It’s been a hot minute since I did this! This is Elizabeth Beaufort from Disco Elyisuim, the game I’ve been obsessed with recently. She’s a recent law school graduate, has a greenhouse, and works with the local union. She’s also canonically stated to be very beautiful, and given how much Disco Elyisum focuses on various political systems, her race is a point of discussion in various routes. I also just love her accent.
I was DEEPLY excited to open my inbox and see it is from you!!! My God, we rarely speak. It's nuts. Lemme gon' and put this on the list. I've actually been doing a lot of BFCD housekeeping lately. It may not look like it because the majority of posts are placeholders for birthdays, but I've been fixing tags, making lists of hard to find or not recently posted content, etc.
I've also looked at more video game youtube things and such in the past few months than ever. I've gotten a few that I watched numerous videos on and this one hasn't come up, so now I have something else to randomly check on on a Sunday afternoon.
Damn. They had my good sis, Raven Goddess Goodwin on the honkiest show I have never seen? God Bless. I'm glad she's elsewhere now, being delectable and seen by me. I certainly was not gon' see her on that whiteness. I suppose at some point, I'll search Tumblr for content. 🙄
It is actually early, but it was on my heart to do this one shot for @jacksope-lives story Train Hunters. Hopefully, she enjoys this...
He stared at it for a long time. Grace really would adore it. It checked the right boxes. The first and most important being pink, it was an animal that he hadn’t seen her ever have before - a hedgehog, and it was affordable enough for him. Way more expensive than he thought the thing ought to be, but he’d made at least one mistake with this.
Hazel told him, “Girls LOVE plushies! A soft and cuddly little guy? You CAN’T go wrong with a plushie!” And… he didn’t… necessarily go wrong with it, but he selected a badger. Why? Because she didn’t have one and he thought it would be unique. But, then he tried to see if he could get some pink for razzle dazzle and the animal clothes were too big and doll clothes too small. So, since he was gonna have to remix it anyways (Hazel told him he didn’t have to remix it, but what was he gonna do? With their past of excitement and uniqueness just give her a plain badger plushie? Hmph). So… he personalized it.
He ripped up one of his old shirts to give it a little outfit, took a broken spiked choker he intended to eventually repair and made it a little belt, and drew on a tattoo of Grace’s name in thorns on its side. He finished it off with a set of right ear earrings made of notebook spiral, and a rusted chain link that he attached as a nose ring.
“OH MY GOD!” Grace yelped in surprise whenever he gave it to her. Needless to say, she had not been expecting such a gift. “It’s…”
“A badass badger,” Simon said, pleased with himself.
“I… love it…” She forced and accepted it. “It’s a very… YOU gift.” She was smiling, but Simon suddenly felt super embarrassed. It was a very HIM gift. Not her. This wasn’t her style.. “Thank you,” she said and kissed him on the cheek. And she carried BadAss around with her, but he thought maybe she did it for his benefit.
So, he wasn’t going to do that again, despite her insisting she loved it whenever the subject came up. Now, he was looking at this pink hedgehog. Are we those kinds of people? We do VDay and stuff? He reached for it and looked around, what else would go with this? Should he buy flowers? She wasn’t a flower kinda person. In fact, he’d seen her snatch a flower right off of a bush and crush it into crumbled petals that she daintily let fall from her fingers with a little smile, once.
“Wwwwwwwwwhy… did you do that?” He’d asked.
She looked a little bit self conscious and she rolled her eyes and asked him back, “What, were you in love with that flower or something?” He laughed at how defensive she got about her flowercide, but didn’t give her too hard of a time and after a moment she shrugged her shoulders and said, “It was gonna die anyway. Flowers are fragile little bitches who are pretty for a limited time, and then they die. Why not do it?” He never saw her do it again, but he wasn’t sure to make of that, except for that she obviously didn’t give much of a shit about flowers. Knowing Grace though, she probably had some fleeting thought about her mom or something and took it out on that plant. She would rather just push stuff from her mind than discuss it too much, so he just let go of that.
Candy… That was so corny and pretentious. He looked at all of the heart shaped boxes, irritated that he was suddenly aware that he wasn’t sure what kind he would even get that she might enjoy. Chocolate covered cherries… Nuts and caramel turtles… He glanced over and saw baking stuff and perked up. There were a few selections, but he thought that would be better than candy, at least. He was good at baking and he had never baked anything specifically for her before. He looked at three options that he knew she might like and then muttered, “Fuck it,” and swatted all of them into his handheld cart. He’d do cup brownies, cup cheesecakes, and cup cookies… “Why aren’t there cupcakes?” He saw the empty spot for them. Okay, so at least he wasn’t being too basic.
He gnawed on his lip and pondered whether or not he should try to get a bottle of wine with his fake ID. He made it himself and he was certain it was excellent, but if it wasn't and he was clocked, he might have to leave without this other stuff. Leave without the pink hedgehog. Nah. There was a pink champagne with a very pretty bottle that he knew that Grace would probably love to collect or use for some art project. He studied the bottle, glanced around, and stuck it into his long pocket. He adjusted slightly, happy that his baggy pants were equipped for concealing it, and picked up a few more things before heading to checkout.
“Somebody’s gonna be pretty happy this Valentine’s Day!” the cashier said, and began ringing things up. What do you think they got you?”
He furrowed his eyebrows. Got him? Lol… Grace wasn’t gonna get him anything. They weren’t really those kind of people. But, with Valentines Day being a day centered around love and Grace having gotten such weird distortions of what that was in early life, he guessed he just wanted her to feel special. “Eh, if she decides to keep dating me, I think I’ve got my gift, right?”
The lady chuckled and cooed, “What a lucky lady. That’s so sweet.”
“You know what? I think I’m gonna get some pink roses too. I don’t think she likes flowers, but I don’t KNOW that she doesn’t?”
“Better safe! Besides, plenty of people don’t prefer flowers, but it's still nice to get them, especially for this time of year.”
“Give them to me. A dozen. Two. Wait, how much is three dozen?”
“I’ll give you my discount. You’re working hard, Man.” She smiled. He did too. He felt kinda bad for pocketing the wine. It was done now, though.
Grace was home, in some pink lounge wear… looking way too good just to be sitting at home. He wondered if he could get past her with things, but then decided it was already so much, so a surprise reveal or something cheesy like that would simply be way farther than he was willing to go. “Hey, Hazel made us…” she looked up and stopped what she was about to say when she saw him fumbling with bags of pink shit. “Dude!” She laughed and rushed to assist him. “What is this? You throwing a party I didn’t know about?”
“Sorta. I got you Valentines…”
He saw the moment of sheer joy in her expression before she calmed her tits and gave him a soft smile and a kiss on the lips, “How. Darling.” she said. He blushed. He wondered when he would stop doing that for her. He hoped never, to be honest. The butterflies were nice. “Well, I was gonna say Hazel made us cards, AND… I got you something too.” He turned even more red and Grace smiled in satisfaction as she retrieved something from her art tote. “So, Hazel made us cards and I was like… that’s cute. And your mom came by to… grab her for a bit, in case we needed… private time.” He was redder, still. “And I told her and showed her the cards, right? So she’s like, “Oh I loved all of Simon’s from school!”
“Wait…”
“And then she rushed home to get them!”
Would Grace think he was soft if he started crying right now? Because he might… She was very pleased with herself as she showed him hers, and the photo she took of it from his mom’s collection.
“Wait, now… Because I…”
“And I recreated the first Valentine’s Day card you made your mom, but for you!”
“She keeps… everything,” he said.
“I thought that was really sweet. And I thought, well… he made me a custom gift before…” She gestured to BadAss. I just wanted…” Simon had set down everything, scooped her up and kissed her. She smiled into it, letting herself melt against him.
“I thought that I was doing something so stupid and you were gonna look at me like you looked at me when I gave you that badger…”
“I have no clue how long I have to tell you that I love that badger…”
“And you actually were doing something equally as goofy for me!”
“Wow. Romantic was the word that I would have used, with a sentimental twist.” He nudged her with his nose, “When is she bringing Hazel back?”
“Why? You tryin to get something from me.”
“I mean… there’s a window…”
She laughed and said, “I actually had gotten you a gift before then, but it was SO weak. I got you a men’s beauty/hygiene set. Bath stuff, lotion, etc.”
“Trying to tell me something?”
“Just that I’m bad at gifts until the last moment, apparently.”
He laughed and nodded. “Me too though. I got all this… stuff… And I didn’t even know. Oh! But…” he went through the bags and said, “BadAss has a friend.”
Grace gasped loudly and she snatched the hedgehog, “Are you freakin’ kiddin’ me? This is ADORABLE!”
“See? That is the difference in something you actually loved and something I just gave you.”
“Shut your fucking face, I LOVE my badger! I just wasn’t prepared to receive him. But, he looks like you took time on him and dressed him in love, so I love him because you did that for me. And I also love this guy, because he is a pink hedgehog and that appeals to my interests of pink, of stuffed animals, and of hedgehogs. I don’t even remember telling you I liked those..”
“You did not. He just… looked like you’d like him.”
She checked her phone, “Come on! We gotta make use of our window!”
“Yes!”
She reached for his pants and asked, “WHAT is in your pocket?”
“...Oh!” He pulled out the bottle of pink champagne and she fawned over how pretty the bottle was, but set it down and grabbed him by the shirt to pull him to the bedroom.
After Hazel got home, they spent time baking the treats together. Hazel smiled at them, at her cards on the fridge held up with magnets and then at the baking stuff in front of them. “I think I love you guys,” she said. Grace teared up. “Awww… Love you too, Hazy.”
@jacksope-lives I have a portion of No Train, New Trauma that I wasn’t sure if I would use, but realized has been in my docs for months and since I don’t have anything else that I’ve worked on, it can be a thingy for us to start writing in, if you want. If not, it can be a potential deleted scene or potential drabble for the series.
“Who’s viewpoint is this from?” That was the question that her mom would ask whenever a story went on for a while and seemed to lose sight of its destination… or whenever she smelled a lie. She said that she asked it to comprehend the narrative better, but Hazel was convinced that she did it to try to catch somebody slipping. The thing was that she did it for everything from stories to songs, to movies, to books, etc. And she claimed that everyone did it subconsciously and it only seemed weird when she asked because she would ask aloud. “I just need better comprehension,” she said. Hazel looked over to Simon and the director. Simon also looked at the director.
“We decided…” He started, but Grace was staring at Simon and Hazel could bet, reading the silent motions of his face to detect even more confirmation. Simon sighed and leaned against the table behind him. Still silent, but in a defeated way that told Hazel that he had already had all of the arguments that Grace might have with the director, but to no avail.
More and more of this movie had been getting away from him as he spent more time with the family and Hazel was starting to think that he wasn’t even passionate about it anymore. Things that had been discussed whenever he first signed on for it were being renegotiated and arguments that he had already had were arising again, this time with him less victorious than he had been before the Esmoroth series became partially owned by the studio.
“Well, if everybody’s on the same page, who am I to argue?” Grace said, still watching Simon. He sighed and looked up at her, though his head was still down.
“The studio thinks that reworking some of the plot for the adaptation will lead to a longer and more successful run for Esmoroth.”
“Yeah. I understood it when he explained it,” she said. Hazel felt the tension in the room and she knew that she wasn’t the only one who noticed it. Simon’s entire demeanor was dark and Grace’s smile was clearly fake. “Well, so be it. I guess that’s that.” She headed for the door and Simon stood up straight, but she put up her hand, to signal that she didn’t want him to join her. He folded his arms, huffed, and rolled his eyes. Hazel was sure that he would start crying soon. She wondered if that hand was for her too or just for Simon because technically, this meeting was about something he’d originally promised that was now changing. Hazel decided to presume that she was in the clear since she hadn’t done anything wrong except for insisting that she could come to the meeting too.
She followed Grace and called behind her, “I’ll take care of her, Dad.” He gave her a grateful, sad smile. Both of them knew that Grace was about to go Full Monroe and whatever happened next, she might need to look up and see a loving face that she didn’t want to slap. That couldn’t be his at the moment. He didn’t know how to make her understand that this was good for everyone, but he didn’t even know if he agreed. Sure, there was more money for them this way and that was very important to him, but he’d just been a part of undoing a lot of work that he had to do on mending Grace’s heart and he wasn’t sure how he could ever rectify it again.
Grace was already on the phone with her team when Hazel caught up to her down the hallway. “Everything. Pull it all. I don’t want anyone to be able to access or acknowledge anything related to Esmoroth in any of my spaces. Yes, merch too. Pull it all. I want nothing to do with it.” Hazel hung back a little bit and winced at every movement she made, afraid that even her quietest motions might be too loud in the stifling tension.
Grace had just been informed that the music for the soundtrack may need to be reworked, as the studio had decided that they would not go the route of the books with The Idol Princess/True Queen. In fact, they would deviate totally by the end of the trilogy and the Idol Princess would not be resurrected in the sequel, nor claim the throne in the third installment…
Blah blah blah, unpopular character, ratings point to blah blah, and financially, it will make more sense to elevate more popular characters for such a huge investment. Hazel had been shocked into silence. SHE had been the main reason that the Esmoroth books leaned in the direction of resurrecting this character in the sequel and Grace had been the reason that Simon had written the sequel and final books the way that he had. They were literally like love letters to his wife and daughter… and now he was compromising the integrity of it.
“After everything I’ve gone through engaging with that pussy-ass fandom,” Hazel heard Grace mutter as she disarmed the car alarm. Whenever she opened the passenger door, Grace gasped. She had absolutely forgotten that Hazel was at the meeting. “Oh, you didn’t stay?” She asked.
Hazel sat down and clenched her teeth, scared of any type of reaction, “Should I have stayed? I can go back. I figured that they would begin damage control for your reaction…”
“There is no damage control for my reaction. I’m not involved,” she said.
“You’re a mega part of Dad’s ecosystem, though.”
“Ugh,” Grace said.
“I mean Simon,” Hazel corrected. When they were mad at him, he was “Simon.”
“No, no… You can stay with Simon. I’m gonna say some very unsavory things and you shouldn’t be around to hear them.”
Hazel put her earplugs in and turned on her music. “I told him that I’d take care of you.”
Grace pursed her lips. “I’ll take care of him!” she grumbled.
.
Simon couldn’t get Grace to acknowledge him for a couple of days. She seemed to be working on a new video for her social media and he left her to it, only exchanging looks with her whenever one of them passed the baby to the other. She had pulled out multiple costumes and had her lipstick-shaped marker notes on her idea pad like she’d done during her pregnancy with Ivory when she was working on music videos from home.
“How much shit am I in?” He’d asked Hazel whenever he got home that first night.
“So much that I have no clue,” she said.
They both sat on the foot of her bed in turmoil. If she wasn’t speaking about it, that meant that either she was so done with it that nothing anybody could say would change her mind, or that she was so engulfed by it that she thought saying anything would lead to sheer destruction. Simon was used to them talking Esmoroth things out, because Esmoroth was his way of communicating complicated feelings for so long.
Hazel added, “And she has removed everything Esmoroth from all of her spaces.” Simon rested his face in his hands and she rubbed his back, “Online and IRL…” she hated to clarify, but felt obligated.
“Okay,” he sniffled. He furrowed his brow and got up to go check on Grace. She was still wearing her wedding ring, which was actually inspired by Esmoroth aesthetics. At least there was that. She wasn’t completely ready to quit on him. She looked up at him, point blank, glaring annoyed at him until he cracked his knuckles and said, “Are we gonna talk about…” She turned her head and went back to vacuum sealing her smoothie blends, the sealer too loud for him to speak over. Dismissed. He nodded his head and walked away, dejected.
FCs Used: Lovie Simone as Grace Monroe, Abe Paymans as Simon Laurent
I did a Fanthology for this story a while back and had these moodboards there, but I wanted them to be their own separate post, since that one was so long.
I’d like to submit Grace Rossiter from Legally Blonde 2! She’s made out to be a villain at first but in the end she helps Elle out and becomes a friend to her! She’s played by Regina King
Okay, so I know that I said that Idek if I knew there was a Legally Blond 2, but when you mentioned it, I thought of Regina King, so I must’ve known, though I admittedly shook.the thought because I kept envisioning images of her role in Miss Congeniality 2 and just presumed I was mixed up.
