should be stupid about this," right before he leaned in. It was impulsive and dramatic and made her laugh until she had to cover her mouth, their faces inches apart. Her hair was soaked, his glasses fogged up, and they almost dropped his backpack in a puddle, but the moment stuck—sharp and golden and untouchable.

They talked about future dates like there’d be dozens of them—bookstores they wanted to browse together, a tiny Thai place he swore by, a stargazing night he promised would be “scientifically optimized for romance” depending on the cloud cover. She rolled her eyes at that one, but her heart still fluttered.

They were still in the sweet spot—the space between maybe and more, where everything felt bright and possible. 

It wasn’t perfect – but it was promising.

The third date was dinner—some hole-in-the-wall Thai place with flickering neon signage and laminated menus stained with old curry thumbprints. He’d gotten lost on the way and sent a flurry of frantic texts.

alex :) : I passed the restaurant. Twice. There’s a cat staring at me through a laundromat window. I think it’s judging me.

Y/N: be strong. you can beat the cat.

alex :) : Negative, Sargeant. It’s very confident.

He’d arrived breathless, slightly damp from a drizzle, and holding a single packet of Skittles “for your efforts,” he’d said solemnly. She called him an idiot. He looked delighted.

That night, they talked about things that didn’t matter—TV shows neither of them had finished, foods they pretended to like for the aesthetic, the sheer horror of Alex’s undergraduate group project from hell (“We had a guy who thought duct tape was a structural solution”). 

And then, slowly, they talked about the things that did matter.

Like how she used to want to be a journalist when she was little, because she thought it meant you got to ask as many questions as you wanted and never had to apologize.

Or how he still wasn’t sure what kind of engineer he wanted to be—just that he wanted to make things that didn’t break when people needed them most.

“You know,” he said, nudging his glass in slow circles across the table, “you’re not what I expected.”

Y/N looked up. “Is that a good thing or, like, a 'you’re secretly a serial killer' kind of a thing?”

He smiled. “It’s a good thing. Really, really good.”

By the fourth week, they had a rhythm. It wasn’t just dates anymore—it was Hey, want to walk home together? and I saved you the last chocolate chip muffin, but only because I like you more than I like muffins. But barely.

It was him reaching for her hand without thinking, her resting her head against his shoulder on the bus when she was too tired to hold it up.

It was a shared Spotify playlist for when studying is ur 13th reason.

It was early Saturday morning sun filtering into her apartment while they quietly read their own books, his socked foot nudging hers on the side of the couch almost every ten minutes.

It was good.

But between the sleepy smiles and the shared muffins and the texts that kept getting longer instead of shorter, the truth was that they both had dreams. Big ones. All-consuming ones.

And no matter how much you wanted something—or someone—there were only so many hours in the day.

a/n: one of my more favorite chapters! an unfortunate lack of lando though :/ what did you think of it?

[goldenamaranthe-blog]

Chapter 17: Introductions

Sooooo... This is actually supposed to be the end of the story from what was commissioned, but I had so much fun writing it that I went well above and beyond the initial parameters.

Welcome to the halfway mark?

[dorokora]

Chapter 17 Part 1

New Characters

New Mobs

[wildhoneyvalancy]

Commentary on Chapter 17 of The Blue Castle

“When Valancy had lived for a week at Roaring Abel’s she felt as if years had separated her from her old life and all the people she had known in it. They were beginning to seem remote—dream-like—far-away—and as the days went on they seemed still more so, until they ceased to matter altogether.”

That does happen when you transition into a new life!

“She could be alone whenever she liked, go to bed when she liked, sneeze when she liked.”

Again, adulthood.

“Valancy had read to Cissy the gospel thereof according to John Foster”

I forgot this sentence from my first read of the book and first thought she was going to quote Bible. I am pleased that John Foster is her “gospel”.

“and then leave them with backward glances, taking with us only the beguiling memory of their grace and fragrance.”

Doesn’t Barney especially like Valancy’s “backward glances”?

“Valancy was in the midst of realities after a lifetime of unrealities.”

I love this contrast. Most things the Stirlings care about don’t actually matter at all.

“Not for nothing had Valancy been brought up in the Stirling habits of neatness and cleanliness.”

- But it is still good that Stirlings inadvertently taught Valancy the way she is going to earn her keep.

“Folks should always sing at their work,” he insisted. “Sounds cheerful-like.”

“Not always,” retorted Valancy. “Fancy a butcher singing at his work. Or an undertaker.”

I love Valancy’s wit.

“Say, I like a woman that ain’t afraid to speak up to me. Sis there was always too meek—too meek. That’s why she got adrift. I like you.”

I am not sure how I feel about this. I guess I like that sexual activity is coupled with meekness whereas the old maid is the sassy one? But I am not a huge fan of the contrast being made. Especially since I can imagine a reality where Valancy was the victim of a lying lover as well.

“All the same,” said Valancy determinedly, “there is no use in sending things to hell as you’re always doing. And I’m not going to have you tracking mud all over a floor I’ve just scrubbed. You must use the scraper whether you consign it to perdition or not.”

Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”

“Cissy loved the cleanness and neatness. She had kept it so, too, until her strength failed.”

Women Are Clean, Men Are Dirty and Unkempt. Not a fan of this.

“But Cissy shook her head.

“No, I can’t get well. My lungs are almost gone. And I—don’t want to. I’m so tired, Valancy. Only dying can rest me.”

I love this book, but I don’t like this aspect of it. Being sexually exploited, ostracized and losing your small child of course can make someone suicidal, but it doesn’t have to. Montgomery writes it like Cissy is better off dead and I am not exactly surprised by her approach but I am still a bit disappointed. I think Cissy has to die for The Blue Castle’s plot to work, but I would prefer it if she were upset about it rather than being wholly resigned to it like a “good fallen woman”. I especially think this since Montgomery is so much harsher on Ruby Gillis who wants to live.

“You always seemed so different from the other girls—so kind and sweet—and as if you had something in yourself nobody knew about—some dear, pretty secret. Had you, Valancy?”

“I had my Blue Castle,” said Valancy, laughing a little.”

This is of course cheesy but I like that imagination and a secret belief that she deserved better made it so that Valancy could survive her drab life. Kind of reminds me of Sara Crewe from A Little Princess.

“She was pleased that Cissy had thought of her like this. She had never suspected that anybody liked or admired or wondered about her.”

This rings so true too. Sometimes you miss the people who actually like you when you wallow in self-pity.