《Infinity || Dan Smith》Sixty.
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Dan rushes into the kitchen and then puts his arms around his mother. They don't say anything for a few moments, instead of talking she holds him tightly. He'll always be a mummies boy, but he isn't at all afraid of admitting it. He's proud of be Isla Smith's son. His proud of his mother's graceful evolution.
"Thank you for committing to her" — Isla whispers the moment after her son pulls away from her bear like hug — "A lot of men in this situation have been know to...leave their lovers when they're suffering." Dan closes his eyes for a second or two. He can never imagine ever leaving Charlie, especially not now when she needs him the most.
Dan then digs his hands into his tracksuit pockets.
"Charlie and Lacey mean the world to me. It's barely even been a year but...they've changed me." Isla smiles nodding her head in total agreement.
"Nearly one year ago you was in the kitchen getting drunk. I didn't say anything back then...but I thought you'd never get another girlfriend. I was giving into the fact that you'd never give me a grandchild. Now look at you! You're a father to the most perfect little girl...and you're going to be a husband." Dan is disbelieved himself, although he knows that everything about this situation seems rushed and doesn't sound good.
But it feels more than good. It feels right and wholesome, this is the life he's always wanted. Of course not the illness part. But he has a family of his own. It's not just him anymore, it's his daughter, it's his fiancée.
"Not to mention a great father to a little boy." Dan then sadly smiles while Isla closes her eyes.
"I need to apologise about confronting you. You lost a child...that's just...please forgive me." She almost begs while Dan nods his head.
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"I was a bit of a dick not telling you. If I told you that I didn't love her...then things would've been easier. But I make shit hard for myself all the time." He admits while Isla hugs him again.
"Fresh start, ay?" Dan nods his head with a smile.
After a minute of silence, and thinking about the next topic...Isla then sighs. She's got something on her chest but she doesn't know how to let it 'out' without offending or causing distress. "What is it?" Dan softly asks, automatically knowing that there is something bothering her.
"I know you don't want to hear this..." — her voice trails off before looking into the blue of Dan's eyes — "but I'm afraid if I say nothing I'll regret it." Curiously, he continues to look at his mother while the kettle in the background boils and the microwave with Lacey's formula chimes.
"You need to get married soon. She isn't...getting any better." Dan closes his eyes for a couple of seconds before scratching his forehead.
He knows that Charlie's health is deteriorating drastically, but the hospital are keeping her on the chemotherapy program. Something must be happening? Dan thinks to himself on the daily basis.
"We know mum." Dan quietly admits, he's adored that Charlie will hear. He doesn't want her to know how lifeless she really looks. He wants to keep her happy, Male her thrive on positivity and motivation. Sure chemo works, but the real medication is happiness.
"We're thinking about next month, actually..." his voice trails off while he smiles picturing his fiancée in a long white dress, holding her daughter who's in a baby pink dress.
"Next month? Valentine's Day..." Dan cracks a smile and shakes his head.
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"That's when the film is meant to come out." Isla makes an 'oh' sound before laughing her suggestion off.
"Do you have any idea who is invited?"
Dan shrugs his shoulders backwards while he walks past Isla, taking Lacey's bottle out from the microwave and puts it on the side to cook. "Most of the crew from Illusion probably, the Bastille crew, friends from Best Laid Plans, my mates, extended families..."
"But what about Charlie? Isn't her mother trying to get back on the scene?" Dan nods his head before shrugging back his shoulders. He doesn't know exactly what's happening between Charlie and Tiffany, although he knows never to let Lacey go near her. Charlie made him promise that she'll never see her, which is weird but he respects her wishes
"Charlie's been ignoring her calls and messages, I think she's gonna show up sooner or later." Isla tuts, shaking her head disappointedly. She isn't disappointed at her future daughter-in-law, she's disappointed that her mother is inconsiderate towards Charlie's wishes.
It's clear that Charlie doesn't want to see or talk to her, the least Tiffany can do is back away and slowly try to get involved.
"You're going to have to put your foot down and answer the door. Tell her to back off your family. Charlie's right...her mother has never even remotely acted like a mother." Isla doesn't even know Tiffany but Charlie has told her more than enough.
"I know...I know."
"Last thing you two lovebirds need is her mother turning up on the happiest day of your lives." Dan nods his head in agreement. He knows that he should step up and be the 'big man', he's just afraid that Charlie will end up having no one in her own life to count on.
But then again...there is Aubrey.
"I better go and...yeah..." Dan shakes the fairly warm bottle off baby formula with a grin on his face. Isla nods her head before she then kisses him on his forehead.
"I'm so proud of you." She whispers before patting Dan's arm, it's her way of telling him that he can leave the kitchen if he wants to.
Dan nods his head and then walks into the hall. Quietly, Dan opens the door and walks in on Charlie rubbing her nose against Lacey's. Both of them seem pretty calm, Dan's dad watches them both with a large wide smile settles on his lips.
"For madam..." Dan unenthusiastically says with French accent as he hands Charlie the bottle.
To which Charlie happily replies: "cheers, my dear".
To save Charlie getting into a uncomfortable position, Dan sits down on the floor, cross legged, besides Charlie. She looks down at Dan in confusion while feeding Lacey, but Dan then breaks into a smile.
"I'm not even going to ask." Isla says the second she walks into the room holding Charlie's tea and Rod's coffee.
"Lacey, your dad is either a gentleman or a complete dickhead." Rod laughs while Isla settles the drink on the small table besides him.
"Bit of both, I'd say." Charlie snorts in a random hysteria moment, bringing everyone in the room to laugh with her.
They're a close knit family.
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- In Serial20 Chapters
Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. Some inspiration will be from cultivation magic systems, but there won't be overt cultivation, at least for now. A theme I really want to explore is the idea of interactions. That includes things like hero crafter vs hero, tactics vs strategy, skill synergies, racial interactions (dwarves, elves, etc), and son. Yeah, so hero crafting. I'm super excited about this project and venturing into publishing. If you want to check out the upcoming story, you can follow my RR author profile to see when it drops here. Finally... THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I'm very sorry that SSA is stopping, but I hope at least some of you will find the next story at least as enjoyable, if not more. Thanks to all the readers who gave SSA a shot. Big hug or solid fistbump to all of you, whichever you prefer! I hope this message is not a downer but an upper, because I am psyched!! -purlcray -------------- BLURB: Talen, youngest Master of the Koroi, makes his way to the Empire's capital to salvage his clan's fate. But the bustling city has few opportunities for the traditionalist. For the old sword clans are fading. With the rise of alchemy, gold can purchase strength that ordinarily took years of training to cultivate. Sword artists, once rare and accomplished, are quickly growing in number, especially among the wealthy noble class. Even with such alchemy, though, no one has advanced to the rank of Grandmaster in countless years. Talen's true dream is to walk the path of a sword artist to the very end while fulfilling his clan duties. And then the Swordgeists return, fabled founders of all sword arts, gods who had touched the world long ago and vanished. These myths turned into reality warn of a coming threat. Alongside this warning, they issue an invitation to the Sword System Academy, a path to power beyond the mortal realm. But first, they will hold an entrance exam... Story notes:Sword System Academia blends elements of western and asian fantasy such as xianxia and litrpg. I took parts from different genres I enjoyed and twisted them into my own creation. There will be an explicit system, both of the litrpg kind and the hard(ish) magic kind, but it is embedded within an academic structure that will develop over the course of the story. This is my attempt to design a unique type of system, the System Academia.
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"𝐁𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢'𝐦 𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐫"✯✯✯"I want to kiss you so bad" he whispered huskily running his thumb over my bottom lip."What's stopping you?" I asked slowly leaning into his touch."I'm afraid once I start I won't be able to stop" he replied in a hoarse voice kissing my neck."Then don't" I mumbled gulping down the nerves.Isabella Rosa UsoroA ordinary 21 year old , but her life not so ordinaryshe is the heiress to the italy's second most richest company in Italy Roso Industriesshe lives a happy life with her parents and brother but what happens when it all goes south.Leonardo Matteo GiovanniA not so ordinary Italian Mafia bossOwns the richest company in Italy as coverup for his real buisnessKnown as the Hottest yet coldest billionaireis known to show no type of affection and has been like that since his parents murder.join the rollercoaster ride to the life of Isabella Usoro and Leonardo Giovanni full of love, betrayal,pain, anger and bloodA/N Hey guys hresha here this is my first Wattpad story so bare with me. do comment how you like my story but gonna go on a limb and say it do not fucking post any hate comments or start a fight (No offense love you guys) i guess that's it oh wait i forgot do vote and commentuntil next time Adios bitches
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