is love alive? [jimbo]

[Deleted]

february 10, 2025

Cecelia felt ridiculous making an appointment at Blishwick's. She didn't need a betrothal, and she didn't even particularly care to know if her boyfriend was the one she was "meant" to be with. The idea that people had soulmates, another half to complete them, wasn't one she enjoyed; she had looked at herself as a half of a whole growing up with a twin sister, and when Bay died it had nearly broken her. Cecelia wasn't going to voluntarily see herself as less than an entire person for any reason, even if people did think it was romantic to believe the other half of their soul was out there somewhere.

Cece didn't care about the specifics; it was the general case she was concerned with. Something had changed during her time with the Parisian Coven, and Cecelia was... worried. She knew how to love people familially (she had no doubt she loved Braelynn and Zander), but romantically, she wasn't so sure. When she thought about how she felt about Grey, love certainly did come to mind. But Cece was worried she was kidding herself. She had done awful things, and continued to do awful things in the name of self-preservation - and Grey's preservation. Did someone like her really know how to love? She was hoping Blishwick's Matchmaking would be able to help her, somehow. 

jimbo brian blishwick vi

[jimbo brian blishwick vi]

@cecelia

02.10.2025

It was that time of the year again: February. As with all past Februaries, Jimbo was sort of at a loss with what to do. The family power was absolutely useless for the entirety of the month, so having to turn away potential readings was happening as usual. Jimbo liked to believe that the absence of the power was due to the mass amount of ‘love’ in the air, if that was actually a thing. Magic was fickle enough as it was so the possibility of love holding a certain potency, and therefore muting his power, was the conclusion he had finally reached in the last decade or so of working. His forefathers always used February as a month to vacation and to relax before the summer hit, when the majority of students and young people were out and about and thinking about finding their special someone. But not Jimbo. He had too much to do these days, with planning and coordinating his blind date events, as well as setting up arraigned marriages for those that decided to take that route. There had been an influx in those over the last few years, which he was sure had nothing to do with a sudden fear in loss of blood purity. There was no way that it was because of that. Absolutely not.

As for today’s work, there were a few appointments for consultations. Jimbo had decided years ago that, despite not being able to read anyone during February, he would still take on appointments and work double time when the month clicked over to March. There was no reason to turn someone away if they really wanted to find their one true love, and who was he to get in the way of that? With the first two done for the day, one having decided to think about it all a little more before fully committing to the service and the other choosing not to follow through with it at all, Jimbo had only one left for the day. Sitting comfortably in his chair in the consultation area, he quietly waited for his final appointment to arrive.

[Deleted]

The time for her appointment came, and Cecelia was only on time because her upbringing demanded it; otherwise she probably would’ve been late, if only by a minute, to indicate her uncertainty with the entire situation. She wasn’t even sure she believed in Blishwick’s supposed true love guarantee. She walked from the waiting room to the consultation room with her head down and cloak hood up, doing her best to hide her ruby-red eyes and fangs from the others in the waiting room. She had been told February was one of the least busy months at Blishwick’s – it was the sort of month where people thought they could take their love lives into their own hands – but it worked in her favor. Even if vampires weren’t ill-received in most society any longer, they were easily recognizable, and the last thing she needed was word getting back to Grey that she had been at the matchmaker’s.

Cecelia knocked on the door to the consultation room, pausing for a moment before swinging it open. Blishwick wasn’t what Cece expected, though she wasn’t sure what she did expect – just not a blonde man who looked… well, not particularly obsessed with love or matchmaking. He didn’t have a heart tattoo on any body part that she could see, and the office wasn’t covered in Cupids wielding bows and arrows. “Good afternoon,” she greeted politely, perching herself in the chair in room she assumed was reserved for clients. Then, deciding cutting to the chase would save them both time, Cecelia asked, “Can you tell me whether or not I’m capable of love?”

jimbo brian blishwick vi

[jimbo brian blishwick vi]

@cecelia

02.10.2025

His client arrived exactly on time. Unbelievably punctual, actually. More often than not Jimbo would watch potential clients hover outside the shop door, very obviously in a mental debate with themselves on whether or not they actually needed his assistance. Usually that was a great way to gauge how the conversation was going to go, should they come in. But this client, Cecelia Rousseau as his appointment note told him, was inside and sitting down from him with very little hesitation. She even went as far as to ask her first question before Jimbo could even utter a ‘good afternoon’ to her in return. He liked the forthcoming ones because they tended to be more honest with him. The aforementioned ones that wavered, they were tricky. Fickle almost. He didn’t like to be negative about the feelings of love and what they entailed (since that was different for almost every human being on the plant), but there were a lot of falsehoods that had been perpetuated over the years. Blaming muggles with their nonsense and dating apps was the easiest place to shift blame to, and now his poor magical clients believed they would find the one through those just by swiping right.

“I can certainly try,” Jimbo answered her honestly. It didn’t take him long to realize she was a vampire, and that had its own set of complications that would soon crop up. Reading them took almost twice as long as a normal witch or wizard and there were hundreds of extra factors built into it. Life longevity and all that fun stuff. Her question was a fairly normal one though, regardless of her status as a vampire. Plenty of young people came in these days asking the same question though they were never as loaded as a younger vampire or werewolf. “If you don’t mind me asking, how long ago was it that you were turned? I only ask because I’ve had plenty of vampires come in over the years asking that same question. My answer is always yes, of course, but it ultimately comes down to whether or not you want to be in love. If you want to be, then I’ll do my best to answer any questions you may have about it.”

[Deleted]

Jimbo said he could try to tell her whether she was capable of love, which wasn’t the definitive answer Cecelia was looking for, but it was better than she had before. He asked how long it had been since she had been turned, and Cecelia wanted to laugh. This was so much larger than her being a vampire; she was still the same person she was before she was turned, but that meant she still had all the evil in her, too. She had been a blood purist, she had been willing to do awful, horrible things if it made Desirae happy, and how could she believe someone like that was capable of love? Of change? “June of last year,” she answered, keeping her voice level so as not to betray her inner hysteria. “So eight months. But that’s honestly not what I’m concerned about, if you don’t mind me saying so.” She didn’t want to dismiss Jimbo’s guess about her hesitance out of hand, but the real reason was probably much more difficult to deal with.

“Mr. Blishwick, both of my sisters died before they reached their nineteenth birthdays.” Not entirely the truth, but it was the truth she had to tell everyone – and the truth Cecelia herself had believed for quite some time. “My elder sister was a murderer, and she was killed for it. I want to know how much of her is in me, because I refuse to believe that someone who could kill for sport is capable of love. I’m not asking for a moral judgement; I’m asking for clarity.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, composing herself. “I thought – I think – I love someone. But I can’t let him…” Cecelia trailed off. She didn’t know what she couldn’t let Grey do; she just wanted an easy answer, for once in her life.

jimbo brian blishwick vi

[jimbo brian blishwick vi]

@cecelia

02.10.2025

This was a first. Jimbo knew that it wasn’t right of him to jump to conclusions that the whole problem revolved around the fact that the girl was a vampire. It was an unfair assumption to make, though history and his own personal experience on the matter usually said otherwise. This was a much more complicated matter than a potential partner growing old and withering away long before she did, which was one of the more common concerns his vampire clients tended to have. The Rousseau girl went on to explain her true predicament in all of this though, and the real reason why she reached out to him. This wasn’t exactly his normal sort of conversation he had with a potential client, but he had heard similar issues before. Minus the psychotic, murderous sister. That was a new one he hadn’t had the pleasure of hearing in his years of matchmaking.

Crossing one leg over the other, Jimbo reclined in his chair, scratching at his neck as he thought over everything he had just been told. There was a lot to process, and he was sure she had done plenty of that already on her own. But that was why she was here, sitting in his office asking for advice. Jimbo didn’t want to give her a stupid answer even though that was what he was coming down to after giving it a few moments of thought. “This will sound ridiculous, but as far as I can tell from what you’ve told me, you aren’t her and she isn’t you. Sure, you share the same blood and genetic makeup, parents, and maybe even the same memories, but you’re still very distinct and different people. Unless you’ve murdered someone as well Miss Rousseau, that alone distinguishes you from her.” Jimbo paused for a moment to allow her to think about what he had said, before continuing, “Now, ultimately I can’t tell you what to do when it comes to love, just offer words of wisdom to help guide you in the right direction. I’m of the opinion that everyone can love, no matter what they’ve done or who they are. She may have loved someone else at some point in time, but we can’t really speak for her, can we? I believe that allowing parts of your sister to exist within you, or not, is up to you at the end of the day. But do remember, you’re still very much your own self. And you are capable of loving someone if you want to.”

He had no idea if that monologue would resonate with her or not. In his experience, people that wanted to change for the better would work towards it, and those that didn’t wouldn’t. That sort of predicament was out of his hands though, and far above his paygrade. If she had wanted help with locating the one, that was more up his alley. But according to her, she already had someone in mind. “Let’s talk about something happier though, shall we?” Jimbo added cheerfully, trying to shift gears from dead sisters to Miss Rousseau’s potential boy. “So this young man that you think you love…tell me about him. Are there things you like about him? Dislike?” Jimbo wasn’t keen on playing twenty questions, but if she needed that to be done so that she could come to a conclusion, he certainly would. That’s why he was the love doctor.

[Deleted]

Mr. Blishwick accepted her story with fewer looks of abject horror than Cecelia had expected. Instead he leaned back in his chair, obviously considering what to say to her. At least he wasn’t giving her meaningless platitudes the way most people did when she talked about her dead sisters; Cecelia was sick of hearing them, especially since the sister worth mourning wasn’t actually dead. Instead, Jimbo talked about how she wasn’t Desirae, and Desirae wasn’t her. They shared parents, and an upbringing, but not a brain – not a soul. Cecelia hadn’t murdered anyone. She fought the urge to close her eyes against the images of the things she had done, taking a deep breath instead. Even if Elaine asked her to kill someone, Cece wouldn’t do it. She had been pushed to the breaking point so many times before and pushed through – she didn’t want to see what it looked like when she finally did break. Because being asked to murder? That would be it, that would absolutely shatter her. There was no turning back from murder.

The matchmaker went on to say he couldn’t do more than offer words of wisdom, which Cece accepted with a nod. She hadn’t gotten much wisdom when it came to love in her younger years, since she had half-expected to end up in an arranged marriage. Now she had other people to ask, but it felt strange to question Braelynn, who was happily married, about what dating someone was like. Jimbo said she was capable of loving someone if she wanted, and that struck a chord in Cecelia. All she had wanted to do since divorcing herself from her old way of thinking was find the good in the world, and find love.

Blishwick insisted they talk about something happier, and Cecelia simply nodded. She could mull over Desirae’s ability to love (or lack thereof) later. Maybe she’d write Braelynn about it – probably not, though. When asked to talk about Grey, Cecelia blinked, hard. She was so accustomed to her relationship being private that talking about it at all, let alone with a complete stranger, was bizarre. But she had come here for love advice, and that was hard to dispense without knowing about the person she loved. “He doesn’t care what other people think. About anything, really.” That had been what allowed them to come together in the first place. “When he wants something, he works hard for it. He cares a lot about people.” She swallowed hard. Listing it all out like that, it hardly seemed like she deserved Grey. “The only thing I can think of off the top of my head that I dislike is his family. I… don’t think they’ll like me.” Cecelia didn’t know when it was typical for parents to meet a partner in a typical relationship; it was different in arranged marriages, of course. She had only officially met her sister’s husband after they were married, and her parents didn’t know said husband existed, for good reason. Cece didn’t know if she ought to be worried she hadn’t met the Slater family yet, but she was glad they’d managed to put it off for so long, if only for the complicated history between them and the Rousseaux.

jimbo brian blishwick vi

[jimbo brian blishwick vi]

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The silent acceptance of his words was all Jimbo could ask for. These sorts of conversations had a multitude of directions they could go, and the Rousseau girl’s nod of her head was exactly the sort of response that Jimbo liked to see. The worst kinds of clients (and this didn’t mean they were terrible by any means) were the ones that kept asking the same questions over and over again without realizing it. Phrasing something differently didn’t mean he was going to spontaneously find a new answer for them. Jimbo wasn’t in the business of softening the intricacies of love – it was such a vast unknown that he could only be the guide and pose potential answers. He always hoped that the ones that kept asking and left unsatisfied would eventually find what they were looking for, but not everyone was capable of accepting his words despite the fact that he was the foremost export in the field.

Jimbo listened quietly as the she described the boy. Feeling like he had sufficiently answered, or at the least, quelled Miss Rousseau’s worries about her capability to love for the time being, the boy was the second component to all of it. From what he could tell, there was a sense of admiration for the lad coming from her. And then the other half came. The ‘aha’ moment: his family probably wouldn’t like her. If Jimbo got a sickle for every single time someone’s family got in the way of love, he wouldn’t have had to work for the last twenty years. This was all a part of the business, as cliché as it was, and he had heard this same story thousands of times. While each individual case was different from the next, the family members always had a starring role for better or worse. “If it’s any consolation, my wife’s family didn’t like me at first either. I mean, look at what my business is,” Jimbo raised his hands up in the air, grinning as he did so. His in-laws thought he was a womanizer (without any proof, of course), and that running essentially a wizarding dating site was too meddlesome for their daughter to get involved in. Too bad it turned out that they liked each other’s company too much to really care about that.

Miss Rousseau obviously had a different circumstance than Jimbo did though, and he didn’t really need to take a guess at what the real problem was. Either it was the fact that her sister was a murderer, or that she was a vampire, because from what Jimbo could tell, there wasn’t anything outwardly off about her. In his opinion, the former was silliness on the family’s part, and the latter was ignorance. They were in a changing world! Vampires, werewolves, and the whole lot were so commonplace now that it shouldn’t really matter anymore. A few decades from now almost everyone would have demi-human blood flowing through them. This was exactly the same as the blood purity argument. From the sound of it, she hadn’t met them yet, so that meant there was still time to gauge a response on her end. “The good thing is you’ll never know until you do actually meet them. And if things don’t go well at that point, remember this: you’re not dating the family,” Jimbo said optimistically, letting her think on that point as he quieted down once again.

@cecelia ● 573 ● Smoke Signals by Phoebe Bridgers

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[Deleted]

When Mr. Blishwick said his wife’s family didn’t like him at first, Cecelia had to hide a snort. Sadly, disliking someone because they ran a matchmaking service and dislike someone because their family was (for the most part) awful were two vastly different animals. His words about not knowing whether or not they’d like her until they’d actually met were marginally more comforting. She’d been surprised by people before; hell, Grey had surprised her in all the best ways. Even if he didn’t have the best relationship with his family members, maybe they would equally surprise her.

“Don’t they say when you marry someone, you’re also marrying the family?” she asked drily. Then, horrified, she realized what she had said. Marriage? Maybe Braelynn was ready to be married and stable at the ripe young age of eighteen, but Cecelia certainly wasn’t. She shivered a little, cursing herself for thinking too far into the future. She had learned long ago the future was never certain, and thinking so far ahead was sure to do nothing but hurt in the end. “Besides… I want them to like me.” She pressed her lips into a thin line, not wanting to admit just how much she’d like the Slater family to like her. Cecelia knew she herself had changed, but it was hard when the rest of the world didn’t seem to agree. She would probably never leave Desirae’s shadow, and now… she was perpetually young, perpetually reminded of the failures of her youth. It wasn’t a pleasant way to be.

jimbo brian blishwick vi

[jimbo brian blishwick vi]

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There was a reason he told the Rousseau girl that she wasn’t dating the family, and didn’t bring the marriage portion into it. That, in Jimbo’s opinion, was a completely different game. Dating tended to have a disconnect from a significant other’s family, at least up to a certain point. Marriage brought out all the ugly, if it wasn’t already there to begin with. “Well, there’s a reason I’m a matchmaker and not a family therapist,” Jimbo chuckled, before readjusting himself in his chair so that he could take a more serious stab at the girl’s question. The last thing he wanted to do was make a mockery of her situation, and family always ended up playing into a relationship at some point or another. Usually that was well after he was said and done with his part of the job, but still…

“To be frank, there are some people out there that won’t like you no matter what you try to do to rectify any problems they might have towards you. And that’s just at the base level, without anything else added on top. I don’t know your boy’s family at all, but if they’re the sort of close-knit family where they dictate what he does in life, that’s something you would need to think about before marriage. Because when people use that saying, that’s what they mean.” Jimbo paused briefly so that he could change which leg was being crossed by the other. He needed the additional second before continuing, “But if they’re like your boy, and work just as hard as he does and care about other people, then that would be the sort of family you’d want to be married to. I don’t really believe in that statement though, because I’ve seen thousands of successful marriages with every feasible combination of anything you could imagine, almost all without external input from family. At the end of the day, what’s best for you and your partner is what matters most. If you’re perfectly happy with the way things are, without his family, and he is too, then good riddance, I say.”

This was all subjective though, and the Rousseau girl didn’t even know if they would dislike her yet. Unless they actively spoke out against vampires or something as equally silly. It had been long proven now that relationships with vampires could be successful, and Jimbo had an entire filing cabinet to prove it. “Just so you know, it’s perfectly normal to be worried about these sorts of things. If you weren’t, I’d guess that either his family are a bunch of saints, or you weren’t thinking seriously about it in the first place. Talk to your boy though, because he knows his family the best. He can prepare you for the best or worst of it if you’re adamant on meeting the family.”

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[Deleted]

Mr. Blishwick said he was glad to be a matchmaker and not a family therapist, and Cecelia just inclined her head to him. It was certainly easier to deal with two people instead of four, or ten, or however many made up a certain family. Putting two families together like she had been thinking of just doubled the amount of people who could possibly be dissatisfied.

Jimbo went on to say there were people who wouldn’t like her no matter what she did, and Cecelia grimaced. She didn’t like that particular truth, no matter how many times she was faced with it. There were people who would never forgive her for her surname, never forgive her for the things she did before Braelynn died. They had a right to that, of course – no one was obligated to wait for her to change for the better, or to see the ways in which she had changed. At least Jimbo had offered some clarity on what was meant by marrying the family. She hadn’t understood that it was more about dictating a person’s life than needing to be close. He did make some fair points about the ways Grey and his family might be similar, though. Cece tended to see the ways in which they were different – and hear about the ways in which they were different second-hand – but it wasn’t like good people could just sprout from nowhere. Except for Braelynn, who had somehow found the goodness even despite their horrible upbringing. She was the exception, not the rule.

“I don’t know how much of his relationship with his family is because of me, though,” Cecelia admitted. She knew Grey hadn’t always been on the best terms with his sisters and parents, but it was equally likely she was the one keeping them from reconciliation. At least it was normal to be worried about these things – the first time in her life Cecelia would ever be considered normal, and probably the last too. Good thin it was on something utterly banal and yet horribly important. “I guess it would’ve made more sense to ask him, yes.” But that would mean admitting things to Grey she wasn’t sure she was ready for.

jimbo brian blishwick vi

[jimbo brian blishwick vi]

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From his point of view, it seemed like the things he was saying were getting through to the girl. Everything she was expressing was a valid concern, but not something he hadn’t seen before either. Navigating relationships was difficult enough between even the plainest of couples, and unfortunately for the Rousseau girl, anything she was ever committed to would be far from normal. That came along with being a vampire. Hell, even his own wife had issues with his ability at first. Being different had that sort of effect. “An open line of communication can solve a world of problems before they even happen. But I would definitely let him proceed with how he pleases with his family. I’ve seen plenty of couples completely remove their families from their lives and turn out perfectly fine.”

In the end, there really was no telling how this could turn out. If everything she was saying about his family were true, then it would be an uphill battle against them. At the same time, Jimbo had a feeling that the boy didn’t really care about what they thought. Personally, that was the only thing that really should matter. He was a people pleaser, and even he disliked pleasing every single person he came across. It was exhausting at times. “Take it at your own pace though. There’s no reason to jump straight into meeting the family if neither of you are ready for that. And if things don’t work out with them? Oh well. It’s 2025. They don’t really have any power over what either of you do anymore.” Jimbo let out a laugh at his own comment. He enjoyed getting the occasional angry parent, infuriated by engagement contracts he had written up or for pairing their child with someone they didn’t deem good enough. There was no refuting his power though, so at the end of the day he did know best.

@cecelia ● 320 ● Unspoken Love by Joe Hisaishi

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[Deleted]

Cecelia wasn’t sure how this meeting had turned into a relationship advice seminar, but she couldn’t say she was displeased with it. Her parents hadn’t much bothered with giving her relationship advice when she was growing up – or any other kind of advice, for that matter. Now that she was older she knew better than to take anyone’s advice as gospel, anyway, even if Mr. Blishwick did seem to have a sound head on his shoulders and Cece couldn’t find anything objectionable in the idea of actually talking to the person she was involved with. It was harder, of course, with everything she had to hide from him, but there were things she didn’t have to hide. Choosing to keep more of herself secret than she had to would end up hurting more.

“I guess I should ask him how much he wants his family in his life,” Cece sighed. She doubted Grey wanted to go full no-contact, but knowing he didn’t expect her to be enamored with his family would make things easier. She nodded again when Jimbo said they didn’t have to rush into anything if they didn’t want to. Maybe being together for a year had given her certain expectations of their relationship that she didn’t need to hold onto. “My parents were very controlling when I was young,” Cece admitted quietly, “so it’s hard to remember not everyone was raised the same way.” Was Cece afraid of her parents, even now? She didn’t think so, but maybe her fear of Grey’s parents was a little misplaced.

jimbo brian blishwick vi

[jimbo brian blishwick vi]

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The pureblood dilemma. That was what Jimbo called this sort of situation. While he wasn’t nearly as familiar with the Rousseau family (at least outside of what the newspapers told him these days), he did know that their line came from France. The French pureblooded families were on a different level than those in the UK. Everyone he had ever dealt with always hemmed and hawed - a funny phrase he had picked up from his American cousin, Bobby – about the Sacred Twenty-Eight and how those various families were very quickly dying out. Now, Jimbo wasn’t really one to talk: the Blishwicks had married into the Black family, after all, though that was five generations before him and they were so far removed from that designation now that they had only maintained their pureblood line by marrying from outside of England. So he understood what the Rousseau girl was going through, both because he was part of that aforementioned dilemma, and because he witnessed it on more than one occasion in this very establishment.

Controlling was a very simple way of her telling him everything he needed to know, and it, like most other issues that came with strict pureblood families, wasn’t surprising in the slightest. Being a Blishwick thankfully alleviated him of those issues, though obligations and rules weren’t foreign to him. “Communication is always the key. I’ve never seen a better method, outside a constant dosage of veritaserum,” Jimbo laughed again. It was true though, there was very little hiding when that came into play. “But for that, you would probably have to take a couple turns into Knockturn, and I you wouldn’t be there on my recommendation,” he flashed his teeth at her in a comical grin. He had dealt with enough poor communicators over the years to the point where sometimes it didn’t even matter if his ability placed people together. That was an unfixable curse, as long as both parties wanted to make it so.

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