More Tea Parties | Content Warnings
Hello again and welcome to another challenge for this tea party! For this one, we used a random trope generator to pick three different tropes. The three tropes chosen were:
- Fake Dating
- She fell first, he fell harder
- Hidden love child OR secret baby
Then each of us wrote a different synopsis! It was a little bit hard and a lot of bit fun! Let’s grab a drink and see what the others came up with this time!
Pineapple’s synopsis:
Davion lives with his mother, Aisha, who has recently grown to resent him because she is “forced to live in squalor” because of him. She could have been great. She could have been the kingdoms best scholar. She was moving up in the world before he was born. He’s nothing but a blight on her life.
Davion spends most of his time with his friends Keegan, a witch’s apprentice who lives in the nearby woods, and Jean, a boy from the neighboring town who often visits to help his father’s mercantile business.
Davion has been getting bullied for turning down every interested marriage proposal turned his way. The dowry’s are relatively good, thanks to Aisha’s reputation probably, and Davion’s good looks. However, he isn’t interested in anyone he meets. Rumors are starting to circulate that he’s in love with Jean.
When Keegan catches wind of this, she suggests just saying that he’s engaged to her. People wouldn’t mess with the witch’s apprentice and, by proxy, her fiance. He agrees, still feeling nothing more than friendship. To really sell it, she starts coming into town more and more so they’re seen together, and Davion goes out to the woods.
The local witch, Kael, warns Keegan about Davion—he’s not what he seems, and he’s no good for her. But she’s been in love with him since they first met in the flower fields when they were children.
Meanwhile, Jean is coming less and less into the village. When he does come, he avoids Davion.
Davion catches him one night as he’s leaving the village and asks if it’s because of the rumors–because they aren’t true. He’s engaged now, to Keegan. And she’s great. Davion slowly starts to realize that he may actually feel something more than friendship for the first time. (Demi rep, ayyeeee)
Jean is happy for him genuinely, and states that that isn’t why. He’s flighty and suspicious. Davion can tell something is wrong.
Davion asks Kael for a spell. He asks her to find out what Jean is so afraid of.
Together, along with Keegan, they see a vision of Jean being threatened by a priest but fantasy, who lives in the same town Jean does. The priest believes that Jean is becoming friendly with Davion because he somehow discovered that Davion is his illegitimate child—the child he had out of wedlock with Aisha, while they were both studying. He’d stopped writing Aisha recently because of the fear that they’d been found out, and the rumors he’d heard of his son.
Kael tells them that this is a vision of the past. Things will only get worse. This is what Kael had meant when she said he wasn’t what he seemed: he was something greater, he had some God-chosen blood in him or… something, idk.
Keegan doesn’t care. She has a witch’s blood. They can be outcasts together.
Davion agrees, wholeheartedly this time. He says that he’d actually love to learn magic with her, at her side, forever.
But first, they go to rescue Jean from the priest. They tell him that the secret is safe from everyone except them… and Davion says that he wishes the priest would be honest with Aisha.
The priest is moved by the power of love and friendship, and abandons his celibate lifestyle to go to Aisha’s side. Everything ends happy ayyeeee
Apple’s Synopsis for “Making Herstory”:
The people had never seen a more incompetent royal family. The princes and princesses squabbled amongst each other for the throne. Unfortunately, none of them had a single idea how to run a kingdom. At this rate, the people were more likely to see their beloved home come to ruin. Fortunately, someone learned of a secret.
A maid heard from a lady-in-waiting, who heard from the Queen, who heard from her cousin who was a knight—and he heard it from an old, retiring soldier—that the King had a love child with the pub owner on the outskirts of town. While no one was surprised that the King was out pub crawling in disguise, they were delighted to find out there might be another option for their new ruler after all. A parade, complete with singing and homemade signs that boasted of the People’s Queen, marched all the way to the pub’s front door.
The pub owner, Meredith, was thrilled. Customers! Free publicity! Not to say she wasn’t already living well, what with the hush money, but who in their right mind would turn down good business? Her daughter, Jade, heard the commotion and stepped out from the office where she’d been bookkeeping. It sounded like her mother was getting into mischief (again), and she wasn’t about to let that happen. Without her, that is.
People cheered as Jade entered, her mother egging on the crowd as someone ordered a round for everyone inside. Random hands clasped Jade’s, thanking her for saving them. Catching the gist of the situation, she and her mother excused themselves back to the office to discuss a plan. Eh, why not? they decided. Messing with Jade’s royal side of the family sounded fun, and it wasn’t like she’d actually become queen.
Except that everything Jade did turned out perfectly. She officiated a random wedding; the grooms both had parents on the royal court and promised to put in a good word for her. She declared a kingdom-wide holiday for absolutely no reason; the free food fed thousands of hungry citizens. She commissioned a golden statue of herself; the task created new jobs and attracted customers to the small businesses nearby.
She’d just finished raising taxes for the obnoxiously rich after some gilded carriage cut her off in traffic when she realized she might actually get chosen to become queen. Which was ridiculous! She wasn’t remotely qualified. As she finally reached the palace, she caught sight of a criminal being led off by the guards and told them to unhand her boyfriend at once. She had no idea who the man was. Hopefully not a serial killer.
The guards blinked in confusion. She sent a conspiratorial wink at the criminal. The criminal smiled and winked back. And then she was taking her criminal, fake boyfriend with her to meet the King and Queen. Luckily, Will was not a serial killer. Unluckily, he was a rebel, adored by the people for throwing tomatoes at her half-brother’s rally. He was also polite, funny, surprisingly good with handcuffs, and exactly her type.
She caught him up on the details as they walked, and he pointed out that learning bookkeeping from her mom, settling pub brawls, and listening to the people’s concerns as they drank away their sorrows did give her an edge over her half-siblings. Most importantly, she seemed to actually care for the people. The final decision was up to the King and Queen, but he knew whom he wanted to be chosen.
Despite the fact that she was (fake) dating a criminal, her meeting with the King and Queen went as perfectly as everything else had. The King drunkenly declared she was his favorite child (he’d known her five minutes). He also wasn’t dying or anything of the sort. He just didn’t wanna be king anymore. Something about paperwork and boring meetings.
The Queen was too busy making eyes at her lady-in-waiting over the rim of her teacup to do more than wish Jade well. Jade’s half-siblings, on the other hand, decided to take one final stab at the throne—literally.
Most of their assassins failed, but one climbed up over the balcony while the guards were distracted. Will took the blade for her. It was a paper cut-sized wound, but seeing his life flash before his eyes made him realize he would much rather spend his days courting Jade genuinely. Not as her fake boyfriend. Not as another assassin, hired by her half-sister. As himself.
Fake dating was defeated by true love, and Jade’s siblings were arrested for attempted murder (and a bunch of other stuff), eliminating her competition for the crown. The people gathered for the coronation.
As the tiara settled on her head, Jade remembered the time a girl in the pub bathroom invented democracy while holding a puking friend’s hair. She had a scribe jot that down for the history books before declaring that the next ruler would be chosen by vote.
The people simply crossed out “Queen” on their signs with paint and wrote “President”. It was a landslide victory, and they all lived happily ever after.
Raspberry synopsis:
Long ago, in a time of chaos and destruction, a noble bloodline rose above the rest: the Dragonborne. Bonded through a since-forgotten (or purged, more likely) spell, this family was able to bond with the dragons, establishing peace through a united kingdom.
Unfortunately, now this family has, generations later, turned into an iron grip. The royal family is little more than a puppet as land, taxes, and law go through the Dragonborne clan. Though many have tried to fight back, or establish a bond with dragons themselves, none have succeeded.
This is why it’s so surprising when country noble Evelyn finds a dragon hatchling and can hear its thoughts. Sure, it’s the first dragon she’s ever seen in real life, but she’s certain she shouldn’t be able to communicate with it. And she’s definitely not ready for childcare. The dragon needs to find its kin, and only Evelyn can help it. A young dragon on its own would certainly become an easy target for the rebels. Unfortunately, the single daughter of a lowly baron can’t be seen traipsing around the kingdom alone without raising eyebrows.
Tristan is only tutoring Evelyn for the money. He hopes that, if he saves enough, he can finally travel the world and visit the grand libraries of the capitol. When he catches Evelyn cuddling a baby dragon instead of studying, he jumps at the chance for adventure. Anything would be better than trying to establish authority over a girl barely two years younger than him and disinclined to study.
Tristan and Evelyn announce their intended betrothal, with the catch that first Tristan must go to the capitol in order to establish himself in the world of academia to provide for Evelyn. They embark on a pre-honeymoon trip, a guise for getting the young dragon back to her family. Cue adventures, overnight stays at inns with only one bed, a run-in with a group of thieves, and Evelyn realizing that her stuffy tutor may be more interesting than she gave him credit for.
When they reach the capitol, they part ways, with Evelyn off to find the Dragonbornes and Tristan off to fulfill his life’s dream. Evelyn receives a warm welcome for returning a dragon… until they realize she can communicate with dragons. The secret comes out: she is a secret child of a lost Dragonborne, a daughter who turned away from the family after falling in love and who, as a result, had to be purged by her family. The same fate awaits Evelyn.
Tristan arrives in time to foil the Dragonbornes. He followed Evelyn, realizing that his dream would mean nothing if she wasn’t there with him. The Dragonborne castle is destroyed, and the kingdom must be rebuilt. But first, Tristan and Evelyn walk hand in hand into the sunset (and towards the library).
What kind of stories would you have written with these tropes? Which one would you like to see most as a fully written story? Let us know in the comments!
Thank you for reading and see you next week for our picnic!
JAAM Writing 