does patience have a confused attraction to leo or is she straight-up repulsed by him? their dynamic feels so different since leo is twice her age and acts like a father. he seems more bullying and less charming/seductive.

why does leo infantilize patience? like giving her kid toys and tailoring her little girl dresses. he plans to marry her in 2-3 years, so wouldn’t treating and presenting her as a kid make their marriage seem very creepy and shocking to everyone? and make patience feel more disoriented when he suddenly forces her into the adult role of wife and mother?

did leo bring patience into the spotlight and put her in the public eye? i’m curious because the au mentioned he takes her out and makes her “smile for the cameras”.

would sal have tried to rescue patience if leo hadn’t kidnapped gabe? it seemed like sal didn't want to create serious conflict with leo over patience until leo targeted his family.

if no one rescued patience and she was stuck with leo, what would her life be like as a young mother in his household? would their family be as dysfunctional and abusive as the paint it black au? would she hurt her own kids? would she keep trying to escape or take leo down?

Thanks so much!! Receiving this made me read those chapters over again, wow what a trip down memory lane, remembering writing them in my email app in the upper floor of a barn while I waited for my laptop to get to WV from FL lol.

I think she is straight up repulsed. Her background, as of the chapters, is of a young, immature and stunted girl without any real capability of feeling sexually mature in any way after her violation. Things such as that tend to truncate sexual desire and normal sexual development. Patience in the canonical story is an adult, albeit a little stunted, and she can feel normal sexual attraction. Young Patience had no development, period. Leonardo .definitely doesn't put on his facade, or try to seduce her or toy with her as much. He is more up front, authoritative and domineering. He is just trying to exert his power over her in any way he can. When Patience was an adult, he ostentatiously treated her like a dress-up doll–but in a different way.

Leonardo is very female focused person. There has been some discussions about it on the blog, as well as the story itself. He is a man who would be very much a “girl dad”. Patience at her age blurs the lines to him between the female archetypes of child and woman. And Patience is at an unfortunate age where she is just coming into puberty, and between the choice of training her into a wife immediately and making her into an adult, or treating her like a child and attempting to raise her, he went with treating her like a child to exert authority instead of treating her like a little wife. It's a really good question, re: his intentions towards her in this situation. All of the explanations are uncomfortable.

In the late 50s, a lot of things could be… “overlooked”. Especially in the higher echelons of politics and show business. Woody Allen etc. I would think there would be pushback and opposition, but not enough to truly jeopardize his chances. It would be seen as a generous act leading to a blossoming of true love, as horrific as that sounds.

I don't think he is really worried about Patience feeling disoriented. Her confusion and instability is his goal, as he can step in to be the scaffold.

I think he brought her out to an extent, to show off the good deed he did to adopt her. The public would be familiar with her as an adopted ward then as a wife, for public events and such.

For Salvatore, Patience is one thing, but young!Patience is another, and I think knowing Patience personally, as a vulnerable child, and then realizing she is being kept as a sex slave, lends it something very personal and would spur him into action. Salvatore does have a soft spot for children, as shown by his deep regret of what did to his Boss's children and his love of his niece and nephew.

That's a good question. Patience is a character very formed by her adult life, as much as her trauma. I would argue their family would be even more dysfunctional, as she would be a worse mother, even more unprepared for marriage and motherhood and chafing under the bridle of a man she still hates. I think Leonardo would still be acting semi-fatherly and scolding, and considering himself the better parent, and she would be stressed and physically overwhelmed. There's a picture in an old history book I read that sums it up pretty well:

I think her children would be less emotionally abused but more physically abused and rejected. I don't see her bonding well with them even when they are infants, and I don't see any of them coming out with good outcomes in life. If there were a Richie, I think he would have shown more violent signs earlier and been possibly committed. For her other children, more damaging romantic relationships early in life, possible violence and risk-taking behaviors manifesting much earlier. There is a difference between a chilly, mentally abusive and resentful mother and an impulsive and dysregulated mother who outright cannot parent and rejects you much earlier in life. A mother who is a child herself, yet never really having ever been allowed to be a child, and still trying to raise children of her own. Seeing her outward trauma and her acting out day to day would not have a good effect on them, as well as lashing out and hurting the only things she can take her anger out on.

Leonardo would have some recourse and control over his children's lives, but multiple early births, his career being on track to the point where he can run for mayor, and his home life comfortably locked down would probably take him away from home more.

I see Patience as eventually having zero recourse and knowing it, no allies, family or practical skills to let her survive even if she manages to leave. Just stuck in a house with squalling children she hates and a man she hates, constantly pregnant, constantly told what to do, constantly taking it out on her children. What can she do at this point but put up with it and live her nightmare?

Answer is here!

Everybody say thank you to clarisse!

(for Writer's Month day 9 prompts gold and desert. Sequel for my figure skating adaptation of Hello Dolly, off the ice. I'd written a flash fic of one of the beta couples getting engaged, but not the Dolly character!)

After Four Continents, which was in Colorado Springs, Stacy and Lance did a day trip to see Great Sand Dunes National Park—Stacy thought it sounded like an amazing thing to see.

“The complete opposite of our usual surroundings.” Stacy spun around, laughing.

“Uh, yes.” Lance swallowed. “Uh…”

“Yes?” said Stacy, giving him a bemused look. “Everything okay? Too hot for you?”

“I was going to say something and you started the way I was going to start so now it’s not what I was expecting.”

Stacy frowned and studied his face. More earnestly she said, “Everything okay?”

Lance took a breath. “I brought you here because I wanted it to symbolize that. I didn’t want it to be on the ice because that’s just one part of our relationship, and not the only reason I want to be with you. Even the furthest in the other direction from ice and skating it’s still you. It’s still us.”

With one hand he reached into his pocket and took out a box and flipped it open.

Stacy stared. Then she looked up at him. “Are you going to say it?”

“I have to say it?” said Lance, with a gleam in his eye.

Stacy laughed and swatted his chest. “Yes, you have to say it!”

Lance grinned, but his voice was soft and sincere when he said, “Should I get on one knee?”

“No,” said Stacy, her voice soft too. “This is good.”

“Marry me,” said Lance. “Please. Bother me for the rest of my life.”

“That goes without saying.” Stacy laughed and kissed him.

They kissed for a long minute, but then Lance let out a frustrated sigh. “I forgot part of it. I was going to say that I wanted to do it after this one instead of Worlds because it seemed fitting to give you gold after we got gold.”

Stacy stepped back in showy disbelief. “Are you saying we’re not going to get gold at Worlds?”

“I don’t know,” said Lance. “I’m being realistic. I can’t say for sure that we will, and I what I just said, and what I meant to say earlier, sounds much better than something like ‘Since we didn’t get first place, will you accept me as a consolation prize?’”

Stacy laughed. “I adore you,” she said, and kissed him again, light and sweet this time.

“Do you want your ring?” said Lance.

Stacy held out her hand, and he slipped it on.

“Perfect fit.”

“You told me your size.”

“You paid attention!”

“And the box, I don’t know if you noticed—I got a thin one—”

“So I wouldn’t see it in your pocket.”

Lance rolled his eyes up to the sky. “So you can keep it in your jacket pocket and wear the ring in the kiss-and-cry, if you want. I assume you realize you can’t wear it when we’re doing lift holds. I don’t want to break your finger.”

Stacy was looking at it. She looked up at him and shook her head. “I don’t think I need to wear it when we’re skating together. Maybe if I was skating with someone else—”

She stopped, and they looked at each other, both thinking of the one Stacy would be skating with if she wasn’t skating with Lance. The one she’d skated with until he died.

Stacy said, “He would have been my best man. I would have had a best man and it would have been him.”

“We’d have paired Lena with him, I think?” said Lance, and Stacy nodded. Lance said, “We have Lena walk by herself and leave an empty space opposite her? For Evander.”

With tears in her eyes, Stacy smiled. “I never would have thought you’d be sentimental.”

“You bring out the best in me,” said Lance. He pulled her close.

-

2020 Day 9: Taking Care of Herself (illness)

2021 Day 9: Camping Lessons (darkness)

2022 Day 9: Over Again (echo + post-canon)

2023 Day 9: The Same Kind of Weird (warmth + home for the summer x Flash Fiction Friday #213 Ten Years Later)

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CH5

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A collection of pictures and things that inspired me as I was writing Out of the City