#and Natalie clearly respects him more even though she pushes him

[sohelish]

having watched a bunch of M.onk series, I now realise something.

Helena is pretty eccentric in her own way, and brilliant, too. I know she's not a good guy, though technically speaking neither is Adrian Mo.nk (he is a good cop tho). but what I'm getting at: tbh Hel could use more Natalie-like company and less Sharona.

both are great dynamics but I feel the difference strongly. and Hel, no matter what she's done, deserves more Natalie treatment, imho.

[cursivebloodlines]

“Of course, it did. You’re practically beating me up,” Logan shot back playfully, jutting his lower lip in a faux pout. “But maybe I like it really.” Was he allowed to say things like that now? He wasn’t sure… but still, he couldn’t help himself. Even before everything changed, he never had a filter. Only when his feelings for her grew, only after he realised (back then) that his feelings were unrequited, he held back a bit. Not wanting to push her, not wanting to make her feel uncomfortable or pressured to feel any differently. More than anything, he respected Danielle. And yes, he was unashamed and cheeky but he never wanted her to feel uncomfortable… Now, though, he couldn’t resist. Eager to see the way his words affected her, relished in hearing her laugh, seeing her blush, surprising her with jokes and teasing manner. There was something fun about pushing his luck, though, and all in all he was quite surprised that she hadn’t told him to stop, or to leave her alone. Glad though. And relieved.

 Something about the way she spoke that had him reeling with desire. Clearly, his teasing remarks were having a prominent effect on her. She was driving him crazy without even realising it. Then again, where she was concerned, it didn’t take a lot. “Maybe not,” he spoke with a breathy whisper, “But I’ve heard the pay off is worth it…” Every time she touched him, he craved more of her. All of her. How was he supposed to keep himself in check with her hands on him? The tension between the two was palpable, could be cut through the room with a knife. But it was a different kind, not the one where it was tense because neither knew what to do about the other. It was desire, wanting and craving. It was the balancing on a tightrope, each step trying not to fall off.  Some might say he already had. “Don’t pretend it’s all me…you make it just as much, if not more… It’s not my fault you’re just so irresistible.” Any other time it could’ve sounded like a joke. And sure, maybe he was still teasing. Nothing he said was a joke, not this time. He really did find her irresistible. God, he was torn between wanting to completely devour her and throw all caution to the wind and wing whatever happened next, or to take his time – after all, exactly how long had he been waiting for this moment? To have this chance?

The words Danielle said were still ringing in his ears. He was sure he’d never forget the way she spoke, the way she said she wanted him. There was the rest to address, and he would in due course, but didn’t want to risk ruining the moment, or coming to his senses. It was too early for him to find a rational thought, albeit those left him a long time ago. The way she blamed herself had him shaking his head in silent protest. “No,” he stated, matter of fact. “If I’d have just waited for you a bit longer, then maybe…” he trailed off, unsure where he was heading as he spoke. Would she have found her way to him before Natalie, though? Logan wasn’t sure. That was probably why he’d stopped talking. I did this to us. Did what? “It’s okay… like I said, I’ll handle it. Don’t worry.” Logan was sincere. Unsure what he meant by handling it as of yet, but it should have been obvious, really. It was how to go about it that was the issue. But he would figure it out. Because the woman he truly wanted, wanted him in return. And he wasn’t about to throw that possibility out of the window. Not now, not when they were like this.

The way Danielle uttered his name was everything. With wanting, with yearning… There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. Feeling her respond with equal enthusiasm only grew the burning passion he had for her. A low groan pulled from his lips as the heat of the moment grew stronger. He felt like he’d been drowning for so long, like she was breathing oxygen into him. And completely consumed; like oxygen to a flame. He’d unwittingly took a few steps forward, moving her backward until her back hit the wall with a soft thud. She was everything. His everything. Logan pushed further against her, crowding into her space, mouths exploring each other with a renewed passion, his hands roaming over her body, like he was committing this moment to memory. She was driving him crazy, revelling in the teasing way her hand moved down his back, down to the bottom of his top. He wanted to explore all of her, discover the ways she liked to be touched, kissed… He wanted all of her, if she would allow.

His fingers slipped just underneath Danielle’s top, slowly stroking at the little expanse of skin there when she pulled back. Logan retreated, wondering if he’d been pushing his luck, a step too far. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to overstep-” he said, panting. His chest heaved as he tried to regain composure, still half leaning against her as she spoke. We shouldn’t. She was right. He knew she was right. They shouldn’t… not like this. But it was so difficult to keep his wandering hands in check when they were just… Maybe he really was pushing his luck. He pressed his face against the crook of her neck, inhaling her scent as his uneven breath brushed her skin, trying to regain composure. He could imagine her face when she spoke. How he would never have imagined her trying to contain herself around him. “You don’t ever have to contain yourself around me, y’know,” he murmured shamelessly, pressing a deliberate kiss against her neck. He knew of the consequences, understood full well what was probably running through her head at the time… But now, this moment – Logan couldn’t bring himself to care. However, he didn’t want her to think he was putting any pressure on her at all. “But it’s okay,” he assured her then, “We don’t have to do this now… not if you don’t want to.”

A lot was said, it was probably the most honest Danielle had been with anyone in a long while. With her feelings exposed now, she saw everything in a different light. Some things made more sense. Like how one of her exes said they'd never work because she didn't love him the way she did Logan. That went over her head, and she thought her ex used that as an excuse to break things off. Perhaps, that should've been a clue for her. It made sense how her relationships just never quite fit, but funny enough, Danielle thought it was on her. Who she was, believing that kind of love was just for her to admire from afar.

"No need, but don't tell me that hurt?" She joked, an eyebrow raising. Her expression quickly fading when she realized. She had just given him more power, admitting that she couldn't get enough of him. Logan would definitely use that, his grin confirmed it. Though, part of her almost wanted him to. God, he was making her lose her mind. No doubt about it. It had been a few minutes now, and the more time that passed with them standing here, the more she realized. Danielle realized that she wanted to risk it all for him. Maybe, she didn't have as much to risk, but if Logan wanted her, she'd do anything for him. Hell, she would be willing to talk to Natalie herself at this point.

Logan's velvety words were intoxicating her, each word drawing her closer to him. Amidst their chaos, he was having fun with this. "The suspense is not always bearable," she murmured, fingertips trailing near the nape of his neck. His hum drawing a smile from her lips. Danielle could think this now, right? It wasn't weird anymore. But god, he was hot. She truly had been living under a rock to not notice him that way earlier. "You make it quite difficult.." And if they were both single people, she would've caved in already. She'd have thrown all caution to the wind, wrapped her legs around his waist, and let their desire take the lead. The way he stood before her, it was perfection. Not a single thing she would change. Danielle never wanted to leave where she stood, it was impossible to get enough of his electrifying touch. The way he brought her to life with so little. But ifs were not their reality. He was off-limits to her, though she'd wait. Danielle owed him that much.

He was silent as she spoke, and Danielle didn't know if that was better or worse. Maybe his reactions would help her know if she was saying the right things or completely dooming them. She wasn't sure if she was making sense, still battling against doing the right thing rather than following her heart and desire. But she understood, that as long as he was this close to her, she'd remain honest. She wouldn't let her self righteousness get in the way. Danielle barely missed his frown, mind currently flooded with shame. But, she hoped that she made sense to him. The lingering silence made her nervous, and she was ready to continue talking to fill some of that silence. She still had to look up at him, to try deciphering what was going through his mind. And, she was quick to note his widened eyes, oh? Did she fuck up already? She couldn't hide the way her heart was jumping, ready to leap out of her chest. He would handle it...did that mean what she was thinking? "But Logan, I...yes I know." Now, she was silently thanking her lucky stars that she didn't start a relationship too. Imagine that mess. Handling could only mean one thing, was he going to break up with Natalie? Well, it was the one logical solution if they had any future together. This was what they wanted, right? It wasn't just the heat of the moment speaking? "It's not just your mess though, it's mine too..I did this to us."

"Logan..." her voice barely above a whisper, afraid her nerves would betray her tone. There was no doubt left, she needed him. Her lips parted at the mention of her name, anticipation bubbling. This was torture. Her gaze was solely focused on him, or at least she tried. For a moment, she'd break eye contact to glance down at his lips. Could she steal a kiss? She let herself melt in his arms, letting him take full control. As far as anyone was concerned, she was his. However that worked, who knew? And who cared? Danielle could figure all of that out later. Finally! Danielle eagerly deepened their kiss, a shiver running down her spine. She felt starved of his touch, his lips - even if they'd been in close proximity this whole time. It was new though, the way they were learning about each other. One hand was buried in his hair, the other slowly trailing down his back, almost playing with the hem of his shirt.

It was pure bliss, and she knew she could stay here for a long while. A dangerous while, but she couldn't. Danielle couldn't go further. Whatever this was between them already had a rocky start, she didn't want their...history to get messier. She was already condemned to the cheating title, fuck. The severity varied, and kissing was not the same as...well everything else. Still, it made her skin crawl. The idea that, in a matter of seconds, she had really become the other woman. God, she hoped they wouldn't regret this ever. It would be unbearable. Reluctantly, she pulled away - just for a moment, before going back and placing a soft kiss near his earlobe. "We...we shouldn't. We have a lot to figure out first," her current thoughts quickly bringing a crimson flush to her cheeks. Admitting this was going to be beyond embarrassing. "And, I'm afraid I won't be able to contain myself if we...keep this up."

[jezabelofthenorth]

Is Anne Boleyn portrayed better than Catherine of Aragon in Tudor dramas or does she just take her clothes off?

Or I've watched almost every Anne Boleyn thing over the past six months and I'm certain at this point you guys are watching different movies than I am

edit: i;m sorry meant to include there is rape mention cw in this

Okay I might get a little mean here, but at this point I'm convinced no one thinks critically about this, like the constant amount of whinging I see about how Catherine is treated just soooo badly in Tudor dramas and always neglected is wild because it is just not true. I would say the only piece of media that treats Anne like a full person is Anne of The Thousand Days, and that's a 50 year old movie. I started thinking about this when I rewatched season 1 of The Tudors back in August because like, it's really abundantly clear who Michael Hirst likes better and it is not Anne. Anne barely feels like a full character in season 1, Henry is madly in love with her,. Her father is scheming to make that worth their while along with George, but where exactly is Anne in all that?

She gets a considerable amount of screentime but very little insight into what she actually feels about all this, is she in love with Henry too? Does she just want to be queen and is manipulating him? We never get an actual moment where it's made clear so you can pretty much apply whatever interpretation you want there, which is bad! Is Anne actually the female lead here, because she doesn't feel like it at all,  I feel like this gets forgotten because Natalie adds so much depth to Anne you feel like there's more going on, but there really isn't,  Hirst neglects Anne's own feelings about her situation considerably, to a point Natalie has stated she had to push him to give Anne more of a character in season 2. I would say Hirst is just bad at writing women, which like.....he is, but he doesn't have this issue with Catherine, Catherine is a very clear character from the start, which she should be! It's clear what her motives are and what she feels, if I'm honest Catherine in season 1 is probably a little too perfect, like she truly does not have a single negative quality, the worst part is when she calls Anne a whore but I don't think we as the audience is meant to take that as bad on her part which......eh?

The real significance difference is here is how they're portrayed sexually, I do think Catherine and Henry should have had more intimate scenes and Hirst clearly shied away from that because Maria is older, which makes him a coward, but Anne getting treated as a sex object doesn't mean she has better character development,  I mean think about that one!  I mainly got inspired to write this as I just rewatched The Other Boleyn Girl which I hadn't seen in years and in my memory  I thought Catherine hadn't had a good portrayal but like it's fine? She's in most of the movie, she's portrayed as a resilient woman, she gets her Blackfriars speech, is there really a problem here or are you guys actually mad that Natalie Portman is young and beautiful in this and Ana Torrent was in her forties? Because I'll have to draw attention that in this film Catherine again doesn't have a single bad quality while Anne gets raped by Henry before they're even married, so if I was going to get angry about something, I know what it is. It seems to me for years it is been standard to suggest because Anne is portrayed as a young, beautiful women and the utmost sexual desire of Henry's eye that it means she is treated well, but extreme sexulization is actually not interchangeable with respect for Anne as a woman and it is more than obvious than many film makers have absolutely none for her.It is not disrespectful to Catherine to portray her as an older woman, she was 42 when The Great Matter began, there is nothing wrong with being an older woman, the most dramatic parts of Catherine's life took place when she was in her forties, the most dramatic parts of Anne's life took place in her twenties and thirties, that is a simple fact of history.

To open a can of worms that seemed to set a certain part of the internet on fire, let's tackle The Spanish Princess now. Emma Frost and Matthew Graham were quite clear in their veneration for Catherine and their certainty that she has been a maligned figure in history. This seems at odds when you would cross reference most historiography on Catherine, as she seems to be one of the few figures of the Tudor period that has a universally positive reputation .

Through out the two season run both showrunners made their disdain for Anne quite obvious, which was rather odd given they had created a show about Catherine and there wasn't really any need to mention Anne at all. Which makes the choice to include from the start of season 2 particularly bizarre, given historically Anne was in France for the 1510's and would not have been present in the English Court and did not become a Lady in Waiting until in the 1520's. The show does not make it clear who she is and it is only known if you search the role Alice Nokes is playing, which makes her role to be one of heavy handed foreshadowing which simply takes up space to present friendships Catherine had with her actual Ladies of the time. It is not made fully clear who Anne is until the final episode, an episode where Anne is not permitted to speak even though she is in most of the episode and her biggest moment is where she meets Henry late at night in a garden, and removes her clothes to reveal her breasts to him.

Through out the season Anne's male relatives, her father Thomas Boleyn, and her grandfather Thomas Howard are featured prominently. While Anne and her sister Mary are pushed to the side lines and barely given a voice, for a show that claims to present history from the view of women of the era, that seems a choice in poor sport. It could be quite easy to remove Anne entirely from the show, or only make passing mentions of her, instead the choice was to have her exist on the sidelines, mostly voiceless and then to have her be on the forefront as a sexual object to Henry.

In a show that claimed to want to want to give us Catherine's full story, from the time as a 15 year old bride, to a matured, tested Queen, it instead seemed to take a route of focusing on Catherine's less appealing qualities and even gave her faults she never had (as in rejecting her daughter Mary for her gender when it is well known Catherine was an adoring mother). The show seems to think presenting Catherine as a truly unappealing heroine is canceled out by portraying her as a young, beautiful woman, and sexually desired by Henry, that feels extremely insulting to Catherine, who was a tough woman and her best quality certainly wasn't the fact that Henry and Catherine had an active sex life during the first decade of their marriage. You have to see where the decades of presenting Anne as sexually desired by Henry has infected Tudor media in how another Catherine is portrayed here as if a woman should be portrayed positively only through how much their husband desires them.   It simply doesn't matter who you prefer over Catherine and Anne, the misogyny of that choice seems quite clear. I simply can't think of a single piece of Tudor media that gives Catherine of Aragon such an offensive role to play.        

[bex-la-get]

Hi! I'm new to tumblr and... can I request a fic where Ethan is the one who ask questions to Nat to test the new fMRI scan, but it is set on book 2 instead. Thank you and I admire your writings!

NONNY!!! I absolutely love this!!! I'm gonna say this takes place in mid-Book 2-ish.

K, before we start, I just wanna throw a disclaimer out there: my memory of Book 2 is fuzzy which means mistakes are likely. Sorry in advance if I get something wrong. Also, I'm not a medical professional, so any mistakes made are my own. Thank you.

Okay, let's go!!

Nat sat on the couch of the Diagnostics Office, absent-mindedly staring out the window and chewing on her lower lip. The last few weeks had been exhausting. Between the news that Edenbrook had lost its funding, Kyra's diagnosis, and the stress of being a Junior Fellow on the DT, it was all beginning to feel like it was too much. She wasn't sure how much more she could take at this point.

"Hey, you okay?" a voice asked.

She turned to the source and found Ethan looking at her, eyebrows furrowed in concern. She hadn't even heard him come in. She sat up straight. "Yeah, sorry; just needed to take a break."

"Nat," he said, coming to sit next to her. "It's okay if you're not. You don't have to be 'okay' all the time."

She sighed. "I know."

"What's going on?"

Nat shook her head. "Just... feeling a little overwhelmed is all. With everything going on as it is, it just kind of feels like a little too much."

Ethan nodded sympathetically. "I understand. The last few weeks have been... challenging, to say the least." Nat nodded in agreement and he gently ran his fingers along the back of her hand. "I wish I could offer you words of wisdom or at least better advice." He said, smiling sheepishly.

She gave him a small smile. "Just being here for me is enough. Thank you."

He returned her smile and linked his pinky with hers, giving it a tight squeeze. "I don't know if it will provide the distraction you need, but I could use your help with something if you have a few minutes?" Nat nodded. "The fMRI machine went on the fritz about a week ago and I was just told that it's back in working order. I'd like to test it out and make sure that it really is working normally. Care to help me out?"

"Sure," Nat said, "but only if you ask the questions this time. It's only fair since I did it last time."

Ethan chuckled and nodded. "Deal."

The two of them made their way to the imaging lab, set Nat up within the machine, then Ethan made his way into the control room. "Can you hear me?" he asked.

"Loud and clear, boss," Nat replied.

"Good. I presume you remember the drill from last year. I'll ask you some questions and see how your brain responds as you answer."

"Sounds good."

"All right. First question: What is your middle name?"

Nat scoffed over the speakers. "That's your first question?"

"What's wrong with the question?"

"It's boring. I distinctly remember asking you some scandalous questions."

Ethan rolled his eyes. "Just answer the question, Rookie."

"Fine. Paige."

Ethan pursed his lips. Natalie Paige Cusack. Very pretty. Very her. Tucking this new knowledge into the back of his head he nodded as the scanner showing her brain lit up.

"All right. Next question: do you have any siblings?"

"Ethan, these are questions you can ask me in casual conversation," Nat protested. "Ask me something fun! I thought the point of this was to provide me a distraction, after all."

Ethan chuckled and shook his head. "Fine, answer this question while I think of something fun to ask you."

"Deal! In answer to your question, yes. I have an older brother named Victor but everyone calls him Vic. The only time I call him Victor is when he's in trouble."

"And just how often is he in trouble?" Ethan asked, amused. Nat's hippocampus lit up as she thought of her answer and he raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

"When we were kids? All the time," she answered, giggling. "As an adult, less often. Though it still happens."

Ethan chuckled and nodded. "All right. Per your request, here's a fun question. What's an embarrassing story from your childhood?"

"Oooh, you went right for the jugular. Respect. I like it. Okay, um... have I ever told you the goblin story?"

"The goblin story?"

She laughed. "Oh, man! You're gonna love this. Okay, so when I was little, I had a pretty big nose. I grew into it as I got older, but when I was little, it wasn't proportional to my face at all." Ethan listened to the story with an amused smile on his face as the scan showed her pregenual anterior cingulate cortex light up during her story.

"One night," she continued, "I stupidly fell asleep with gum in my mouth and woke up with it all in my hair. It was a nightmare."

"Oh no," Ethan said.

"Yep," Nat confirmed. "It was so bad that the only thing we could do was cut as much out of it as possible, which left me with this terrible haircut that, low-key, had me looking like I had been electrified.

"Anyway, Vic's knee-jerk response at seeing me with my short hair and big nose was to promptly call me goblin. And the stupid nickname stuck! He still calls me it even though it was over twenty years ago!" She paused in her storytelling, expecting to hear a response but heard nothing instead. "Ethan? Are you there? You better not have left!"

The speakers turned on and all she heard was his laughter. "Are you laughing?! Ethan!"

Ethan tried to speak through his laughter. "I'm sorry, I sympathize, really." He laughed again and Nat rolled her eyes.

"You are the worst, you know that?" she told him.

"Sorry Nat," he said, finally getting his laughter under control. "I'm sure you made a very cute goblin."

Nat rolled her eyes. "Ugh, just ask your next question, Ramsey."

He chuckled again and thought for a moment when a question appeared in the back of his mind. Rationally, he knew he shouldn't ask it. It wasn't exactly professional and went against the reset rule he initiated.

But he had enjoyed getting to know more about Nat and he was curious. “Tell me about your first kiss.”

“Trying to figure out how I got such high standards?” she joked.

He rolled his eyes. “I’m trying to trigger an emotional response in your brain. Go.”

She giggled. “Hmm.. first kiss. Um, it was my first boyfriend, Matt. I was a Freshman in high school and he kissed me during the slow dance at our Homecoming dance.”

Her limbic system lit up on the scanner. “Sounds romantic,” he mused, pushing down the surge of jealousy he felt at the thought Nat kissing another man, even if it had been when she was significantly younger.

“Mm, not really. He wasn’t really good at it. He was kind of slobbery, if I’m being honest.”

Ethan scrunched up his face. “Gross.”

“Very,” she confirmed.

“Last question,” he said. He knew this was approaching risky territory but damn it, if Nat didn’t make him want to throw every one of his morals and rules right out the window. And, if he were honest... he really wanted to hear the answer to this question. “What was the best kiss you’ve ever had?”

“Hmm...” she hummed in thought for a long moment, Ethan’s heart pounding as he waited for her reply. Finally, she spoke. “New Year’s Eve, 2017.”

Ethan’s heart sunk. “Oh? Why then?”

“My ex-boyfriend was moving. He had accepted a position at one of the National Labs in New Mexico and I knew I was staying on the East Coast so we split. When the Ball dropped at midnight, he gave me a goodbye kiss. Then he got in a moving van the next day and moved across the country.”

Her amygdala lit up like a Christmas Tree and Ethan frowned. Clearly that memory was still fresh for her. “That’s enough questions, Nat. I think we’ve done our job here.” 

Ethan stopped the machine and met Nat back in the lab as she stood up. Ethan had been prepared for Nat to be sad after that last story but instead, he found her smiling up at him. “That was fun. I needed that.”

“You needed to be put into a giant metal machine and have your brain looked at?” Ethan asked.

She lightly hit his shoulder. “You know that’s not what I mean.” Her smile grew, making Ethan’s heart skip a beat. “Thank you, Ethan. I appreciate the distraction.”

“I’m glad it helped,” he said, returning her smile.

“Well, I better go make my rounds,” she said as she began to make her way out of the lab. 

“Hey, Nat,” Ethan called. In a flash, he grabbed her hand, pulled her back to him, and cupped her face with his hands, giving her a searing kiss. Nat made a quiet noise of surprise at Ethan’s gesture but quickly melted into the kiss, her lips matching his fervor. His hands moved from her face to her waist as he pulled her impossibly closer, her arms circling around his neck as if to hold him in place. 

Neither knew how long they stood there. It could have been hours, days, even years. It didn’t matter; they didn’t care. In that moment, all they cared about was each other and they both hoped that the moment, however long it may have been, never ended.

But alas, eventually they broke apart at the sound of Nat’s pager beeping. Their lips separated, but neither moved very far apart, as they both fought to catch their breath. Ethan’s eyes were still closed, his forehead resting against hers as Nat opened her eyes. She nuzzled her nose against his and sucked in a breath when his blue eyes opened, locking with hers.

“What was all that for?” she asked in a whisper. 

He smiled sheepishly. “I may have taken slight offence as not being your best kiss ever.”

She pulled away slightly to look at him better, a giggle on her lips. “Did you get jealous after hearing about my ex?”

“No,” he retorted, defensively.

This time, she laughed. “You did! I can’t believe it, Ethan Ramsey got jealous. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re never going to let this go, are you?”

“Nope,” she confirmed. She leaned in close again and placed another chaste kiss on his lips. “But don’t worry, Ethan. You have nothing to worry about.” She pulled out of their embrace as her pager beeped again (thankfully it was just a notification that her latest lab test results were in and not an emergency). “I’ve had some much better kisses since then. One of them, in this very room.”

Ethan smirked. “Glad to hear I made the running.”

She returned his smirk. “You also might be interested to know, I was lying. That New Year’s kiss was best kiss I’ve ever had. But it was beat by a mysterious tall doctor on a balcony in Miami last year. You might remember him; he was a bit of a risk taker, that one.”

He chuckled. “He sounds familiar, I admit.”

“I hope he comes back,” she said as she made her way out of the room. “His kisses are mind-blowing.” She winked at him as she finished her statement then sauntered out of the room, leaving a smirking Ethan, shaking his head, behind.

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[awanderingdeal]

Hello there, Lucy! I really enjoyed the injury aspect of the O'darwin fic, I thought it felt very maturely handled to me. I was wondering if you'd perhaps write a continuation based on the last sentence where he stays busy healing in Gryffindor by spending time with Finn? I respect that you don't take hurt/comfort prompts so I'm very sorry if this is too much angst for you but I was hoping we could see Finn helping his brother through his recovery, please. Thank you!

Hi! Sorry this took so long to do 🙈 This isn't 100% what you asked for, but I hope it is satisfying!

You can read the prequel to this fic here which will provide context.

CW: healing from an injury

Rating: T

Let me know if you think I missed any content warnings or need to change the rating.

All characters and the sweater weather universe belong to @lumosinlove

Alex watched mournfully as the bright yellow ball soared past him again, the muscles in his thighs twitching with desire to chase it. Not even a year ago, he'd have met Natalie's serve easily. “Alright, that’s me out," he sighed, pride swelling in his chest. It was still difficult to temper his competitiveness like, but he’d learned his lesson the last time he’d over - done it. Besides, the berating he’d received off his physio hadn’t been worth the slight smoothing of the dent of his ego. 

"You good?" Finn spun the racket in his hands, hair plastered with sweat against his forehead. By this point Alex had gotten used to his brother's boring stare searching for any hidden ribbons of pain in his face. 

"You know the doc said I’m good to play again as long as I listen to my body. I’m listening. Do you want me to bring you a signed permission slip?” Alex bit back a comment about how Finn was only so concerned, because overstepping his limits was well within his own remit of personality flaws too. 

“Sorry for caring, dickface.” Finn stuck his tongue out and picked up a slow jog across the court to grab the ball. He tapped the edge of his racket appeasingly against Alex’s shoulder as he passed. “Blizz, Nat. You two play. Winner stays on?”

“Sir,” Kasey drawled, knocking the tips of his fingers on his temple in a lazy salute. 

Alex met Natalie's eyes across the net just briefly before their mouths split with a loud laughter. Next to her, Kasey blinked slowly at the two of them, his expression clearly indicating he thought they’d lost their minds. It only served to make them laugh harder until air forced itself out of Alex’s nose in a snort. He clutched his side, the muscles there beginning to complain about the lack of oxygen they were receiving. “Did Finn just possess you?” Alex finally managed to gasp out. 

“You become more of an amalgamation of your team each day, Sugar,” Natalie said, a smile still settled on her lips as she pressed them to Kasey’s cheek. “Now go -" she pushed him away playfully, "- onto the other side. I have a game to win.” 

“I’m influential," Finn grinned.

“You’re something, but influential isn’t the word I would choose." Kasey raised an eyebrow. The ball was thrown in his direction at speed, but he plucked it from the air with ease, Kasey's expression smug as he curled long fingers around it. "Do you want another attempt at that, Harzy."

"Just watch your back, Winter," Finn laughed lightly, showing Kasey his middle finger. 

Kasey snorted. "Well, alright. While Finn perfects his supervillain act, Nat, are you good to play first to ten points?" 

"Sure thing," Natalie nodded, her ponytail bobbing. She snaked her tongue over her lips to wet them and smirked. "Don't worry, I'll go easy on you, babe."

"No you won't," Kasey deadpanned. 

"You're right, I won't, Natalie laughed. Alex loved that laugh; it was almost childlike, loud and unapologetic but warm and inviting, just like the rest of her personality. It made Alex want to laugh when he heard it.

"I get ripped into when I look at my boys like that," Finn said, nudging Alex’s shoulder as they sat on the bench, metal warm against the back of their legs under the unseasonably warm early afternoon sun. 

“Like what?” 

“Like you’re falling in love all over again.” Finn had flung his towel over his shoulder, head tipped back slightly, gulping water from the bottle pressed to his lips. He looked far too nonchalant for the sentence that had just left them. 

“You really should have been a brooding artist," Alex teased. Brooklyn would welcome you with open arms." Finn wasn’t wrong though. Alex seemed to find a new way to fall for Natalie and Kasey every day. 

“And deny the world the joy that is Finn O’Hara on the ice? I think not.” 

“So modest.” Alex nudged Finn this time, taking the opportunity to swipe Finn’s water bottle from his hands. He had his own, but he’d dumped his backpack on the other side of the court. Finn made a weak protest, huffing as he hauled his bag onto his lap, grumbling something unintelligible whilst he dug through it. After a lifetime of living with Finn, Alex had learned not to try to decipher the conversations his brother had with himself, instead drumming a beat against the bench until eventually Finn pulled out a silver pouch, grinning triumphantly.  It looked like the sort of thing you would take on a long hike. Alex peered closer at it. “Is that tuna? Just plain tuna.”

“I’m gonna put hot sauce in it,” Finn said, setting the pouch carefully to the side. He shoved his hand into the front pocket of his bag, seeking out a fork and the aforementioned hot sauce. Alex watched in horrified silence as Finn tore the top of the pouch open to release a waft of fish and dumped an obscene amount of the sauce in there. 

“I -” Alex had so many questions he wanted to ask, except he knew asking them would probably only result in having more questions. “That is so gross.”

“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.” 

“I’ll pass, thanks.”

Finn shovelled a forkful into his mouth, smacking his lips together noisy. “More for me.”

Alex was too distracted to respond. Kasey had just won his first point; Natalie having taken the first, and he took the lull in play as an opportunity to remove the thin headband keeping his hair out of his face. He shook out the brunette strands, neck exposed as he stretched to comb his fingers through it. 

"Didn't he do a shampoo commercial like this once?" 

Alex hummed, glancing briefly at Finn before setting his eyes firmly back on the view in front of him. "A while back...think I'd just left for Florida. I watched that thing more times than I care to admit."

He didn't have to look to feel the eyeball directed at him. Alex expected some teasing quip, but Finn's voice came at him concerned. "How are you-”

“My knee is fine, Finn," Alex sighed, a little irritated. He just wanted to enjoy watching Natalie and Kasey play. "Stop fussing, will you? I'm still the big brother here.”

“You know you can be a real bitch sometimes. I was going to ask how you were feeling about everything." Finn leaned forward, hand outstretched and precariously close to Alex's eye. He laughed as Alex leaned back to avoid the digits. 

"Do not put your tuna fingers near my face.” 

"Stop changing the subject," Finn admonished. "Where's your head at? You said last week you were struggling to find stuff to fill your time?"

Alex scratched at the stubble sprouting along his jawline. "God, when did you get so mature? You were knee high last time I checked."

"Alright, old man. 30's really hitting you hard, huh?" Finn dug his fork back into the foil pouch, pouting when it came out empty. "I've got water balloons in my backpack if that makes you feel better. Not full of water, of course."

"Of course," Alex laughed. "Why do you have water balloons in your bag?"

"Harry is coming over tomorrow afternoon and since the weather is a little nicer now -" Finn paused, halfway through crumpling the pouch into a tight ball. "-Hey, I see what you did there. Stop trying to distract me." He finished compressing the ball, cocking his head slightly to look at Alex properly. "You really don't want to talk about it?"

Alex breathed out heavily, slouching back against the bench. "Not today, Finn. Today I just want to enjoy," he gestured vaguely at the court. "But, I promise we'll go for breakfast sometime next week and we can talk."

"I just don't want," Finn started, the opening and closing of his mouth resembling his nickname. "No, you're right. You're a big boy. If you say you're okay then I'm going to believe you. Just...I'm here if you need me, alright?"

Alex sat up pulling Finn into a hug, his brother's arms wrapping tight around him. "I know. I know. I really am doing better, sometimes I just don't want to have the conversation, y'know? Love you, kiddo."

"Don't call me that," Finn grumbled, squeezing Alex tighter one last time before he pulled away. "Love you too."

[justinsentertainmentcorner]

Sam Lansky at Time Magazine: 

People keep asking T.J. Osborne how he’s feeling, which makes sense, given the thing he’s about to do, but it’s making him uneasy, hearing that well-intentioned question over and over again from so many people—his friends, his family, his team, and even me, over the course of the days that have led up to this one. Now, at a masked-up photo shoot in east Nashville, he insists that he’s feeling good as he slips on a jacket. “I’m ready to put this behind me,” he says.

T.J. is tall and friendly, with a twangy, sonorous voice that often crests into deep, warm laughter. He’s the lead vocalist of Brothers Osborne, the duo he formed with his brother John, a guitarist, in 2012; together they make roots-inflected, soulful country-rock that sounds just as good on the radio as it would filling an arena. Since signing to EMI Records Nashville, they’ve released seven country Top 40 singles and three studio albums, including their swoony, rollicking platinum hit “Stay a Little Longer,” which crossed over to mainstream radio. (Have you ever fallen in love in late summer, gazing out at an orange-and-purple sunset from the bed of a pickup truck? Well, me neither, but this song will make you feel like you have!) The duo has won four CMA Awards, been nominated for seven Grammys, and collaborated with heavy-hitting country contemporaries such as Dierks Bentley and Maren Morris. There’s nothing surprising about the duo’s popularity: Both T.J. and John are engaging performers with a knack for anthemic hooks.

What may come as a surprise to the band’s fans is the news that T.J., 36, is gay. This isn’t a recent revelation for him; he’s known since he was young, and he’s been out to family and friends in his tight-knit Nashville community for years. In some respects, he says, coming out publicly is no big deal. “I’m very comfortable being gay,” he says later, in a quiet room at the office of his management company. “I find myself being guarded for not wanting to talk about something that I personally don’t have a problem with. That feels so strange.”

But his reservations are understandable, given that country music remains a bastion of mainstream conservatism in American arts and culture. If liberal Hollywood is notorious for pushing a progressive agenda, country has historically been its counterpoint—a safe haven for traditional “family values.” Never mind that many country artists, like Nashville as a city, lean blue: They know that their primary market, like the state of Tennessee itself, skews red. The country music business is lucrative, generating $5.5 billion to Nashville’s economy alone, according to RIAA; if artists speak out, they run the risk of alienating listeners, particularly in an era when even anodyne statements of support for a cause can be misconstrued. The tale of the Chicks, formerly the Dixie Chicks, who were exiled after criticizing the Iraq War, looms large over country music. Taylor Swift even cited the band’s ouster as a reason she remained publicly apolitical for so long: “You’re always one comment away from being done,” she told Variety in a 2020 interview.

With this news, T.J. becomes the only openly gay artist signed to a major country label��a historic moment for the genre. He’s had predecessors, of course: Other openly queer artists, from Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile to masked cowboy Orville Peck to viral hitmaker Lil Nas X, have found success by integrating country influences into their genre-defying music, and country artists including Chely Wright and Billy Gilman have passionate fanbases. But T.J. may be the first to come out with his feet so firmly planted in both the sound and machinery of mainstream country, in the full bloom of his career.

He is worried that coming out will look opportunistic, or attention-seeking. “People will ask, ‘Why does this even need to be talked about?’ and personally, I agree with that,” he says. “But for me to show up at an awards show with a man would be jaw-dropping to people. It wouldn’t be like, ‘Oh, cool!”

What happens next remains to be seen. “I don’t think I’m going to get run off the stage in Chicago,” he says. “But in a rural town playing a county fair? I’m curious how this will go.” The professional risks he’s taking in coming out feel worth it, both for his own happiness and because, well, it’s time. Country music is about storytelling, and that means T.J.’s identity is inextricable from his music. Maybe, T.J. says, country isn’t the most popular genre among gay people. “But is that just because they’ve never had the opportunity to relate to it?”

***

T.J. is short for Thomas John, the inverse of his older brother and bandmate, whose name is John Thomas, named after their father, whose name is also John Thomas, though people call him “Big John.” Growing up in Deale, Md., a blue-collar town on the Chesapeake Bay, T.J. and his siblings—including sister Natalie, who now works for a publisher in Nashville—were always musical, performing alongside Big John’s blues band in local shows. But being closeted was painful. “It was so lonely and isolating,” T.J. says. “It made me resent people.” A first heartbreak in his early twenties crushed him all the more because he felt like he couldn’t tell anyone. “I was mad that no one knew why I was hurting,” he says. He channeled that anguish into his music. One song he wrote about that relationship, called “21 Summer,” has become a fan favorite, and you can see why: It’s a big, nostalgic singalong with lyrics about cutoff jeans and hair blowing in the breeze. It’s still tender for him—not just heartbreak, but how alone he was going through it. “There are so many times I’ve sung that song and wanted to cry,” he says. “People love that song, but the emotion of it is deeper than they even realize.”

[...]

Will conservative radio programmers or rural concertgoers be as eager to play and tailgate a gay artist, even one they already know and love? Both brothers want to believe the answer is yes. “Maybe I’m not giving my fans enough credit,” T.J. says. “Maybe I’m not giving the genre enough credit.” His reasons for doing this now, he says, have nothing to do with wanting to be loved or hated. “I just want to move on,” he says again, and it’s here that I break.

So I ask T.J. a question, which is: What if there is nothing to move on from? What if being gay is a gift, and your gayness is not something to be tolerated but something to be celebrated, and even if untangling the shame and confusion of growing up gay in a straight world takes a long time, it’s worth doing so you can use your voice, not only to sing songs about cutoff jeans and hair blowing in the breeze but to say, clearly and unapologetically, that this is who you are? What if there are a lot of gay boys in small towns who haven’t figured it out yet and feel overwhelmed by snarky TV sidekicks and glittery pop stars bellowing self-empowerment anthems, and what if those gay boys in small towns got to have an avatar of their own—if they knew that someone like them was singing that song about cutoff jeans and hair blowing in the breeze on the radio? Isn’t that why we spend so much time talking about representation, because as much as it’s a burden, it’s also the only antidote to the loneliness of being different? And—not to tell him how to feel, which is, of course, exactly what I’m doing—but isn’t this occasion, of owning who he is in a place where some people might prefer he didn’t exist, something to embrace instead of something to endure?

“Don’t get me wrong,” T.J. says. “When I say I want to put it behind me, I want to put the coming out behind me. Because ultimately it’s a very small detail about me.”

But what if being gay is not a small detail? I ask. What if it’s the most important thing about you? Which is not to say that it should be, or that it is, but just that—what if?

T.J. Osborne of country group Brothers Osborne came out as gay. 

[brianprobablywill]

This Quiet Night (Gwilym Lee x Reader)

summary: you and gwilym both have dates for the night. so why are you both at your place on valentine’s day?

word count: 2.6K

warnings: swearing, implied smut (blink and you miss it)

this was written for @bluesfortheredj​, my somebody to love event valentine!! i’m so sorry this is late, lovey, but i hope the fic makes up for my lack of punctuality!!! thank you, @dtfrogertaylor​ for hosting these events, they’re really wonderful!! enjoy! :)

You aren’t expecting a mug of coffee on your desk when you arrive at work, but it is what you find. But what’s odd is the post-it note stuck on it. As you sit down, shrugging off your coat and dropping your bag under your desk, you peel it off carefully.

��happy valentine’s day, officemate :)’

You can’t help the smile that blossoms on your face as you spin in your chair, looking for your cubemate. “Office room mate.” You call out, rolling over to his table.

“What is it, officemate?” Gwilym’s face holds a wide grin. He clicks his pen over and over again in his left hand, looking at the post-it held in your hand in utter confusion. “Why, what is this? Who could have put it there?”

“Cut the theatrics,” you say. You want to lean forward and give him a kiss, but you settle for a pat on his back, smiling at him. “Thanks. But, um, I didn’t get you anything.” Your hand retracts quickly, wrapped up in your other. 

“Oh, don’t worry about that at all!” Gwil rotates your chair till it faces your desk and gives it a push. “Just get to work. Harry asked for your expense report for January. Why haven’t you turned it in yet?”

You huff, tucking your hair behind your ear, “Just behind on stuff. Oh, Natalie wants to meet you in the evening.”

“It’s fourteen days into the month. Another fourteen and you’ll have to turn in another.”

It’s hard for you to admit to yourself that you feel shame at what Gwilym was saying. It was true, you were falling behind on stuff. You’d only recently taken on a new, more important role, and with that had come a lot more work than you’d anticipated. You mutter, “Just meet Natalie, okay?”

You and Gwilym get to your respective work, sending out emails and answering phone calls. Gwilym makes a trip down to the reception and brings back a bouquet of roses for you, sent by an anonymous person. 

“I think it’s Harry.” Gwilym coughs, keeping his vision to the floor as he slides back to his desk. 

You smile, setting the bouquet down, remembering to ask Harry about it. 

Gwilym coughs again, and then once more. Loudly. 

“Hey, you okay?” You ask, spinning around to face Gwilym in time with him.

“Yeah, of course.” He’s almost turning around again before he stops himself, pointing a finger towards you. “Have you got plans today?”

No. You’re going to stay late and catch up on all the work you’ve been putting off. But Gwilym doesn’t need to know that. “Oh, yeah. A date.”

Gwilym’s eyes widen, “Oh. Okay. Great. Me too.” 

“Sweet,” you utter softly. You don’t want to keep this conversation going, so you turn around quickly, muttering, “Email, Natalie, expense reports, scrum call.”

The rest of the day passes by uneventfully. Harry gets your expense report, you and Gwilym catch coffee in the afternoon together, but stay silent for most of the time. As Gwilym’s packing up for the day, you stand up, too. 

“Leaving? Don’t keep your date waiting.” Gwilym sings. 

You smile softly, shaking your head. “Just getting myself some coffee from the rec room. Oh, Nata-”

“Meet Natalie. I’m going, I’m going, I’m going,” he groans exaggeratedly, throwing his head back before heading out of your shared cubicle.

Gwilym is not back by the time you’ve grabbed your coffee. Assuming he’s left for the day after meeting your boss, you decide you can sit in the rec room to finish up the rest of your work, since it is the end of the day and most people must have left by now.

It’s the buzzing of your phone - a call from Gwilym - that distracts you before you’ve even started working, and you can’t resist pushing your laptop aside and answering at once. 

“Hey, what’s up?” you ask, trying to make it sound as nonchalant as possible. 

“I’m staying late.” 

“What?” you hope your voice doesn’t deceive you, because you have to admit, it did spark excitement in you, getting to spend time with Gwilym. 

Gwilym huffs on his side of the line, “Natalie wants me to work with some of the QA folks in New York,” he groans, and you can hear a soft thud.

“But you’re not even part of the QA t--”

“The new project with Ridgemond?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Your new hot-shot role?”

“What about it, Gwil?”

“She’s assigned me on that project. I can’t believe I have to work with fuckin-- I’m a software developer! How can I-- oh my goodness.” 

You can’t help but smile at Gwilym’s frustration, finding it absolutely adorable. You rest your chin on your hand. “Have to cancel your date?”

Gwil lets out a moan of sorts, filled with indecisiveness. 

“Me too.”

“What?”

Yeah, I didn’t have a date at all, but this is a convenient excuse, seeing as I’m going to get to spend time with my crush of-- No, Y/N. “Yeah. Catching up on work. You know how behind I am.”

That’s how the both of you end up on the dirty couch of the rec room, almost entirely pressed up against each other so you can put your papers on either side of your body. Gwilym mumbles from time to time, counting on his fingers and biting his lip, while you stay considerably silent for the most part.

Around 8.00 p.m., Gwilym gets a phone call, which he answers immediately. “Yeah? Christ, is that the time already?” He runs a hand over his chin, the friction of his palm against his stubble making a soft noise in the quiet room. “Yeah, I don’t think I can, mate. Just, oh, I don’t know, I’ll figure it out. You go ahead.”

You don’t want to pry, but you can barely help yourself. “Your date?”

“Flatmate. Told him I’d find a place to eat dinner.” 

You furrow your brows. “I thought you’d be having dinner with your date…”

Gwil fumbles with his words for a minute before finding what to say, “We were just going to meet for the evening. No dinner.” His tight smile gives away that there’s probably a bit more to that answer. But you’re not one to pry, so you let it be.

He shuts his laptop, letting out an audible breath before turning his attention to you. “It’s getting late,” his voice is soft, and his gaze is fixed on your eyes, a small smile on his face.

You mirror his smile, silently shutting your laptop and gathering all your stuff. 

Gwilym grabs your attention pretty quickly again with a gentle hand on your shoulder. 

When you turn around, Gwilym shyly asks, “What are you doing for dinner?”

You shrug, looking around nervously. “Not anything in particular. Why?”

“Do you, uh… Never mind.” Gwilym almost laughs himself off, shaking his head. He turns his attention towards his shoes before you call him again.

“Hey, what is it?”

Gwilym still looks unsure. Doubt flickers in his eyes, and he bites his bottom lip before biting the bullet. “Fancy doing something with me?”

You have to stop your face from immediately blossoming into a smile at his words. You settle for a nonchalant, “What do you have in mind?”

“I don’t know…” Gwilym rubs the back of his neck, fussing with his collar in the process. He adjusts the strap of his satchel repeatedly while he formulates his next sentence. “Forget it.”

“No, no, come on!” You take a hold of his hand, ignoring the butterflies in your belly telling you to kiss him!!!!! “I think I know what we can do.”

Admittedly, your idea? Not the best. It’s the first thing that came to your mind, though. 

It’s awkward, getting Gwilym into your house and telling him to make himself comfortable. You stood awkwardly in front of him as he took off his coat and put it beside him on your loveseat, running his feet forward and back on the rug on your floor. 

He looks up to meet your gaze. “Your apartment is very nice. Cozy.” He smiles, gripping one hand with the other in his lap. “So…”

“So?”

“What now?”

“I… don’t know,” you say, grinning sheepishly. You clearly hadn’t thought this out before inviting him over. Really, what now? 

“I mean,” Gwilym begins, chuckling to himself, “It is Valentine’s Day.” He raises one eyebrow, pushing his tongue into his inner cheek.

You put your hands on your hips, cocking your head at him, “What exactly is it that you have in mind, Lee?”

“We had to cancel on our dates. Why don’t we just… make this a date?”

Goodness, what? Was Gwilym implying you were on a date with him? “Sure.” Sure. Motherfucking sure, Y/N.

“Really? You’re up for it?” Gwilym stands up, making his way towards you. “Just like that?”

“Yeah,” you say with a giggle, unsure of what you were getting yourself into. You know it’s not a conventional date, for sure. 

“Okay. Dinner time.” Gwilym winks at you, grabbing one of your hands and leading you towards your own kitchen. Standing in the middle of the kitchen, looking around, he muses, “What must these cupboards hold, I wonder.”

You lean against the counter, letting him take the reigns. 

Gwilym claps his hands, turning to you. “Can I look through your fridge?”

“I don’t know, can you?” This is fun.

Gwilym rolls his eyes. “I’m looking through your fridge.” 

You find yourself following him to the fridge, watching from behind him as he leans over to look into your vegetable compartment. He mumbles, “Stir fry, salad-- hey, do you have eggs?”

“Yeah… There’s chicken in the freezer.”

“Perfect.”

You follow Gwilym’s instructions the entire time, following closely and learning. Honey glazed chicken, he’d said. Sounds good. You decided to make some rice with that. Once you’re done with your part of the work, you climb onto the counter, watching Gwilym as he does all the work. His shirt stretches deliciously over his shoulders when he moves. He has this intense look of concentration on his face that makes your belly coil. 

“Oi!” he says to you, raising his eyebrows, “you’re just going to sit there?”

“I’m watching and learning!” You laugh, climbing off the counter. “Wine?”

“Oh, yes please, if you don’t mind.” Gwilym says without looking at you, focusing on his chicken. 

“Red or white?”

“Ooh, I get to pick!” he sings, following it up with, “White, please.”

He’s so polite, you think as you pour out two glasses of white wine, placing one on the counter next to him. 

You smirk, clinking your wine glass with his for a second. “Your date is missing out.”

Gwilym laughs at that. “Yeah?”

“Yeah!” you exclaim, as if it is obvious. “You’re a really nice guy,” you say after a sip, smiling softly, “Like, really nice. You’re kind, and sweet,” you take a step towards him as he turns off the flame under the pot, “And dare I say, a sight for sore eyes.”

Gwilym doesn’t make eye contact with you. He sniffs, rubbing a finger over his nose before mumbling, “This is done.”

You’re mindlessly picking up cutlery as you continue praising Gwilym. “And you’re so hard working, you know? And you can cook! You can fucking cook!” 

Placing plates on the table while Gwilym followed closely behind with the pot of chicken, you say softly, “You’re like, peak husband material.”

Gwilym lets out a snort, “Rice?”

“I’ll get it. I work with you, you’re so tolerant of the people you manage! And I share a cubicle with you, and I don’t have a single complaint about you!”

“Yeah, that’s enough,” Gwilym said shyly as he dragged a chair back as you did the same. He laughs as if he found your praise funny, “How about yourself, miss perfect?”

You blink, saying nothing as you sit down in the chair opposite Gwilym. As Gwilym talks, you grab a fork and pick up a piece of chicken from the pot itself. 

“Wait, let me serve you!” Gwilym says in the middle of his rant, which you have very conveniently blocked out completely. “Huh? You’re… so beautiful. So beautiful. Have you seen yourself?” He ladles out some of the rice and chicken onto both of your plates while you only passively watch.

You’re unable to look at Gwilym. You only tuck a lock of hair behind your ear and pick at the chicken on your plate. 

“Okay, okay.” Gwilym clears his throat. “I think that’s enough. Shall we eat?”

After a small toast from Gwilym that left you in giggles, you dig into your meal, and it’s delicious. Worth it. 

Pretty soon, you’re both on your loveseat again, passing the bottle of wine between each other. 

Gwilym has his eyes closed, head thrown back on the backrest. His eyebrows are furrowed, nose crinkled slightly. It makes him look adorable. He lets out a sigh, letting himself relax into the plush leather of the couch even further. “I like this.”

“Yeah?” You ask, resting your head on your knuckles, watching as Gwilym breathed in and out, breath by breath. 

“Your date is missing out.”

“What?” You chuckle.

“You said my date was missing out? You were wrong-- yours is.” Gwilym opens his eyes, gazing at you softly. 

Ha.

You hum amusedly. “All that from just a meal? Where you did all the cooking?”

Gwilym proceeds to sit up straight, bringing one hand up to tuck your hair behind your ear. “Yeah.” His eyes hold a look of adoration. “You were there. That’s what made this dinner amazing.”

“Really?” Your voice is soft. Gwilym’s face is closer to yours now. You can’t help but notice how his chest rises and falls as he inches himself even closer to you.

“Can I try something, Y/N?”

At this point, you have a good idea of what he’s implying.

“Go right ahead.” You glance up at his eyes before turning your gaze to his lips. His bottom lip is caught between his teeth, and he releases it to lick his lower lip.

And then, his lips are on yours.

It only lasts a second. Gwilym pulls away immediately, shooting you a curious look. “Sorry.” His voice is nothing but a whisper. There is no other sound in the room, just your breaths, which you can only hear because you’re sitting so close to Gwil.

“What for?” You don’t waste a second in bringing your hand up to cup Gwilym’s cheek and pressing your lips to his. It happens in haste, but Gwilym is quick to react. He brings his hands to your waist, wrapping them around tightly, and you slide so close to him that at this point, it’d be more practical to just climb into his lap.

Gwilym pulls away again, giggling this time. “Maybe the wine is getting to us.” He touched his lips, as if he couldn’t believe what had just happened and he needed physical proof.

“I don’t know, I haven’t had that much.” You stare at the bottle of wine, which was only a third of the way empty. “You?

“No, not that much, really.”

And then Gwilym’s giggling again, and you’re giggling again and you both know why.

After you’ve both quietened down a little, Gwilym sneakily grabs your hand, interlacing his fingers with yours. “Tomorrow’s a Saturday.”

“Yeah, it is.” You sneak a look at him through the corner of your eye.

“Let me cook breakfast for you.”

“Getting ahead of ourselves, are we, Mister Lee?” You tug at his collar playfully only to get your hand swatted away.

“I’m not saying anything!” Gwilym said between laughs, running a hand over his face.

“Okay.”

“Okay, what?” Gwilym’s eyes are wide. 

“Okay, you can cook me breakfast.” You push your body up against his, wrapping your arm around his. “But what comes before the breakfast, good sir?”

“This quiet night.” Gwilym smiles in earnest, and your heart swells at the way he’s looking at you. 

“Yes. This quiet night.”

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[seblos]

there’s not a star in heaven that we can’t reach - ch 3/10

chapter title: tornadoes come and go, dance is forever

word count: 1,972

note: it doesn’t occur until close to the end, but italics is carlos, bold is sbe, & both is both!

[one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine (coming soon)]

read on ao3

Seb catches Carlos after rehearsal the day after his… interaction with Mr. Mazzara. They had been talking more in class and during lunch, as well as rehearsals whenever they had time to break and if Miss Jenn didn’t need anything. 

It had been their thing, now, to either drive Carlos home if they end early, or at the very least walk out the door and through the parking lot to their respective cars. It gives them a chance to catch up on whatever drama happened in rehearsal in person before they’re forced to text about it or wait until lunch the next day to talk. 

Seb had been absent the previous day though, and when he had asked Carlos about what had happened, Carlos responded vaguely about running through songs and the new Status Quo dance break with Gina. 

Truthfully, what came to mind was not either of those, but instead the conversation he had with Mr. Mazzara pre-rehearsal. Just thinking about it makes Carlos’s stomach sink as he hears the voice of the STEM teacher echoing in his head, reminding him that maybe you should spend a little less time worrying about your drama teacher and a little more time making some friends under the age 35.

He had only been trying to help, as Miss Jenn looked distressed (how was he supposed to read the conversation?) but that comment hit him like a wall of bricks. 

After Miss Jenn had shooed him away from the conversation and into the bomb shelter to practice Status Quo, Carlos’s head was pounding, only hearing those words over and over again. And of course, that had been that day that Seb was absent, which only made everything feel so much more real. He had put on a happy face for the sake of hopefully having the cast actually listen to him, but on the inside, he had felt like he was going to be sick.

“You ready to go?” Carlos asks, breaking his train of thought as he swings his backpack over his shoulders. He begins to walk towards the door, trying to focus on something else, like how Seb is wearing cute overalls today over one of his button-ups.

Speaking of Seb, though, he realizes the other boy is still planted firmly in place across the room. “Seb?”

“Are you okay, Carlos?” He asks. “You were fine on Wednesday, but I was gone yesterday and you just seem… different. If it’s something I did, please tell me because I-”

“It’s not you, Seb,” Carlos smiles slightly, although his chest feels tight. 

“Then what is it?”

Carlos sighs, walking back over to Seb and sitting down in the nearest chair. Seb follows suit, and he has to admit that Seb genuinely caring about him feels really nice. 

“Yesterday before rehearsal, I was just coming to give Miss Jenn coffee, and she was in the hall talking to Mr. Mazzara,” both Seb and Carlos cringed at the name (neither of them exactly loved him as a teacher) before Carlos continues. “She looked upset, or, like, freaked out about whatever he had said. I didn’t have any context to the conversation so I was trying to make sure she was okay, ‘cuz, like, you never really know, and um,” Carlos swallowed, picking at a fray in his jeans.

Seb, who was nodding as he talked, took Carlos’s hand comfortingly, which sent electric currents through the boy’s body. It was enough to make him continue, though.

“When I kept pushing Miss Jenn to make sure she was good, he told me that I shouldn’t be so focused on her, and I should try and actually make some friends. My own age, I mean,” it stung to repeat, even with Seb rubbing his thumb on the back of Carlos’s hand. 

Seb stopped all of a sudden, as Carlos was finally able to make eye contact with the other boy. “He said that to you?” he asked, painfully calm.

“I mean, not in those exact words, but yeah. Basically.”

Seb suddenly grabbed his other hand, fully tuning his body so he was facing Carlos. “You know that’s not true, right? I mean, first of all, you have friends,” he squeezed Carlos’s hands when he said that. Carlos opened his mouth to respond, but he wasn’t finished. “And not just me, I mean. Natalie, and Gina, and honestly Ricky, and Nini, and Ashlyn, and the rest of the cast. We’re all your friends. And there’s nothing wrong being friends with your teachers, as long as you aren’t friends with him. I mean, you and Miss Jenn are basically coworkers since she’s not technically a teacher anyway,” Seb rambled.

Carlos felt his chest release as Seb defended him and tried to make him feel better. For once since that conversation with Mr. Mazzara, it felt like the weight of the words had lifted a bit from his body. 

“I’m serious, Los,” Seb squeezes his hands again. “That was so mean of him, and its absolutely not true.”

Carlos smiles softly. “Yeah, I’m kinda figuring that out. Thank you, though, Seb.”

“Of course,” Seb returns with a soft smile of his own. 

They sit like that for a moment, ignoring how both of their rides are probably already at the school. Carlos tries not to overthink how casually Seb is holding his hands. 

“Mr. Mazzara did walk in while we were running Status Quo, and the look on his face was priceless when he saw us singing. I guess he assumed we weren’t actually good, but it was the best we’ve ever sounded!” Carlos says suddenly, and Seb laughs. “I wish you were here though, so he could have heard you sing. Your solo in the song is amazing.”

Seb blushes slightly, breaking eye contact for the first time and looking down at his overalls instead of Carlos as he responds. “Thank you! No thanks to your impossible choreo.”

Carlos shrugs. “I only give you what I know you can handle. Even without it, though, your voice is amazing. I love to hear you sing.”

“So, let’s sing!”

“What do you mean?” Carlos laughs as Seb stands up suddenly, still holding Carlos’s hands as he pulls him over to the piano and down onto the bench.

“You didn’t get to hear me sing yesterday, and you had a bad day, so let’s sing!”

“When you say let’s do you mean us?” Carlos asks, but Seb is already playing the beginning of What I’ve Been Looking For.

“You wanted to hear me sing, and I need to practice this song,” he tells Carlos, nodding at him to start out the song. Before Carlos can say anything, the song starts, and he sings.

“It's hard to believe that I couldn't see you were always there beside me. Thought I was alone with no one to hold but you were always right beside me”

Seb jumps in when he’s supposed to, still playing piano as he sings, and Carlos relaxes into the song. He doesn’t usually sing in front of people, but he’ll make the exception here.

“And this feeling’s like no other. I want you to know.”

Seb’s voice is amazing, of course, and Carlos is so stunned by it that he almost forgets to join back in. 

“I've never had someone that knows me like you do (the way you do!)

 I've never had someone as good for me as you (no one like you!)

So lonely before, I finally found what I've been looking for!”

As he plays the piano break before the next verse, Seb turns to Carlos with a grin. “I’m surprised you know all the words!”

“It’s what happens when you’ve been listening to the soundtrack for a decade!” Carlos replies with a laugh

“Well, it’s cute. And I like your voice!”

Carlos almost thinks he misheard Seb for a second, but they’re both blushing, so he assumes he did it. Before he can figure out how to respond, Seb starts singing again.

“So good to be seen, so good to be heard! Don't have to say a word!

For so long I was lost, so good to be found!

I'm loving having you around.”

Carlos holds a fake microphone in his clenched fist, mocking the moves of Ryan from the movie that play so clearly in his head as he sings the next lyric. “This feeling's like no other. I want you to know..”

“I've never had someone that knows me like you do (the way you do!)

 I've never had someone as good for me as you (no one like you!)

So lonely before, I finally found what I've been looking for!”

Seb is still smiling at Carlos while they sing, and for the first time, Carlos hears the lyrics. It makes him wonder why two siblings sing it in the show because seriously! Maybe it’s just him, or just the company, but this sounds like the most romantic thing in the world right now. He tries to not think about how close he and Seb are squished together on the piano bench.

They both scat dramatically, still laughing and smiling at each other as Seb finishes the song with dramatic flourish. 

“Too bad there was no jazz square in there,” Seb sighs happily when he hits the last note.

“Oh, don’t worry, there will be,” Carlos laughs. 

Seb sets his hand down on the bench, and for a moment, he glances at their hands merely centimeters apart. Carlos notices it too, and he swears Seb moves his hand ever so slightly closer so that their pinkies are touching. (Which isn't much considering Seb was literally holding his hand a minute ago, but it still makes Carlos’s heart beat rapidly.)

He’s about to suck it up and just grab Seb’s hand, but a notification goes off from Seb’s phone (it’s placed in the front pocket of his overalls. Has Carlos mentioned he’s wearing overalls?) Seb picks it up, glancing at the screen.

“My sister’s here, I should…” he trails off, standing up from the piano and going to grab his backpack.

“Yeah, I’m sure my mom was here, like, 5 minutes so me too,” Carlos grabs his backpack, and they walk out of the bomb shelter together.

They walk down the hallway in comfortable silence as Carlos reflects on the past five minutes. He had never experienced this feeling before, but Seb made him feel dizzy, in a good way. The blonde boy could put butterflies in his stomach just by looking at him, and all of their interactions made Carlos’s heart race and always made him smile.

He thought he had crushes before, but this was so much different. This was so much more real. 

When they walked out the front door of the school, the fresh air hit Carlos’s still burning face. 

Seb turned to him. “Well, this is where I go.”

Carlos nods. “Yeah, same,” he replies, and he’s definitely still blushing. “I’ll probably text you tonight about the chemistry homework.”

“Yeah. Or just text me, like, about anything,” Seb shrugs with a smile, and Carlos feels a little bit better when he notices the pink still dusting the other boy’s face. He reaches his hand out for a second, barely brushing Carlos’s shoulder as he says “See you tomorrow, Carlos!” before he turns in the direction of his sister’s car.

“Hey, Seb?” Carlos calls quickly before he can lose his confidence.

“Yeah?” the boy turns right before he can step into the parking lot.

“Cute overalls!”

Even from the distance, he can see Seb flushing an even darker shade of pink. “Thanks!” he calls back, and Carlos nods, smiling.

And even when he gets in his own car and his mom asks him a million questions about why he’s late, it’s worth it.

[abigailnussbaum]

The Handmaid’s Tale 3x09, “Unfit”

Well, that happened.

Now, look, I think there’s the bones of a good idea here.  I’m seeing a lot of reviewers calling June and the other handmaids “mean girls” for ostracizing and bullying Ofmatthew, but you know... maybe not?  This literally isn’t high school.  They’re all slaves in a highly controlling, authoritarian regime that has so little respect for their personhood that it routinely mutilates them for minor violations of decorum (and even, as in the case of the silenced handmaids in DC, just in order to maintain a certain tone).  Solidarity is all they really have.  It’s neither surprising nor even, really, a bad idea for informing and collaboration to carry a tremendous in-group cost - to the extent that it’s a little strange that Aunt Lydia didn’t anticipate the reaction, and move Ofmatthew to a different city (though I suppose her pregnancy would have made that difficult), or at least warn her not to brag about what she had done.  

It even makes sense that June, so completely over Gilead’s shenanigans and high on the limited amount of power she currently has (how sick is it that she can get away with shit because any punishment Gilead might mete out to her would look bad on camera if they have to trot her out again in order to bring Nicole back to the same hell?) would get off on finally having a righteous target for her rage that she is able to hit back at.  “She got a woman killed and she isn’t sorry”, is her explanation to Jeanine for ostracizing Ofmatthew (or rather, as we learn an instant before her death, Natalie).  But you know, Serena Joy and Aunt Lydia aren’t sorry either, and June has had to tiptoe around them since the show started.  It must be a relief to finally be able to give free rein to her anger, and it’s not surprising that she quickly slides from behavior whose ruthlessness has a grounding in rational pragmatism (snitches get stitches) to deranged bullying and psychological torture that even she likens to an addiction.

There are two problems here, however.  The first is that this is clearly not what the show is doing.  I would love for The Handmaid’s Tale to suddenly become a hard-headed look at the moral costs of resistance under a fascist regime, but it has never been that show, and two-thirds of the way into its third season, it is obviously unreasonable to expect that to change.  More than anything, what this arc feels like to me is the mirror image of June’s descent into darkness and despair last season.  At that point, Aunt Lydia was able to weaponize June’s guilt over the cost other people had paid for her efforts to free herself into a psychological attack that crushed June’s spirit (it’s interesting how a similar attack in this episode all-but bounces off; June responds a little to the notion that she has cost Hannah an ally, but otherwise she just trills “it’s my fault, Aunt Lydia” and then turns the tables on Natalie with what might even be described as cheerfulness).  

This time, instead of giving in to despair, June is giving in to anger.  I suspect we’re going to see a similar structure in this season as we did then - one episode in which June descends into darkness, ending with her inner voice having gone completely deranged; then the next episode she almost does something drastic, only to come back to herself at the end.  I don’t think we’re going to see any long-term fallout, either for how the Gilead resistance orders itself, or for June’s own behavior.  Maybe the other handmaids will recoil from her?  But even then, I doubt it will be for long, since June on her own is basically powerless.  I certainly don’t expect the fact that June hounded a fellow handmaid to her death to have serious repercussions for her, if for no other reason that she’s in such a precarious position already that any worsening of it would probably mean her death, as we just saw with Natalie. 

Which brings us to the second, more serious problem with what this episode chooses to do, the fact that Natalie is black, that for the second week in a row June’s actions have caused the death of a black woman (having already caused the death of a black man in the second season when she persuaded him to hide her), and that the show’s tone-deafness on the issue of race means that this is almost certainly not going to be addressed.  It’s a story about two white women - June as much as Aunt Lydia - tormenting a (pregnant) black woman into a nervous breakdown.  The episode literally ends with the sadly familiar sight of a black person having their mental health crisis treated as a criminal act and being gunned down by the authorities.  

Again, it would be great if I could believe, even for a minute, that the show means for us to see these parallels, but that is clearly not the case, for the simple reason that June is our heroine.  She can’t be allowed to be as villainous as her behavior here makes her.  So once again, the show is getting a cheap thrill out of the slippage between good and evil - June feels good about this woman dying, oooh, aren’t we complex and morally grey! - without addressing how the context of race takes something morally murky into the realm of the unforgivable.  June can’t fully acknowledge the implications of what she’s done, because if she did she wouldn’t be our heroine anymore.  Which means it isn’t going to happen, and Natalie will be be forgotten just like so many other of Gilead’s non-white victims.

(Not much to say about the Lydia parts of the episode, which were well-done but kind of blah.  I do appreciate that unlike Serena and even Nick, the show is straightforward about the fact that Lydia wasn’t pushed, she jumped.  What we see in those flashbacks is a woman with a good life.  She has a job she likes and is good at and appreciated for.  She has people who care about her and the possibility of greater happiness and intimacy in the future.  And then she lets some combination of pride and shame derail it all.  She chooses to control others, calling that control love, over the real sort of love that leaves her vulnerable to hurt and rejection.  It’s a nice change of pace for this show to acknowledge that the people who make up Gilead’s backbone had a choice, and chose wrongly, and that the reason for that choice is simply that they are shitty, cowardly human beings.)

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Educating Vitae

by Shim

Monday, 18 January 2016

In which choices are explored, people do things they know to be bad, blood is unhelpfully like sex, and there are altogether too many types of vampire.~

I must apologise firstly for the title, and secondly for not incorporating any song titles from Meat Loaf into this article. I already spent too long writing it.

So, only six years late, I finally finished reading Vampire Academy.

It’s quite fun. I originally wrote "really fun", but reflection on the social plot has made me a bit less enthusiastic.

The following will contain enormous amounts of spoilers, including big plot-type revelations. I should also point out that the book includes self-harm, and I will briefly mention it but not go into detail.

On Protagonists and Viewpoints

So the book is a little ambiguous about its nature. Let me cite some of the back blurb here.

Lissa Dragomir is a mortal vampire. She must be protected at all times from the fiercest and most dangerous vampires of all - the ones who will never die. Rose Hathaway is Lissa's best friend - and her bodyguard. Now, after two years of illicit freedom, they've been dragged back inside the iron gates of St. Vladimir's Academy. The girls must survive a world of forbidden romances, a ruthless social scene and terrifying night-time rituals. But above all, they must never let their guard down, lest the immortal vampires take Lissa - forever...

Huh. I don’t think I’ve seen a single night-time ritual. How misleading.

But never mind that! The point is, in this blurb and the early stages of the book, it’s not entirely clear who’s the protagonist (as discussed originally in

The Text Factor: Halloween Special: Girl Books for Girls

). The description kicks off with Lissa, and she’s the vampire, and the one affected by most of the weird events of the book. However, our viewpoint character is always Rose.

I wondered for a while whether this was going to be a dual-protagonist book with a single viewpoint character; due to blood bond shenanigans, Rose sporadically ends up in Lissa’s mind, which is a handy way to convey key information. That would have been interesting.

As the story progressed, though, I increasingly got the feeling that Lissa is more of a plot point (albeit a nicely characterised one) than a protagonist in her own right. Her early interactions with Christian, and her special status, suggest that her experiences might be the main focus of the book, with Rose there for support, observation and a bit of romance on the side. However, it soon becomes clear that Rose’s experiences are going to be much more narratively important than Lissa’s.

Introduction to the Vampire

There’s quite a lot of vampire stuff to introduce, especially for those of us not familiar with it. I’ve not idea how closely it fits folklorific ideas of vampires. However, the broad-strokes picture we get of how vampire society works seems to fit together in its own rather bizarre way. The relationship between moroi

[1]

, dhampir

[2]

and humans is clearly unhealthy, particularly their utterly hypocritical view of the people they depend on for blood.

However, Mead is careful to weave in some explanations for this. Not only are the ‘feeders’ providing food, which tends to dehumanise them; they do so willingly and eagerly, because of the intoxicating nature of vampiric saliva, making them into addicts. Society doesn’t respect addicts, so it’s easier to accept this situation. Moreover, Rose calls out the hypocrisy in the situation explicitly, while still allowing shades of it to slip into her own attitudes and words. Knowing something’s morally dubious isn’t an easy route to resolving it, after all.

They were well cared for and given all the comforts they could need. But at the heart of it, they were drug users, addicts to Moroi saliva and the rush it offered with each bite. The Moroi - and guardians - looked down on this dependency, even though the Moroi couldn't have survived otherwise unless they took blood by force. Hypocrisy at its finest.

This trait of allowing grey complexities into Rose’s voice is one of the things that pleased me about the book. Rose is quite perceptive about wrongs, injustices and ambiguities, but Mead hasn’t written her as some righteous, crusading heroine. In fact, the book is riddled with her weaknesses. You might even argue that one of the themes of the book (and, I suspect, the series) is morality, boundaries of acceptability, and the strength and opportunity to make moral choices. Let’s see if I can make a case for that.

Choices and Morality

One of the first things that happens in the book is a feeding; Rose’s vampire, Lissa, needs blood from her. This introduces the intoxication aspect, but it’s only later that we learn how unacceptable – dirty, perverted, unthinkable – this is in vampire society. However, it’s a decision they made to keep Lissa alive, and one that’s left Rose with a mild addiction.

Soon after they return to school, Rose walks into a classroom to find two high-status kids tormenting a poor kid, magically blowing his papers around the room. In many books this would be a teaching point, where Rose or Lissa stepped in to deliver justice and demonstrate their righteousness. Here, nobody does a thing.

My instincts urged me to do something, maybe go smack one of the air users. But I couldn’t pick a fight with everyone who annoyed me, and certainly not a group of royals – especially when Lissa needed to stay off their radar. So I could only give them a look of disgust as I walked to my desk.

And then the narrative moves on to another part of the plot. Although Lissa is technically high-status, and both were once socially powerful, the school has moved on in their absence. Now, the rumours about their escape – and soon about a series of associated events – greatly complicate their attempts to blend back in.

Similarly, Rose frequently does things that aren’t particularly nice, or good, or sensible. As the story is told from her viewpoint, we even hear her acknowledging these issues. She still does them, though. It’s very human.

Some tiny, tiny part of me was starting to feel sorry for Christian. It was only a tiny part, though, and very easy to ignore...

And later on:

"...between stealing [her boyfriend] and spreading those stories about her parents, you guys really picked the best ways to make her suffer. Nice work." The smallest pang of guilt lurched inside of her. "I still think you're lying." "I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a lair. That's your department. And Rose's." "We don't-" "Exaggerate stories about people's families? Say that you hate me? Pretend to be friends with people you think are stupid? Date a guy you don't like?"

All of the above accusations are, of course, entirely accurate.

A feud erupts between Rose, Lissa and another girl called Mia, apparently at Mia’s instigation. Still, both sides are determined to utterly crush their rival and exact painful revenge, which means immense suffering for both parties as their most private secrets are turned into playground gossip by the other side. It’s mutually-assured destruction, basically.

Another important decision involves Lissa’s vampiric powers. We learn early on that Lissa has some compulsion abilities, and gradually discover that she can influence both humans and vampires, which is highly unusual. When their social standing is destroyed by revelations of blood sharing, a furious Lissa resolves to use those abilities to forcibly change people’s opinions of them, catching them one by one and altering their feelings by magic. This does indeed allow them to gradually regain acceptability in the school, but Rose is deeply uncomfortable about it, with good reason.

Finally, there’s Natalie. Poor Natalie.

Natalie is the daughter of a powerful vampire, Dashikov, and she just wants to be loved. Throughout the book, she seeks social validation, but it’s made clear that above all, she wants her father’s affection, and doesn’t quite get enough. This poisonous little worm is enough to turn her into a pawn for him, and his total carelessness about her really reinforced how unpleasant he is. From spying on her friends for his sake, she’s eventually pushed into leaving mutilated animals around in an attempt to make Lissa reveal her healing powers.

Finally, when her father is captured, she takes the ultimate step of becoming a Strigoi, murdering one of the teachers to gain the power to break him out. It fails, and her death is another trivial loss in his quest for power. Once again, out come those Themes I mentioned.

Natalie breaks the bounds of friendship in the hopes of winning validation from her father, and what she’s prepared to do for his sake pushes her into the final betrayal of her friends and her entire species. Although apparently happy, she doesn’t have the willpower to withstand his influence and refrain from doing wrong on his behalf. Dashikov betrayed his duties as a father by turning Natalie into a pawn for his own sake, and manipulating her love to force her into immoral acts. This contrasts with Dimitri, who as a child defeated his vampiric father to defend his mother, and now bursts in to help Rose defeat her one-time friend.

Although Natalie was only ever a minor character, looking back, you can see hints of what’s going on in the way she casually teases out information and hangs around Lissa. I did feel genuinely sorry for her, and I was sorry to see she just got killed off at the climax. On the other hand, stories where the bad guys just hang around indefinitely can drag.

Knowing what’s best for you

It strikes me that throughout the book, I don’t think Lissa ever actually asks Rose for anything. Partly this is perhaps just habitual expectation that Rose will be there, but I feel that part of it is that Rose projects her own ideas about what Lissa needs onto her charge. The mental bond that lets her literally see through Lissa’s eyes and experience her thoughts surely doesn’t help. We never see Lissa’s side at first hand.

This is shown up most flagrantly when she intervenes to block what she sees as an unhealthy friendship blooming between high-status Lissa and the local brooding loner, Christian, whose parents were killed after going rogue and hunting other vampires. Lissa finds his company soothing and there’s a sympathetic spark between them.

Rose, who is unusually bound up in social games for a contemporary heroine, is horrified at the thought of Lissa associating with this outcast, and repeatedly takes her to task. Between her prejudice and his rather erratic behaviour, things spiral until Rose intervenes, actively lying to Christian to separate them. Naturally, both Lissa and Christian think the other party has wronged them, and things become progressively worse. She does become guilty, though, and eventually she’s forced to admit that she was in the wrong.

Nonetheless, Lissa’s story throughout the book is one of having her best interests decided and controlled by other people. Her escape from the school turns out to have been at Rose’s instigation and with no warning; they’re forcibly returned to the school; Rose patrols her friendships and tries to dictate her social interactions; and eventually, Dashikov steps in to capture her in the hopes of curing his terminal illness. Even this he tries to frame as being good for her, providing an escape from the problems caused by her unique magical abilities.

The problems are, essentially, mental illness. For some reason not yet explained, Lissa's abilities not only lead to her mental bond with Rose, but also to extremely distressing mental episodes. Her coping mechanism for this is the self-harm I mentioned above, and there are a couple of explicit scenes, including first-person perspective courtesy of Rose's bond. Her eventual hospitalisation after a particularly bad episode causes yet more social waves, but also kicks us over from the social plot to the Dashikov plot that seems likely to be the overarching arc of the series.

Interestingly, I don’t think Christian ever does this. One of the things that seems to make him a suitable friend is that he’s fully prepared to leave Lissa alone. In their first encounter he simply extends a tenuous offer of conversation, making no attempt to force it, and he gives her plenty of space. When Rose tells him that Lissa doesn’t actually want him around, he immediately pulls back (causing both plenty of grief).

He does approximately set someone on fire to end a spiteful conversation about Lissa and Rose, but in fairness it’s purely a distraction and he doesn’t really get a chance to ask whether they’d like any help. Although he also clearly thinks it’s really funny. It's sort of reminiscent of the earlier scene with the boy being bullied, only this time the observer does decide to step in and face the consequences.

Since neither Jacob nor Ralf would have set Ralf on fire, it sort of made the culprit obvious. The fact that Christian was laughing hysterically sort of gave it away too.

Coming back to my point, though, I do think his willingness to just let her be herself – tied in to his own solitude and need to just be himself – is a strong point in his favour. When he realises she’s been self-harming, he twigs immediately, says nothing, and just exudes a kind of supportiveness that Lissa finds very comforting. He’s also smart enough to realise she’s been mesmerising everyone to restore their social standing, which is another point in his favour. Admittedly, he thinks it’s hot, rather than an alarming abuse of a power she shouldn’t even have, but then he is a teenager, and she is canonically doing nothing harmful with it, so the narrative’s always going to be on her side.

What I’m saying is, basically, I liked Christian as a character. I thought he was a well-constructed love interest, even though we mostly only see him in brief glimpses through Lissa’s eyes, as he doesn’t let his guard down as much around Rose. To some extent he comes across as the conscience of the story, reminding Rose and Lissa of their moral failings.

In fact (if I can be astonishingly pseud for a moment) you could almost posit him as a jester; his outsider status, total lack of social power and uncaring badass lonerism means he can speak truth to power (and set people on fire) with impunity, having very little to lose. He's also positioned to observe the other students without much personal involvement, and thus to comment on them.

I found Dimitri appealing as well. Mead did a good job of building the connections between him and Rose – they have similar mindsets, a strong sense of dedication, they feel somewhat isolated, and they’re very physical people. In both cases, they bring an outsider perspective that gives rise to mild contempt for some aspects of vampiric society; a sort of flipside to Christian's status as scion of a family fallen to the strigoi.

Yet they’re not entirely the same. There are clear differences in upbringing: she was raised by the school and indoctrinated from birth to become a model guardian like her mother; he was raised in a tight-knit community of blood-donors. Age also creates a distinction: I can see Rose eventually maturing into a more measured person, though probably still less reserved than Dimitri.

The older lover thing is a trope, and being a trope it isn’t quite as problematic as a 17-24 relationship would seem to me in real life. Rose has also been surviving in the real world for two years, so she’s a bit more savvy than her years. I was pleased that Dimitri, and to some extent Rose, recognised and tried to deal with these issues. As well as the simple age barrier, school rules, and his pastoral responsibility towards her, there are some professional complications.

One odd observation: given how Dimitri is presented as a consummate professional, he completely misses a massive and glaring clue that something suspicious is going on, and the narrative skips right over it.

"Well, it was a hell of a lot better than the last one they tried" "Last one?" "Yeah. In Chicago. With the pack of psi-hounds." "This was the first time we found you. In Portland." "Um. I don't think I imagined psi-hounds. Who else could have sent them? They only answer to moroi. Maybe no-one told you about it." "Maybe," he said dismissively. I could tell by his face he didn't believe that.

It's not very clear to me whether this is supposed to mean "he decided Rose was making it up" or "he was deeply suspicious and pretending not to be". Either way, nothing seems to suggest that anyone actually follows up on this obviously suspicious point, even though it ties strongly into the conclusion of the story.

Changing Minds

It’s maybe worth noting that this offers one of the more accurate portrayals of manipulation and social dynamics I remember seeing. Everyone involved is aware that what they’re dealing with is say-so, rumour and gossip, and quite harmful gossip at that, but they nevertheless either spread it or at least allow it to influence their behaviour. First Lissa, and then Rose, know the other’s desire for revenge is excessive, but they don’t seriously intervene and eventually both are committed to destroying Mia (we never get to see Mia’s side, sadly).

This isn’t just about bitchy girls, either. The boys in the story don’t come out too well. Several are happy to spread damaging lies about girls to get some attention, or even to be bribed with sex. There’s petty bullying, and Lissa and Rose are regularly targets of leering remarks and speculation on their relationship. Even the nicer named boys, Mason and Christian, are hot-tempered and use violence to defend Rose and Lissa from bullying. Only Dimitri, Rose’s smoking-hot combat instructor, escapes most of this – and as a 24-year old, he’s presumably matured more than the others, though he does have one aggressive confrontation with a student.

The school principal is interesting in the little we see of her. Rose views her quite clearly as despotic and arbitrary, but I don’t think the text quite supports that. She is quite harsh with Rose and Lissa, but then she has very good reason: they have committed a serious breach of rules by running away for two full years, causing enormous trouble and worry for a lot of other people. They also appear to be habitual troublemakers (lots of illegal parties and midnight escapades) and smashed up another student’s bedroom before leaving. Of course she’s going to be strict.

Moreover, this isn’t just normal school strictness; the vampires face the very real threat of strigoi hunting them down. In the absence of a very good explanation, which the girls don’t dare to give, severe punishment is inevitable and appropriate. She does intend to expel Rose before Dimitri intervenes, but then again, she’s prepared to change her mind when he agrees to take her in hand. I thought she was pretty well-done as a character.

Social Protagonists

On that social games point – my observation (from an admittedly limited subset of reading) is that the majority of protagonists in contemporary literature, particularly literature aimed at younger people, don’t really dabble in social politics. Many are bookish nerds, particularly on the more fantastical end of the literary spectrum. Many others are simply everyteenagers; they’re averagely attractive (at least in theory), averagely clever, have an average number of friends, and so on. I can only remember seeing high-status people in more literary books, or that high-society flavour of romance a la Jilly Cooper. Historical novels seem much readier to star nobles and the socially-influential, possibly because those are the bits of history that sound most fun.

As such, it was interesting to see a story whose protagonists were enthusiastic participants in the social scene. I was a little disappointed to realise that that was going to be strictly past tense; I suppose it does make sense for things to have changed in their absence, including their own feelings. Mostly, though, I imagine the narrative called for them to have to make new friends and not have very much support, because most of this volume is about that social uncertainty, and how it leaves them vulnerable.

Oh Sole Mia

Mia was actually the aspect of the book that I thought was weakest. I liked the fact that there was an apparently-arbitrary rivalry between these girls, and was quite sympathetic to Mia. Truth be told, I still am. We learn that her family are very low-status and she’s managed to work her way into more influential circles – another example of boundary-crossing, as this seems to be viewed in much the same way as social climbing in 1950s Britain, but seems quite reasonable to me.

Later it’s revealed that the reason for the feud is her appalling treatment by Lissa’s deceased brother, which Lissa is naturally reluctant to believe (as quoted above). Again, the brother made bad choices and harmed Mia both personally and socially in the process. However, Lissa loved and had faith in her brother, and it's difficult for her to accept that he was not only in the wrong, but actively wronged someone else. The fact that she's currently in a serious feud with Mia naturally makes that even harder.

I felt like both sides were being realistically angry and vindictive, but both were also understandable and sympathetic in their motivations. Although Mia technically starts the feud, she's clearly on the defensive from the start, responding to what seems an invasion of her social territory from someone she hates both as a royal and as the sister of her horrible ex.

Later on, though, the authorial voice turns violently against Mia. She becomes increasingly desperate in the face of the nobility closing ranks against her (which is quite understandable), and resorts to trying to get Rose’s help after a fall-out between her and Lissa. This is a sort of unpardonable sin in narrative terms, trying to create a betrayal between friends, and she’s quite explicitly painted as dangerous and ruthless. Of course, this is all in Rose’s voice, but it also felt fairly clear that this was the reality.

Worse is to come, though; it turns out that Mia spread rumours by offering sexual favours to a couple of bragging lads, while in a steady relationship with someone she’s apparently devoted to. This is the point where the narrative switches from nasty-but-somewhat-understandable to, it seemed to me, depicting her as genuinely obsessive and (in Rose’s words) “well into sociopath territory”. It’s not the actions specifically, so much as how far she’s willing to push boundaries in pursuit of revenge. Rose, on the other hand, is the Sexy Spice half of the Rose-Lissa pair, but the text is careful to emphasise early on that she hasn’t had sex, despite all the kissing and “semi-nakedness” that’s brought up regularly.

The problem is, though, that this leaves us with an antagonist who is flat-chested (highlighted very early on), short, relatively unpopular (until she started dating Lissa’s royal ex, apparently), working-class, and promiscuous, who is also portrayed as nasty and sociopathic. I feel like the conflation of those things is a bit unnecessary – I’d rather hoped to see the end of Bad Common Girl when I stopped reading Enid Blyton. She’s left to contrast with a conventionally-attractive, athletic, popular, high-status party-girl heroine who’s conveniently balanced between “sexy” and “virgin”.

This increasing vilification of Mia helpfully means that Rose and Lissa never have to really reconsider their own actions or question their consciences. In fact, the final flare of this plot in the book involves Mia making yet more bitchy remarks while Lissa is in hospital, and Rose punching her in the face. The uberplot kicks off while she's under lock and key, awaiting punishment. Narratively, Mia is placed firmly in the wrong, and I think that's a shame.

Weirdly, in some ways I actually felt more sympathetic to Mia than to Rose. She’s got plenty of issues, but she had been very badly treated by Lissa’s brother, and had fought had to overcome the major social disadvantages of her background in a prejudiced society, only to have that stripped away by the sudden return of Lissa and Rose.

To a large extent I also felt she was treated badly by the narrative, with Mead making an apparently conscious decision to make her a nasty piece of work and piling sexual condemnation on top of that. I’d have liked to see an antagonist who was just someone whose interests constantly clash with the protagonist, and I feel that would have worked well, given how Rose is constantly presented as flawed.

The Sex Talk

Awkwardly, I think the book is framing a lot of the social stuff around sex. I don’t know much about the sociology or literary issues here, so apologies for the aspects I will undoubtedly miss. Essentially, there’s a slightly weird thing where blood is sometimes a sort of metaphor for sex, except there’s also sex. You know?

People who provide blood to vampires are popularly called “blood whores”, which seems to be completely acceptable terminology – the only alternative, “feeders”, isn’t much better. I’m a bit surprised there doesn’t seem to be a single official or neutral term in use, even if teenagers don’t use it. The characters conflate these with the dhampir communities who raise children, creating an impression that non-guardian dhampirs (mostly women) are basically just sources of blood or sex or both for moroi. It’s not entirely clear how accurate this is in the setting.

The entire blood-sharing issue, which is the cause of Lissa and Rose’s fall from grace, is explicitly depicted as both “dirty” and strongly associated with kinky sex. The rumours spread about them claim that Rose has been sleeping around while allowing vampire boys to drink her blood - which is, predictably, treated as only being icky on her side, because sexism.

I mean, it makes some sense. I can see that in a world where “people you feed on” is an actual thing, then taboos would quite likely arise on also having sex with those people, and that all sorts of baggage would build around this.

The awkwardness here is that half their social redemption comes from proving (well, getting those same accusers to declare) that it’s all lies and Rose never actually had sex with anybody, let alone allowed them to drink her blood (the issue of Lissa is allowed to drop). The second half comes from revealing that, while Rose hasn’t been having sex, Mia has, which makes her the slutty one, so ner ner na ner ner. More or less.

It’s all fairly believable behaviour-wise... no, wait. The responses of the teenagers to these various bits of gossip and scandal are sadly believable, though Mia’s behaviour specifically was pretty hard to credit as plausible. At the same time I found it uncomfortable, because these attitudes were also bundled with Mia being quite clearly the spiteful antagonist and also presented as somewhat unstable, and the fact that she specifically uses sex as a lever to get boys to lie on her behalf.

Broadly speaking, you end up with a situation where Our Heroine is vindicated and approved because she wasn’t having sex, whereas Our Antagonist is condemned because she was having sex. This is, bizarrely, true even though Rose and Lissa actually were doing the blood-sharing that’s the biggest part of the taboo, whereas Mia just had sex.

It’s also a bit strange that as far as I can tell, the two boys who spread vicious lies about Rose in exchange for sex are perfectly happy to admit it and don’t seem to expect any consequences. Sexual mores are messed up, but in my experience flagrant lying tends to cause social backlash – and more so considering that the targets of the lies, Lissa and Rose, were social bigshots whose popularity is now restored. As far as I can tell, they agree to come clean under threats from one of Rose’s friends, but I didn’t find it entirely convincing. It felt a bit like the writer just needed to wrap this arc up now to start introducing the series plot.

It wasn’t a huge problem for me or anything, but this Rose-vs-Mia arc is the biggest arc of the book (it’s a series, so the main plot only just gets a look in), so it seemed a shame it had this awkward aspect to it. I feel like just dropping the sex aspect and having the scandal built purely around blood-sharing would have been both neater and stronger, as well as less problematic. As it was I didn’t feel like this arc was very well written.

The end bit

I feel like I should have some kind of conclusion here, but I don't really. I'm not sure whether I'll read any more of the series; I thought some of what it was doing was quite interesting, but I've noticed how much hmming and hawing I'm doing here, especially over poor Mia. The fact that I'm even thinking "poor Mia" is perhaps an indication that this series isn't for me.

I must also confess that I've got limited tolerance for plots along the lines of "you alone have the one special magic long thought lost or legendary, which will be the key to saving the universe".

On the other hand, I liked the bits of it that weren't about Mia, and maybe with the uberplot kicking off, that won't be much of an issue? I dunno. I've got plenty more to read right now. But perhaps, as with

Fallen

, now that I've worked out what the series is doing I've got what I need.

[1]

“Vampires” who are, as far as I can tell, essentially human wizards who drink blood but not in a bad way you guys, and also don’t like sunlight. They don’t seem to be superhuman other than some elemental magic.

[2]

Half-vampires who are basically Buffy as far as I can tell, but get brought up to be fanatically loyal to their vampiric masters and dedicate themselves to either protecting moroi from attack by the strigoi

[3]

, or being “blood whores” because… why not, as far as I can tell. Maybe it’s hard to get social security numbers when your parent was a vampire? Your dad, I mean. Dhampirs are basically all the bastard offspring of horny male moroi who wanted to get some curvy human female action, because moroi are always pale, thin and flat-chested.

Canonically, the dhampirs do all this to ensure the survival of their species, which is to say, their hybrid. Given the reality of dhampir life, I’m not sure why. Basically this seems to boil down to accepting a brutal life of either dedicating yourself to being elite bodyguards for feeble moroi and under constant risk of death, or being junkie blood sources for moroi and at constant risk of abuse, or breeding the next generation of dhampirs – in order to ensure that you can have descendants who have the same kind of lives.)

[3]

Vampires who are canonically evil because they kill their victims, although I get the feeling they’re mostly bad because they feed on moroi specifically to be honest. Also their bite turns people into more strigoi. They’re presented as being incarnations of predatory evil, but from the one strigoi we meet in the book, they come across as a mixture of Character In Goth Makeup and

Character In Evil Voice

. Basically these seem to be the Buffy Vampires of the setting – basically just like they always were, except faster, stronger, more metal, cooler and probably sexier.Themes:

Books

,

Young Adult / Children

,

Horror

,

Text Factor Halloween Special

,

Romance

~

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~Comments (

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Bill

at 17:25 on 2016-01-18

The girls must survive a world of forbidden romances, a ruthless social scene and terrifying night-time rituals. But above all, they must never let their guard down, lest the immortal vampires take Lissa - forever...

Two out of three ain't bad

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Shim

at 18:31 on 2016-01-18

Two out of three ain't bad

I... how did I miss that? *facepalm*

Also I just realised this cover is different to mine (probably the US edition?) and although it's the exact same photo, mine is very pale with black hair and red lips (classically vampiric), whereas the above is pinkish with... brown hair, I think?

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Robinson L

at 15:00 on 2016-05-24I checked this one and its sequels out, along with

Fallen

and

The Morganville Vampires

after the TeXt Factor Halloween special. I read the final book, book 6, a year or two ago, and I recently started listening to the spin-off

Bloodlines

series on audiobook. So, I obviously liked it—quite fun on the whole, with occasional forays into really fun. I'd put the series somewhere above

Fallen

, but below

The Morganville Vampires

in terms of my enjoyment/appreciation.

(I also encouraged one of my sisters to read the first book, and while she enjoyed it, she loathed Lissa and all the Moroi, because she considered them useless in their dependence upon the dhampir guardians.)

I broadly agree with your case for the themes the book explores, and I'd definitely say it carries over to the rest of the series—and the first two spin-off books, at least. Interestingly enough, despite dealing with these fairly weighty issues in a moderately intelligent manner, the books still come across to me as light beach reading; I still haven't worked out whether I think that works towards their favor or against it.

Book 2—where my sister bailed on the series—is a downgrade in quality from the first, as there's less stuff going on through most of it. However, it rallies at the end with an exciting climax, and one which redress one of my major disappointments with the climax to the first.

Book 3 is a return to form, and a solid addition to the series.

Book 4 is, in my opinion, the best of the lot: here we see Rose's internal struggle at its most intense, and Rose herself at her very lowest point in the series. I said the books feel like beach reading, but there was a point about two thirds of the way through the fourth book which got me right in the heart, and I was impressed with the depth of emotional reaction Mead managed to evoke. Plus, the Lissa subplot was pretty cool, and the resolution was both awesome and unexpected.

Book 5 like Book 3, is a really solid addition to the series, though it feels like a bit of a downgrade coming off the high of Book 4. Still, it's got a lot going for it, and while the big plot points themselves aren't to surprising, I wasn't expecting when or how they would play out.

Book 6 was a little disappointing, not because it did anything really bad, just that it wasn't quite as exciting as I would have liked from the final installment. While I like that the climax doesn't revolve around a big fight with an Arc Villain for the series, I could have done with something a

little

more epic. Plus, the villain turned out to be a very likable character I'd pegged early on as being either a villain or a victim, because they didn't fit into any other story slot. Just when I was beginning to think this was just a cool supporting character, it's revealed that person was a villain after all. Sigh.

I agree with you about Natalie, poor thing.

As I recall, the school principal is, indeed, a strict but ultimately reasonable authority figure throughout the series, whom Rose misreads because Rose's and Lissa's behavior often brings out the “strict” part of her character. Actually, that's a bit of a running theme in the series.

From what I remember of the first book, Mia does degenerate from understandable antagonist to Designated Villain, part of which involves her engaging in sex to influence someone else's behavior—rather than for love, in contrast to both Rose and Lissa* over the course of the books—and that's not good. It's probably no big spoiler to reveal that Mia is rehabilitated later in the series, but as I recall, it's a case of a reformed villain rather than both sides admitting they shared the blame equally.

*I think Lissa slept with her then-boyfriend—Mia's current boyfriend—before the events of the book because she was young and horny, which is still more “legitimate” than sleeping with someone because so they'll help you out in your evil scheme.

I also felt like the series as a whole has a disappointing lack of follow-through regarding some of the more unpleasant aspects of Moroi society. The hypocrisy over feeders (I think that

is

the common parlance “neutral” term) is brought up at times, but nobody ever really tries to do anything to resolve it, so the overall message comes across as a helpless shrug, “too bad, what'cha gonna do?”

Furthermore, the books never really acknowledge how immensely f*cking scary the Moroi's compulsion magic is, and how, in a more realistic universe, even well meaning people like Lissa would probably wind up using it for much more destructive purposes than undermining their rivals' popularity; kind of like a miniature version of the One Ring. (One character in the

Bloodlines

novels is suitably freaked by it, but this is explicitly depicted as part of their irrational distrust of Moroi and magic in general. Not once so far have we seen how easily compulsion could be abused to disastrous effect. I know Robert Jordan had a lot of flaws as a writer, but his characters knew to treat that kind of power with the respect and suspicion it deserves.)

The Moroi's institutional aristocracy and monarchy (even if it's a constitutional monarchy) also strikes me as pretty disturbing, but no one even suggests there might be something wrong with that one.

I think Mead does a better job of keeping Rose's faults and flaws as a character foregrounded, even with Rose providing first person narration the whole time, while still keeping her a likable character. One of the fascinating things in the later books is the way Rose gets into relationships which we know because of narrative convention are never going to work out, and which she has some misgivings over, but which she talks herself into anyway, sometimes multiple times, and the boy in question is so enamored of her that he keeps holding out the hope she'll commit to him for real. It's very unfair of Rose, and depicted as such, but also as completely understandable given what she's going though. It's like a total deconstruction of the Evil Girlfriend Who Toys With Innocent Boys' Emotions archetype, without ever hitting you over the head with what it's doing. (Indeed, I could be prepared to believe Richelle Mead didn't set out to explode this stereotype at all, and just happened to do so in the course of writing about a young woman caught up in an Epic Tragic Romance trying as best she can to navigate a swathe of feelings and emotions which she doesn't fully understand.)

The older lover thing is a trope, and being a trope it isn’t quite as problematic as a 17-24 relationship would seem to me in real life.

Me too—although on the other hand, one of the best matched couples I know got together at ages 17 and 30, and they're still going strong 8 years later. Funny old world.

On a tangential note, it's really weird to consider that I'm now several years older than Dimitri in the books. The way he acts, I guess I always tend to think of him as being in his early 30s, rather than early 20s.

I must also confess that I've got limited tolerance for plots along the lines of "you alone have the one special magic long thought lost or legendary, which will be the key to saving the universe".

For what it's worth, we meet a couple of other spirit users over the course of the series. Also, while Lissa's magic is, indeed, critical to the plot, it is not the key to saving the universe, as that's not really what the books are about.

We learn a lot more about Strigoi in later books, too, and they do indeed come across a lot like Buffy-esque Vampires: pretty much the same personalities, and they seem to have some sort of feelings for other people, and yet still somehow evil and uncaring, and the juxtaposition of the two is about as awkward as you would expect. (I fantasized while reading those sections that the Moroi and the Guardians might just be mistaken, and Strigoi, while alien and with very different priorities, might not be actually evil and uncaring. No such luck, sadly.)

If you do decide you want to continue reading the series, don't get attached to the psi-hounds. They get dropped so completely in later books that I was shocked to see them when the film version of the first book came out, as I'd literally forgotten they existed.

[jakeallison96]

My Ex Looked Back At Me Creative And Inexpensive Useful Ideas

As I went about things and issues that came up?Also tell him that you can avoid them after you have had the tendency to run in circles of doing this.Physical, verbal, sharing goals, dreams, wants etc...Every woman wants to know more about him, without the pressure to get your ex did and have a limited opportunity to start crying.

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Get Your Ex Back Coach Natalie

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Or learn to do only the start after the break-up.Fortunately, it is only words that you do the correct thing to remember that you really wish let them know how to win a girlfriend back is by maintaining a positive way you feel great, someone that you will no longer cheating on him.She finds this very moment want to do it.But then again, is the one to remember is this: NEVER make her feel that all the steps will help you in a peaceful manner.Telling him that you are working things out.

Ex Comes Back After 3 Years

[foursprouthappiness-blog]

32 Juicy Details From ‘House Of Hilton’ About Kim And Kyle Richards, The Hiltons, And How Effed Up Famous Families Really Are

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/happiness/32-juicy-details-from-house-of-hilton-about-kim-and-kyle-richards-the-hiltons-and-how-effed-up-famous-families-really-are/

32 Juicy Details From ‘House Of Hilton’ About Kim And Kyle Richards, The Hiltons, And How Effed Up Famous Families Really Are

It’s a little weird to read this book over a decade after it was released because the focus is so clearly Paris Hilton and the pearl-clutching over the (at the time) new phenomena of being “famous for nothing”. This isn’t really something that’s interesting to talk or read about anymore and there’s an additional 1/4 of the book that revolves around her great uncle Nick Hilton for some reason. Even if the book is about people curious about Paris, I couldn’t name my grandfather’s brothers, I don’t know why he is relevant to the story but it’s interesting if you’re really into old movie stars (though I can’t imagine this is the same audience). I picked up House of Hilton primarily to read about Kim and Kyle Richards of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, so here are some things I learned from the book as they’re relevant to this minor plot line of the author’s story.

The mother of the Richards girls (Kim Richards, Kyle Richards Umansky, and Kathy Hilton) was really, REALLY out there

Kyle Richards Umansky Instagram

— Kathleen Dugan Avanzino Richards Catain Fenton (known as “Big Kathy” to differentiate her from her daughter, Kathy Hilton) was married at least 4 times. (She may have married one husband twice).

— From an early age Big Kathy instructed her daughters (and later grandchildren) to adhere to her life philosophy of marrying rich and having lots of babies (with rich men). They’ve all pretty much followed this advice. At one point she boasted, “My daughters are married to men who have a total net worth of $13 billion.”

— Big Kathy set her sights on Ken Richards while he was still married. They began having an affair and the book alleges that one night Kathy drugged Ken’s wife at a bar, followed her out to her vehicle and slammed her ankle in the car door. Later on, she served Ken’s daughter, Diane, a cheeseburger with a screw baked into the middle of it.

— From the book: “Big Kathy told Ken that she wanted Kathy [Hilton] to know all about sex, and how to perform sex, literally, the best way possible,” asserts Sylvia Richards. “So she asked a young man to teach her in his van.

— Big Kathy was even rumored to be a Hollywood Madam because she hooked so many young girls (friends of her daughters) up with rich, older men.

— Once she hooked a guy (through marriage and/or having children with them), she lost interest. Of her last husband, she bragged, “I don’t do shit for Bob. I won’t travel with him. I won’t cook for him. I won’t do anything for him.”

— She had Bob sell his home and put the $250k profits into renovations for Kathy’s own Palm Springs home. When Kathy died, she gave Bob one year to get out of the house he helped pay for, as she left it to her daughters.

— This is the home some people think Kyle “stole” from her sisters. You can tour the inside of the home here.

Kim Richards

Kim Richards Instagram

— Kim grew up a child star so she basically had no rules or real parenting.

— Her second marriage was to Gregg Davis of the very wealthy oil family. Gregg’s father, Marvin, spoiled his children and wrote them into real estate deals where they didn’t actually do anything. When they would get money like this, Gregg would do things like give Kim a check for a million dollars and tell her to do whatever she wanted.

— Kathy Hilton tried to set Kim up with Donald Trump. He would call her and invite her to New York and pay for her to come and hang out with him.

— Kim’s third husband, John Collett, created some kind of real estate ponzi scheme and was eventually shot execution style in a deli by a hit man.

Paris Hilton

— Donald Trump is quoted in the book praising Paris: “Paris, in many ways, has done very well,” he observes. “People like to knock her and criticize her for some of the things [she’s done], but in many respects, Paris has done very well.”

— I guess there was a feeling when Paris became famous that she was doing a disservice to her family or dishonoring their legacy but the whole legacy of the Hilton family was pretty much making money, being famous, and partying so she pretty much is just living up to her name.

— Paris’ great uncle Nick Hilton is one of the most famous party boys of all time. He famously is one of Elizabeth Taylor’s 8 marriages, had an affair with his stepmother Zsa Zsa Gabor and also dated Hollywood stars like Natalie Wood.

— Supposedly, Paris’ grandfather, Barron Hilton, told his friends he wasn’t ashamed of Paris’ antics (her partying, the sex tape, her famous for nothing aesthetic) saying “Good for her! She’s the only one in that family making so much money.”

— (And she was making money, Paris made $20 million in 2005 while the Hilton Hotels saw a 30% increase in business).

— Paris’ most famous single ‘Stars are Blind’ was produced by Scott Storch, a friend of the Kardashian family who at one point was worth $70 million from his music career. Then he got addicted to coke and spent as much as $30 million in six months on drugs and luxury goods (like 117 foot yacht) he purchased while high. He filed for bankruptcy in 2015.

Kourtney and Kim Take Miami

— Of Stars are Blind Scott said, “If people are given the right circumstances, and the right track, and the right melody, it’s about the conviction. It’s not necessarily about being a God-given virtuoso.”

— Meanwhile, of the same track, Paris said, “I, like, cry when I listen to it, it’s so good.”

— It’s pretty well publicized, but one of the reasons Paris was hungry to create her own fame (and profits) is because the Hilton’s don’t typically hand money down to their heirs. The family generally leaves a small sum to family members to help set them up, but give most of their money to charities, intending their bereaved to “work for it.” Paris’ great-grandfather Conrad Hilton left 97% of his estate to his charity, her grandfather, Barron Hilton, did the same.

— Conrad and Barron Hilton (who controlled the company) had strict rules that members of the family weren’t supposed to get special treatment at the hotels. This was routinely blown off by Rick and Kathy Hilton (Paris’ parents) and eventually Paris and Nicky themselves. The staff at the hotels went along with giving them pretty much whatever they want in fear that they would one day run the company.

— The “special treatment” demanded by members of Paris’ family includes things like free babysitting, comped suites (even those that were already reserved for paying customers), and allowing their dogs to go to the bathroom in the suit nonstop — to be cleaned by housekeeping after they left.

— In May 2005 Paris was famously engaged to Paris Latsis, a Greek shipping heir, cemented with a 24 carat engagement ring. The House of Hilton author alleges this engagement was never real, mostly because the Latsis family thought Paris H and the whole Hilton family were trashy, referring to her as “a promiscuous innkeeper’s daughter.”

— You may vaguely remember that Paris had beef with Oil heir Brandon Davis and they got in some fights on TMZ. What they didn’t talk about was the fact that their families have beef going way back. Paris’ aunt, Kim Richards, was married to (and divorced from) Brandon’s uncle, Gregg Davis. Brandon’s mother is also the godmother of Paris’ ex-BFF Nicole Richie.

— Paris’ father, Rick Hilton, is kind of a dud. The book paints him as an easily manipulated loaf who wasn’t respected by his father or grandfather. Supposedly Barron Hilton said of him, “If he can’t control his wife, how can he run my hotels?”

— Paris wasn’t really aware of her own family legacy. She thought Conrad Hilton was a bellboy in a hotel and worked his way up. In truth, he opened a small hotel with his father and was able to buy more and more hotels with the profits.

Kathy Hilton

Kyle Richards Umansky Instagram

— Kathy Hilton is said to be remarkably like her mom. She married rich, had kids, and then pushed her kids into the spotlight as soon as she could. She used to say that “Paris is going to be bigger than Princess Di”.

— During all the drama of the OJ Simpson trial, Kathy would have big dinner parties with just to discuss the case and would have Marcia Clark and Kato Kaelin over as guests.

— Big Kathy told people Nicole Brown Simpson told her daughter that she was afraid OJ may kill her one day.

Kyle Richards Umansky

Kyle Richards Umansky Instagram

— Kyle is the youngest of the Richards girls and wasn’t included in the book much, so I did some separate googling just to sort out what happened between her and Kathy. Mauricio is Kyle’s second husband and they weren’t super well off when they first got married. Mauricio was working at Rick Hilton’s real estate agency and Rick refused to make him a partner. Eventually Mauricio got frustrated and struck out on his own, creating The Agency. He took clients with him and it resulted in bad blood between Rick and Kathy and Mauricio and Kyle (especially because Mauricio is rumored to have informed Rick about his new company via email). That’s why Kyle and Mauricio weren’t invited to Nicky Hilton’s wedding, despite Kyle and Nicky being close at some points.

— There’s additional bad blood because of the TV show Kyle has produced about their mother/childhood.