#harvey and his other half both loved His fiancee so much

[wineaunt420]

I fucking love this freak

[phantomdialogue]

˗ˏˋ. ݁₊ ✶ ˖ 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐛𝐲 𝐞𝐥𝐬𝐢𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫 - 𝟒.𝟐𝟓/𝟓 ☆ . ݁ ˖ˎˊ˗

chestnut springs book five

premise: since beau eaton came back from his last, and final, deployment, he hasn't been the same. he's lost his purpose and feels adrift from his family. bailey jansen has always been the black sheep in chestnut springs, cast out by everyone for her family's criminal history. when beau makes a bet with bailey that her last name isn't what the problem is, that her luck wouldn't change if she took his instead, he quickly learns that faking an engagement might not be as hard as he once thought.

couple: beau eaton and bailey jansen

tropes: fake engagement, age gap, virgin fmc, (small amount of) betting, military/veteran mmc

available on kindle unlimited

review below!

review:

i am pleasantly surprised by this book. i burned through it in two days and really fell so in love with the characters. still can't rate it as high as theo and cade as they are extremely near and dear to my heart but i really found myself loving beau. i've seen a lot of people rank this as last or second to last for the series but i think that it deserves a little more love. admittedly, i went into the book with a little bit of apprehension simply because with the way that beau was set up in book three and then ignored in book four, it felt odd to come back to him. however, i completely understand why elsie silver did it now that i'm done.

beau was a surprise of a love interest for me. i was worried that the book was going to lean into the over the top tortured veteran trope and i feel like there wasn't a lot of that. obviously he's got some pretty deep trauma as anyone would but it felt really natural instead of just pouring on the angst. bailey was in a similar way. i think it can be so easy to read a character like her with self-worth issues and want to yell at the book telling her to just get her head together but it's handled really beautifully. rather than finding her constant doubt annoying, the way that it's written really makes you sympathize for her and understand why she thinks like that.

i love this series... i wasn't expecting to love this series half as much as i did. it's easily a 5 star series for me and that really did shock me but i'm so so happy about it. i could read about 10 more books with these characters. i want a harvey book even if his story was covered as a b plot in some ways. i want a book that is literally just the girls all going out and having fun and stuff. i'd read a book just of the men being stubborn idiots and corrected by their wives/fiancees all the time. i'll read the spin off series' eventually but i truly am just so in love with these characters that saying goodbye to them is incredibly bittersweet.

q & a:

are they endgame? - they need therapy. without a doubt. BUT i don't think they break up and i think they are happy together endgame. i think the need for therapy comes on an individual level rather than them needing to seek it as a couple. they have done a good job at helping each other up to this point but i think long term they'll need professional help and there is nothing wrong with that. so yes, they are endgame but they will both need to seek therapy eventually.

did i cringe? - i don't think so. there were some awkward moments but nothing that outright made me cringe.

favorite part? - this was the perfect ending to the series - an ending that made me cry and was perfect. it really felt like the closing book in a comforting way. i feel like a lot of the plot lines for the majority of the characters were finished in reckless but then this went ahead and finalized everything with beau and bailey (because elsie silver doesn't just introduce a character and then throw them away. i've been waiting for bailey's moment since she appeared in flawless all the way at the start) along with any little tidbits left over for everyone else and of course, sweet harvey. it wrapped everything up with a beautiful bow and i am so heartbroken to leave these characters in the most bittersweet way.

least favorite part? - i wish that beau and jasper's friendship was explored a bit more. that's the main thing that stood out to me as something that irked me a bit. i liked the way that the virginity aspect was handled because i feel like that can often be poorly done but i just wish there was a bit more jasper and beau. i think it was set up in book three a lot but we didn't quite get to fully see their dynamic in person and so i was hoping to see it here. we got some small moments but i would have liked a little more.

favorite quotes (some spoilers here, of course, but minimal):

One who starts pulling up a stool every Sunday through Tuesday to drink chamomile tea until midnight, so I don’t have to close by myself.

“If we’re struggling, we’re still in motion, yeah? Heading somewhere better. That’s what I keep telling myself anyway.”

“I know you’re scared of losing control around me.” Her chin tips up as though she’s told me something that will make me back down. Run me off. It doesn’t. “No, I’m scared of you becoming something I can’t live without.”

“Bailey. I’m not ignoring you.” She licks her lips. “You should.” “Impossible. I’m memorizing you,”

“You’re relentless, you know that?” And I just give her a salute and a wink. Because yeah, I am. No one has ever showed up for Bailey, but she’s about to get the full experience. “No, sugar. When it comes to you, I’m downright hopeless.”

"That’s how I know I’ll love you in every version of yourself, because we’re all constantly changing. Growing. Becoming."

"Without you, this version of me doesn’t exist. Without the next version of you, the next version of me doesn’t exist either. We’re going to grow together."

“This is . . . this doesn’t feel like alone together. This just feels like together-together.”

[phantombmoll]

what do you think about harvey's relationship with other characters (not with gordon)? not only romantic ones, just his interactions with other people?

So I threw this out to tumblr 

I was wondering if there are any topics people might find interesting to read about? Or I mean if you have any Harvey questions you’d like me to answer/want to hear my opinions on, feel free to throw them my way! :) 

and @honestmrdual asked the above. 

So I think about Harvey a lot but it’s generally Harvey on his own, that being said I have thought about his relationships with other people. Romantic and non.

I decided (so that this list wouldn’t get too long) to focus on a select few-

Firstly Friendship and Romances in general and then specific relationships including; Dix, Scottie, Fish, Alfred, Edward (I was going to talk about more but it got so long so I cut half of them haha!)

Generally as a rule I think Harvey is pretty easy going on the romantic and friendship front. I think he picks up friends easily (despite what his friendship with Jim might tell us), there’s a lot of people have a lot of respect for Harvey as evidenced numerous times at the GCPD. I think part of that is because Harvey just has this cheeky charm that you can’t help but love.

I think Harvey has friendships of equal measure with men and women but I think Harvey is pretty old school in his views and I think he thinks that men and women probably can’t be friends without something happening.

Firstly then let’s turn our attention to Harvey and Dix’s friendship

Harvey has known Dix since he was a rookie cop trying to make detective (Nothing Shocking - Harv says as much) and I think he see’s Dix as a sort of mentor and father figure, because of this he wants to take care of Dix, even if he doesn’t always agree with him. I think we see this especially in the episode in season four (Nothing Shocking) when they have their moment in the office and it is a beautiful moment. It’s amazing what two actors can convey with so little to go on and that moment is an example of that. Furthering that idea of the parent/child relationship is the whole scene in Spirit of The Goat where Harvey storms off after saying he’s the smartest guy in the room and then we see him paying the nurse. Harvey rebels against Dix the way a child rebels against a parental figure - pushing boundaries (and thinking they know best) - something which is also evidenced in that first scene of Spirit of The Goat when Harvey, against Dix’s advice goes rushing in to try and stop the Goat. 

You can see that Harvey and Dix care about each other in all their interactions. That Dix doesn’t blame Harvey for his life getting busy and that he doesn’t want Harvey to be eaten up by that guilt.

There’s a hell of a lot of guilt in that relationship on both sides too. Harvey feels it more strongly for the way his actions cost Dix the use of his legs BUT also I think Dix feels it because he’s half the reason Harvey has ended up so jaded and so full of guilt.

They care about each other though and Dix seems to be one of the few characters to actually show concern about Harvey and his wellbeing throughout the seasons even if it’s not explicit.

Next Scottie Mullens and Harvey

- So when Scottie first came into the show (and she’s only in it for two episodes) I was pretty excited to see a potential love interest for Harvey. However this relationship really suffers in the hands of the writers and I think it’s because they just don’t know how to write women, especially not strong women. (I mean look at the rollercoaster of Lee’s portrayal).

In the first moments Scottie meets Harvey she tells him not to be an ass and at first I was excited because it seemed like here we had a woman who could banter with Harvey, but, for some reason this doesn’t feel like banter. It feels like she’s telling him off - which isn’t such a bad thing - only it’s kind of aggressive and if this were the other way round and the gender’s were switched there’d be red flags all over it. Scottie’s second and last appearance is at the start of season 2 where we find out Harvey is engaged. She is incredibly controlling in the two minutes we get of her. She is hostile to Jim, talks over him and Harvey.

She is the epitome of the nagging housewife that was prevalent in so many ‘comedy’ shows of the 60′s and 70′s and Harvey is supposed to be the slightly brow beaten husband.

Personally I don’t think Harvey’s happy, for one he introduces Scottie as his girlfriend not his fiancee. Second he sounds so dejected when he tells her he’s telling Jim no and thirdly after Harvey tells Jim in the previous episode that the civilian life if better there’s a moment where the camera lingers on him and we see a flash that shows he’s not all that happy with it.

I think Harvey - especially in romantic relationships, but it could be argued for platonic ones too - doesn’t think he’s worth much, so he gets himself into relationships that aren’t actually that good for him. “We accept the love we think we deserve.” and I personally don’t think Harvey thinks he’s worth that much. Especially after having to give up his pursuit to be a white knight. I think he’s had it knocked out of him by Gotham. I think this is a reason he visits prostitutes a lot, I think it’s why he gets into these romances with women who treat him, kind of like dirt - there’s a sort of side romance in the first Gotham novel and that’s all kind of messed up.

It’s not just a case of Harvey enjoying BDSM, or being dominated either (though I do think he enjoys being dominated), I genuinely think Harvey believes he isn’t worthy of love and he isn’t worthy of being loved and appreciated properly.

- Harvey and Fish is another romantic relationship that I think runs deeper than just the flirting.

I feel like with Harvey and Fish the relationship there, is one that just never got the timing right. On paper they work well together and they clearly care deeply about each other (though let’s not forget Fish has tried to kill Harvey a few times) BUT I don’t know if that’s also just circumstance that has brought them together. They strike me as the sort of people who SHOULD fit, who SHOULD be good together but then just aren’t and I think, well I headcanon that partly has to do with Fish’s sexual appetites that are referenced a few times throughout the seasons.

- Harvey and Alfred

The moment Harvey and Alfred were on screen together in season 1 (around the episode ten mark), I got SO excited. Alfred is another of my favourite characters, and he was from the start of the series. He’s just so handsome and lovely and british and bond-esque. ANYWAY-

I really like Harvey and Alfred’s relationship because I feel like they have a good degree of respect for each other. I feel like Harvey and Alfred are two sides of the same coin. They’re both a similar age and they both have this want in them to be a white knight but they both know that sometimes you have to do some dirty stuff to get the right stuff done. Both of them seem to recognise the realness of the world around them, both of them have clearly lived and loved and lost. I feel like Harvey and Alfred get in each other in a way Jim could never get either of them because Jim is so No BuT We HaVe tO mAkE gOtHaM bEtTeR and bullheaded and freaking self righteous and Alfred has never been like that with Harvey. Not that we ever see anyway.

Alfred for me is like, not a finessed Harvey, but maybe the man Harvey wishes he was - and I know a lot of people would argue that Jim takes that spot but I really really don’t believe he does, I think there are aspects of Jim that Harvey wishes he could be more like but not Jim on a whole, Harvey has never been an all american boy scout. I believe Alfred is the man Harvey wishes he was and as cliche as it is it might have been nice to see them have a romantic entanglement with the same lady, just to watch some jealousy, competition and back and forthing.

Now we’ll move onto the one that I don’t really want to talk about but have to because I love Harvey, even his bad and horrible points.

- Harvey and Ed

So I couldn’t do a list of Harvey’s relationships without talking about Edward Nygma.

When it comes to Nygma, Harvey is a bully. That’s the only way I can describe it. There’s not much of anything that Ed does to Harvey in those early days that justifies Harvey’s actions towards him. (Not like with Penguin).

I feel maybe with Harvey it’s one of two things;

1) Ed is so unashamed to be himself that it makes Harvey - who is hiding parts of himself and seems to have fractured some of his nature because of this - uncomfortable.

or

2) Ed is just one of those people (and we all have them) who makes Harvey feel uneasy and he can’t quite put his finger on why. - We’ve all met that one person that just makes us feel uncomfortable and we’re not sure why, maybe they’re a little bit creepy, but whatever it is something about us goes on high alert when they’re around and we don’t want to be alone with them for more than five seconds.

It doesn’t justify Harvey’s reaction to Ed or the way he treats him and he ends up contributing to Ed’s downfall, but it does go someway to explain it.

I think it’s quite telling that the one time Harvey tells Ed he’s done a good job Ed is surprised because he never expected praise from Harvey Bullock. I think this slight and temporary change in attitude probably has to do with the fact that Harvey probably hasn’t been hanging around with the same old crowds - like flass - now he’s having to run around with Jim and fighting crime.

Like I said this got super long so if you made it this far well done and I’m sorry not sorry for rambling on so much. Like I said I just love Gotham’s Harvey Bullock.