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lottins-only · 4 months ago

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I love you, it's ruining my life | Part II

pairing: Kylian x black!fem!Reader

word count: 3.5k

Taglist: @kymb-10

A/N: Part one can be found here. thank you all who read, i really appreciate it <3 . Please comment under this post if you'd like to be tagged on future updates of this series. my inbox is open, and i would love to hear your thoughts or any feedback you have.

II. May 2017

The hot sun cast a golden glow over Monaco as Y/N stepped out of the sleek black car that had picked her up from the airport. After months of Kylian’s persistent invitations and her own growing curiosity, here she was. She had recently wrapped up her exams and high school as a whole while Kylian’s jam-packed season was winding down to a close, so it was the perfect time for a visit.

Everything looked newer here, shinier. Even the girls in front of her at customs looked like they came straight out of a magazine, with their long shiny hair and designer clothing. Her uneasiness had only increased after that. She had always known that Monaco was the playground for the rich, but what she hadn’t quite wrapped her mind around was that Kylian was now one of them. They hadn’t seen each other for the better part of the 4 years since that winter Kylian traveled to Madrid and their lives had changed drastically since then.

Most of their correspondence ever since he moved to Monaco consisted of text exchanges that were short, and that were mostly made up of “Hey, How are you?”s and “How’s school?”s. Once, she caught one of his matches by chance and texted him “You’re on TV!!” to which he’d replied a few hours later “Haha, did you watch the whole match?”, and the conversation had fizzled out quickly after that. On the rare occasions he visited Paris, Kylian didn’t make much effort to see her. She didn’t take it personally; between his charitable commitments, media appearances and family, he didn’t have much time to catch up with old friends. They had their run-ins, however, and those involved interactions so careful and hesitant it bordered on awkward. In short, their relationship was not what it was years ago. It was expected, of course. Lots of things change during those teen years. People change. Even Y/N had expected it a little. An additional layer she hadn’t accounted for was Kylian’s career. He was playing elite football every weekend and getting paid millions for it, while she was trying to stay afloat during exam season. Their lives were going in two very, very different directions. Even so, she’d accepted his invitation to come see him in Monaco for the weekend. The truth was she missed him a lot.

“Y/N!” She had been so busy admiring the sleek and modern house in front of her that she hadn’t noticed Kylian’s mother standing by the front door. She strode to Fayza and was quickly engulfed in a warm embrace.

When they broke away, Kylian’s mother cupped her cheeks and regarded her with an adoring look. “Oh my, what a beautiful girl you’ve grown into”. Y/N blushed and looked at the ground.

“Come on let’s get you inside” Fayza took her bag and led her inside the house. Kylian’s mom asked about her flight, and whether she was hungry. She had some of Fayza’s delicious food before getting settled inside the guest room. She knew Kylian was in training and would be for a couple more hours, so she took her time exploring the house. Memorabilia of Kylian’s young career was littered around the residence. She recognized his first ever football jersey, the number 2 of AS Bondy framed on the wall leading to the living room.

In the late afternoon, she was reunited with Ethan, who once bubbly and loud, had grown shy in her presence. Though It only took an hour or so for him to go back to his usual self. Before long, they had set up a board game on the carpeted living room floor. The little boy quickly lost his excitement over that, however, and so they abandoned the game and he loaded up FIFA on the TV while she scrolled aimlessly on her phone.

At around 8 PM, the exhaustion from the day of traveling caught up to her and she felt her eyes struggling to stay open. She made her way to the guest room and after quickly changing into her pajamas was engulfed by sleep within minutes of her body falling on the mattress.

Later on, she was woken by a knock on the door. She stirred, disoriented and groggy from the unplanned nap. The knock came again, this time more insistent. Her heart skipped a beat as she scrambled out of bed, quickly smoothing down her rumpled clothes.

She opened the door, and there he was. All the uneasiness melted away at the sight of him.

“What’s with all the pink?” Kylian pointed at her pajamas. “You look like the pink panther”

She glanced down at her ensemble before grumbling a quiet “shut up” and standing aside to let him into the room. Secretly, she was glad that he’d opted to greet her with teasing, something that was essential to their old dynamic.

Kyilan walked into the room and flung his body on the bed with a thud. Y/N laid down next to him more quietly. “Nice place you’ve got out here. It’s really big” she said, staring up at the ceiling.

Kylian stretched his body out lazily, in typical teenage boy fashion. He smirked and replied “That’s what she said”

Y/N rolled her eyes, unable to help the smile on her face. She shoved him slightly, trying to regain space on the bed. “How was training?”

“It was good” he responded. “Sorry I kept you waiting. Coach made us do more drills than usual, and then the recovery session ran late. I really, really hate cryotherapy, but it helps with injury prevention so I guess I shouldn’t complain…”

As he spoke, Y/N’s gaze involuntarily drifted down his frame. The first thing she noticed was that he had grown a couple more inches from the last time she saw him. His eyes were as big and brown, and in her humble opinion, as pretty as ever. He had grown into some of his features, yet his face was full of the youthful softness that she’d come to adore. His skin was tanner than usual, no doubt from the fact that he spent most of his days running around on a football pitch under the glaring sun.

She had also caught the glint of the expensive watch on his wrist, and the way he’d stood with a subtle sense of self-assuredness at the door. The sight had been both familiar and foreign, strangely.

“Wait, I have a funny video to show you from training”. As he shifted to get his phone out of his pocket, the sleeves of his Nike T-shirt rolled up slightly to reveal more of his smooth golden brown skin and toned bicep. The muscle flexed deliciously as he moved. She tore eyes away reluctantly. Suddenly, she became conscious of their proximity on the bed, and how if one of them moved an inch closer their arms would be touching.

The video showed Kylian and two of his friends in the hot tub gleefully tossing someone’s phone around while the owner of the phone sat watching anxiously. Y/N giggled at their antics, certain that it had been Kylian’s idea.

In the corner of her eyes, she saw Kylian glance away from the screen of his phone to appraise her.

“You look different, you know”

Y/N looked down at herself self-consciously. She would have preferred to look more put together for their reunion, maybe without sleep-disheveled hair and clothes that weren’t hot pink pajamas. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged, eyes now back on his phone. “I don’t know. You just look different”

She didn’t respond to that. She’d also experienced a growth spurt since the last time she saw him. She wondered if he studied her just as she’d studied him. Did he notice that she wore makeup now? Or the new signature perfume she’d adopted? Or, she thought, flushing, Did he notice she had boobs now?

Kylian stood up from the bed abruptly, knocking her out of her thoughts. He stretched out his arm for her and she took it. “Come, let’s go to the kitchen. I’m hungry”

She tried to ignore the warmth that spread through her at that contact.

“So yeah, Amalfi was great” Isabelle said over the loud music.

Y/N nodded in what hopefully seemed an enthusiastic manner. She opened her mouth to respond but realized she had run out of things to say. The alcohol in her system seemed to have made the opposite of its intended effect; her social skills had been dulled. She turned her gaze to her cup and tried to think, but her head was spinning, albeit very slowly. It was her last night in Monaco and Kylian had taken her to a friend’s house party. She’d been introduced to some of his teammates and other friends. As the night went on, she’d found herself in the company of Isabelle, with Kylian nowhere to be found. Isabelle was apparently a friend of a friend of Kylian’s, having known him ever since he moved to Monaco.

Y/N looked up from her cup to find Isabelle looking at her expectantly.

A beat of excruciating silence ensued.

“So how do you know Kylian again?” Isabelle mercifully asked.

“Oh, uh, we grew up together in Paris” Y/N responded gratefully. “Same neighborhood, same school. He’s much cooler now, except for the fact that he doesn’t have a driving license and doesn’t plan to get one. Like ever”

Isabelle let out a laugh. “Oh my god, tell me about it. That’s all Sophia ever complains about”

Y/N didn’t know who Sophia was, but she had her suspicions. Kylian had been texting on his phone on the dinner table so much the night before that his mother had scolded him. His eyes had been constantly drawn to his phone, his attention clearly divided between whatever was on it and the chatter of conversation between Y/N and the Mbappes. It hadn’t escaped the notice of Y/N and it had taken up more space in her mind than she’d liked, so much so that she’d stayed up in bed mulling it over. Who else can it be, if not a girl? She’d thought.

She took a sip from her drink coolly. “Really?”

“Oh yeah, she wants a man that can drive her around. And I get it, you earn millions and you don’t want to get, like, a cool sports car? I’ve never met a guy like that”

Y/N stayed silent, waiting for her to add more.

Isabelle leaned into her ear, and said in a hushed and conspiratorial tone, “But between you and me, she’s said that he’s really good in the bedroom. Like, he gets her there all the time, you know what I mean?”

Y/N winced at the strong alcohol breath coming out of Isabelle’s mouth.

She leaned away and gave an exaggerated wink, as if she hadn’t laid everything out plainly.

Their conversation shifted to other topics and Y/N’s mind wandered. She was glad she had found confirmation of what she already knew from someone else, because now she could control her reaction when he told her, if he planned to tell her. She felt a pang in her heart at the fact that they’d grown apart so much that Kylian had failed to mention a girlfriend to her. Maybe he thought it was a detail she wouldn’t care for. He’d updated her on practically every aspect of his life but this when they’d spoken yesterday. She cared, of course. So much so that she was contemplating how she’d react when she eventually found out. Would she be teasing, or nonchalant? Whatever it was going to be, she needed to be the picture of indifference.

Maybe it was the information she’d just received, or the alcohol she wasn’t used to consuming, but she felt her stomach rolling. Isabelle, bless her, pointed her in the direction of the bathroom. Unfortunately, it was occupied. Deciding to try the upstairs bathroom, she hurried to the stairs and climbed the steps two at a time. She was desperate to find a room to take a respite.

The hallways of the second floor were completely empty. She tried opening several doors, but they were locked. She spotted a final door at the end of the hall. She walked over and turned the handle. To her immense relief, the door swung open easily.

She immediately stopped in her tracks at what she saw in front of her. Kylian was sprawled on a sofa, his head lying on the lap of a girl. She was leaning down, her long blonde hair a curtain around them. She was caressing his forehead, and he was looking up at her, murmuring something Y/N couldn’t hear.

Their heads snapped up as soon as they heard the door open, breaking the intimate spell.

“I was looking for the bathroom” Y/N let out. She could feel the bile rising up to her throat. She quickly turned and walked away before they had a chance to respond.

A woman walking towards her saw the panicked look on her face and pointed her to the bathroom. An unoccupied one, finally. Everything she had consumed throughout the day immediately left her body as soon as she saw the open toilet bowl. She retched and retched, feeling the scratch on her throat. Afterwards, she looked at herself in the mirror and cringed. Her mascara was running down her face, and her curls had turned extremely frizzy. She did her best to fix both her makeup and her hair before leaving the bathroom.

She found Kylian sitting on the stairs. He looked up at her, concern clearly written in his deep brown eyes. Her heart swelled at the sight. My sweet Kylian, she thought.

“Are you okay?” He asked as she sat beside him.

“My tummy wasn’t great for a while there, but all good now!” She chirped.

“Oh, ok. I’m glad. I-”

“So, you have a girlfriend now, huh?” she said, before he could make any more comments about her state.

He rolled his eyes at her and smiled. “What? Is that hard to believe?”

“No,not at all” She said. “ I mean, I don’t see how she can see past your coconut shaped head, but that’s just me”

He gave her a shove in response, and she giggled.

“Soo…?” She looked at him expectantly.

“Her name is Sophia. We met through one of my buddies at Clairefontaine. And we’re not dating dating, we’re just…” He trailed off, avoiding her gaze.

“Hooking up?”

“Yeah” he said sheepishly. “But its not all there is to it. It’s complicated”

“How long?”

“Like, 3 months?” he shrugged. “We’ve been talking for longer than that, though”

There was a brief pause as she processed the information.

“That’s nice… I’m glad you’re... having fun, I guess” She measured her words.

He hesitated, then added “Actually, there’s something else I haven’t mentioned yet”

What now? She thought bitterly.

“I’m moving back to Paris” he revealed. “To play for PSG”

Her eyes widened. She had been vaguely aware that there were football transfer rumors surrounding Kylian that summer, but she hadn’t paid much attention to them.

“And, uh, I was really hoping we could hang out and stuff. Like old times” he continued “I miss you, you know. I wish we’d stayed in touch more”

He had a hopeful look on his face, which made what she was about to tell him even harder.

“Congrats, Kyks” she said, leaning her head on his shoulder. “But you should know, I’m also gonna be moving. To the US for university.”

Kylian looked at her, clearly surprised. “Really?”

“Yeah, to John Hopkins to study biomedical engineering” She looked at her lap shyly.

Kylian let out a joyous laugh, and her heart swelled at the sight of his dimples. “I don’t know what that even means but I’m so proud of you”

“ I’m really proud of you too, Kylian”

She felt a twinge of sadness that she wouldn’t be there for the next chapter of his career, but she was excited for him. This was the natural next step for him.

They held eye contact for a few seconds. Once again, their lives were changing. Who knew what kind of relationship they’d have in a year’s time. All she knew was that she wanted him in her life, no matter what. She could see the same realization in Kylian’s eyes.

“Even if you’re not in Paris,” he said. “I want to stay friends. I want you to be in my life.”

She nodded, trying to stop her eyes from welling up with tears.

They sat there in silence for a few minutes, and Y/N was reminded of the times they spent in silence when they were younger, with unspoken understanding and easy companionship flowing between them. The days when they’d be sat in her room, her by her desk doing her homework and him on the floor flipping through his Manga. Her mother would bring them some snacks and would deliberately leave the door open as she left, her way of keeping a watchful eye on them, much to the embarrassment of Y/N. For her part, she would relish the times when Kylian was so absorbed by whatever was in front of him that she’d be able to take long, furtive glances and drink in his long eyelashes, or the way his eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

“Did you really think I’d hide a whole girlfriend from you?” his voice brought her out of her reverie.

“Well, it turns out you were hiding an entire situationship from me” She pointed out.

“I don’t know how to talk to you about these things, to be honest” Kylian said awkwardly.

She understood. She hadn’t told him about what little developments there were in her romantic life, either. She didn’t know how that would go.

She scooted closer to him. “Ok. From now on, let's talk about these things. No matter how weird it feels. Pinky promise”

She held out her pinky finger, and he wrapped his around it with a smile on his face.

“Can I ask why it's complicated? You looked really comfortable with her back there” She regretted asking the question as soon as it came out of her mouth.

“I don’t know” He paused, clearly thinking about his answer “ I think maybe it’s my trust issues. People here know me as Kylian Mbappe, number 29 for Monaco. They don’t know me like you do. Plus, I don’t think I would even have time for a serious relationship. And I’m not stringing her along either, if you were thinking that. We’ve talked about it openly ”

Y/N felt strangely reassured by that.

“And maybe..." he paused, contemplating his next words. "Maybe things would be different if you were here”

His eyes held an intense look, as if trying to convey something his lips couldn’t and wouldn’t dare to.

Her breath caught in her throat. Before she could say something in response, Kylian’s phone rang out. It was his driver, here to pick them up. Kylian had training early the next day, and disciplined as he was, made sure to set a curfew for himself. They left the party immediately, the conversation discarded just like that.

In the car, Y/N’s mind ran through the contents of the evening. She was glad that Kylian made no effort to introduce her to Sophia. She didn’t know if she could keep up the pretense of indifference if she saw them together again. Whenever her mind went to the scene she’d found them in the bedroom, something in her deflated. It would have hurt less if she’d caught them in bed doing the deed, she later decided. She could still see it in her mind; how relaxed he looked with his head on her lap, how their faces were so close together. Girlfriend or not, it was clear they had casual intimacy Y/N thought he’d never have with anyone else besides her.

Pretty early on in their friendship, Y/N had made peace with the fact that she would be sharing her best friend with the rest of the world. She had always known he was destined for greatness, and that he would be loved by many. But deep down, she always believed that there wouldn’t be anyone that would love him the same way she did, that had access to him like she did, and that knew him the way she did. She hadn’t realized it, but she’d come to Monaco with a fantasy in her mind that all of a sudden he’d look at her differently, that he’d finally see her the way she did him. How wrong she was. It was idiotic of her to assume that someone like him would stay single or celibate. He was a good looking 18 year old millionaire with more charisma than most grown men. All he’d have to do was flash those dimples to get any girl he wanted.

Then, there was the part from the evening that lingered with her the most. Maybe things would be different, if you were here. Y/N’s mind whirled.

When they got home, Y/N sat with her laptop open in the guest room. What Isabelle said had also stuck with her. On Google, she typed Is female orgasm common?

She clicked the top result and skimmed the article until she found her answer: More than 90% of men usually experience orgasm in their intercourse; among women, this proportion is only around 50%.

Well, what a lucky girl Sophia was. Y/N shut her laptop angrily.

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izvmimi · 5 months ago

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okay so i’m pulling my notes app out because i started a list in case i ever needed to give recs out so uhhhhh

if you want sports,

- run with the wind is like haikyuu vibes but for running! it’s like 23 eps and there’s a kageyama in there lol uhhhh what else, idk it’s more like found family than simp material so hopefully?? maybe!!

- daiya no ace/ace of diamond, it sounds like you know of it already but omg the way this had me sobbing (THAT ONE SCENE!!!!!) but rewatching after a long time is always fun :3

- sk8 the infinity because duh i think i’ll need to rewatch this one too actually lol (there’s like 2 simpable characters in the series and i don’t think they’re your type so safe!!! …i hope im not lying ;-;)

- yuri on ice! toeing the line of simp country but it’s fine, who doesn’t love gay men skating lol

maybe sports isn’t what you want rn and you want something else!

- 91 days! idk if you’ve watched this one before but i recently watched it again and i remembered why i marked it as a favorite it’s just so good! it’s set in the states prohibition time period and there might be some tw’s? like guns, death, etc (because gang wars)

- ranking of kings is such a cute anime and the style is so cuteeee i really enjoyed the story and i remember it won an award (like best animation or something) and you can def see why!

- wotakoi, have you watched this one?? it’s full on romance and it’s so CUTEEEEE but god there is a character in there where i’m conflicted on if i want him for myself or support his relationship ;-;

- great pretender! it’s been a while since i’ve seen this one actually but i remember being so like impressed with how good it was!! also more of a plot (and i swear i mean plot) than characters thing???

- millionaire detective, there’s like 2 (or 3, depending how you swing) characters to simp for but everyone simps for them so technically safe! i will always watch this one for the plot (plot being kanbe daisuke <3 LOL)

- school babysitters, IT’S SO CUTE LITERALLY SO CUTE if this doesn’t make you squeal, rolling around in your bed and kicking your feet, i need to resign my list and question my life choices (joking! sort of! but i really enjoyed this one)

- assassination classroom. iconic. need i say more? :3

- spy x family..? have you boarded the spy x family bandwagon and by spy x family i mean LOID FORGER BECAUSE GOD HE IS SO FINE

- disastrous life of saiki k. i think i sent you an ask about this one before…? but it’s so funny, def rewatch worthy lol

- banana fish…….. ooh if you’ve watched this one, are you okay? if you haven’t watched it… i recommend with a giant bag of salt!

- monster is like one of my top 5 all time favs! and so i wanted to share with you in case you haven’t watched!

- detective conan. okay this one i recommend with a grain of salt because it’s… longer than one piece. and has more filler than naruto… BUT the filler i think is fun!! but i’m biased… BUT THE ART STYLE IS SO GOOD!!!

- horimiya! not sure if you’ve watched this one either but super wholesome super cute!!

- oshi no ko! have you watched this one yet?? i really liked it and the op (YOASOBI MY QUEEN) IS LITERALLY SO GOOD it’s so good

- one punch man for the vibes!!

- erased! i don’t remember much of this but i thought it was pretty good..? actually make this a plan z lol

- classroom of the elite! has… fanservice… BUT if you like the overpowered type of character you might like this one!!

- my love story (and not to be confused with the yamada-kun at lv 999 one!) it’s so cute i loved it sm (and i was bawling for some parts of it because of how adorable it was!!)

- natsume’s book of friends! i actually never finished this one because of the influx of new anime but i def didn’t drop it because i thought it was bad! it’s really cute and wholesome and it makes for a good background show too!

okay i went through my lists like many many times to squeeze out anymore recs! I TRIED TO GIVE A LOT IN CASE YOU ALREADY SAW SOME OF THEM BUT AAAHHH i hope at least one is interesting ;-; or inspired you to rewatch something!!

omg 🥺🥺🥺 these are amazing thank you for working so hard on this!! I’ve heard of horimiya and might try erased, i’ve heard great things!

#mimi replies #thank youuu

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dankusner · 8 months ago

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youtube

The road from despair to rock Rhett Miller turned his Dallas childhood into a set of American classics with the Old 97’s

Rhett Miller was 14 when he swallowed a handful of pills and washed them down with lighter fluid.

The pills lived in a medicine cabinet, unusually robust because his mother worked for a psychiatrist, and the lighter fluid had the kind of casual skull-and-crossbones toxicity you could find in a house in 1984, the year our story begins but his almost ended.

He filled up a Big Gulp cup with the liquid, no way this couldn’t work, and he sat down in the living room of the empty house on the outskirts of Highland Park, where he’d never fit and didn’t really try to.

Fourteen can be a dark place.

His parents were at the dawn of what Robyn Hitchcock would call “a slow divorce.”

Rhett had a girlfriend, but maybe not anymore.

The despair became overwhelming, and the best way to stop the feeling seemed to be stopping life itself.

It was late afternoon, and his younger sister would be coming home soon.

He’d branded her with the name Christi when he suggested his parents name their only daughter after Corpus Christi, a moment that could be seen as his very first song title, many of which would carry names like Caroline and Victoria and Adelaide, but none of that had happened yet.

He knew Christi would be coming through that door, and it was the first sliver of awareness that punctured the need to disappear.

He hadn’t thought about this part: He was leaving people behind.

He bolted from the house and down the railroad tracks to Knox-Henderson, where he collapsed outside the 7-Eleven, almost certainly not the worst thing to happen in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven, but still very odd.

As fate would have it, an older arts magnet student named Bari was just leaving On the Border, the Tex-Mex restaurant across the street, when she spotted him.

Of course she was beautiful, because that would be our hero’s luck: to be both saved and embarrassed at once.

But the twist at the end was that the oil in the lighter fluid coated his stomach and kept the pills from soaking in; the other twist was that his life had finally begun.

Rhett Miller once boasted in song that he was born in the backseat of a Mustang on a cold night in a hard rain, but actually, he was born in a hospital in Austin, where his father went to law school.

It was Sept. 6, 1970, and Smokey Robinson’s “Tears of a Clown” topped the radio charts, and four passenger airplanes were hijacked that day at the start of the Jordanian civil war’s Black September, but all that must have felt distant to the young, handsome couple who had a child, after many years of trying.

The birth certificate read Stewart Ransom Miller II, and many years later a classic song would prove that if you drop the number, the name rhymes with “serial lady killer,” but they would call him Rhett.

His mother, Ann, loved Gone with the Wind’ s Rhett Butler.

She was kind and accommodating, a classic TV mom.

Her first child was precocious, with the long eyelashes and pink cheeks of a Gerber baby.

A tiny pinprick of a mole on his chin would grow larger as he did.

The family moved to Dallas and added new members.

Next came a second son Ross, then daughter Christi.

They lived in a two-story home on a leafy street where Rhett’s father, Randy, was raised, but Randy’s own father had squandered the family fortune on the first incarnation of the Dallas Texans and a series of radio stations that lost money.

Armstrong Elementary is in the wealthiest section of a very wealthy part of Dallas, flush with oil money and real-estate mavens and kids who live on Beverly Drive, and our hero might have had a small grudge against inherited wealth.

(Later line: “The new kid, he’s got money, the money I deserve.”)

He looked into private schools.

He found Bard College at Simon’s Rock, a boarding school in the Hudson Valley, but good luck with that.

He also found the elite St. Mark’s, slightly closer to home near Preston Hollow.

His grandmother was a receptionist, but she had an Air Force pension that could cover the cost, and Rhett was close with his mother’s mom.

They were Scrabble buddies.

He was 10 when he went for his interview, and the teacher asked what he was reading.

He told her about The Catcher in the Rye . The Phoebe character spoke to him.

The teacher looked at him like, “Who told you to read Catcher in the Rye ?”

Of course, he threw his mom under the bus, but he got accepted.

He was never the best student, but he read, and he read, and he read. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Charles Bukowski, Kurt Vonnegut.

St. Mark’s came with friends, good times at last.

But seventh grade came with hormones and consequences.

He’d be playing sports, and the jock-types would tackle him, pin him to the ground as they straddled him, whispered in his ear that he was gay, though they used another word.

He’d be thinking, you’re the one grinding on me .

The boy with long eyelashes and rosy cheeks wasn’t the one you wanted in your circle.

Friends dropped him, and the social exile pushed him toward music. He picked up a guitar.

It was an Ovation 12-string acoustic, with its wooden front and rounded plastic back, a cliche for a teen folkie, but to be fair, that’s what he was.

The family spent summers close to Fargo, N.D., in Brainerd, Minn.

His mom’s best friend had a cabin in that desolate place.

After dinner and before bedtime, the Millers read books aloud, and Rhett was the performer among them, so in the summer of his 13th year, he read Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter to the family.

If the Manson murders don’t exactly sound like a lullaby, maybe you didn’t come of age in the ’80s, or maybe you don’t realize Charles Manson was big in the Miller family.

The book was riveting, so explosive in our hero’s imagination that it inspired him to write his first song.

“You killed the actress and the hairdresser too. Charlie what did they ever do to you?”

It was a start.

But 14 brought a breaking point.

His parents, his girlfriend, love curdled into loss.

Many years later, he would write a line that more or less summed up his entire catalog.

“I’m gonna sing this song forever about a girl that I once knew, and how she is always leaving. This is what I do.”

He listened to music in his hospital bed.

The first side of Joan Jett & the Blackhearts’ I Love Rock ’N Roll , over and over.

The seduction of “Crimson and Clover,” the growl of “Love Is Pain.”

He listened to David Bowie’s Hunky Dory .

“Turn and face the strange ch-ch-changes,” Bowie insisted right up front, an anthem, an instruction manual, a door that opened onto other doors.

“Life on Mars?” and “Andy Warhol” were rooms you could escape into like a novel, a universe written in verse and sound that reminded listeners they could be whatever they wanted — and Rhett Miller wanted to be an artist.

Rhett’s first gig was at 500 Cafe by Fair Park.

This was April 1987, and he was 16, sandwiched on a bill between psychedelic punkers Peyote Cowboys and Three on a Hill, the band everyone thought would make it out.

The guitarist for Peyote Cowboys was Murry Hammond, a bespectacled and exceedingly nice 22-year-old from Boyd, a small town outside Fort Worth.

Hammond’s mother liked the unconventional way the neighbor’s boy spelled his name, Murry, so she copied it for her own child, but the unconventional shape of Murry’s life would be his own doing.

He tried a year at college, but music called to him.

Minor Threat, Black Flag, ’60s garage bands.

He got Rhett’s songwriting immediately.

Classic pop-song structures, the same way the Beatles built their hits during Beatlemania.

Clever lyrics, very literary.

“Songs for Truman Capote” was an early one.

“His smile’s all syrup and his eyes are all sad, didn’t have a mother, had a pusher for a dad.”

They went to see the Ramones.

Murry thought Rhett looked like Raggedy Andy, with those big red circles on his cheeks and the kind of beauty unmarked by the world.

Rhett slid into the van in his leather jacket, and Murry thought, “Oh, sweet boy.” He could see it immediately: the kid who gets picked on at school, even though he’s the coolest one. Murry had two brothers, but he had just met another.

Rhett was operating as a free agent in those days.

He was still going to St. Mark’s, but he got his own apartment at 16.

He drove a 1969 Cadillac hearse.

He placed a futon in the back, because the car had curtains in the windows, Love City on wheels.

Never worked.

No girl would venture back there.

There were bloodstains on the back floorboard.

He played up to four gigs a week.

Arcadia on Lower Greenville, the Prophet Bar over Theater Gallery in Deep Ellum.

One summer, he lived in the Mitchell Building, an artist warehouse down by Fair Park.

His first manager lived there, and one night Rhett fell asleep on the concrete floor of the guy’s pad.

He woke up to find the guy’s hand down his pants, and the first words out of Rhett’s mouth were, “You’re fired.”

The music scene is no place for a kid, but the Dallas music scene was a very good place for an aspiring artist of the mid-’80s.

The New Bohemians blasted out of Deep Ellum with “What I Am,” a groovy little toe tapper that climbed the charts and left talent scouts wondering who was next. Maybe Rhett Miller?

“This kid is no kid ,” wrote Clay McNear in the Dallas Observer .

“Kids talk about the most innocuous things: Rambo, Madonna, crushes, hairstyles and attitudes, Spuds MacKenzie.”

It was 1987, and Rhett Miller was talking about other things.

Drugs and blasphemy and brokenness. “A folk singer has to be a truer reporter than any newsman,” he told Detour Magazine in 1988.

That was his first big photo shoot, and the photographer and stylist got the genius idea to braid his shoulder-length hair into cornrows.

Terrible suggestion, even then.

He tried to push back, but he was young, and they were not, so it happened.

You could try to control your image, but the media had its own ideas.

Russell Smith in The Dallas Morning News : “He’s named after Rhett Butler, and he’s prettier than Scarlett O’Hara.”

He put out his first solo album in 1989 on a label called Carpe Diem. Mythologies was 13 songs, somewhere between Arlo Guthrie and David Bowie.

He barely graduated from St. Mark’s, which bent over backward to make sure he passed.

Rock legend Steve Miller had gotten kicked out of St. Mark’s, and the school would not make that mistake again.

He got a full ride to Sarah Lawrence, the private college in upstate New York.

But it wasn’t what he expected, and he lasted only a semester.

He called his mom and told her he wanted to live with Murry, take his chances with music.

His mother insisted he couldn’t give up a full ride, but he told her the college agreed to hold the scholarship for five years.

And five years later, his band was signed to Elektra.

The Old 97’s weren’t the Old 97’s at first.

Rhett and Murry lived in Marquita Court Apartments off Lower Greenville, and they were playing in a good band called Sleepy Heroes, and a series of musical experiments called Rhett’s Third Eye and Rhett’s Exploding, which went about as well as you’d imagine.

In fall 1992, a guy from Tyler was playing the accordion on the porch of the apartments.

Ken Bethea was an East Texas kid who had gone to the University of North Texas and bitten into the apple that was the Denton alt-music scene.

He had a lame job in the defense industry, but he played banjo and guitar, and a guy named Robert Jenkins in the apartments told him he had to meet his buddy Rhett.

Jenkins was the unseen actor in the Old 97’s formation, another artsy oddball from St. Mark’s who’d become Rhett’s running buddy and unofficial roadie.

When Rhett would later sing, “If Robert’s dad is right, we might not make it through the night,” he was talking about Jenkins.

Ken got introduced to Rhett Miller soon after that.

Ken thought he looked fidgety.

Looking back, it’s likely that Rhett knew what Ken did not: The band was finally coming together.

What really stuck with Ken, though, was how Rhett looked like someone straight out of a novel.

The fancy private school, the cigarette, the way he talked.

No doubt.

This was a real-life Holden Caulfield.

They played as a three-piece for a while, but they needed a drummer.

There was just so much energy coming off Rhett when he was onstage only percussion could match it.

Ken knew a drummer from his old band, the Smeg Winfields.

Philip Peeples grew up in Lake Highlands, where he played in the high school marching band, and he was another UNT kid, into classic cars and classic rock.

He was thoughtful, but he could seriously pound.

By September 1993, a year after Ken met Murry and Rhett, they were finally a four-piece, a full band.

Murry came up with the name the Old 97’s.

He was a train obsessive, and “Wreck of the Old 97” was a Johnny Cash song about a train wreck (cool) and Joe Strummer had The 101ers before the Clash (also cool).

One thing Ken Bethea knew was that he wasn’t going to be in some band named after Rhett Miller.

Rhett’s Fulminating, Rhett’s Second Nose, none of that.

Being in a band named for the lead singer meant any other player could get fired, no big deal, and Ken Bethea wasn’t into being a sideman.

So Murry wrote “The Old 97’s” on a square paper restaurant napkin and left it for Rhett when he went to work.

Rhett didn’t need convincing.

The name fit.

The rest, as they say, is rock ’n’ roll.

If you really wanna hear about it, you’ll have to read the magazines.

It’s all there, no further than a few Google searches.

The smashing local debut of Hitchhike to Rhome , the Bloodshot Records follow-up of Wreck Your Life , then the Elektra years: Too Far to Care , Fight Songs , Satellite Rides , albums that won them a loyal fan base that was never big enough for a big label, which dropped the Old 97’s and kept Rhett in one of the tensest moments in the band’s history, but if you know Rhett by now, you know he did not quit the Old 97’s.

“We’ve been doing this longer than you’ve been alive,” he sang on 2015’s Most Messed Up , “propelled by some mysterious drive.”

They were middle-aged men by then.

There had been girls, and marriages, and moves, and betrayals, and too many celebrities to name.

Joan Jett, REM, Roseanne Cash. Bruce Springsteen once greeted Rhett by quoting the chorus of an Old 97’s classic.

“What’s so great about the Barrier Reef?” said the Boss. “Man, I love your band.”

Rhett never met David Bowie, but David Bowie met him, having snuck into an underground New York show and settled into a private booth.

There were oceans of alcohol, but that dried up for Rhett when he got sober in 2015.

There were kids, and Rhett had two, Max and Soleil, and as he watched them grow up, he grew alongside them.

He had a gig at a Montana resort playing for folks in the evening, still the after-dinner entertainment nearly four decades after he read Helter Skelter out loud.

He was sitting alone strumming his favorite Gibson guitar on the bank of the Blackfoot River, which was actually green, and the chord progression coming to him was very Old 97’s, and the words were easy, soft as a lullaby.

“From downtown Dallas to a cabin on the coast, from the shadow of the towers to the sun in Ohio, from the bottom of a bottle to the palazzo, who knows where the road goes.”

Is there any rock cliche worse than a road song?

Maybe a love song, but then without those, where would rock music even be?

The chorus fell out of him. “Oh, you could have died that day.

Back when you thought none of this was worth it, when you thought everything was broken.”

A life holds too much emotion to contain.

That’s why we need the music. “Where the Road Goes” would become the third song on American Primitive , the band’s 13th studio album.

The part the magazines might not mention, because the boy who grew into the lead singer may not actually realize it, is what a big heart the rock star turns out to have.

#Youtube

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athlen-the-merman · 11 months ago

Text

My favourites: an update

It's been a while since I post anything so why not start with my updated favourites? (I'll try not to repeat any books I may have recommended in any previous post)

-A Court Of Thorns And Roses, Sarah J. Maas.

Feyre, a human who lives in a world divided by humans and faeries is brought to Prythian where she is to face the faerie courts, magic and daily struggles as a human captive.

This one I feel pretty much every romance lover has read. The first pages in my experience were hell, I was bored out of my mind and dreaded every last word but just like that, it got good. The author gradually explains everything and you eventually get a grasp of a really interesting world that has you hooked up seriously: magic, luxury, love, plot-twists... and you've had it. You're now in love with the book and unable to put it down.

Now, I am going to shut up and not spoil anyone's experience but let me say this: if you liked the first book and are considering reading the second one, do it. Of course you know how the first one ends but just so you know that's just the start of the shitshow that is about to begin.

With this being said, in my heart there will always be a spot for ACOTAR.

-The Stolen Heir, Holly Black.

The sequel to The Folk Of The Air series. It tells the story of Wren, the wayward, runaway queen of the Court of Teeth and Oak, the crown prince and brother of the queen of Elfhame, Jude.

I am absolutely and profoundly infatuated by the universe of the Folk Of The Air, so to dive into it again brings back a sense of rightness that I can't really explain.

It's a very addicting book that will have you looking for scraps of the tiniest bit of romance and when you do find some, they're worth it.

As a young person, I have enjoyed this book since it has a very refreshing feel to it throughout most of the work (yes, eventhough there's tougher and more brutal scenes in it)

Even though The Folk Of The Air isn't very spicy per se, I am looking forward to see how everything plays out in the second and last book of the duology, I just can't get enough of Oak, Wren, Tiernan, everyone!

-All The Young Dudes, MsKingBean89.

We all know the story of Harry Potter, the boy who lived, but what about the marauders' life? It narrates the story of the quartet with a bit of a homosexual twist.

Personally, I have been a fan of the Harry Potter universe since I first watched the films, and if you're one too you know the amount of fanfiction that there is, so after days and days of looking for a good and well-written fan-fic I remembered I had downloaded atyd. And I do not regret it.

You're reintroduced to the magical world all over, you're feeling nostalgic, our main character is Remus, you get to see everyone's evolution, it gives you a broader concept of the older charaters in the series... Not to mention Padfoot and Moony have something going on...

Despite me only being halfway through the book, every time I go online to read it (it's free!) I want to discover more and more of the marauderers' untold stories.

-Crave, Tracy Wolff.

Grace, a girl who's just lost both her parents is set to live in an elite boarding school in Alaska, of which her uncle is the headmaster. Despite her efforts to fit in it, they just don't seem to work and she is left feeling left out, but then she meets Jaxon, a mysterious boy with a devastating past.

This is one of the other books I haven't finished, and if by now you haven't noticed I LOVE romance books, even better if they're enemies-to-lovers. Even though this one isn't enemies-to-lovers it's veeeery similar to the one and only Twilight: it has vampires, werewolves (if I remember correctly) and even more types of magical creatures!

I read most of this book this summer and to be honest it's really entertaining, but it's also a little bit cliché... New girl, starts dating the hottest most powerful and dark in the school, she's basically perfect, odd forces want her dead... The typical y/n syndrome.

Although I'm not sure if I'd call it one of my favourite books, it's in the "would recommend section" so, if someone wants to read something, you know what to look for.

The list has come to an end. It is very short, I know, but with all my schoolwork and extra-curriculars I have no time to read, and if I do, I tend to go for fanfics.

Hasta la vista, beibe.

#bookworm #lgbt books #gay #reading #book #books #recommendations #book review #queer books #booklover #book blog #blog #writing #read

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abybweisse · 2 years ago

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Everyone in the blue house wear glasses but Vincent didnt wear glasses,also Vincent seems like a guy who doesnt really obey rules(he probably got that trait from his dad,cough cough Cedric = undertaker theory)so how the hell did he become a perfect?even Diederich said that in ch75,and Vincent responded that he wants to know that too

Vincent at school: glasses and prefects

You bring up an interesting question I've never pondered before: Why doesn't Vincent have glasses when that's so common in the blue house? I mean, that's kind of a signature look for nerds, and blue house is treated as the house of the nerds. Red house for the elite, popular, pretty students (Redmond says our earl could qualify); green house for the jocks, and purple house for the artsy type and gloomy misfits (the goths, punks, etc.).

Like our earl, Vincent might have stuck out as a student who would have been accepted into red house. And all that does is keep reminding me that Undertaker seems to have some connection to Aleister Chambers, uncle of Edgar Redmond. Undertaker is considered by Yana-san to be the most beautiful male character in the series, after all. It also reminds me of the old parallels I did between Black Butler and Harry Potter; what could we possibly learn about the founder(s) of Weston, the first masters of their houses, and their first prefects?? Of course, this brings me back to Mother3, too, because Dr. Andonuts (spectacle-wearing inventor and creator of Fascinating Chimera) apparently used to be this spectacled, scaredy-cat kid named Lloyd; Dr. Andonuts definitely attended Snow Wood Boarding School in Winters as a kid, where he was the first leader of their Ultra Science Club. His son, Jeff, later attends the same school but leaves (apparently not expecting to return) in search of his father.... There are parallels all over the place between the three series, and somewhere I have an old spreadsheet comparing all three. But just with these schools, we see a son who attends the same school as his father and has to deal with some sort of legacy. Anyway, Undertaker might have a connection to Weston that goes way beyond a short stint as its headmaster... or having a son who once attended.

More importantly, if he's Undertaker's son, why wouldn't he wear glasses? Neither does Francis/Frances. I guess Cloudia/Claudia's eyesight is good enough to make up for it. 😆

Vincent becoming a prefect is always an interesting thing to ponder. So is how he managed that Miracle of the Sapphires. Again, I think Undertaker has deeper ties to Weston, and he might have helped Vincent with one or both of those achievements. And Francis/Frances seems to know about it all, considering how nervous and embarrassed she is when Alexis talks about it. If Undertaker didn't help him become prefect, Vincent might just have a high skill level in persuasion, which he definitely seems to have. I mean, Diedrich agreed to Vincent's challenge/bet without knowing what Vincent would want if he won. He also accepted the ridiculous terms Vincent set after winning the bet (fag even though they are the same year; fag for life)... and still keeps his word to help after Vincent is dead.

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donut-powers · 2 years ago

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Hii!! I love your hamefura fanart, it is so cute! My question is, how would you imagine a hamefura modern au? Have a lovely day!

Sorry for the (really) late reply and thanks for the compliment buddy! It really makes me happy that people like my silly doodles 🥰

Now for the question, I went a little overboard with it. I’m probably gonna draw the rest of the cast later. And I already drew Sophia but didn’t like the outfit I chose, so I’m gonna redo her later.

For the setting the Magic School �� Boarding School for the rich, it’s probably in Switzerland or somewhere in Europe like Institut Le Rosey. I imagine it kinda like Ouran Highschool Host Club(must watch for a shojo/harem fan) aka a super elite school for the rich cause all the gang (minus Maria) are from the elite noble houses, so it fits, just change the uniforms to the dungeon episode ones or the ones from that volume extra.

These characters look really white, so it would not be set in Japan

You can find some drawings of how I picture them here

Now headcanon time below: (they are random af)

Katarina

Nationality + Ethnicity(the only one I’m gonna do): Luigi is Italian, Miridiana is latina(nobody is gonna change my mind about my latina!Miridiana headcanon) or asian(I have seen people said that she is a tiger mom, and i agree to a certain degree, but i’m not that familiar with asian culture to make an assumption)

Clothes: sporty/comfy, her hair is always pull up(via braid or ponytail) because it gets in the way of her silly adventures

Family status: the Claes are the equivalent of the Armani/Gucci family(just cause Luigi is italian)

Career: she would go for a major that helps people(like psychology, nursing or social work) or agriculture cause farmer!Katarina.

Hobbies: farming, video games, anime (she is a nerd), exercising(those trees ain’t climbing themselves)

Sport they practice: hiking/climbing and baseball/softball(that snake aint gonna throw itself) she is afraid of cycling after remembering her past life 😥

Series/Movies/Videogames etc that they would like: any villainess story she roots for them, comedies, slice of life

Type of drunk: at first happy/live of the party drunk, as time goes on she morphs into the crying drunk, she misses her past family.

The most athletic in the group, has the biggest stamina

She ain’t interested in inheriting the family business

Her favorite anime is little witch academia

She is the type that likes to visit different places all the time. Likes to take a bunch of pictures/videos and recommends places.

She becomes an influencer without trying.

She always tips at least 25% and recommends places to people

She is banned from various buffet chains

She probably has some form of attention deficit disorder undiagnosed.

People on highschool sports clubs always ask for her help (they want to recruit her), she agrees most of the times but doesn’t join any

She tried Hunnie Pop(pls don’t search it up if you are a minor), she thought that it was a cute dating sim, that opened a whole can of worms 🥴

She wouldn’t be engaged to anyone here, cause it’s a modern setting (rip gigi’s biggest advantage)

She avoids going to Japan because she is afraid of maybe seeing her old family

Saves money for her exile in _____country

Now that I actually think about it, she probably learns a trade, like carpenter or welder idk

Keith

Clothes: he is anime Timothee Chalamet, he is the sweater kinda guy. Also, have you seen Loid Forger from spy x family in casual clothes? that’s how i imagine keith, smart casual(he wants Katarina to look at him as a man)

Family status: the Claes are his godparents, close family friends. He and Katarina practically were raised together

Career: something business related to help the family business and clothes design(he happens to have a good eye for that sort of stuff)

Hobbies: making clothes for the gang, stop motion animation(dirt doll equivalent)

Sport they practice: track and field athletics, Keith runs way too much in the manga, he can keep up with a carriage!

Series/Movies/Videogames etc that they would like: he is into superhero movies, sucks at video games(just plays bcs Katarina asks him to), and knows a lot of chick-flicks because of Katarina

Type of drunk: flirty drunk, it’s the only way to get playboy!Keith

Edna Mode is his role model

Katarina convinces him to do some stop motion videos with cute nendoroids (kind of like “Animist” on Youtube)

One time, he tried “seduction for dummies”, he was so embarrassed that he swore to never use it.

Geordo

Clothes: that one dude that’s always wearing formal clothes, also he wears hawaiian shirts because Katarina said (once) that she likes them

Family status: his family runs the equivalent of facebook/apple, a company with a shitton of money and influence

Career: Gigi seems like the type of person that would like a challenge (and something not related to his family-name) so a hard career like medicine/physics

Hobbies: driving fast cars and motorcycles, it really makes his blood pump and reading

Sport they practice: boxing, just to left off steam

Series/Movies/Videogames etc that they would like: adventure, mystery and secretly into romantic stuff

Type of drunk: sloppy!drunk, I like it when Geordo is portrayed as not perfect.

His favorite movie as a kid was Cars (KUCHAOW), the gang roasts him on it

“Bet on it” from high school musical 2 hitted him hard, Troy Bolton stan

I’m sorry Geordo, but you look like a generic blonde dude in a Disney Channel show

Mary

Clothes: fabulous af, has the best fashion sense of the group(i had to look up what my favorite kpop group wear)

Family status: her family is in the entertainment industry, her mom used to be a famous actress and her father owns a big filming production company.

Career: i can see her being a good actress, but she wants to

Hobbies: gardening, painting

Sport they practice: before meeting Katarina fencing after meeting her she gets into capoeira(she wants to kick Geordo’s ass and good look doing it)

Series/Movies/Videogames etc that they would like: gay stuff, stardey valley, fighting games, bayonetta, Knives Out

Type of drunk: Touchy-Feely!drunk, not just Katarina anyone really

Usually does everyone’s make up, likes to mess up the boys

Sophia introduced her to Yuri(anime/manga genre), upset that most of the time it’s bait, and just gals being pals. But she takes any crumbs she can find

I can see her being a Lady Gaga fan

Big Halloween fan

Alan

Clothes: i could say emo, but I don’t think Alan would put THAT much effort in his appearance/make up. So casual bike/punk clothes

Family status: tries his best to make his momma proud

Career: music would be the easy choice, but I imagine if none of his brothers wanted to run the family business he would do it (bedgruguly)

Series/Movies/Videogames etc that they would like: underdog stories(shonen boi), music related stories and plays video games for the good music

Hobbies: composing music, playing weird instruments, and going to live orchestras/concerts

Sport they practice: soccer/basketball, he would try to befriend people through it or swimming, because he likes water and how you can’t hear anything under it

Type of drunk: affectionate!drunk, he just wants to hug everybody

Hatsune Miku enthusiast

Sophia introduces Alan to the world of gacha music games

I can see him going to music festivals (Tomorrowland, Lollapalooza, Coachella etc)

Sophia

Clothes: she wears a lot of cardigans and big sweaters, do you know lilypichu? kind of like that

Career: a lot of people headcanon her as a writer, but I think in a modern setting she would be more of a reviewer

Hobbies: drawing(her favorite characters), cosplay, blogging

Sport they practice: walkin, she doesn’t seem like the athletic one

Series/Movies etc that they would like: true crimes, (trashy)romance connoisseur

Type of drunk: surprisingly high alcohol tolerance, but when she is at her limit she turns into the blackout!drunk

Used to play gacha games, her parents prohibited it

I can see her being a fujoshi…

She tried to dye her hair teal for a cosplay but she didn’t know it’s hard for albinos to dye their hair r i p

Avatar the last airbender fan

I’m sorry Sophia, I’m portraying you as a weeb

Nicol

Clothes: practical/comfy, Nicol is a man of few words and so is his wardoble, but usually Sophia dress him up(he doesn’t mind)

Family status: his family runs Google or Microsoft idk

Career: something related with technology(computer science, business intelligence, robotics etc), his attitude reminds me a lot of my friends in that area

Hobbies: robot

Sport they practice: horse riding, he just likes the horses or fishing cause it’s really calm and he goes fishing with his dad

Series/Movies/Videogames etc that they would like: adventure stories, documentaries.

Type of drunk: reckless!drunk, he talks a lot, does a lot of stuff that he would normally not do

Star Wars fan

A lot of companies tried to recruit him as a model, later in life he made a deal with Keith/Mary to just appear in their stuff

Was into My Little Pony when he was little, he liked to watch it with Sophia

The Legend of Zelda fanboy, he see himself in Link

Maria

Clothes: cute

Family status: her parents divorced and her dad is a deadbeat-dad so her mom takes a lot of jobs to make ends meet(gotta make it tragic like FL), she stays with her grandparents most of the time, her grandpa used to be a doctor in the military (there’s no magic here so there must be an explanation of why Maria is good at healing people)

Career: she got a full scholarship, medicine, she looks up to her grandpa. Maybe specializing in physiatrist(idk).

Hobbies: baking, taking a stroll in the woods

She tried the realistic cake thingy and was good at it, she stopped doing it cause Katarina tried to eat E V E R Y T H I N G

Sport they practice: cycling, cause she has a bike

Series/Movies/Videogames etc that they would like: cooking mama enthusiasm, into the wholesome cooking/baking shows

Type of drunk: she rarely drinks, but when she is drunk she turns into the pensative!drunk, aka sits down and overthinks stuff

She volunteers at the hospital way too much. She is that meme of “when employers want you to have 10 years of experience before age 22”

Tried to watch Grey’s Anatomy but it was too unprofessional and ridiculous

Likes "E.R." and "the good doctor"

Does a ton of fundraisers

Idk why but I imagine her always wearing something pink

Katarina asked her to recreate the Gordon Ramsay “idiot sandwich” meme, she refuses to do that to Katarina

#donut answers #hamefura #bakarina #my stuff

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fridayfirefly · 4 years ago

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The Power of Luck [Chapter One]

Read The Power of Luck on AO3

Masterlist [All Works]

Masterlist [The Power of Luck Series]

Written for Maribat March Day 6 - Miraculous Side Effects

The Ladybug Miraculous had quite a few side effects. Marinette was able to think quick on her feet, she was a skilled tactician in battle, and her reaction time was half that of a normal human. Most notably, the Ladybug Miraculous granted its user the force known as Miraculous Luck, which, depending on the situation, was sometimes more of a curse than a blessing. Marinette didn't get to choose how that good luck manifested. For instance, when she needed an extra day to finish a history project, her school closed down due to a gas leak. Or when she wished for a fresh start after the defeat of Hawkmoth, her parents were offered a deal to grow their bakery business in America.

Marinette assured her parents that she didn't mind moving. After all, most of her class had already moved on. Lila had been deported to Italy, narrowly avoiding jail time. Chloé (much to her dismay) was sent by her father to an all-girls boarding school in England. Adrien was taken in by his Aunt Amelie (as Gabriel was in jail and Emilie was declared brain-dead) and moved to England as well.

No one else from Marinette's class left the country, but many of them moved out of Paris. Nathanial was accepted to an elite art school in Marseille. Max was accepted to a gifted program at an elite school in Bordeaux. Officer Raincomprix was transferred to Toulouse and took Sabrina with him. Juleka and Luka both started homeschooling after their mother sailed the houseboat down the Seine to the city of Rouen.

Worst of all was the loss of Alya. Her parents were horrified that the son of Hawkmoth was in the same class as their daughter, and promptly pulled Alya out of class and decided to move out of the city. Alya begged them for weeks but nothing came of her protests. In the end, Alya left too.

The Miraculous Luck could do a lot of things, but it couldn't keep her friends together. Those who remained at François Dupont filled holes in other classes. Marinette tried to make the best of her new class, but she felt no real connection to them. When her parents proposed the move, Marinette jumped on the opportunity. In Gotham, she wouldn't be haunted by the ghost of her old life.

Marinette cut her hair, leaving it choppy and just above the shoulders. She donated all of her brightly colored clothes to the thrift store down the street and created a new wardrobe for herself. It was toned down and mature, much more fitting for Gotham.

Marinette left Paris a much different girl than the naive fourteen-year-old who thought she could save the world. She was ready for a city like Gotham, a city that didn't make any promises, a city where Marinette could set down some new roots.

-----

At first, it was easy to fly under the radar at Gotham Academy. It was a school filled with the self-absorbed children of millionaires and billionaires, after all. Marinette was there on scholarship - her good grades, leadership experience, and working-class parents combined to cut her tuition down by 75%. Marinette quickly learned that scholarship students were at best ignored, and at worst mercilessly bullied. So Marinette kept her head down and vowed that she would get through the year unscathed.

There was one variable, however, that the Miraculous Luck wasn't able to account for. Marinette's entire plan fell apart thanks to one boy: Damian Wayne.

Marinette became acquainted with Damian Wayne through the school's rumor mill. She learned that he was one of the most wealthy and most attractive people in the school, but he was thought himself too good to spend time with any of his fellow classmates (Marinette couldn't fault him on the last bit; she also found the students at Gotham Academy to be difficult, to say the least). Marinette also learned through the school's rumor mill that Damian spent quite a lot of time staring at her. Given that Damian had never paid the slightest amount of attention to a Gotham Academy girl before, this was a big deal. Suddenly Marinette was the farthest thing from under the radar. Everyone who used to look down on her wanted to be her friend. It was exhausting.

Marinette resolved to ignore Damian Wayne - an easy task, given that she still didn't even know what he looked like. Now that everyone was staring at her, it was hard to

"Why?" grumbled Marinette. "Why couldn't my so-called Miraculous Luck help me get through one normal year of school?"

Tikki shrugged from her spot inside of Marinette's backpack. "Maybe all of this attention will turn out to be a good thing?"

"I doubt that." Marinette glanced around, checking that no one had spotted her talking to her backpack. There was one spot in the cafeteria that was hidden from view, a window-sill nestled behind a pillar, bordered by a wall on one side and an out of order vending machine on the other. Marinette sat on the window-sill every day to eat lunch, with Tikki as her companion for the meal.

"I think your problem is that you're overthinking this. Miraculous Luck always works out in the end, even if there are some obstacles in the middle."

"I just want this horrible school year to be over," sighed Marinette, setting her head down in her arms.

"Don't give up yet, Marinette. I have high hopes for this school year," said Tikki.

Marinette had some serious doubts but picked her head up anyway. Maybe this year wouldn't turn out the way she expected. Marinette defeated Hawkmoth, the greatest villain Paris ever faced. She could survive a year of high school.

-----

Marinette was going to survive her senior year of high school. Damian Wayne on the other hand... Marinette still wasn't sure if she was going to let him survive the year, after everything he put her through.

"Excuse me?" a sickeningly sweet voice piped up from behind Marinette.

Marinette put on her best disinterested-face, took out one headphone, and turned around. "Yes?"

There were three girls standing behind her: a blonde, flanked on both sides by a brunette and a red-head. The blonde girl had a smile on her face but a devious look in her eyes. Marinette had long ago learned to spot manipulators, and this girl had it written all over her. "Are you Marinette Dupain-Cheng?"

"Yes."

"My name is Julie Cooper. I was just wondering... Are you dating Damian Wayne?"

Marinette huffed in exasperation. "What do you think?"

Julie's eyes narrowed. "I just wanted to warn you. I mean, did you really think that Damian Wayne would seriously date a girl here on scholarship? You should break up with him before you get hurt."

"It was a rhetorical question. I'm not dating Damian Wayne. It's just a rumor."

Julie instantly perked up. "Oh, good! I was beginning to think that Damian had lost his mind. I mean, I'm sure you would be a nine or a ten at a public school, but at Gotham Academy, you're like a seven, maybe an eight on a good day. Most of the girls who go here are actually hot, not just," the girl waved her hand towards Marinette. "Above average."

Marinette wasn't sure if Julie meant for her to feel flattered or offended, but her words had the strange effect of making Marinette feel both all at once. "Um, thanks? I'm going to go now."

Julie's brunette friend suddenly paled as the girl started to tug on Julie's sleeve. "Um, Julie?" she whispered.

"What, Nora?" Julie's eyes widened as they fixed on something behind Marinette.

Marinette turned around to see what the cause of their concern was. Or rather, to see who the cause of their concern was. It was a boy, tall and scowling. "Are you done here, Cooper?"

Julia nodded, a nervous edge to her voice, "Bye, Marinette." She and her two friends hurried off, exchanging frantic whispers.

"What do you want?" asked Marinette with a sigh. She was tired of dealing with boys who were only interested in her because Damian Wayne was interested in her.

"I wished to apologize."

"For Julie? Did you put her up to this?"

The boy looked confused. "No, of course not. I meant that I wanted to apologize for everything, not just Julie Cooper."

"For everything?" The truth suddenly dawned on Marinette. "You're Damian Wayne! I didn't think that you would be so tall."

"You didn't know what I looked like?" There was real shock in his voice.

"Well, by the time I learned that you had been staring at me everyone was staring at me, so that wasn't much help in figuring out who you were."

"You could have googled me."

Marinette shrugged. "I could have, but it felt weird to google one of my classmates. I pretty much just resigned myself to never figuring out who you were."

"I should have approached you sooner. I've wanted to apologize for a while, but every time I've caught you alone you've looked like you wanted to be left that way."

"I'm not a fan of most of the students here."

"The students here can be..." Damian searched for the appropriate word. "Tiresome. I resigned myself to a dull four years of high school in their company. That is, until I saw you."

Marinette cocked her head. "Why me, though? I'm nothing special."

"You're different than everyone else here."

Marinette stiffened. "I know. I've been told. I'm here on a scholarship which means I don't belong," she snapped

Damian shook his head. "No, that's not what I meant. You move through life differently than all of the other students here. You don't care about the gossip or drama - at least, not until you were right at the center of it all. You've seen the real world, so you float above the high school drama. You're just so... so..."

"So what?" Marinette's tone softened.

Damian ran his hand through his hair, ruffling it. The addition of the messy hair added a certain charm to his otherwise polished exterior. "I've been brainstorming for the right word for weeks. The best I can come up with is pure. You don't let yourself become affected by anything in this school."

It was a very flattering description of her. It was also very on the nose. "I'll forgive you, Damian Wayne, but only on one condition."

"What?"

"I want to get to know you, and I have a feeling that you feel the same way."

Damian nodded. "It's a deal."

Maybe her Miraculous Luck wasn't so useless after all. Marinette had expected to go the whole year without making a single friend. Now, it seemed that she might make one after all.

@maribatmarch-2k21

#maribat #daminette #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Damian Wayne #MaribatMarch2021 #maridami #marinette x damian #miraculous ladybug fic #my work

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maxdibert · 1 month ago

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She's a Gen X British white woman writing in the 90s/00s. She's going to not line up exactly with modern, progressive ideals about writing women. I think this type of endless criticism over a children's book is just such a reach. There are hundreds of male authors whose female characters amount to "she breasted boobily down the stairs" but JKR is a bad writer because some of her female characters can come off slightly outdated to a modern reader?

I love how you call me a colonizer and then proceed to lecture me on how the British educational system works. It’s one of those dissonances some people have that... well, we just have to laugh because humor is the best way to deal with it.

First off, it’s not Gen X, it’s more boomer than anything else, but sure. Second, I don’t know why you’re bringing up male writers. We’re not talking about discrimination within the literary scene, nor about how male authors generally write poorly about their female characters or how poorly conceived they are. Just because there’s a gender problem rooted in character conception and men tend to be the ones most affected by this doesn’t mean there aren’t women whose vision of society and women’s roles isn’t negative. These aren’t mutually exclusive issues, and it’s not a valid argument to refute criticism of Rowling. Just as she has character development flaws, there are many women writers contemporary to Rowling who have done wonderful work with their female characters.

On another note, I see female characters as a whole that shape the vision of women in general within a novel. Focusing on the individual instead of the collective is absurd in terms of sociological and gender analysis.

You do by the time you reach adulthood (or at least if you going to partake in an attempt at literacy criticism of the series). It's a very well known that extreme bullying was (and still is) rife in elite British boarding schools.

I don’t know; I’m not going to get into that. Simply, a lot of British people have told me that what you’re saying is not exactly like that, and well, I’m more inclined to believe someone who’s British than someone who lives on the other side of the world. Likewise, I have British friends from when I lived there, and they don’t quite agree with this either. But I’m not going to dive into it since I’m not a native English speaker. What I will get into is the matter of laughing at your friend for having old underwear (they don’t say dirty, they say old and grey). Because if you know your friend lives in the worst hole in the area, in an extremely poor place, and you know their family is dirt poor, laughing at them for that is pretty shitty. But I don’t know, maybe you’re right, and for an adult woman who writes fanfiction, it’s a bit odd to laugh at people with zero financial resources for wearing dirty clothes. It’s not something I’m used to doing, not even as a teenager, to be honest.

Again your personal context doesn't really matter, but there's like no evidence he abused his wealth. He offered to take financial care of his childhood friend who has the equivalent of a disability.

I don’t understand why you refuse to let others use their personal context when you’re the one who initially brought up individual matters to discuss generalized sociological problems. But well, I suppose you play by one set of rules, and I’m supposed to follow another.

I want to believe that you have basic notions of certain theories because I’ve seen that you’re a radfem, and generally, in that movement, there are certain reference books about Marxism and class issues. So, I assume you’re familiar with power structures and how they work, and it shouldn’t be too hard to put two and two together and understand that a person who, in their sociocultural and political environment, holds all the capitals—economic capital, social capital, and the capital granted by status (in this case, blood purity)—is something that significantly influences power dynamics against people who have none of that. And the fact that you don’t pay someone to bully your classmate or cover up the bullying doesn’t mean that being literally a millionaire bullying someone from a slum lacks clear class symbolism and social implications. But if you want to ignore that because James did a charitable act for Remus, well, fine, do whatever you want.

Regarding James and Draco, it’s clear that you don’t understand the point of my complaints. The problem is precisely the lack of dissenting perspectives. The fact that Harry only associates with a type of people who reaffirm what he knows/thinks, and that his whole environment is an echo chamber, and Rowling doesn’t bother to add external nuances that could add complexity to his web of relationships and secondary characters, is lazy writing. What I’ve been criticizing from the beginning is that she uses the protagonist-narrator as an excuse not to bother explaining or clarifying certain things, and that’s a mistake because even with a protagonist-narrator, there are other resources to give the narrative a broader perspective. It’s not that hard to understand, really.

You seem to have a beef with Hermione-esque characters at any rate.

You’re a bit obsessed with the idea that I have something against Hermione, but that’s not the case. I have an issue with how Rowling presents certain types of women as valid and others as not. Maybe your obsession with my gripe against Hermione is just a personal projection, which would make sense because, to be a radfem, you certainly need to have quite a few unresolved issues with femininity in general.

At what point in the narrative are the female characters eroticised this way? Hermione, the naggy, know-it-all with frizzy hair? Definitely not a teenage boy's fantasy. The not all attractively described Luna, who goes far beyond being a typical oddball is not a teenage boy's fantasy.

The influence of the male gaze goes beyond productions or creations made by men; it’s not just about the sexualization of women but also how that sexualization has been embedded in our culture, influencing it to the point that, stereotypically, the female characters considered valid within the collective unconscious are those that fit into a series of classic archetypes. That’s what I’m talking about when I say that Rowling establishes a dichotomy between her female characters—who are much less developed than the male ones—where those who resemble hegemonic archetypes are treated positively, while those who deviate from those values are condemned by the narrative. If you don’t understand something so simple, which is the third time I’ve explained it, then that’s not my problem, honestly.

You've just made up an entirely fictional version of Hermione who is apparently mean to a lot of girls even though it's clear from the literal first book that she just has problems making friends and uses her intelligence as a mask for her insecurities.

I think you don’t understand the difference between trying to tear down Hermione and pointing out a series of problems I find when discussing the only truly important female character in the saga and how this female character apparently has no girl friends and holds problematic views on things related to femininity. You might find that normal and not problematic, but I don’t, precisely because it’s a book for children and teenagers and is influential during a key time in cognitive development and worldview formation. I think it’s important to establish positive roles when we’re talking about girls, but if you can’t see that because you’re too personally attached to Hermione since she made you feel less alone as a teenager, that’s not my problem.

Should I give you a medal?

No, sweetie, but you gave me a spiel about how you felt awful during your childhood and Hermione helped you not feel alone, so I thought we were narrating our life stories. Sorry for thinking I could also resort to personal experiences to build an argument. Next time, let me know that only you can do that, and I’ll approach it differently.

None of their views or your mother's are relevant to this discussion. JKR doesn't have to have the most progressive view on motherhood to offer her own valuable insights into a complex social roles.

Yes, they are, ever since you used the argument that the problem with Rowling’s vision is the time period and sociocultural context. If you’re going to use that argument, it’s logical to counter it with another one that invalidates it. It’s invalidated from the perspective that just because someone is a woman and grew up in the '70s doesn’t necessarily mean they must have a conservative view, because there are women raised in the '60s in even more oppressive and sexist contexts who don’t hold that view. If you’re going to discuss sociocultural issues, you can’t personalize, and if you do personalize because it suits your argument, then don’t complain if it’s countered with the same argument. What you’re doing is completely absurd.

At the time she was a single mother who had just gotten out of an abusive relationship with her husband and relying on help from female relatives. Ergo, she "glorifies" motherhood (readL has them play an important role in the narrative). I don't know where you've gotten the latter half of the last sentence from. She doesn't say any of that, that's your imagined version of the story talking.

And that’s why I have to stop criticizing how in her work, traditional, mythified motherhood is rewarded by the narrative while the lack of motherhood or non-conventional motherhood is condemned? What the hell?

She isn't obligated to write a feminist masterpiece on motherhood in her children's fantasy series. She is more than allowed to reflect on what she herself has witnessed and experienced when it comes to motherhood.

No, she doesn’t have to, but no one’s saying that. I think you’re quite mistaken. No author, male or female, has to write with a gender perspective; they can write however they want. But if we’re doing a gender perspective critique, it’s normal to highlight what’s questionable from a feminist point of view. I think you still don’t understand what this is about. This isn’t about demanding that Rowling write the way I want or like; it’s about having a series of books that we can analyze and critique. I’m analyzing the female characters and their dynamics and laying out my perspective. Whatever is behind that or Rowling’s motivations are irrelevant to the conversation because I’m not judging her intentions but the result.

I also went to Catholic school and was raised Greek Orthodox, you really gotta stop acting like you had some unique experiences. But if you must, Judeo-Christian as a term doesn't even make sense to use when you're arguing about the New Testament/Virgin Mary. Just say Christian for the love of god. Regardless, Mary doesn't have a sacrificial role in the New Testament? At least not like the mothers in HP do?

The term Judeo-Christian is used because Christianity—and thus all cultures profoundly influenced by it, especially the Catholic branch in Europe—has a significant influence from Judaism; it literally stems from it. That’s why it’s understood as Judeo-Christian culture. It’s quite common to use that term in European contexts. Maybe it’s a cultural issue, as you say, and that’s why it confused you.

Are you seriously saying that the Virgin Mary doesn’t have a sacrificial role? The Virgin Mary is THE mother par excellence, the one who lives entirely for her son, the one who accompanies him when they crucify him, the one who watches over him on the cross. The Virgin Mary sacrifices her entire life in service to her son as the son of God. Please, she’s the quintessential reference in all the books that talk about gender and the virgin-mother-whore dichotomy as archetypes of women within patriarchy. Are you really telling me that you even question something so basic? I mean, what can I say? I lol a little, honestly.

Lucius has more relevance because in the British upper class system he represents, it is the patriarchs of the family who are more active in reinforcing the class system.

It’s not just that they have jobs, it’s that all the male secondary characters are much more developed, better narrated, and more fully constructed than the female ones. The female characters who have more background have a male counterpart (often a partner) who is more complete. That’s the complaint. And no, I don’t want Rowling to write a feminist manifesto; I’ve already explained what this is about above.

Fleur's treatment is a tongue-in-cheek is a reference to the way British women view French women as snobby and beautiful

Look, you don’t need to tell me how the British see the French; we all see the French that way. Any European sees the French that way. I lived in France for a year, and I can say that it’s not just a stereotype in some areas. But, again, I’m telling you, you’re analyzing this on an individual level while I’m talking about global issues and facts: the fact is that several women mock Fleur, women that the narrative portrays as good, women considered important enough to be protagonists or the protagonist's girlfriend. The fact is that Fleur is the only girl in the tournament, and out of the four participants, she gets the worst treatment. No matter how much you try to theorize and rationalize the reasons, the reality is that when you look at it from a broader perspective, there’s a clear gender differentiation in the story that disadvantages women. And that’s it, nothing more to it.

You desperately want Harry Potter to divulge into themes you personally find interesting. You’re partaking in a cardinal sin of media literacy. You’re examining it from a perspective of what it should be, rather than what it is.

I’ve told you quite a few things, but you’ve completely ignored them because you need to defend J.K. Rowling at all costs, in case your official financier of radfem takes a hit. Because if you lose those accounts with millions of followers legitimizing your speeches, your entire setup might collapse.

Btw i'm not going to argue more about this because i think i said pretty clear what are my views and why and answer all of this takes me a lot of time i prefer to expend in other matters. So think what you want to think, i really don't care.

Lily doesn’t seem to think she’s done anything wrong by insulting his poverty and aligning herself with his abusers - only Severus is remorseful, and the trauma that caused him to lash out was considerably worse than the trauma that caused her to lash out. She believes he deserves it, as apparently she believed his abuse was amusing. And I’d be totally fine with this from a character perspective because it’s the teenage condition to be self-centred and poor at self-reflection. But the *narrative* (and the author in interviews) doesn’t believe Lily was in the wrong here. And it believes Lily made the correct moral judgment on the two boys when she casts Severus off for his crime and falls in love with James despite his. But I just don’t buy into that framing, and I didn’t even when I was 10. The use of the word ‘mudblood’ while in considerable distress is not a greater sin than sexual assault.

Lily feels no remorse, nor does she think it's wrong to half-smile at the bully who’s targeting your so-called friend. She doesn’t even consider that this might be why your supposed best friend insulted you in the first place. But here’s the thing: this isn't Lily's fault. It's J.K. Rowling's fault, and the way she portrays ethical dilemmas throughout the series, blurring the lines between what's morally right and wrong. Now, if you’ll allow me, before diving into the dynamics between Lily and Severus, I’d like to provide some context as to why I believe the biggest issue with many of the characters’ attitudes in the series lies in Rowling’s constant attempt to project her own moral compass through her writing. In doing so, she falls into repeated inconsistencies and creates a narrative that’s all over the place when it comes to how certain characters are treated.

Rowling is never consistent. She portrays Draco Malfoy as an irredeemable, terrible character because he’s a rich kid spoiled by his parents, using his power and influence to bully those weaker than him. Yet, she gives James the benefit of the doubt, even though he behaved exactly the same way: a rich bully who used his status and his friends to gang up on the vulnerable. From early interviews, Rowling claimed Pansy Parkinson is practically the reincarnation of Satan, even though, of all the antagonists, Pansy is probably one of the least relevant and harmless. This is simply because Rowling projected onto her the stereotypical “mean girls” who mock those who read and study—something Rowling clearly couldn’t stand. On the other hand, she glorifies characters like Ginny, who has a pretty nasty attitude towards any girl she doesn’t consider cool or "not like the other girls." Ginny treats Fleur like a witch when Fleur has done nothing wrong—her only crime is being incredibly beautiful, knowing it, and not constantly apologizing for it. And this treatment of female characters throughout the series deserves a proper gendered critique, because they fall into every stereotype and archetype set by the traditional male gaze.

In Rowling's world, there are always two kinds of women. When it comes to younger, adolescent characters, there are the "good" women—those who don’t fit the typical feminine mold, the weird ones (like Luna), the tomboys who are “one of the guys” (like Ginny), or the overly studious ones who don’t have time for frivolous things like reading magazines or talking about boys (like Hermione). In other words, the cool girls, the ones who are supposed to be role models, are those who "aren’t like the other girls." But not because they’re deconstructing gender roles consciously—they just happen to embody the fantasy of the woman who can give you kids while still being one of your bros. It’s a common male fantasy, where women abandon the graceful, ethereal, delicate image to fit into a set of needs the modern man has. These are "manic pixie dream girls," hiding a deeply internalized misogyny as they are presented as individuals opposed to the “other” women—the “other” being less cool because they lack traditionally masculine traits, and thus are less than. We see this not only with how Fleur is treated but also with the disdain or prejudice Hermione shows towards girls like Lavender or the Patil sisters, just because they act like normal teenagers instead of validating themselves through academia to compensate for their inferiority complex (cough, cough).

Then we have the adult female characters, where Rowling’s toxic and incredibly conservative view of motherhood kicks in. Except for McGonagall, the rest of the adult women who are seen in a positive light are either already mothers or end up becoming mothers. And for them, motherhood is everything. They are mothers first and women second, in every case. Lily is Harry’s mother, who sacrifices herself for him. Molly is the Weasley matriarch, whose entire life revolves around her kids—she hasn’t even looked for a job (which wouldn’t be a bad idea, considering the family’s financial situation), nor does she have any aspirations beyond knitting sweaters and worrying about her children. Even Narcissa, a negative character throughout most of the saga, earns her redemption solely because she loves her son and is willing to risk everything for him. Nymphadora Tonks, a 25-year-old woman, ends up pregnant by a man 13 years older than her and goes from being an independent Auror with her own life to a passive housewife waiting for her man, who is off having an existential crisis. The adult women in the saga aren’t independent individuals—they’re extensions of their children. And any woman who isn’t a perfect, self-sacrificing mother (like Merope Gaunt) is either a psychopath or portrayed as a terrible person.

What I’m getting at is that Rowling is far from impartial in the moral narrative of the story. In fact, she’s absolutely inconsistent. She presents characters she sells as "good," whose attitudes are absolute trash, yet she continues to insist that they’re good and perfect. This is especially obvious with her female characters, because throughout the seven books, she constantly emphasizes her ideal of the "perfect woman" in terms of tastes, motivations, and behavior. Hermione is a self-insert, Ginny is probably a projection of who Rowling wishes she could’ve been, and Luna is the quirky girl who isn’t “threatening” to other women, and is treated with a condescending, paternalistic lens. They are either Rowling’s aspirational figures or archetypes that don’t bother her, or they’re reduced to filler characters who are mistreated by the narrative.

When it comes to Lily, the problem is that Rowling spends half the saga painting her as some kind of Mother Teresa. She’s the quintessence of motherhood—but not a conscious, modern motherhood, but one rooted in traditional Judeo-Christian ideals. This is the kind of motherhood that can do no wrong, the one that represents women because, in this view, a woman can’t be fulfilled unless she’s a mother. Lily dies for her son, and that love creates a divine, protective magic. She’s beautiful, popular, and one of the most popular guys at school is after her. Clearly, she must be a saint, because everyone describes her as such. And while the narrative does question James’s perfection, even if vaguely and unsuccessfully, it doesn’t do the same with Lily. Harry questions his father’s actions but never his mother’s. He never stops to think about how problematic it is that his mother almost laughed at Severus or refused to hear his apology, or that she couldn’t empathize with what he was going through, knowing full well the kind of situation Severus had at home. When a narrative tells you something but never shows it, and worse, never questions it, that’s a problem. Something doesn’t add up. Rowling is obsessed with showing her own moral line through her characters and doesn’t realize how incoherent it is to portray Lily as someone who always does the right thing when what we actually see of her suggests that, if she really liked James all along, not only is she a hypocrite, but she’s also quite superficial with questionable principles. But this is never addressed, never explored. It would be fascinating if it were, giving the character more depth and making her more relatable. But Rowling brushes all this aside, as she does with so many other things, because to her, Lily was a role model, despite the fact that anyone with common sense can see she was just a terrible friend who got tired of justifying why she hung out with a poor, scruffy kid and ultimately decided it made more sense to date the rich, handsome bully.

#i get bored of this #sorry #my adhd is adhding #this conversation doesn't give me enough dopamine

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eagles-translated · 3 years ago

Text

Analyzing the writing of Eagles

Here's a post I've been wanting to make for a while! I've expressed my thoughts on some of the storylines in previous posts, but I've never done a complete post on the writing of the whole show. I've divided this post into separate parts, focusing on each season and its plot points. Keep reading to see my analysis of the writing in Eagles! 👇 Word Count: 18k

If you've stumbled upon this post from the Young Royals or the Beartown tag (tagged them since I've drawn some parallels from those shows), here's a brief summary of what Eagles is, which you can watch with English subtitles here. This post contains Eagles spoilers from 1x01 - 3x10.

Eagles is a Swedish TV show that revolves around a few teenagers living in the Swedish ice hockey town Oskarshamn while experiencing friendship, love, and rivalry on the ice.

To start this off I would like to say that I have no experience with professional screenwriting and if anything, this is just a way for me to procrastinate on actually writing my own projects.

I love experiencing new stories and when I discover one I really like it's just natural for me to branch off with "what ifs" and to start wondering how the story would've turned out if some things were changed. Sometimes it's with a storyline improvement in mind, and other times it's just out of plain curiosity.

You might feel like this post is leaning towards the critical side, and I can definitely understand why since there are a lot of small details that I've picked apart from all seasons. I added a section for each season with things that I thought were really well done so this post wouldn't be too negative.

I actually did enjoy all seasons and I feel like the quality of not just the writing but every single thing has steadily increased each year.

Season 1: Tropes and clichés

Eagles premiered its first season in 2019 and was, despite many negative reviews, a big success among its target audience. Every episode on SVT Play amassed around 700 000–800 000 views and there didn't seem to be any doubt that the show would get renewed.

What the critics had issues with were that "Eagles rarely takes the unexpected path, and feels like a slightly soulless product of studied target group thinking a little too often," (Karolina Fjellborg in Aftonbladet) and "In Eagles, the characters seem to be locked in the role of a "teenager" but the humanity is missing. They've simplified the construction of the character," (Django Lorentzson in MovieZine).

Eagles was unfortunate enough to constantly be compared to SKAM in its infancy, and that's a tough comparison to live up to. SVT sort of shot themselves in the foot as they were the ones who contributed to it. While the show was still in the casting process, SVT wrote an article hyping the show up as a Swedish SKAM (which has since been edited, but led many to falsely believe that it would involve all the familiar SKAM characters with some hockey elements sprinkled in).

So, why exactly did critics think the first three episodes of the show were predictable and soulless? Well, it's pretty simple. They'd seen it all before. The setting, the characters, the storylines—just in different TV shows and movies.

Season 1 for me is nostalgic and very enjoyable despite its clichéd nature. I also felt like I'd seen the show before due to its generic storylines, but there is a reason why tropes are tropes and why clichés are clichés. It's because they're tried and true, and actually somewhat good writing tools as long as you expand on them. The keyword here is to expand—a story doesn't magically become good simply because you mimic something another writer has done. Tropes are fine to use but you can't just apply them and stop there. Everything in a story needs to be developed in order to be good.

It's safe to say that it's pretty much impossible to write a story without any tropes that have been used before. Striving to avoid clichés at all costs in hopes of making your story as original as possible is harder than it sounds, and almost impossible to boot. Here's a great piece of advice for aspiring writers written by a user on Carvezine:

[...] if you look down at your story and are worried it’s already been told before – don’t spend another second thinking about it. It has. A million times. The only difference is that it hasn’t been told by you. Accept that regurgitation is part of writing, and just do your best not to regurgitate the same way as the guy next to you. We’d all do well to acknowledge there is at least a portion of our stories that are really someone else’s. [...] Beyond that, write with the motivation that if you don’t get around to telling your story, eventually somebody else will.

Even the greatest books have storylines with some clichés. And that's not really a bad thing, either. Think about it. How many times have you decided to binge a TV show solely because it reminded you of another series? Or picked up a book simply because you love a good enemies to lovers romance, a battle between good and evil fantasy, or whatever it might be?

I found this article from Masterclass that perfectly describes what tropes are and why they're used. It's written from the perspective of novel writing but it is still applicable.

A trope in literary terms is a plot device or character attribute that is used so commonly in the genre that it’s seen as commonplace or conventional. For example, a trope in superhero stories is a villain who wants to take over the world. Tropes are popular for a reason—if something has been written about over and over again, there’s a good chance that it’s something readers enjoy reading! Tropes can be helpful, but a novel made up only of tropes will quickly start to feel stale and predictable to readers. That’s why you need to read up on tropes—and then innovate. Deliberately taking a favorite trope and turning it on its head is a great way to put your own unique spin on the genre and keep your readers interested.

Eagles, in its first season, didn't really do a lot of expanding upon the tropes they used and it's understandable that they were still trying to find their footing. I can also imagine it's difficult to do so when you only have eight 20 minute episodes in the season.

However... There definitely should've been more work put into these characters to make them their own. It's tricky, yes, but still achievable if you don't abandon them in their cookie-cutter form and try to actually decorate them with something unique and fresh.

So, how did they write their characters?

Felicia's character and backstory

To start off, Felicia is a famous influencer known for starring in a reality show next to her former NHL professional father. There's already a clear disconnect because it's hard to relate to a character with such a public past and large following. But it is 100% possible if you let the viewer know the character has humane qualities just like the person watching the show.

Look at Wilhelm from Netflix's Young Royals, another Swedish TV show. Wilhelm is the prince of Sweden, set to attend a prestigious elite boarding school, and is the heir to the throne. That doesn't exactly sound like a relatable scenario, does it? And yet the writers make it work because when we're introduced to Wilhelm we realize he's just like everybody else. He wants a normal life, he latches on to his older brother for support, he has anxiety, and he struggles between following his heart versus doing what his family is expecting him to do. A lot of these factors are relatable among the audience.

So, let's look at Felicia Kroon. She is in many ways portrayed as the main character of the show. Eagles starts off with her family having moved to Oskarshamn and the following episodes focus on her developing relationship with Ludde as well as her traumatic past. There's almost too much focus on Felicia here, and I'll get back to that.

Comparing Felicia to Wilhelm from Young Royals, they're both well-known teenagers with famous parents. Of course they have different circumstances considering Felicia is Instagram popular and Wilhelm is a blood royal, but in the grand scheme of things they're similar. Felicia is even referred to as a "Kroon princess" because of her last name Kroon bearing a resemblance to the Swedish word kronprinsessa, meaning crown princess.

The students of their respective schools treat their attendance as a big deal when they first arrive and then Wilhelm and Felicia start spending time with the "popular" crowd despite not really fitting in there.

I personally found it easy to relate to Wilhelm but difficult to relate to Felicia. Some people may feel differently, but her character is basically a popular party girl who attracts the attention of one of the school's star players and is "welcomed" by the popular crowd on her first day of school. I put welcome in quotation marks because Klara, the leader of the girl group, isn't exactly the most welcoming person but she does welcome Felicia to the school. My point is, Felicia doesn't have a lot of relatable traits in the first episodes.

Felicia then goes on a date with the guy she's met, Ludde. Okay, so there haven't been that many layers to her character yet. We're at the third episode and so far she's been kind of flat.

Near the end of the third episode, we get some depth to the character and we hear her back story.

Felicia: [...] We don’t have a good relationship, my dad and I. And that’s probably why we moved from the beginning, because he’s an idiot. We’ve never been close, but… Elias and he have been since they’ve had hockey. [...] And mom has been really involved, so… And I… They’ve never really cared about me. And… And I haven’t really been a problem either. I’ve had good grades, good friends, and… I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I don’t talk about it to people. [...] I just felt so fucking lonely and invisible. I was worried all the time, couldn’t sleep, panicked because I couldn’t sleep… So I started going out more. It went overboard. It started affecting school, my grades slipped… I started taking things to be able to concentrate. Everybody does stuff like that. And then I still couldn’t sleep, so… I started mixing with sleeping pills. And there’s always wine and booze at our place. I don’t want this to come out, that’s really important. Ludde: Of course, I’d never tell. Felicia: One night, something happened that made me… Act out of control more than usual. I woke up the next morning in the hospital. So they sent me to rehab. It was really rough for mom and dad that I was suddenly in focus. When I woke up, dad wasn’t even there. Ludde: What made you take too much that night? Felicia: I’d forgotten my phone at home, so I ran up and got it while my friends were waiting in an Uber. Then I came into the hall and I heard noises. You know, like, when somebody is doing it. Ludde: Okay. Felicia: And I thought it was really weird because mom wasn’t home. So I went into the living room… Dad was fucking my mom’s best friend. On the rug below the couch.

This gives Felicia more layers and does separate her from every other "popular pretty party girl" trope that you see on TV. But this is a huge info dump, and that's a problem. I would've liked to see this happen on-screen instead of only being told what went down. The golden rule of Show don't tell, as people like to say.

Show, don’t tell is a writing technique in which story and characters are related through sensory details and actions rather than exposition. It fosters a style of writing that’s more immersive for the reader, allowing them to “be in the room” with the characters. In his most commonly repeated quote, Chekhov said, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining. Show me the glint of light on broken glass."

This back story could've been more impactful that way if, perhaps, the show began with Felicia in a hospital bed with a strong headache and hazy flashbacks of that night where she saw her dad sleeping with another woman. Then we're introduced to her mother and brother sitting next to the hospital bed tired and worried, and Felicia notices her dad isn't present. They tell her Felicia is being sent to rehab and then there's a time-jump before we see the Kroon family having moved to Oskarshamn.

That's just an idea I threw together at the top of my head, but you get my point. It would've been more interesting if we knew from the beginning that Felicia had a traumatic past like this, leading the viewer to want to know more about what actually happened.

We did get a brief flashback at the very beginning of the show—we see Felicia partying with her friends and taking some pill before lying unconscious on the ground. There's also a glimpse of Ludde's car accident with Andreas yelling at him to get out of there.

That segment only lasts for around 45 seconds and it's easily forgettable upon your first viewing of the show. It's also hard to even recognize Felicia in the dark nightclub setting with the flashing lights. Some dialogue in that short scene could've made it more memorable, because I found that when I first watched season 1 I remembered Andreas yelling at Ludde despite that being drowned out by the music.

Ludde's backstory was way more well-done, in my opinion. We see him having crashed the car and bleeding from his head. He looks terrified and almost frozen by fear, needing to be pulled out of the car by a panicked Andreas yelling at him to bring Ludde back to the reality of the situation. We see Andreas yelling and pointing, telling Ludde he needs to run now. It's more powerful when we get to see it.

And in episode 8, when we learn the truth of what happened, it's not a long and dragged-out monologue. It fits into what's going on in the story. Felicia and Ludde have known each other for a few months now and are much closer than they were on their first date. They've had disagreements and fights, but at this moment they're in a good place.

And it feels like the right moment for Ludde to come clean about what happened to him.

Ludde: Hey… There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. Felicia: What? Ludde: About… My brother. It’s not really as everybody thinks. Felicia: What do you mean? Ludde: That night when he crashed… It wasn’t Andreas who drove the car. We were on our way home from one of his buddies. We’d had some fun drinking. And then… I’d just started learning how to drive. So I nagged and nagged at him. Felicia: So you were the one driving? But he’s an adult- Ludde: He was drunk as hell. He was going to leave the car, but I thought it was so cold and it was only three blocks away so I thought that I could drive. Felicia: And what happened? Ludde: It was slippery and really dark… And a car came. I hit the brakes in time, but it… Yeah. Right after he pushed me out of the car and yelled that I should run home straight away. He really didn’t want me to get into trouble. So, yeah… It was fucking bad luck. I want to just gather everybody and scream that it was me. Felicia: Hey… I love you. Ludde: I love you too. I love you so fucking much.

As Ludde is telling Felicia what happened as the other car came, we see a silent flashback of it along with Ludde's voice narrating. We see Andreas pulling him out of the car and yelling. Cutting to this scene that we've already seen in the beginning but might've forgotten about is a smart choice and makes the story Ludde is telling more real. We see it unfolding as Ludde is telling this to Felicia. It's a powerful scene.

We then see Felicia hugging Ludde from behind, a sign of support with no words needed. She tells him she loves him and Ludde says it back. It's an honest and sweet moment that comes at a perfect time in the story. It's not too early like Felicia's backstory was.

I sort of understand why Felicia's backstory was info-dumped because it was right before the drama of Mats accidentally spilling the beans to Klara's family. They wanted the audience to know what happened to her early, so they could move on to the plot point of Felicia thinking Ludde was the one who told everybody.

But we don't need every single detail of Felicia's story. Let it come organically. The only thing that was really needed was for Ludde to know that Felicia had struggled with drug use and was sent to rehab for this storyline to work. The reason why could've been saved for later, and it would've made for a more interesting reveal. Maybe just have Felicia allude to seeing something that night, but don't tell the viewers right away what it was.

In 1x06, Felicia is incredibly upset when she hears that her dad was the one who told Klara's family what happened to Felicia in the US. And rightly so.

Felicia: Don’t you get it? You ruined everything! Mats: What? Felicia: You told the whole damn town about me! About the US! Mats: I really didn’t mean to disclose you- Or disclose us. Sorry. Hey, sorry. Flisan, please. Hey. Felicia: Did you tell them you fucked mom’s best friend too? Yes, I saw you.

If this had been the moment where we first find out what Felicia saw, it would've been more surprising. Our reaction would've mirrored Mats's, and it would've been more heart-wrenching to know that Felicia was traumatized by an affair her dad had only to be cheated on herself in the very same episode.

Ludde's problematic nature

One of the scriptwriters of Eagles, Fanny Ekstrand, was interviewed in the behind-the-scenes documentary Edvins Skådisdrömmar. In this interview, she states:

Ludvig, he's the one who's been the easiest to retain the personality of. Because he's so... He's calm and friendly, but he makes dumb decisions. Ludvig isn't a typical hockey guy. He has a bunch of other qualities—music being one of them.

I found myself slightly disagreeing with this take, despite knowing Ekstrand is literally a part of the writing team and most likely helped shaped Ludde's personality. I just interpreted Ludde's character (at least in season 1) differently.

I also didn't find him that much different from any other typical hockey guy just because he happens to have another interest. That's a bit like saying Archie Andrews from The CW's Riverdale isn't a stereotypical jock because he also plays the guitar.

In season 1, we see Ludde break into the rink because he wanted to test out the ice. He just loves hockey that much. He also uses it as a way to express frustration and anger, which we saw in 1x05. He flirts with the new girl in school and in the beginning he even uses it as a tactic to gain a position on the main hockey team. This was confirmed by the creator Stefan H. Lindén in his Q&A, where he said:

My idea has always been that Ludde was blown away by Felicia and that he really likes her but that they both initially interacted and met to go swimming because Felicia knew it would piss her dad off and Ludde knew that it might throw Elias off since they were competing for the same position in the team.

I would say that the characteristics of a typical hockey guy would be someone like Adam—obsessed with the sport, flirting with girls, going to parties, and just spending a lot of time in the rink. Ludde checks off all of these points. However, I will give this the benefit of the doubt since season 2 Ludde seems to change a lot and it's easier to interpret him as the calm and friendly guy he was supposed to be in season 1.

So to me, Ludde wasn't calm and friendly at all. In season 2, yes, but when we're first introduced to him?

Ludde shows anger issues and violent tendencies in 1x05 when he head-butts Elias and breaks his nose. It's violent and messy. He then yells at Felicia to leave when she's trying to communicate with him and belittles her drug problems solely because she's rich. To me, Ludde wasn't a nice person in 1x04 either when he let his friends make suggestive comments about Felicia and what she was like in bed.

Omar: I can tell you one thing - you’re not borrowing my towel today cause I don’t know where that dick has been. Adam: It’s nice when she sucks, right? Omar: Can’t you tell us some more, does she bite you or is it just really, really nice? [...] Adam: Is that what you sound like when you’re coming? What does she sound like?

This was described as "locker room talk" and the writers probably wanted to show an authentic view of what being a hockey player is like. I understand that. But it's a little problematic when it's later swept under the rug and treated like something that we're just supposed to accept.

Elias: [...] it’s not very fun to sit in a hockey locker room where people are talking about how nice it is to fuck my sister. Felicia: Ludde would never say anything like that, you know that. Elias: He wouldn’t? It’s a locker room, Felicia. That’s the only thing they talk about.

It did not sit right with me how Felicia seemed to be the one Elias blamed in this scene, and Ludde and his friends never faced any real consequences for what they said. Elias did lash out at Ludde, but there was no severe consequence for Omar and Adam's comments.

Compare this scenario to another Swedish show, Beartown on HBO. Beartown is similar to Eagles and focuses on a hockey team in a small town with one of the star players hooking up with a girl who's recently moved to their small town.

This girl is raped by the hockey player. And because of his status as the star of the team, he has almost the whole school behind him. The girl however is labeled as a lying slut. It's unfair and frustrating to see it happen, but it's authentic and done in a way that doesn't glamorize the ugly side of hockey culture.

Eagles is not as dark as Beartown so this comparison might be a little unfair. Beartown's whole storyline did revolve around this incident while in Eagles the hockey culture is treated more as a side thought. It's like they decided to throw in a taste of what goes on in a locker room just to create drama without really addressing it further.

Beartown did a much better job of portraying the problematic and toxic elements of hockey culture without making it seem like it's just something normal that we should accept. It was honest and raw. If you haven't seen the show, this short video does a great job of depicting how much thought was put into the toxic hockey culture, winning mentality, and subsequently hockey players thinking they're entitled to do whatever they want.

So, to respond to Ekstrand's quote from Edvins Skådisdrömmar—I did not experience Ludde as a "good guy" who only makes dumb decisions at all. In season 1, he's a bad person for letting his friends sexualize a girl he likes and letting her brother hear their disgusting comments. He's a bad person for fighting with her brother and later yelling at her, saying her drug issues are insignificant despite acting supportive of her only two episodes earlier.

I don't mind conflicts like these because they drive the story forward. I didn't particularly like Ludde in season 1 because of the reasons I just stated, but they're necessary to create drama and make the show interesting.

It's just weird to me how one of the writers is saying that Ludde is a calm person and a good guy when that is not at all how I interpreted his character.

Eagles is a show targeted towards a young audience, among them probably a lot of easily influenced pre-teens. What kind of message does this send to them when the guy letting his friends sexualize a girl he's slept with and on top of that laughing at their inappropriate comments is referred to as the good guy?

Klara is mean... What else?

From the moment we're introduced to Klara, it seems obvious that she'll play a living and breathing version of the infamous Alpha Bitch trope. She's also a prime example of the basic Popular is Evil trope and has her own Girl Posse consisting of Sara and Amie.

Klara feels threatened by the arrival of a potential new popular girl, Felicia, and does everything in her power to bully Felicia to show dominance. She barely shows any good sides of herself.

The only instance I can think of where we sort of see season 1 Klara in a positive light is when she talks to Amie in 1x05 about their friendship and then accompanies Amie to her audition for the school band.

Klara: Ever since Felicia started at school… It’s felt like you only hang out with her and that you’ve forgotten about me. She like took you from me. Amie: But I haven’t forgotten you. Klara: No, but do you get what I mean? Amie: I get it, but I haven’t forgotten you. Klara: No, I know. Amie: I know, but it just turned out that way when school started. Klara: Okay. Amie: But I’m sorry. Klara: It’s fine. Amie: Are you sure? Klara: Yeah. You can make it up to me when you go on your world tour.

Klara is really supportive of Amie's musical endeavors, but she also uses her support as a way to alienate Felicia from the girl group. It's very on the nose and kind of feels suffocating in the way it's written.

Klara: Amie, did you remove the clips? Amie: Yeah, she said they weren’t good. Klara: She’s just jealous. It’s so obvious. I mean, I’m jealous. You sing absolutely amazing. I don’t know, I just think it was really rude of her to sit in the cafeteria and criticize you like that Amie: Yeah, maybe. But she apologized. Klara: But still. That clip of you in the bathroom… Like… Sorry, but I’d be so mad if someone had posted something like that of me. I mean, you were standing there without makeup, completely non-fixed up. And the whole thing with her filming you without you knowing. That’s really weird. You don’t do that. Don’t you think so?

I'm sure there are plenty of people who act like this in real life. And maybe that's part of the problem, because Klara in season 1 really isn't an interesting character. We've met this person before and we know exactly what she's like. There's nothing new to discover. So season 1 is essentially just Klara being petty and rude every chance she gets, and to me it felt like a large part of her character was written just to stir up drama.

In 1x06, we see Klara backstab Amie by filming her making out with Ludde at her Halloween party. But I thought it was established in 1x05 that Klara feels like Amie was taken from her? And if Klara actually cared about Amie and didn't want to lose her as a friend, she wouldn't just stand by and watch with her phone recording the whole thing. It doesn't make a lot of sense.

Klara even made that whole point about how it was really weird of Felicia to film Amie without her knowing. So why would Klara do it, when she expressed that's weird and not something a normal person does? Is that supposed to be foreshadowing? Because if so, that's a clear contradiction and not how foreshadowing works.

When Sara happens to see the video on Klara's phone she immediately says that Klara should delete it.

Sara: What is that? Did they know you were filming? Klara: No, of course they didn’t know. Sara: Oh my god, Klara. You should probably delete it. Klara: I’m going to! But it’s crazy, right? Sara: Yeah, god. But seriously, delete it. Klara: I’m going to.

So Klara says she's going to delete the video. But it's still unclear why it was filmed in the first place if Klara insists that she's going to delete it. It's not like she filmed it just to show it to Sara either, since Sara wasn't meant to see it and only saw it by chance while swiping through Klara's photos on her phone.

It doesn't make sense for Klara to film a video like that of her best friend that she's supposed to care about. It doesn't make sense for Klara to film a video of anybody without their knowledge when she previously made a big deal about how you shouldn't do that.

What Klara's character is, is a bad attempt at the classical mean girl. She's clichéd, boring, and full of tropes.

Even her eventual character development is riddled with tropes like the Heel Realization where a character realizes they're actually one of the bad guys. This realization seems to come in 1x08, where Felicia calls Klara out on her behavior.

Felicia: You know what, Klara. I’m so fucking tired of your fucking comments. You didn’t get to be Lucia this year. Poor you! Was dad unable to fix that? Cry then, Klara. Cry. You’re so fucking mean. Everybody here is tired- Everybody here is scared of you. Even those who liked you once, they can’t take it anymore. Klara: That’s not true. It’s not true. Felicia: Yes, everybody is scared of you. You know what? Look around. Show people some fucking respect. Klara: Well say something, Amie! Amie: What is there to say? She’s right.

Klara needed a wake-up call like this. It's just unfortunate that she goes back to her mean girl behavior and posts the video after Amie insinuated that Klara wasn't a real friend. Klara already knew that Amie felt that way since she said Felicia was right in her assessment of everybody being scared and tired of Klara. So wouldn't it have made more sense for Klara to post the video right after that moment instead of during Amie's performance?

Or rather, why not pull a Subverted Trope and not have Klara post the video at all after she realized how horrible she'd been acting? That would've made me respect her so much more and be a great introduction to her character development in season 2.

The Halloween Incident

To me, the whole Halloween episode was questionable. First off, we never got actual confirmation of what happened in that room between Amie and Ludde. Some viewers insist that they only made out and others believe they went all the way. Here's what the creator of the show, Stefan H. Lindén, had to say about this in a Q&A post he did:

I think if you went into the writers room of Eagles and asked all of us what really happened in that room [between Ludde and Amie at Klara's Halloween party] we would all have different answers. I know what happened, but I’m not sure we will ever truly know for sure, unless Ludvig or Amie eventually are open enough to admit to anyone what really happened.

This is kind of a vague answer, but that's fair considering that when Stefan did this Q&A the latest episode that had been released was 2x05 and he probably didn't want to spoil anything. However, looking back at this answer knowing how the season turned out I still feel like it's unclear what happened. It's also strange that Stefan seems to be saying that they never actually decided what happened between them since the writers "would all have different answers".

1x06 was just an odd episode for me overall. Lots of things felt rushed and underdeveloped. Let's not forget that this episode also contained, in my opinion, some of the weirdest lines in the whole show (along with Elias's strange monologue about plague vampires).

Ludde: Hey, I only have like 3%. Do you have any power? Adam: Are you wondering if I have a power bank in my shorts? It’s coming-

Ludde: I like shellfish. (said to Amie, wearing a lobster costume)

Up until this episode, Ludde has shown zero interest and attraction towards Amie. We are basically told that Ludde only hooked up with Amie because he was so drunk that he practically had no idea what he was doing.

In 1x02, we see a drunk Amie try to kiss Tobbe and upon getting rejected she moves on to make out with Adam. She gets overly friendly when she's drunk so the fact that she makes out with Ludde later is... Weird, but not entirely out of the realms of possibility.

Ludde on the other hand is moping about Felicia all night. He regrets how he yelled at her at the end of 1x05 and it shows. He's trying to drown all his problems in alcohol and it seems to be working, because when it enters his system he seems to be on top of the world.

What I found kind of ambiguous in this incident was if Ludde even remembered what happened that night. He was drinking so much compared to Amie, who doesn't really need as much alcohol before she reaches her "overly friendly" state. I thought for sure that Ludde was oblivious to the situation when he woke up in his bed the next day and immediately messaged Felicia.

There are just so many questions to unpack here that were never answered. What prompted Amie and Ludde to go into that empty room? Why did Ludde come with her? Why didn't Adam seem to care about this, when he'd been sitting next to Ludde and taking care of him most of the night? And as I wrote before, why would Klara film this video of her best friend when she previously expressed that was a weird thing to do?

There's just too much in 1x06 left unanswered. The Amie/Ludde hook-up was a badly executed plot twist because there wasn't anything hinting that this would happen. It just came out of nowhere.

Unbalanced screentime and Elias's wasted potential

A large portion of season 1 was dedicated to Felicia. This was kind of a let-down for me since I thought more focus would be placed on Eagles as a hockey team (after all, that's what the show is named after). I also thought more attention would be on Elias since he's the talented star player who's supposed to live up to his father's legacy.

The show starts with a couple radio hosts hyping up how Elias Kroon, son of the legendary Mats Kroon, is going to join the Eagles hockey team.

Host #1: [...] It’s finally official. New center in the junior team - Elias Kroon, son to the legendary NHL-pro Mats Kroon, who has now chosen to move home from the US to his hometown where Elias will play in his father’s old club Oskarshamn Eagles. Host #2: This is so freaking cool. Who doesn’t want a Kroon on their team? Host #1: We hope that he’ll take a spot on the A-team.

But we don't learn a lot about who Elias actually is in the first episode. The attention is on Felicia and her interest in Ludde.

Elias is so discarded that he barely has anything to say in the first couple of scenes we see him in. Here are all his eight lines in 1x01, and I'm not even joking.

Elias: Yes. Elias: Shut up. Elias: Ow. Elias: It's fine. Elias: Really? Elias: Fucking hell. Elias: I'll stay here. Elias: No, it's fine.

In 1x02 he has even fewer lines. Three, to be exact, and all he says is that his injury is a sprain and that it's fine. Essentially just an echo of two of the lines he had in the previous episode. It's nothing new.

There's a way to have a character stand out when they don't have many lines, but Elias just fades into the background with every other extra. There's too much time spent on having other characters talk about Elias than us actually getting to know him. So when we do meet him, it's pretty underwhelming.

Compare Elias to his sister who gets so much more attention from the writers. I don't really understand why either, since I thought Elias was a much more interesting character than his influencer sister. Felicia's character only seems to revolve around a guy. I wonder how many times we've seen that before?

In 1x02 we see the Eagles hockey team play their first game, but Elias is unable to play and has to sit in the stands for what was supposed to be his debut match. Why? Because during a hockey practice session in 1x01, Adam rams his stick into Elias to purposely injure him. I mean, fair enough. Adam is trying to get Ludde on the main team since he and Elias are competing for the same position. The shot of Adam smiling after Elias sprains his wrist is a bit too on the nose, but whatever.

What this does is minimize Elias' presence in season 1 by a lot. We don't see the son of the legendary NHL professional play an actual game until 1x05, which is more than halfway into the season. It's kind of disappointing but I understand the injury is done to dramatize his situation.

Elias barely gets his own storylines in the first few episodes. He just has things done to him instead of acting on his own. When we do see him on screen he gets injured by Adam, reprimanded by his father, and later told he can't play in his debut game.

His sweet side (or any side of him, really) isn't shown until 1x03 when Amie wakes up at the Kroon house and Elias reassures her that they didn't do anything together and that she can borrow Felicia's clothes.

Elias doesn't really do much for the plot until he hears Ludde's friends objectify Felicia and he starts a fight with Ludde and confronts Felicia about it. That's when it feels like Elias is actually a part of this show instead of just being an extra shoved into the background. His actions are finally affecting the plot.

Elias's potential in season 1 was hugely wasted. The only episode where we actually got to see him shine was 1x07, when he travels to Karlskrona with Amie. We find out he doesn't want the hockey arrangement his dad has planned for him and that he's actually a pretty goofy guy who likes making jokes (and eating green candy).

If less time was spent with Felicia and the distribution of every episode's 20 minutes was more balanced, season 1 could've been massively improved. It got much better in season 2, but season 1 suffered and made many people think that Felicia was a basic and unentertaining character.

The side characters and their comic relief

So one thing that I found really disappointing with Felicia's amount of screentime is that we barely got enough time for the other main characters, let alone the side characters.

What I mean here is that the only people we really know on the Eagles hockey team are Ludde and Elias. Ludde's friends, Adam and Omar, just feel like comic relief sidekicks. We don't really know what they're like, besides the fact that they like to make jokes and mess around.

This issue is largely created by the short running time the episodes have along with season 1 only having eight episodes in total. That's definitely understandable. It did get better in season 3 where we see Ludde having a deeper conversation with Adam and Omar and they finally don't just feel like the comic relief characters, but actual people with layers.

Ludde: I’m going to quit hockey. Adam: Are you serious? Omar: What the hell are you saying? Ludde: It’s not the same anymore. I’m not passionate about it. I… Yes, it sucks, but… I’ve thought about it for a while now. Omar: We make jokes about it and all, but… Yeah. It wouldn’t be the same without you. Kingelikingen. Adam: I get that it’s a tough choice. But yeah… You’ll work things out. You and Felicia. You always do. Ludde: You guys are pretty awesome sometimes, actually.

This scene was really sweet, and I wish we could've had moments like this between the guys in season 1. Just one scene to show that they're not just the "typical hockey guys". It feels like Ludde was the only person on the team in season 1 who wasn't just a background character. Even Elias, who you would assume should be at the forefront, isn't properly developed until 1x05 where we see him defending his sister and starting a fight with Ludde. Otherwise, it very much felt like Elias was kept in the background.

There are also guys on the team called Herman, Simon, Näslund, Ekbäck, Hoffmann, Berglund (even Montell, which was a fun nod to the show's director)... But who are they, actually? Do you even remember their names? To be honest with you, I don't. Because they're just names—not actual characters.

None of the other guys on the team get any depth. They're just sort of there as extras and to give the audience a sense of comedy with their "hockey team shenanigans". This was illustrated in 1x08, where Adam and Omar make their teammate Liam do a "sexy dance" on a table because he lost his virginity. Or a more extreme example—Jönsson, who only exists to be the comic relief and the unlucky guy who just can't catch a break.

In 2x04, Jönsson is told by Jack to do extra time in the gym and gets told off when he only spends a few minutes on the exercise bike. Later, Jack also makes a joke about how he should get Jönsson a defibrillator. In 2x09 Jönsson invites Ludde, Adam, and Omar to come to his mom's place to hang out. After he's left, Adam makes a comment about how there's no way he's going to "rot" in Jönsson's apartment that doesn't even have a balcony.

Don't get me wrong, these scenes aren't bad and I don't mean they should've been scrapped. Comedy can absolutely have its place in a show like this. Let's take the scene where Ludde flashes a couple of unfortunate old ladies on his first date with Felicia as an example. It feels like something a teenage boy would do to try to make a girl he likes laugh. It's a brief scene and it's nice to see Ludde being able to goof off only moments after talking about Andreas. We know that's a touchy subject for him.

However, it feels slightly overdone sometimes with how almost everybody on the hockey team is only there for comedic purposes and to fill space. It's more refreshing when they're shown to be multi-dimensional. I wish this is something that the writers would've considered when the show is literally titled after the hockey team, yet most of the hockey players are hardly in the story.

To add to this, it felt like Sara and Tobbe completely disappeared from the story in season 2. With Sara we understand that she probably didn't want to hang out with Klara anymore after knowing she filmed the Halloween video and posted it on Instagram, so that's fair. But it would've been nice to see Tobbe stick around in season 2, and I'll get back to why I think that.

The potential of season 1

When I look back on season 1 I feel really nostalgic. No matter how many small details that irked me, I can't deny that the setting of the show is beautiful and I really appreciate the depiction of it. Instead of showing Oskarshamn as a boring small town, we're shown the beauty of it which is incorporated into the storylines.

Some examples would be Ludde and Felicia's first date at Gunnarsö and walk through Havslätt, the gorgeous view of the Oskarshamn harbor from Klara's house Villa Högklint, and Badholmen where the school band performs and we later see Elias and Amie walking by in season 3. All these places are listed on the Eagles Oskarshamn site and I feel like they did a great job tying the storylines in with the locations.

Another aspect of season 1 and its writing that I really enjoyed was Elias and Amie's budding relationship. They just have a natural chemistry together and the dialogue between them also felt authentic and sweet.

Season 1 is just a very polished teen drama overall compared to some of SVT's previous series.

Back in 2007-2010, SVT used to air a soap opera-style show focusing on a few teenagers living in Gothenburg that was called Andra Avenyn (translation: Second Avenue). I was only seven at the time but I watched this show religiously as it aired three times a week. Just mentioning the show brings a lot of nostalgia.

Andra Avenyn amassed around 500 000 viewers per episode and was, just like Eagles, nominated for a Kristallen television award. But how good was it, really? If I take off my rose-colored glasses for a second and actually consider the show's highly dramatized storylines and unlikely scenarios, it had a tendency to drag on (which usually happens with soap operas). It didn't offer a realistic view of teenage life and on IMDb it currently sits at a rating score of 5.6 stars out of 10.

Comparing this old teen series to SVT's newer one, Eagles season 1 was a huge improvement and continues to be the most popular teen series that SVT has aired so far.

This idea and all the characters have lived in Stefan H. Lindéns mind since 2008, while Andra Avenyn was still on the air. It's actually amazing how high the quality of most TV shows has risen since then. Eagles has a rating score of 7.4 out of 10 stars on IMDb and has become internationally known in a way that Andra Avenyn never was.

Eagles season 1 laid the groundwork for SVT's most successful teen series of all time, and that's a huge achievement.

Season 2: "Subverting expectations"

When Eagles came back for season 2, the script made it kind of obvious that the writers had listened to the critique of season 1 being predictable.

I did find season 2 a huge step up from season 1—the directing was so much better and when it came to the script we got a deeper look into all the characters that they hadn't really scratched the surface of in the first season. My main disappointment however was that it felt like they threw in a bunch of weird plot twists just for the sake of "subverting expectations".

The core idea of subverting expectations can be great if done correctly. You lead the audience to believe they know what's going to happen, but then you surprise them with an unexpected and clever twist.

A post in Cinematography written by Mason Leaver defines the phrase of "subverting expectations" as:

[...] a method of surprising the audience with some element of a story, be it the plot, themes, characters, etc. This goes beyond a “twist” in a film. Expectation subversion actively works within the genre of a story, and attempts to reinterpret or subvert the conventions of that genre, breaking patterns in surprising and interesting ways. However, this method of surprising the audience is not always well received- it can sometimes be the source of heavy criticism from fans of the tropes which have been subverted.

This included "unexpected" relationships such as Elias/Klara and Amie/Ludde. The former actually worked, but the latter? Not so much.

Amie's crush on Ludde—make it make sense!

Amie and Ludde were my biggest issue with season 2, and it felt so out of character of Amie to be head over heels for Ludde. They work great as friends but romantically they're a huge mismatch.

But they have music in common, I hear you say. Yes, they do. But having a shared interest doesn't mean people are automatically a good match. You have to consider their chemistry and overall compatibility.

Before actors are cast in a show or movie where their characters will be romantically involved with each other, it's common to do what's called a chemistry read. Here's a neat description from an article in Backstage written by Caroline Liem:

Chemistry is the complex emotional or psychological interaction between two people. If this were a romantic article, it would be about love. Instead, we are discussing the astonishing rapport between two actors, and how that connection is achieved in order to book [...] the role. A chemistry read is an opportunity to read with actors being considered for a role opposite yours, usually lead roles. The main purpose is to see how you instinctively connect and work with the other actor.

This obviously wasn't done for the actors playing Amie and Ludde, since there didn't seem to be any intention of having their characters be involved in a romantic relationship.

That was even confirmed by Stefan H. Lindén in his Q&A of season 2, where he said that a love triangle between Ludde/Felicia/Amie was planned but later scrapped.

I can confirm that from the beginning of development of the series and the first version of the storyline a triangle drama was at some point intended for season 1 but later removed – however when creating the characters, Ludvigs skill in music and arts was always there from the beginning so by knowing that, we always knew that interactions would appear between them. When looking back at Season 1, in the first scene by the lockers when Amie tells Felicia who Ludvig is, she does know exactly who he is and she is well aware of that his friend Tobias is a music guy that Amie wants to get to know. Also when looking at it, when I was the same age as Ludvig and Amie I, and I am sure a lot of people can relate to it, fact is that we never really knew if it was love or friendship in the beginning.

Knowing that the triangle drama was scrapped for season 1, it makes sense why it seems so arbitrary. There was no groundwork laid down for this pairing before it was hastily thrown together in 1x06 for a cheap plot twist. This continues in season 2, where Amie and Ludde start spending more time together. Yet it's hard to see Ludde as a potential love interest for Amie in the way the writers want us to. They still come off as friends despite having hooked up at a party.

I mentioned that Tobbe should've stuck around for season 2 and here's why. Tobbe was written to be the leader of the school band that Amie later joins, and he was friends with Ludde before the video was posted. He would've been a perfect fit for the Amie/Ludde music storyline but he's completely absent. He had the potential to be the person who could've helped them with the song a little and then later picked up on whatever there was going on between them.

I think the Amie/Ludde storyline could've hugely benefitted from a scene between Amie and Tobbe, where Tobbe asks if she actually has feelings for Ludde and we get to hear exactly what Amie is feeling. Maybe she's torn, not wanting to get together with Ludde because of how much they hurt Felicia, but at the same time finds it hard to suppress her feelings. A scene like that would've allowed us to get into Amie's head and make the Amie/Ludde storyline much clearer.

To add, this storyline was in desperate need of more interest from Ludde's side. There needed to be some indication from him that would make Amie believe he liked him back, even if that wasn't the case. All we get is Ludde complimenting Amie's song and then a hug in 2x05 when Amie says the record label in Stockholm wanted a meeting. And apparently, that was enough for Amie to think Ludde was interested in her despite him blowing off the Stockholm meeting and Amie hearing Ludde say that the Halloween incident was a mistake.

Ludde and Amie don't really mesh as well as Elias/Amie do or even as well as Ludde/Felicia do. Elias and Amie had sparks flying from the very first scene they shared. That pairing is one of the main reasons why the show became popular internationally, and why is that? Because of the actors' chemistry.

Amie and Ludde are a clumsy attempt at throwing together two people who don't really work together with the intention of "subverting expectations". And I suppose that's what the writers wanted to depict—an awkward crush that doesn't really make sense, which I'm sure many people have experienced as a teenager. That part is fine. But what I didn't like about this storyline is that Amie had no good reason to believe Ludde would be interested in anything with her beyond a platonic friendship.

While season 2 was airing, I was convinced that Amie wasn't actually in love with Ludde. She was just lonely after the aftermath of the Halloween video and mistook her feelings for Ludde as love when she just appreciated his company. Here's what I wrote:

So as we know, Amie kissed Ludde in episode 6 when he was in the hospital after having been injured during the hockey game against Karlskrona. She immediately seemed to regret having done that and ran out without an explanation, leaving Ludde alone and confused. I honestly don’t think Amie has any romantic feelings towards Ludde. I think she might mistake her feelings for a crush or something, when in reality she’s just lonely and appreciates Ludde always being there for her and giving her compliments on her musical ability. Ludde was complimenting Amie at the hospital, saying she was amazing, and I think Amie was just really touched by that and maybe wanted to thank him somehow, and ended up kissing him. And then she freaked out and left because oh my god did she really just kiss Ludde. It was an uncomfortable and awkward situation and that’s probably why she ran out. However, I really believe that if she had just stayed to explain and apologize, Ludde would understand and they could’ve just laughed it off. But this is a drama show so of course that wouldn’t happen! Do I think the writers are making them into a couple? No, definitely not. They know that season 1 was sort of predictable and cliché, so they’re making season 2 as different as possible by including these unexpected pairings such as Klara & Elias and Amie & Ludde. But Amie and Ludde won’t ever be a couple, because Ludde is still very much hung up on Felicia. I don’t see them as a couple either - yes, they have music in common, but they work way better as friends than in a relationship.

In Edvins Skådisdrömmar, which is a behind-the-scenes documentary of Eagles season 2, writers Fanny Ekstrand and Michaela Hamilton discuss the writing of the show in the documentary's third episode. The third episode is mostly focused on the lead-up to the scene where Amie kisses Ludde at the hospital. Adrian Öjvindsson, who plays Ludde, says:

Filming the kissing scene was [...] awkward and weird, actually. And that's how it ended up. Yandeh and I haven't really had any intimate scenes. In this case you could take in that it was weird, because that's also what the scene wanted to depict.

When Edvin reads the script, he describes the scene as a "nightmare" scenario. I agree. And the lazy build-up to this Awkward Kiss trope doesn't make it any better, because just like the Halloween incident this doesn't make a lot of sense.

It's supposed to be awkward and weird, just like Adrian said. But he also mentioned one of the most important details: Yandeh and I haven't really had any intimate scenes.

Before this kiss scene, there was nothing that indicated any chemistry between them. No accidental hand-touching, no longing stares, no nothing. Just a friendly hug. A proper build-up to the kiss scene would've made it feel less out of place.

The love confession from Amie to Ludde in 2x10 really threw me off as well. The confession to me made no sense and honestly felt like a prank call. There was no feeling behind it and zero reason for Amie to believe that there was a chance Ludde liked her back.

At the end of 2x08, Felicia goes to Ludde's house after he's confessed the truth to the police about the Andreas situation. Amie happens to overhear the conversation and she hears Ludde very clearly say that he's not interested in Amie.

Ludde: Felicia, there’s nothing between us. Between me and Amie. It was really the biggest mistake of my life. Felicia: Goodbye, Ludde. Ludde: Felicia, please!

Amie, now having her heart broken, crosses Ludde's name off the contract while crying. She knows he doesn't feel the same. So why would Amie even bother to call Ludde up to tell him she's "in love with him"?

Amie: [...] Hey, Ludde… Ludde: Yeah? Amie: It feels really weird to hear our song now. Because I know who the lyrics are about. And… And I… I really like you. Or, well… I’m in love with you. I just need to know how you feel. Or if you feel anything. Just tell me. Ludde: I’ll always want to be your friend, Amie, but… It’s Felicia I’m in love with.

This moment is on par with the awkwardness from the hospital kiss between them in 2x06. The second-hand embarrassment with this one was really rough, and what I don't understand is why this was even added to the script when Amie had already gotten the confirmation that Ludde didn't think of her in a romantic way. This storyline could've ended in 2x08 after Amie overheard the conversation between Ludde and Felicia.

It really didn't need to drag on for the whole season, essentially making Amie's whole storyline in season 2 about a guy. Her moment of finally getting signed to the record label was ruined when it could've been regarded as a fresh start if the storyline had just ended where it should have.

What this storyline did instead was ruining my favorite friendship of season 1, which was Amie/Felicia. This mess made it so hard for them to reconcile and they didn't end up properly addressing it until 3x09, spending almost two whole seasons mad at each other. It sucks that the writers decided to drag out their fighting and disagreements for this long when they could've instead shown two girls in solidarity who don't let a guy get between them and their friendship.

Amie apologized in 3x03 for how she hurt Felicia, but Felicia made it clear in 3x06 that she still harbored ill will towards Amie for what happened at Halloween (which in the timeline of this show was more than a year ago).

Felicia (to Amie): Are you going to start slobbering with [Elias] now too? Just give me back that sweater first, I don’t want slobber on that. Thanks.

I talked about how much I disliked the Amie/Ludde storyline in this post, with my main reason being that it really messed up the character dynamics that were established in season 1.

This storyline [of Ludde and Amie hooking up]—along with Amie falling in love with Ludde—is by far my least favorite one because it messed up the whole character dynamic. I feel like Amie and Felicia won’t ever go back to the kind of friendship they had in season 1 before the Halloween incident because the trust was so broken, and Amie really should’ve tried harder to apologize to Felicia like Ludde did instead of going after her best friend’s ex in season 2.

If there's just one thing I could change about this show, I would 100% get rid of the Amie/Ludde storylines. There is nothing that annoyed me as much as those storylines did.

Amie's musical ambitions

I've talked about this a bit before in another post because this was something that really bugged me about Amie's character in season 2. Here's what I wrote:

I honestly still feel like Amie’s whole storyline with sending in a rather basic demo written by two teenagers with little to no experience and then getting praised on it [by the Stockholm music producers] with comments such as “it’s going to be a real summer hit” felt so unrealistic to me. Maybe they only said that so Amie would accept their offer or something, but that’s still very strange because she would have still said yes without a doubt. I can understand that they thought Amie was marketable as a person and there was this bonus with her having gone viral before on Felicia’s Instagram, but that demo did not seem good enough for me to be immediately released as a single and then have them decide on the spot that Amie would be given a contract. I mean, come on. It never felt earned because we never really saw Amie struggling with her songwriting journey to achieve this dream. Sending in one demo to one record label and having them immediately want to make a whole album with you just doesn’t happen in real life unless the song is extremely good or you have a very unique voice. Amie is really talented but there are hundreds of people just like her, if not thousands. I was never convinced by her getting signed so quickly in season 2. I understand that they wanted to establish her as a successful artist [at the beginning of season 3], but that felt so rushed. I was so sure that the record label would screw her over and steal the song rights to record it with another artist who was already established, and that we’d have to see Amie work even harder to achieve her dreams. But we didn’t get that at all. Where was the struggle? [...] Of course I wanted to see Amie achieve success (and I was happy when she did), but the journey there was so bizarrely easy. She didn’t start to seriously work on making her music career become a reality until season 2. Amie had dabbled in music prior to that, like when she auditioned for the school band and did that performance of Follow, but she didn’t truly start to work towards it until season 2 when she decided to have her work sent to professionals in the business. And then, just five episodes later, she gets contacted by the record label in Stockholm. To put this into context—season 2 took place somewhere around March, and episode 5 around three weeks into April. So when Ludde first started helping Amie it took less than two months for her to get signed. You could argue that the song was just that good or that Amie is just that talented, but it never felt like a realistic storyline to me.

It's tricky to write a storyline like this when you only have ten 20 minute episodes in the season and a limited amount of screentime for every character. All that is understandable. But it's strange that they didn't opt for a time jump to really sell this storyline and make it believable.

Eagles uses time jumps a lot, but somehow this particular plot point was omitted from that and kind of glossed over. I don't really understand how they expected us to buy this storyline. The viewers aren't stupid, and more effort should've been put into this storyline.

In the post where I wrote this, @gajana18 also had an interesting thing to add:

[...] it's equally unrealistic that this huge record company would be hounding Amie, a teenage onehit wonder essentially to come back to the label- don’t they have other bigger artists?

This is a very strong point. Considering how Amie kept expressing that she wanted to finish school and then proceeded to ignore their calls, it's weird that they didn't just decide to discard her contract when Amie clearly wasn't taking her singing career as seriously as they wanted her to.

So, back to season 2. Maybe they could've gone with the record label stealing the rights to Amie's first song and screwing her over. This fuels her to try again and after a time jump of a few months we see Amie having worked really hard on a new and better song. Maybe even a whole album. And this time, she's learned from her past mistakes and improved her songwriting. This time, she's successful in her endeavor and it feels so much more earned after knowing the struggles she's been through to get there.

I also feel like a storyline like that would've made people sympathize with Amie more in season 2. It was really hard to root for her when she had nearly screwed Ludde over by not giving credit to his songwriting and saying "fuck him" when he didn't return Amie's feelings.

Klara's character development

When we're introduced to Klara in season 1, she's a stereotypical mean girl with wealthy parents who is the popular girl at school and has her own followers.

In season 2, the writers decided to develop the character. We find out Klara has issues at home and her mom is barely there. When she is, her parents will start fighting. Klara is feeling really lonely and doesn't really hang out with her friend Sara as much as she used to.

I appreciated the added depth, but it seemed like a drastic shift. The changed perspective could attribute to that but when you step back and really look at s1 Klara and s2 Klara, they're like two completely different people.

Maybe Klara's reputation suffered after she posted the Halloween video? Maybe she had a change of heart after Felicia finally confronted her during Lucia? I mean, I guess.

But what most fans (including me) didn't like about Klara in season 2 was that there were no clear consequences for her after she posted the Halloween video. Klara still hangs out with what seems to be the popular crowd and she has people to go out with. In a post I wrote last year about my thoughts on season 2, I wrote this:

I actually wish that Klara would’ve become more ostracized from her school friends to emphasize how alone she is, but she seems to still be pretty popular so that was kind of disappointing. I thought the fall-out of her posting the video would be worse, but I guess not. Anyway, I like that they’re taking a disliked character and making her into a better person. Feels like it’s been done a few times before, but I still appreciate them doing it. I hated s1 Klara for being so one-dimensional, but s2 Klara is well on her way to being a pretty good and nuanced character.

Her character development sort of comes a little out of nowhere, though. Her reputation wasn't ruined by posting that video and she didn't really lose any friends besides Sara (she had already lost Amie prior to posting that video considering what Amie said to her after Lucia in 1x08).

So what prompted Klara to become this whole new person who actually considers other people's feelings in a relatively short amount of time? Here's a conversation between Felicia and Klara in 2x07.

Felicia: Was there anything in particular you wanted to talk about? I understand that we’re not best friends just because you and Elias are together. We’re not here without a reason, right? Klara: No, I get that this feels weird for you. And if you don’t trust me after everything that’s happened - or that I’ve done. Felicia: Klara… Klara: I know that I haven’t acted like the world’s best person. And I regret that. Sorry.

But why does Klara regret her past behavior? What made her realize she hadn't acted like the "world's best person" if the ramifications from posting the Halloween video were so minimal?

Was it the relationship with Elias that made Klara change? No, I don't think so. When they first start talking at the bar in 2x03, Elias tells Klara that he doesn't always agree with Felicia and that he has his own viewpoints. In 2x07, he says Klara wasn't the one who messed up, but rather Amie and Ludde. And in 2x09, the script tells us that the Elias/Klara relationship seemed to bring more change to Elias rather than Klara.

Felicia: What did you do to him? Klara: What? Felicia: He’s smiling. Elias is like a whole new person since he met you. Klara: Stop. Felicia: I mean it!

So what made Klara change? In 1x08 she's mocking Felicia's drug problems and posts a video that will for sure ruin Amie's reputation. But at the start of season 2, she's suddenly become more withdrawn and considerate of people's feelings.

I can only name one factor that actually makes sense, and that's the fighting between her parents. Klara seems to turn into this quiet child when she has to listen to her mom and dad yelling at each other. This is something that didn't really begin until season 2, when Ola's company GECED started going under. This storyline was very well done.

But the other things, like Klara's reputation and friend group which you would assume would be affected, remain as they were in season 1.

Jack's sudden character change

Jack came into season 2 as a charming and charismatic character, seemingly fooling everybody into thinking he was a good guy. He knew the Kroon family from before and both Felicia and Elias were none the wiser when it came to the eventual reveal of his true colors.

Here's what Stefan H. Lindén had to say about the Jack character in his season 2 Q&A:

Bringing Jack in was actually originally not my idea, it came from my writer colleagues after that they revised my storyline notes for Season 2, while I was still down in Oskarshamn shooting Season 1. We had always intended for a character to come in and raise the stakes but I never imagined it to be Jack. When we started to develop the character, we all started liking him so he was kept in the story. Like with any new character we never really know who they are and what [the] point of them for coming in is [...]

Personally, I feel like the point of Jack's character is pretty obvious. When he first comes to Oskarshamn he is very much the embodiment of the new love interest coming in to date the girl who has broken up with her previous lover, while the previous lover still loves her and does anything he can to get her back although she's dating someone new. Jack is the Romantic False Lead trope who later becomes an alpha-dog Jerkass.

What I found interesting about Jack compared to Klara (in season 1) is that Jack isn't just a bad guy. He's very clever with his manipulation tactics and can easily charm people with his good looks and charisma.

When Felicia accuses Jack of cheating in 2x07, he manages to spin the whole thing around and make Felicia apologize to him and say it was stupid of her to believe he would cheat on her. I talked about this in a post while the season still aired, before Jack's true colors were revealed. Here's what I wrote:

I still don’t know if Jack really is cheating on Felicia with Olivia (the girl that texted him) but I would say he is. Jack is incredibly confident and charming, which makes him able to easily lie and manipulate people. We know he’s not an entirely good person since he’s already lied to Elias about not knowing that Mats would bring him back to Eagles. I wouldn’t be surprised if he really did hook up with Olivia and ended up being a really good liar. The fact is that not only did he deny it but he then shamed Felicia for blaming him and causing a scene, ultimately shifting the focus in the argument to her and making Felicia feel bad that she even confronted him in the first place. Jack says that maybe they shouldn’t even be together, which causes Felicia to backtrack and apologize. It’s actually pretty impressive how Jack was able to spin that around to blame Felicia and make her apologize.

Jack is able to take a small detail and use it as ammunition to get what he wants. In this situation, he brings up the girl in the Stockholm club that Felicia partied with and also kissed.

Jack: You shouldn’t accuse me, either. Felicia: What? Jack: I saw on Instagram, you and some girl in Stockholm. Have I whined about that? Coming here and blaming me for things, it feels really immature. Felicia: Fuck. Sorry, Jack.

Jack wasn't bothered by that at all. It happened before Felicia and Jack were even an official couple, and all they had done was hooking up at a party while Felicia was high. Jack, having cheated on Felicia, couldn't care less about the random girl Felicia kissed. That was just something he used to manipulate her.

When we discover that Jack is actually cheating on Felicia, he immediately reverts to a one-dimensional "evil" character. He's become the 2.0 version of Klara in season 1—written in just to stir up drama.

This "master manipulator" version of him just goes down the drain and Jack turns into a manchild who starts petty fights, files a police report because Ludde pushed him, and says to Felicia "I'm gonna tell on you!". Alright, maybe those weren't his exact words, but you know what I mean. It's a sudden shift and you start wondering how Jack was able to hide this version of himself so well before.

In 3x05, Jack sees Ludde and Andreas after a hockey game and fumbles trying to find any insult he can to hurl at Ludde. Everything he says from that point on is just line after line to really solidify that Jack is the bad guy. You didn't forget that, right? Here, let's have Jack call Felicia a druggie so you know just how shitty he is. And have him call Andreas a junkie later for good measure—there, that should be enough for people to understand that Jack is the villain here.

Jack: Johansson! Ludde: What the hell are you doing here? Jack: What does it look like? Ludde: I guess it’s you I should thank for the victory. Nice work. Jack: What is Felicia doing these days, then? Does she miss me? Ludde: Hey, you’re shutting up now, do you get it?! Jack: Jesus Christ. Do you think you can save her? What do you think she even sees in you? You two play in different leagues, Ludde. Ludde: You have no idea what we’re like. Jack: Come on! You should leave her. While you can. She’ll just pull you down into the dirt with her. You’re no hero, Ludde. Isn’t she still doing drugs? Once a druggie, always a druggie, right?

Jack is a horrible person, but at least he was able to pretend to be a good guy in season 2. And that was actually really fascinating. I wish we could've seen more of Jack's manipulative side that he showed in season 2 instead of making everything coming out of his mouth be a half-assed attempt at insulting the other person. That's a pretty boring villain, in my opinion.

Jack's backstory of his father being an alcoholic and him starting to resent the whole Kroon family because they had everything growing up while he didn't is interesting. It would've also made more sense if his anger was only directed towards the Kroon family since they're the ones he grew up with. They're the ones he was after the whole time.

His anger towards them feels cheapened when Jack also starts insulting Andreas (who he's probably never met before) for no good reason. It's like Jack's human qualities are just gone and all that's left is this empty shell made to start fights. His backstory didn't really make anybody sympathize with him, either.

The improvements of season 2

What I liked about the writing in season 2 was that they explored new ideas and had some solid storylines (besides the mess that was Amie and Ludde). Elias and Klara actually worked pretty well as a couple, even if they were pretty much the 2.0 version of Felicia/Ludde as the "wealthy, popular pretty girl starts dating the star player on the sports team".

Felicia finally gets some more depth. The scene at the end of 2x02, where Felicia and Leila park their car near the harbor and just start crying, is so powerful.

2x05 is also one of my favorite episodes of the show, as well as the ending montage of the 2x10 season finale. In Gameday, we had a very touching scene between Felicia and Mats where they finally communicate. It's not the most understanding conversation but it's a start. It's an interesting contrast between their talk in 1x06 where Felicia revealed she saw Mats cheating on Leila versus the talk they're having now.

Another one of my favorite scenes is when Felicia and Ludde meet up at their bench in 2x10 after Ludde has called her up asking Felicia to come if there's any chance of them getting back together.

The dialogue is simple and to the point. There's no long-winded love confession for the sake of drama. It's a moment that the whole season has been building up for, and when we finally get there we realize that this is how love should be.

Easy and simple.

Ludde: You came back. Felicia: Yeah, I did. Ludde: Do you remember our first date here? Felicia: No. I’ve forgotten. Ludde: I was so freaking nervous. Felicia: Everything you said… Did you mean it? Because you hurt me, Ludvig. And I… I’ve really tried to hurt you back, but… It’s not possible. I can’t… Not love you. Do you think… Do you think it can be us again? Ludde: What do you think? Felicia: I don’t want anything else.

Ludde admitting how nervous he was on their first date is sweet and shows us how much they've been through. Felicia is struggling to find the words to say and she's acknowledging how hurt she was, but still can't seem to find it in her heart to hate Ludde. It's honest.

Another plotline that I think was a little underrated in season 2 is the GECED company going bankrupt and Ola, Klara's dad, is under investigation for financial crime. This isn't a storyline you would usually see in a teen series. It's much more serious. It also gave us a really touching and poignant scene in 2x08 between Ola and Klara sitting on the floor of his office, where Klara has to comfort her father who starts crying.

Ola: When you were little you used to sit like this. On the floor, while I was working. You had your own room, but you wanted to sit with me. “Help daddy work”. Mom’s doing the right thing by leaving for a while, don’t blame her for that. Klara: What, you can’t just leave because things get a little tough. Ola: Maybe you should get away for a while too. You know, I never wanted you two to… That you… Everything’s gone. Klara: It will be fine. It will be fine. Ola: Sorry. I’m sorry.

In 2x09, Klara is at a party when she notices a bunch of missed calls from her dad. She immediately senses something is wrong and rushes home to find her dad having attempted suicide. It's executed very well and I really liked the more serious tone they went for in season 2.

It set up season 3 perfectly, which continued with the darker themes but balanced them very well with the more light-hearted moments.

Season 3: Finding one's footing

Season 3 was a highly anticipated season. I thought the season 2 finale was masterfully done and it left me wanting more. When season 1 finished on its cliffhanger of the video leaking, the focus only seemed to be on that.

But with season 2 there's Felicia/Ludde getting back together and Ludde having been sued by Jack, Jack threatening that he would leak all of the Kroon's family secrets, Klara's dad passing away, Elias deciding to get on the train and go to the draft combine anyway, Amie having finally become a recording artist but being isolated and heartbroken... There's so much to unpack, and it's a lot more interesting than the ending of season 1.

Where's Jack?

Jack is supposed to be the main villain but he's gone for most of the season, failing to show up until 3x05. In the season 2 finale Jack makes a huge deal about how he's going to destroy Felicia's life. He's threatening her in a very violent and abusive way.

Jack: [...] I know a lot about you, Felicia. And your nice family. It’s enough for me to leak to one news site. I can destroy you. Do you get it? I’ll tell them everything. The drugs, the cheating, your abortion! Felicia: Shut up! Jack: Hey. Huh? Did you seriously think I wanted to be with you? The little Kroon princess, who has gotten everything for free her whole fucking life! You and Elias! Like spoiled brats! You don’t understand what it means to fight for something!

In 2x10, Jack decides to report Ludde for assault but he doesn't follow through on destroying this family that he hates. If there's anything Jack seems to despise above all, it should be the Kroon family, right? So why did he fight back with Ludde but not the Kroon family?

I expected Jack to leak all the Kroon secrets at the beginning of season 3, but Felicia seems strangely calm at the funeral which I'm assuming only takes place two weeks or so after Ola's passing in the season 2 finale.

Then, a whole year passes with no indication that Jack is ever going to leak anything. As season 3 was airing, I commented on how strange this felt in an ask I received:

One of my main questions about the time jump is the whole thing with Jack saying he was going to ruin Felicia’s and the Kroon family’s reputation in the press. It seemed like nothing really came of that? I’m pretty sure that detail hasn’t been abandoned entirely and that Jack will come back (we’ve already seen a glimpse of him in the third episode), but it feels strange that Jack threatened to leak all her secrets and then just never did. I got the impression that Jack was a person who, when having his pride wounded, would do pretty much anything to get back at the person who insulted him. And yet there’s no mention of where Jack has been during that time or what he’s been doing. I feel like I would be pretty paranoid about this if I was Felicia, but we don’t see this haunting her until episode 3 when she sees a flash of Jack before realizing it was just some random guy. It seems strange that Felicia was relatively at ease during the funeral (which I assume took place not long after Jack first threatened her) and after the time jump. We don’t really know what’s been going on during that year, but Felicia seems to be fine and like she hasn’t had any thoughts of Jack at all. Maybe she assumed that his threats were empty and that he wouldn’t actually leak anything to the press, which is reasonable but at the same time I don’t understand why Jack has yet to do anything after a year. He was really pissed off in the season 2 finale, after all.

Going to repeat one of the things I wrote here because it deserves to be mentioned twice, and this point is one of my biggest issues.

I got the impression that Jack was a person who, when having his pride wounded, would do pretty much anything to get back at the person who insulted him.

I feel like this was kind of a plot hole that wasn't explained. Jack is ruthless and doesn't hold back at all when his true colors come out. He has no problem talking about the sexual relationship he had with Felicia in front of her father. Jack is just that horrible.

So what prevented him from ruining the Kroon family's lives earlier, when it seems to be the thing he's wanted for years?

Michael's predictable predicament

Michael first appears at the end of 3x04, where he calls Amie up to tell her he's her father.

Man: Hey! Sorry for calling so late. Is it Amie? Amie Condé? Amie: Yeah. Man: I saw you on TV the other day. I’m Michael Condé. I’m your father.

In the next episode, we get a voice-over of the continued conversation between him and Amie.

Michael: [...] I understand if it’s shocking. I’m in Oskarshamn for work for a few weeks and— Could we meet up someday?

So, it's clear what the writers are going for here. It's the estranged father who returns into the child's life when they've become successful. We're made to believe it's a Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You trope when Michael meets up with Amie and tells her why he left.

Michael: So Petra, she— Has she said anything about me? Amie: Well… That you moved from Sweden before I was born… That you’re working as a lawyer. That you didn’t want to see me. Michael: I was… I was young when we met. Your mom and I. And everything went really fast. I was in love, but she had feelings for somebody else. And when she found out that she— That she was expecting you, then… She didn’t want me there. She said I wasn’t father material. To some degree she might’ve been right, but… I wasn’t much older than you are now. I had just gotten into a law school in Berlin. When I finally came back to Sweden, then… She didn’t let me see you. I had already lost you by then, but I want you to know that I— I’ve thought of you. And about a week ago, I… I’m seeing you. On TV. There you are. With my last name. I’m so proud.

However, it's pretty easy to identify the holes in Michael's story. To be honest this whole storyline was predictable from the very start. Before Michael even came into the story, I made this post which pretty much summed up Michael's whole character when we didn't even know he existed yet (this was when 3x03 was the latest episode that had aired).

I don’t think we’ve heard any mention of Amie’s dad in the whole series except for 3x02 when Amie was being interviewed and was asked about the Condé name where she said that while Samuelsson was from her mother’s side, and Condé was from “the other side”. I found her word choice a little interesting. I don’t think Amie’s dad has passed—but rather that he’s alive and just chosen to not be a part of her life, which is why Petra seemed to be a little offended when asking Amie why she didn’t want her last name anymore. This might also be why Amie said “the other side” rather than “my dad’s side” because they have an estranged relationship. [...] I’m not really sure if they’ll do anything with Amie’s dad (maybe they’ll go for that trope where the parent who previously abandoned their child returns after the child has accomplished something big/something major happened and the parent wants something from them for personal gain?).

When we actually get to meet Michael and hear his explanation of why he left, I wrote this post pointing out some of the holes in this storyline.

Michael meeting Amie only after she’s become famous is a little suspicious, but it’s understandable if he previously thought she didn’t want to meet him and then sees her with his last name on national television. Obviously he would contact her after that. I feel like there were some question marks with Michael’s whole story though, and the fact that his work just conveniently happened to send him to Oskarshamn after he’d just seen Amie on TV. Maybe I’m missing something here, but how did he know Amie had gone back to Oskarshamn if he saw her living as a pop star in Stockholm? Was this information about Amie quitting the tour and going back to her hometown even online? If Elias (who actually witnessed Amie saying she was done and quitting) seemed taken aback when he saw Amie in Oskarshamn, then how did Michael know?

I do think Michael will return for season 4 though, so hopefully this storyline will be straightened out a little. We don't really know what Michael has been up for the past few years and if he has a family of his own. Maybe he'll contact Amie again to tell her she has some younger half-siblings?

They ended on sour terms, but if Michael does have his own family it's something Amie deserves to know and she can decide whatever she wants to do. I'd also like to see a Michael/Petra reunion, but I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

This storyline wasn't bad, and I do appreciate we got to find out what the situation with Amie's dad was. I also liked how I was able to sympathize with Michael. He's not entirely awful, even if he did put a lot of blame on Petra. It's one of those situations where you don't really know what it's like to be in Michael's position unless you've experienced it, and it's very realistic.

Plot holes

Some of the plot holes of season 3 that I've already mentioned are how Jack waited a whole year before leaking the Kroon family's secrets and how Michael conveniently knew Amie was in Oskarshamn when nobody seemed to know she was coming except her mom.

I actually don't mind that it was never explained how Michael got Amie's phone number either, because that's usually pretty easy to find with a Google search. Things like addresses, economic status, and even your criminal history are easily accessible in Sweden when googling someone's name. So finding someone's phone number is probably fairly easy as well.

On the other hand, one of the most glaring plot holes appeared in 3x08. In this episode entitled Lost, the Kroon family is frantically searching for Felicia who has gone missing. Leila and Elias knock on Petra's door to see if Amie is there and might know something about Felicia's whereabouts. Petra tells them Amie isn't there and they leave.

Someone left me an anonymous ask which I answered in this post, pointing out how it was strange that Elias didn't just call Amie to ask her when she wasn't at home. We know Elias has her number because they've been talking on the phone and texting each other several times before in the season.

In 3x08, when Elias and his mom go to Amie's house and ask Petra if Amie has seen or spoken to Felicia or whether she's home, I couldn't help but wonder, uh Elias why not just call Amie and ask her if she has seen or spoken to Felicia? [...] if Elias had called her and she heard how frightened him and his family were and police being involved she would have told him and then there would be no point in the 3x09 episode really.

This is a very strong point. You could argue that maybe Elias just didn't think of that but if they went out of their way to visit Amie's house only to not find her there, it would seem like calling her instead would just be a logical next step in the situation? Here's what I wrote in response to this ask.

This is an issue I had with 3x08 and 3x09 as well. I had a hard time actually enjoying the moment between Felicia, Klara, and Amie knowing that her family was getting increasingly worried for her and even thought for a short moment that Felicia was lying dead at the bottom of the ocean. All that could’ve been avoided. To add, it didn’t make a lot of sense to me that when Klara finally decided to call someone she called Amie instead of Elias. An ex-friend of Felicia’s instead of her brother who could’ve helped a lot more. What was Amie supposed to do when she showed up at the hotel, exactly? I know there was the thing with Klara only knowing Amie’s number off the top of her head, but there is no reason why she couldn’t have gone down to the reception while Felicia was sleeping and asked to use a computer just to get a quick message to Elias. Like, “hey, Felicia attempted something bad but she’s safe with me, we’re at this hotel in this room but she didn’t want me to call anybody, I don’t know what to do”. That would’ve been so much better than keeping quiet about the situation for nearly 24 hours. I know that Klara probably has trauma from leaving her dad at the hospital after his suicide attempt and that she probably didn’t want to go against Felicia’s wishes. I understand the first part 100%. But Felicia was in a very bad place emotionally and was thinking that her whole family hated her when that wasn’t the case. I feel like in a situation like that you kind of have to be the bad guy just to ensure the family that Felicia was safe. Even if everything turned out alright in the end, it could’ve gone so much worse if Felicia had wanted to be kept hidden for longer. [...] Elias calling Amie would’ve been an easy solution to this whole debacle but we would’ve lost the drama. It’s still somewhat of a plot hole though, like you said.

I understand it was done this way for dramatic effect, but that doesn't really patch up the plot hole.

I also found it strange how many people turned on Felicia after Jack ruined her reputation in the press. I talked about this in an ask I received.

I don’t understand why the public turned on Felicia so harshly. And Leila too, for that matter. The way Jack told the story about how these two women had things done to them should indicate that they’re not the ones to be blamed. If I read this article and found out an 18-year-old girl got pregnant by a “violent criminal” who forced her to abort and then abused her I would not be angry with the girl. I would be angry that she was physically abused and also outed on her sexuality for being bi. If I read this article and found out Leila had been cheated on by her husband repeatedly with her best friends, I wouldn’t be angry at her. I would not agree with the decision to turn to alcohol (same as Felicia turning to drugs), but I wouldn’t blame them. And I feel like a lot of people should’ve been on Leila’s side after finding out the reason why they divorced. I don’t understand why people are saying they’re disappointed in Felicia and calling her fake when she’s been through so much trauma in her life. I feel like if this actually happened in real life, all the blame would be shifted to the men because they’re the ones who—in this story—are painted as the bad guys (with the exception of Jack, considering he was anonymous).

I got another anonymous ask sent in after this, pointing out how the anger directed towards Felicia was considerably more about her drug use rather than the abuse she endured. Here was my response to that:

[...] the drug use should’ve been understandable considering the stuff Felicia had been through was also written in that article. I don’t know. I can understand people unfollowing her if they didn’t want their young children to be exposed to all the controversy, but it’s still strange that everything Felicia received was hate messages. Did everybody just skip over the part where the anonymous source stated that Felicia was violently forced to have an abortion by an ex-criminal and probably did so out of fear for her life? Yes, we know this is fake, but why didn’t anybody seem to mention this? [...] they seem to have written this storyline with the idea in mind that the public was against the whole Kroon family. Felicia got comments such as “So fucking disappointed in you and your family”, “What a nasty fucking family”, “You and your family are so fucking disgusting”. So I think Leila received plenty of hate for drinking instead of divorcing her husband sooner and basically turning a blind eye to all the problems her family went through. That’s what Jack told the press, at least. The anger seemed to be directed towards every member of the Kroon family and that didn’t make a lot of sense to me.

Again, this is something the writers did to dramatize the situation and they kind of forgot to consider that what Jack actually told the journalist wasn't as incriminating for Felicia and Leila as it were for Mats and Elias.

The magic of season 3

What season 3 really excelled in, to me, was delving into some more serious topics as well as showing the gradual development of Amie and Elias' relationship. Amie and Elias are the prime example of how a slow burn is so much better than having a couple get together too fast, like Felicia and Ludde did back in season 1.

While season 3 was still airing, I wrote a post dedicated to questions I had received about Elias and Amie. Here's one of the things I said about them:

I think Elias’ interest in her really started to grow after he saw how caring Amie was to Felicia, and later on connecting with her on how they both ended up back in Oskarshamn after following their dreams which didn’t exactly turn out the way they expected. Yes, Elias has always sort of been watching and admiring Amie from afar, but that interest didn’t start growing until he actually got to know her. The experiences they had in the US and Stockholm, respectively, probably changed their mindsets and in my opinion it makes so much more sense for them to get together now than it would’ve in season 1 or season 2.

I still believe that Elias and Amie are the best-written couple of the whole show (at least so far), because they just make sense. We'll see what season 4 has in store for them because we have yet to actually see them in a romantic relationship, but I feel like their personalities and characters just fit together really well.

Another thing I really appreciated was the depiction of Felicia and Ludde's declining relationship. Things like that happen so easily, and I liked how we see Felicia do this huge gesture of planning a picnic for Ludde in 3x04 but there were still underlying problems between them. It's like that in real life too—no matter how big of a romantic gesture you make, communication will always be the number one priority in any relationship and that's where Felicia and Ludde fall short.

The obvious disconnect between them when it comes to money is also important. It's been like this from the beginning, but season 3 gave us an actual conversation about it.

Felicia: Please, I can’t talk about this. Seriously. It was stupid of me to bring this up from the beginning. Fuck, I get such anxiety talking about the future— Ludde: You get anxiety? I’m the one walking around with no money in my account. Mom and dad had to get a loan to pay off mine and Andreas’ fines. I’m playing on a shitty old synth, and living off you like some leech. That’s anxiety. Felicia: Everything isn’t about money. Ludde: Says the one who has money. Felicia: Move out then, if it’s so fucking hard to feel like a leech.

This felt very realistic. Of course a person like Felicia wouldn't think money is everything when she's never experienced financial issues. She's able to move out into her own one-bedroom apartment as soon as she's turned 18, it seems, and doesn't worry at all about the cost of furnishing and decorating it. She didn't even pay for it herself, because Mats mentions he's the one on the mortgage loan. It seems like Felicia has never had an actual job either, and that's starting to worry her because she has no idea what she should be doing.

Felicia: [...] I don’t know what I’ll be or what I’ll do in the future. I don’t know that. Ludde: You’re still an influencer— Felicia: Don’t say I’m an influencer, please. Do you think I want to be that my whole life? It’s not even a career. I'm— I’m graduating next year, and I… My grades suck, and— I have no plan. I only have you. Not like that—I have you. That’s what I have. I want to be here, in Oskarshamn. I don’t want to go to the US and chase some dream and be a hockey wife. That’s not a life. Sometimes I wish neither of us had a plan, just us together here.

Felicia's character finally offers something interesting here, which I've waited for since season 1. She's not just a party girl anymore who has issues with drugs. She's a privileged teenager who is co-dependent on the guys she meets and who has anxiety about the future, to the point where she wishes she could stay in Oskarshamn in her little apartment forever stuck in limbo.

She has to face a harsh reality when Ludde decides to break up with her, and later on when her name is slandered in the press and people all over the country are sending her hate messages. Her own family is furious with her and Felicia has nobody. She's pushed away a lot of people and her mental state is just crumbling in front of our eyes.

It's a strong storyline and actually very well executed. Almost everything gets taken away from her, and at the end of 3x07 you can almost feel what Felicia is feeling. We've been with her through this whole journey, almost, and we understand why she feels like suicide is the only answer.

It's tough to watch that final scene of 3x07. It's greatly amplified by Alva Bratt's superb acting, but the writing of the journey there is also amazing. It's very difficult to write a sensitive storyline like this.

Overall, I don't have a lot of critique towards season 3. I loved most of the episodes. I elaborated on this further in a separate post:

[Episodes 3x04 and 3x05] showcased what Eagles should be all about so well, which is relationships plus the struggles you go through as a teenager in a small town, and then of course hockey. The hockey game episodes are really good, even if I don’t think 3x05 topped 2x05 (the game where Ludde got tackled and knocked out). I loved the contrast in Date night of the budding relationship between Elias and Amie and then that fight between Felicia and Ludde on the cliff. [...] It was interesting to see how this sweet gesture from Felicia turned into a fight between the two of them. I thought that was very realistic, because no matter how big of a gesture Felicia made to apologize there were still underlying problems that they needed to talk about. I also loved the “non-date” between Elias and Amie in this episode. It was cute to see them goofing off before the movie started and then talking about it on the way home. I liked how Elias could connect to her on how they had both returned to Oskarshamn. The recent episodes that dropped last week (3x08 and 3x09) were very strong and discussed some important subject matters [...] They were dark, but not necessarily bad because they needed to happen. However, I have to say that I prefer Eagles when it’s about hockey and teenage relationships. 3x04 and 3x05 made me kind of nostalgic for season 1 and I liked the vibe they both had.

Eagles season 3 is in my opinion the best season of the show so far, and we haven't seen any signs suggesting that there is any reason for season 4 to not be even better.

Season 4: Hopes and wishes

Considering how each season has been increasing in quality bit by bit, I have pretty high hopes for the writing in season 4. I'm excited to see how the transition from teenager to young adult will be portrayed in the main characters, and what their future will hold for them after they've graduated.

My main questions are if Felicia and Ludde will find their way back to each other or if they'll remain broken up (that would be realistic as well), if Klara will reconcile with her mom, what's in store for Elias's hockey career, and if Amie will leave her label and maybe opt for something more independent.

I also want to see how Felicia deals with the new home she's checked in to, and if Ludde will in fact go to the school now that it seems Andreas will be getting into trouble again.

Amie and Klara are kind of wild cards here, because it somewhat feels like they've already reached their happy endings. Amie is famous and successful in her pop music career, and Klara has found her place as a businesswoman following in her father's footsteps. Maybe these developments should've come in season 4 instead of rushing them.

Nonetheless, I have faith in the writers. The writing suffered a little in seasons 1 and 2 but it has gotten better. Most of the things I pointed out about season 3 were just small details in an otherwise stellar season.

In conclusion...

This post was critical, but I tend to be critical of every show I watch. Eagles is still a very special show for me and having grown up in a Swedish small town myself I'm very fond of the show and its characters.

So huge thanks to the creator, Stefan H. Lindén, for making this show a reality and also to the director Carl-Petter Montell for contributing to the writing in season 3. And of course the writers of the show which include Michaela Hamilton, Fanny Ekstrand, and Anton Nyberg (plus Amanda Adolfsson who helped write 1x02 and 1x05 and Simon Ekbäck Nordström who is credited for helping with the hockey scenes in 3x05).

I hope you guys enjoyed this long, long post and major kudos to you if you read this far!

#eagles svt #svt eagles #eaglesspoilers #young royals #beartown #björnstad #been working on this post for a few days so i really hope you enjoy it!

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lisa-lostinlit · 3 years ago

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💬 Do you like a little mystery in your books? I’m always looking for a good mystery! I also love the boarding school setting, so this seems like the perfect mix! Thank you to @sourcebooksfire for gifting me this copy! . . . s u m m a r y : Once Upon a Time meets Pretty little liars. Four troubled friends, One murdered girl... and a dark fate that may leave them all doomed. After the mysterious death of their best friend, Ella, Yuki, and Rory are the talk of their elite school, Grimrose Académie. The police ruled it a suicide, but the trio are determined to find out what really happened. When Nani Eszes arrives as their newest roommate, it sets into motion a series of events they couldn't have imagined. As the girls retrace their friend's last steps, they uncover dark secrets about themselves and their destinies, discovering they're all cursed to repeat the brutal and gruesome endings to their stories until they can break the cycle. This contemporary take on classic fairytales reimagines heroines as friends attending the same school. While investigating the murder of their best friend, they uncover connections to their ancient fairytale curses and attempt to forge their own fate before it's too late. . . . h a s h t a g s : #thegrimrosegirls #laurapohl #yabookstagram #yabooks #cozybedroom #cozyhome #cozyreading #bookstagram #bookish #everysquareastory #readya #mybookfeatures #jamestrevinorepost #bookcommunity #booksonbooks #coffeeandcurrentlyreading #coffeeandbooks #coffeeandseasons #bookgram #wildbooks #bookobsessed #cosymood #autumnvibes #darlingdaily #booknerdigans #booknerd #bibliophile (at Sunday Vibes) https://www.instagram.com/p/CV_DASKP_Wb/?utm_medium=tumblr

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crosbytoews · 4 years ago

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april reading wrap up

i read 10 books this month! i feel like i did a mid month check in but i cannot find my post so i will just write new reviews :-)

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

i really liked my year of rest and relaxation so i was looking forward to reading this but sadly it was terrible. the main character was just a little too edgy. she worked in a boy’s prison and i just hated that setting too much to continue. DNF at 100 pages.

Notes on a Silencing by Lacy Crawford

a memoir on a woman’s experience being sexually assaulted at her elite new england boarding school and the lengths the administration went to cover it up for decades. i thought this book was so powerful. also the setting of a new england boarding school in the early 90s was very atmospheric. i highly recommend. 5/5

Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah

after the death of their father, 2 daughters learn about their emotionally distant mother’s past, including the extreme challenges she faced in russia during world war 2. the first half was only okay, but we get deep into the world war 2 setting in the second half. on par with the nightingale levels of traumatizing. i just finished this last night but i think it’s probably a 4.5/5 because the second half was so strong. it made me cry so much.

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

ummm this book is perfection. it’s a travel romance and estranged best friends to lovers. two former best friends travel to palm springs together. beach read by emily henry was one of my favorite books from last year and this was even better. so so good. 5/5

The Lost Man by Jane Harper

this is the fourth book i’ve read by the author this year. this one follows a man and his family in the aftermath of one of their brother’s mysterious death in the australian outback. very atmospheric and some good discussions on the cycle of abuse. tw child abuse. 4/5

Crazy Stupid Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams

the third book in the bromance book club series. this one is friends to lovers about a cat cafe owner and a former hacktivist. there are some unexpected discussions about the war in iraq? as with all the books in this series i really liked it and i cannot wait for the fourth one to come out this summer. 4/5

Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain

this KILLED me. it’s a historical fiction about forced sterilization in north carolina in the 1960s. we follow a brand new social worker and one of the families she’s assigned to. one of the girls in the family has already been sterilized without her consent and now the social worker is being pressured to sterilize the 15 year old sister. this book was pretty heavy and very informative. i listened to the audiobook which i would recommend because the narrator’s southern accent is great. 5/5

Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman

this book gets the unfortunate honorific of the only backman book i didn’t love. we follow britt-marie, a recently divorced woman in her early 60s as she movies to a small town where she reluctantly befriends the residents and becomes the soccer coach of a youth team. this book was good but i didn’t love it. we get some good character growth and some funny parts, but it was nowhere near as good as his other books (all of which were 5/5 for me). this one is a 3/5

The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

i’m mad at this one lol. we follow the main character, a teenager who finds out she is in the will of an eccentric billionaire and he has left her billions while snubbing his relatives. she has never met this man and doesn’t know why this stranger left her his inheritance. she works with the four grandsons who were snubbed to solve riddles and discover why she was left the money. this was YA and read pretty young. for example there were discussions about losing your virginity and when the characters spoke they didn’t swear, they said things like “motherforker.” i was like i am 26 (turning 27 this month!) i am too old for this. howmever i stuck it out because i wanted to figure out why this girl inherited all that money. the gag is this is apparently the first book in the series and although i didn’t really like it i will definitely be reading the second book because it ended on a hang!!! 3/5 because of the intrigue

The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner

this is a memoir about a woman’s experiences growing up on a mormon polygamist colony in mexico. her father, who was murdered when she was a baby, had over 40 children. her mother remarried and that man had four wives despite having no way to support them. everything this poor girl experienced was absolutely fucked up. i read this in a little over a day. i feel bad saying i loved it because these real experiences were extremely heavy but it was excellent. it made me cry a lot. 5/5

Klara and the Sun by Kazou Ishiguro

this book follows a robot (or artifical friend) Klara, as she is purchased by a sickly young girl. this book was pretty weird. it takes place in a dystopian setting but not a lot of details are given about what is going on in that world. it’s up to us as the reader to figure it out. this was an engaging and quick read, but i wish the author was a little more explicit about the commentary he was trying to make. 3/5

#becky's book club

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she-who-fights-and-writes · 5 years ago

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She-who-fights-and-writes Coronacation Book Rec List

I know that a lot of people are stuck at home right now in dire need of entertainment, so I decided I’d put out a book recommendations list of all the books I’m currently reading and all of my must-reads!

(Just a note that a lot of these are Fantasy because I’m a fantasy nerd haha)

Books/Series I am currently reading

1. The Folk of the Air Trilogy by Holly Black (Currently on #2, The Wicked King)

Genre: High Fantasy

Setting: The land of Faerie which is kind of historical, but in the human world it is modern day

Main cast :

Jude Duarte (white, human, cutthroat, if I saw her in a Denny’s Parking Lot at 3am I would RUN)

Cardan Greenbriar (white, faerie, the true embodiment of Bastard)

Vivienne (Jude’s half-sister, lesbian with canon gf, half-human half-faerie, I would totally try to be her friend)

Taryn Duarte (Jude’s twin sister, queen doormat, still, I would take a bullet for her she’s jUST TRYING TO FIT IN)

Rating: 5/5 Stars

These books have been on my “To Read” list for so long now and for some reason I just never got around to reading them! Hands-down, these are some of the best high fantasy books that I’ve read in a long, long while.

I finished the first book, The Cruel Prince, in just two days and rated it 5/5 stars! Even though these books are high fantasy and focus on the traditions and ways of life of faeries, somehow all of the characters seem like I could meet them in real life!

The main character actually has genuine flaws and not just “””“flaws”””” and is a Bad Bitch down with murder, and the plot had me on the edge of my seat from page one!

The summary makes it sound like it’s going to be about their romance, but it’s really mostly about a power struggle and Jude being a badass.

Goodreads summary for The Cruel Prince:

Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences. As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

2. The Raven Cycle Series by Maggie Stiefvater (Currently on #1, The Raven Boys)

Genre: Present-Day/Realistic Fantasy (?)

Setting: The fictional town of Henrietta, Virginia

I haven’t gotten around to much of the book, so there’s not much I can tell you about the characters and I can’t properly give it a rating yet.

These books were also on my “To Read” list for a while; I was a huge fan of her book The Scorpio Races and have also been looking for something to quench my thirst for “private school/ghosts/magic” that I’ve been dealing with ever since I read The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo.

I’ve only JUST started The Raven Cycle yesterday, but so far I am hooked! I’m super worried because I’m TERRIBLE at juggling two series at a time but both of these are just so interesting!

Goodreads Summary for The Raven Boys:

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.” It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive. Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her. His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble. But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little. For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

MY MUST-READ BOOK LIST

1. The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

Genre: Historical Fiction

Setting: 1700s Europe (England, Paris, Barcelona, Marseilles, Venice)

Main cast (I’ll try my best not to spoil anything because you find out a LOT of different stuff about these characters throughout the book):

Henry “Monty” Montague (white, bi/pansexual, attitude problem)

Percy Newton (mixed race, gay, very sweet boy, definitely got “most likely to bring home to mom” in the yearbook)

Felicity Montague (white, Monty’s little sister, headcanoned as asexual, I love her to death)

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Daring adventure, gay representation, historical setting, hilarious characters!

This book literally has it all! I would consider it one of my favorite books of all time, yet for some reason I’ve never gotten around to reading any of the sequel books! The ending is very satisfying and ties everything together, which I feel is part of the reason why I haven’t gotten around to them yet.

Therefore, it can serve as a one-shot read or a full series if you want to dive into something good!

The humor made me laugh out loud at points and all of the characters are very real and very, very relatable, not to mention the vivid settings of 1700s Europe!

Goodreads summary:

Henry “Monty” Montague was born and bred to be a gentleman, but he was never one to be tamed. The finest boarding schools in England and the constant disapproval of his father haven’t been able to curb any of his roguish passions—not for gambling halls, late nights spent with a bottle of spirits, or waking up in the arms of women or men. But as Monty embarks on his Grand Tour of Europe, his quest for a life filled with pleasure and vice is in danger of coming to an end. Not only does his father expect him to take over the family’s estate upon his return, but Monty is also nursing an impossible crush on his best friend and traveling companion, Percy. Still it isn’t in Monty’s nature to give up. Even with his younger sister, Felicity, in tow, he vows to make this yearlong escapade one last hedonistic hurrah and flirt with Percy from Paris to Rome. But when one of Monty’s reckless decisions turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt that spans across Europe, it calls into question everything he knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores.

2. The Ninth House By Leigh Bardugo

Genre: Horror, Fantasy

Setting: Yale University and the town of New Haven, Present Day

Main cast:

Galaxy “Alex” Stern (Hispanic, sees dead people, very scary)

Daniel Arlington “Darlington” (white, rich, an angel who can sometimes be a dick)

Pamela Dawes (tbh I honestly don’t remember what she looks like, only that she’s a tired grad student with big nerd energy)

Detective Alan Turner (Black, takes shit from nobody, husband material)

Rating: 4/5 Stars

(NOTE: THIS IS VERY DARK ADULT FICTION AND CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT MAY BE TRIGGERING FOR SOME PEOPLE, WOULD NOT RECOMMEND FOR PEOPLE UNDER 16)

This book is a great read for someone who’s looking for a disturbing, gritty book with layers upon layers of secrets that you have to peel away as the mystery unfolds. I love the secret societies and the intricate magic systems that the book introduces, and it actually made me hungry for more books like it!

Alex is a three-dimensional, very real character who also serves as an unreliable narrator who witholds or warps the information that she’s telling you, making the narrative all the more riveting.

The only issues that I have with it are the fact that Leigh Bardugo kind of just dumps you in the middle of it without explaining stuff first, to the point where it kind of feels like you’re reading the second installment of a series rather than the first one, so things can get a bit confusing at first.

The book also can drag and draw things out for a bit too long, but once the plot fully kicks into gear, you will not be able to put it down!

Goodreads summary:

Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her? Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.

3. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer

Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Setting: Earth, Space, The Moon

Main cast :

Linh Cinder (Chinese, based on Cinderella, cyborg, certified badass)

Scarlet Benoit (French, based on Little Red Riding Hood, farmer who is not afraid to shoot you)

Cress Darnel (White, based on Rapunzel, nerd, I will protect her with my life if I have to)

Kaito “Kai” (Chinese, based on Prince Charming, kind of has to run a whole country, a very kind soul, deserves a nap)

Carswell Thorne (White, based off of Rapunzel’s Prince, bastard)

Winter Hayle (Black, based off of Snow White, royalty, has super special powers)

Wolf (Race unspecified, based off of the Big Bad Wolf, charming killing machine, furry????)

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Do you like fairy tales?

Have you ever wanted to know what fairy tales would be like if they took place in the FUTURE instead of the PAST?

Do you like an amazing, hilarious cast paired with a super interesting plot?

These are the books for you!

I haven’t read them in so long, but I remember how much joy I felt while devouring these pages. Definitely something you will not able to put down!

Goodreads Summary for Book #1: Cinder:

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth's fate hinges on one girl. . . . Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She's a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world's future.

4. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Genre: Fantasy

Setting: Ancient Greece

Main cast:

Patroclus (Greek, Gay, quiet pining)

Achilles (Greek, gay, very strong, student athlete energy)

Brisies (Anatolian, clever, literally the only one in this story who has a brain cell)

Rating: 100000/5 stars

This is basically the Iliad but if historians hadn’t completely erased Patroclus and Achilles’ relationship. “Haha yeah these guys were totally bros” they say, even though I have read the Iliad and their relationship isn’t even subtle.

This book made me cry at least ten times. It’s just so beautifully written and has such a distinct vibe to it that whenever I crack it open for another time, it takes me straight back to the vacation that I read it on. (Needless to say, sobbing your eyes out can be less than helpful when you’re on the beach)

If you can only read one book on this list, it should be this one. I could talk all day about it and write novels on just how much of an incredible writer Madeline Miller is, but I feel like you’d get my drift a bit better if you actually read the book.

Goodreads Summary:

Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. By all rights their paths should never cross, but Achilles takes the shamed prince as his friend, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine their bond blossoms into something deeper - despite the displeasure of Achilles' mother Thetis, a cruel sea goddess. But then word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus journeys with Achilles to Troy, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they hold dear. Profoundly moving and breathtakingly original, this rendering of the epic Trojan War is a dazzling feat of the imagination, a devastating love story, and an almighty battle between gods and kings, peace and glory, immortal fame and the human heart.

Hope this list helps you through your coronacation, and please don’t be afraid to reblog or message me to tell me if you’ve read/will read any of these!

#books #book recs #book rec #book reccomendation #book reccomendations #coronacation #corona #coronavirus #covid-19 #book rec list

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welllpthisishappening · 3 years ago

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Welllp These Are Books: the June 2021 Edition

I have read a lot of books this month. That should be stated upfront. Just an absolute metric ton of books. Some real good, some not-so good, some inadvertently hysterical. Also, I made that BINGO board. Because, like, you ever have a total crisis of writing-confidence and ignore that potential freakout and the tendency of your coworkers to miss deadlines by reading every free Amazon sports romance you can find? And several full YA series? In one month? No? My experiences are not universal, I understand. Anyway, there’s thoughts and opinions and spoilers under the cut. Everyone read the Once Upon a Con series, I’m begging you.

READ THIS SERIES! PLEASE! EVERY BOOK WAS SO CUTE! EVERYONE IN EVERY BOOK WAS SO CUTE! THE FANDOM STUFF DID NOT GIVE ME SECOND-HAND EMBARRASSMENT!

Geekerella by Ashley Poston Part romance, part love letter to nerd culture, and all totally adorbs, Geekerella is a fairy tale for anyone who believes in the magic of fandom. Geek girl Elle Wittimer lives and breathes Starfield, the classic sci-fi series she grew up watching with her late father. So when she sees a cosplay contest for a new Starfield movie, she has to enter. The prize? An invitation to the ExcelsiCon Cosplay Ball, and a meet-and-greet with the actor slated to play Federation Prince Carmindor in the reboot. With savings from her gig at the Magic Pumpkin food truck (and her dad’s old costume), Elle’s determined to win…unless her stepsisters get there first. Teen actor Darien Freeman used to live for cons—before he was famous. Now they’re nothing but autographs and awkward meet-and-greets. Playing Carmindor is all he’s ever wanted, but the Starfield fandom has written him off as just another dumb heartthrob. As ExcelsiCon draws near, Darien feels more and more like a fake—until he meets a girl who shows him otherwise.

The Princess and the Fangirl by Ashley Poston Imogen Lovelace is an ordinary fangirl on an impossible mission: to save her favorite Starfield character, Princess Amara, from being killed off. On the other hand, the actress who plays Amara wouldn’t mind being axed. Jessica Stone doesn’t even like being part of the Starfield franchise—and she’s desperate to leave the intense scrutiny of fandom behind. Though Imogen and Jess have nothing in common, they do look strangely similar to one another—and a case of mistaken identity at ExcelsiCon sets off a chain of events that will change both of their lives. When the script for the Starfield sequel leaks, with all signs pointing to Jess, she and Imogen must trade places to find the person responsible. The deal: Imogen will play Jess at her signings and panels, and Jess will help Imogen’s best friend run their booth. But as these “princesses” race to find the script leaker—in each other’s shoes—they’re up against more than they bargained for. From the darker side of fandom to unexpected crushes, Imogen and Jess must find a way to rescue themselves from their own expectations...and redefine what it means to live happily ever after.

Bookish and the Beast by Ashley Poston In this third book of the Once Upon a Con series, Rosie Thorne is feeling stuck—on her college application essays, in her small town, and on that mysterious General Sond cosplayer she met at ExcelsiCon. Most of all, she’s stuck in her grief over her mother’s death. Her only solace was her late mother’s library of rare Starfield novels, but even that disappeared when they sold it to pay off hospital bills. On the other hand, Vance Reigns has been Hollywood royalty for as long as he can remember—with all the privilege and scrutiny that entails. When a tabloid scandal catches up to him, he’s forced to hide out somewhere the paparazzi would never expect to find him: Small Town USA. At least there’s a library in the house. Too bad he doesn’t read. When Vance’s and Rosie’s paths collide, sparks do not fly. But as they begrudgingly get to know each other, their careful masks come off—and they may just find that there’s more risk in shutting each other out than in opening their hearts.

— I cannot possibly overstate what an absolute delight this series was. Cute and sweet and adorable. Like rot your teeth sweet with romances that my high-school self would have swooned over. (I would have been so in love with Darien Freeman as a 16 year old, it’s not even funny. Also, I would have been obsessed with Starfield.) Let’s be honest, my current self swooned quite a lot. Reading these books genuinely felt like a love letter to fandom. To the good and bad and trashy parts of it, and it made my heart swell thinking about these fictional kids and the community they found and how much they learned and then they FELL IN LOVE and, like, not to sound like an after-school special, but: THE REP IN THESE BOOKS?!?? HOLY S H I T. So good. So goddamn good. And not, like, shoved to the side. Like, Jess falls in love with a girl. And it gets its swoon-worthy moment as much as anyone else. Plus, bi-librarian dad who wears suspenders??? Sign. Me. Up. Twisting the fairy tales into the stories also worked really well in my opinion. Honestly my only gripe was that Darien found a cell phone number in the white pages, but, like, everything else was a joy. Please read these books. I promise they will make you smile.

IN WHICH I CAN NEVER TURN DOWN A BEAUTY AND THE BEAST ALTERNATE UNIVERSE

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge Betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom, Nyx has always known that her fate was to marry him, kill him, and free her people from his tyranny. But on her seventeenth birthday when she moves into his castle high on the kingdom's mountaintop, nothing is what she expected—particularly her charming and beguiling new husband. Nyx knows she must save her homeland at all costs, yet she can't resist the pull of her sworn enemy—who's gotten in her way by stealing her heart.

— Yo. YO. Everyone in this book was horrible! And it was wonderful! I figured out the twist approximately point two seconds after the potential for a twist was possibly introduced and it did not diminish my enjoyment of this book for one second. I am such a sucker for any Beauty and the Beast AU, but this was way different than anything I’d read before and Nyx was a blood-thirsty terror and I loved her. The magic and the world building was fascinating in that I really did not expect Greek gods and goddess, but it was also a welcome turn in a weird, huh, that’s interesting sort of way. And the banter was a-plus, top tier. Even when they were snarking at each other. Especially when they were snarking at each other. (Still a pretty quick turn from enemies to lovers, but I’m willing to overlook that based almost solely on the snark.) Plus, the castle was fascinating. And there were more twists aside from the main twist, none of which I figured out. All of which I gasped over. The end was like—chef’s kiss, fantastic. I would like a novel-length sequel to tell me how everything worked out.

...BUT THE LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD ONE WASN’T AS GOOD

Crimson Bound by Rosamund Hodge When Rachelle was fifteen she was good—apprenticed to her aunt and in training to protect her village from dark magic. But she was also reckless—straying from the forest path in search of a way to free her world from the threat of eternal darkness. After an illicit meeting goes dreadfully wrong, Rachelle is forced to make a terrible choice that binds her to the very evil she had hoped to defeat.Three years later, Rachelle has given her life to serving the realm, fighting deadly creatures in a vain effort to atone. When the king orders her to guard his son Armand—the man she hates most—Rachelle forces Armand to help her hunt for the legendary sword that might save their world. Together, they navigate the opulent world of the courtly elite, where beauty and power reign and no one can be trusted. And as the two become unexpected allies, they discover far-reaching conspiracies, hidden magic . . . and a love that may be their undoing. Within a palace built on unbelievable wealth and dangerous secrets, can Rachelle discover the truth and stop the fall of endless night?

— As much as I loved Cruel Beauty, I was like ehhhh on this one. Which is part Little Red Riding Hood (although that seems like a stretch, honestly) and part The Girl With No Hands, which is a fairy tale I have literally never heard of before. Rachelle was just—sorta whiny? Which, y’know, she was cursed and had fucked up her entire life, so fair, but also...annoying. I kept reading mostly to try and understand what the FUCK was going on with the magic. I like to consider myself a relatively intelligent person who can understand most YA novels, but this one was tough to keep track of. Like, sure, the imagery of the Dark Forest was cool, but also what is a Gladspring? I’m still not sure I know. Also, this kind of dragged in some places. Lots of patrolling the palace (whining about life) and not enough magic-fighting or establishing any sort of relationship between Rachelle and Armand. Which just sort of happened? Amidst, approximately, twenty-four different twists that were admittedly cool, but also felt like they came out of nowhere. Everything that happened in Cruel Beauty made sense. Most of what happened here felt like it was shoehorned in for shock value.

YOU WANT MORAL AMBIGUITY? BOY HAVE I GOT MORAL AMBIGUITY FOR YOU. IN GODDAMN SPADES.

The Firebird Series by Claudia Gray Marguerite Caine's physicist parents are known for their groundbreaking achievements. Their most astonishing invention, called the Firebird, allows users to jump into multiple universes—and promises to revolutionize science forever. But then Marguerite's father is murdered, and the killer—her parent's handsome, enigmatic assistant Paul— escapes into another dimension before the law can touch him.Marguerite refuses to let the man who destroyed her family go free. So she races after Paul through different universes, always leaping into another version of herself. But she also meets alternate versions of the people she knows—including Paul, whose life entangles with hers in increasingly familiar ways. Before long she begins to question Paul's guilt—as well as her own heart. And soon she discovers the truth behind her father's death is far more sinister than she expected.

— Guys. GUYS. These books, oh my G O D. Little known fact about me, but I am trash for cross-dimensional soulmates. The concept of “we’ll find each other anywhere” is one of my favorites, so I was so psyched about these books. And for awhile that’s what I thought I was going to get out of them. But. BUT! What I actually got was something, not totally different, but not entirely great, either. The problem here was that when anyone used one of the Firebird devices to jump dimensions they TOOK OVER THE BODY THEY JUMPED INTO. So, like, that consciousness got shoved to the side while whatever prime!person just took over. Living that body’s life. In a different dimension. And that’s kinda fucked up, right??? Brings in all sorts of questions about consent and morality and let me tell you, guys, this YA series DID NOT ADDRESS A SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Which is also super fucked up!! So, like, Marguerite is just bouncing around dimensions taking over people’s bodies and lives and leaving this, frankly, trail of destruction in her wake. And as if that wasn’t enough!!! In the second book Paul’s soul gets, like, split and she’s got to round up the pieces through dimensions, meeting all sorts of Pauls who are occasionally kind of shit people and he eventually just, like, CANNOT COPE. Seriously, I could not stop reading these. Partially for the moral ambiguity. Partially because I could not figure out why Paul loved Marguerite. Also, capitalism was the ultimate villain. AS IT SHOULD BE, REALLY.

CREEPY FAE WERE KIND OF CREEPY AND THAT’S NOT BAD, BUT LIKE MAYBE THIS WASN’T A GOOD BOOK?

An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson Isobel is an artistic prodigy with a dangerous set of clients: the sinister fair folk, immortal creatures who cannot bake bread or put a pen to paper without crumbling to dust. They crave human Craft with a terrible thirst, and Isobel’s paintings are highly prized. But when she receives her first royal patron—Rook, the autumn prince—she makes a terrible mistake. She paints mortal sorrow in his eyes—a weakness that could cost him his life. Furious, Rook spirits her away to his kingdom to stand trial for her crime. But something is seriously wrong in his world, and they are attacked from every side. With Isobel and Rook depending on each other for survival, their alliance blossoms into trust, then love—and that love violates the fair folks’ ruthless laws. Now both of their lives are forfeit, unless Isobel can use her skill as an artist to fight the fairy courts. Because secretly, her Craft represents a threat the fair folk have never faced in all the millennia of their unchanging lives: for the first time, her portraits have the power to make them feel.

— I’ve seen this book mentioned a lot. As good. And it wasn’t not good, but Isobel was pretty goddamn annoying and kind of dumb and a little self-important and I was mostly here for the creepy fae. That was fun. More fae should have antlers and stuff. Everything in this story happened ridiculously fast. I couldn’t believe it was over when it was over.

THE PROSE WAS VERY PRETTY. I’M NOT SURE WHY THE DRAGON HAD TO BE SUCH A MONUMENTAL DICK.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life. Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood. The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows—everyone knows—that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her. But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

— Let me just say first off, that this should have been two books. Everything happened so quickly, I swear I got whiplash. That being said, as a heroine, I liked Agnieszka a lot. She was understandably freaked by everything that happened, but once she kind of settled, she didn’t take The Dragon’s shit and that was good because The Dragon was kind of shitty. This is why it should have been two books. Because everything The Dragon did felt like it needed some kind of explanation. Or at least some sort of reasoning for why he was such a monumental bastard. Which is why I was a little confused that Agnieszka was in love with him? He was such a dick, honestly. The last third or so of this book was the best because Novik really does know how to write action and the magic itself was pretty fascinating. (I wish it went into more depth, but I think I’m spoiled by fic and that’s not actually how the publishing world works.) Kasia might have been the most interesting person in this story. Girl went through it and just became a total badass. I loved her.

MARAUDER FEELINGS! MARAUDER FEELINGS! SO! MANY! MARAUDER! FEELINGS!

The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater All her life, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love's death. She doesn't believe in true love and never thought this would be a problem, but as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she's not so sure anymore.

— RICHARD GANSEY, MY BELOVED. What a dweeb. A self-sacrificing, sorta sad dweeb. When he wrapped his jacket around Blue, my heart exploded. I think I spent the last fifteen or so chapters with disconcertingly wide eyes and possibly my hand over my mouth. Still not entirely sure why a Welsh king was in Virginia, but I loved it. Was real glad he was there. As promised by that one book rec list I read months ago, the Marauders vibes of these books were off the charts. It was a weird story with lots of weird things and I hope Mr. Grey gets to be happy one day and that Ronan and Adam make out some more eventually. I think they’ll both feel a lot better if they do. Like, about the world as a whole. Has anyone read the Ronan spinoff series? Should I read the Ronan spinoff series?

OK, THIS WASN’T THAT BAD, ACTUALLY

To Love Jason Thorn by Ella Maise Jason Thorn... My brother's childhood friend. Oh, how stupidly in love with that boy I was. He was the first boy that made me blush, my first official crush. Sounds beautiful so far, right? That excitement that bubbles up inside you, those famous butterflies you feel for the very first time--he was the reason for them all. But, you only get to live in that fairytale world until they crush your hopes and dreams and then stomp on your heart for good measure. And boy did he crush my little heart into pieces. After the stomping part he became the boy I did my best to stay away from--and let me tell you, it was pretty hard to do when he slept in the room right across from mine. When tragedy struck his family and they moved away, I was ready to forget he ever existed. Now he is a movie star, the one who makes women of all ages go into a screaming frenzy, the one who makes everyone swoon with that dimpled smile of his. Do you think that's dreamy? I certainly don't think so. How about me coming face to face with him? Nope still not dreamy. Not when I can't even manage to look him in the eye. Me? I'm Olive, a new writer. Actually, I'm THE writer of the book that inspired the movie he is about to star in on the big screen. As of late, I am also referred to as the oh-so-very-lucky girl who is about to become the wife of Jason Thorn. Maybe you're thinking yet again that this is all so dreamy? Nope, nothing dreamy going on here. Not even close.

— Ignoring the fact that this was almost blatant self-insert, this was a mostly good, occasionally trashy book with brother’s best friend and the one who got away tropes. Which, as we know, are my life’s blood. (Plus, surprise, fake marriage that isn’t really fake?!? Ok. OK!) My only eeek moment was when Olive got super drunk and wanted Jason to like—consummate the marriage and he was like, No Olive, you’re drunk. And then they ended up doing everything except having full-on sex, which felt a little creep and a lot sketch and then it was never mentioned again. Also, Olive needs to find some better friends, God.

EMERSON COD VOICE: HE’S STAAAAAALKING YOU

Marriage For One by Ella Maise Jack and I, we did everything backward. The day he lured me into his office-which was also the first day we met-he proposed. You'd think a guy who looked like him-a bit cold maybe, but still striking and very unattainable-would only ask the love of his life to marry him, right? You'd think he must be madly in love. Nope. It was me he asked. A complete stranger who had never even heard of him. A stranger who had been dumped by her fiancé only weeks before. You'd think I'd laugh in his face, call him insane-and a few other names-then walk away as quickly as possible. Well…I did all those things except the walking away part. It took him only minutes to talk me into a business deal…erm, I mean marriage, and only days for us to officially tie the knot. Happiest day of my life. Magical. Pop the champagne… Not. It was the worst day. Jack Hawthorne was nothing like what I'd imagined for myself. I blamed him for my lapse in judgment. I blamed his eyes, the ocean blue eyes that looked straight into mine unapologetically, and that frown on his face I had no idea I would become so fascinated with in time. It wasn't long after he said I was the biggest mistake of his life that things started to change. No, he still didn't talk much, but anyone can string a few words together. His actions spoke the loudest to me. And day after day my heart started to get a mind of its own.

— Ok, ok, ok, so I enjoyed the Jason Thorn book, right? Was, like, how bad could this other book be? And it wasn’t bad, but it was patently ridiculous. Let me explain what happened. Not entirely sorry for the spoilers. Jack the lawyer sees that Rose is only going to get the space for her coffee shop from her uncle’s will if she marries someone. She WAS engaged, but the guy split. For reasons no one can understand, especially Rose. She’s sad. She’s spent so much money on espresso machines! Enter Jack the lawyer who one random afternoon is like: HEY ROSE, YOU’RE MOSTLY A STRANGER, BUT I ALSO NEED TO GET MARRIED FOR REASONS I’LL ONLY SORTA EXPLAIN, LETS DO THAT. So they do???? And Jack the lawyer continues to be kinda weird and a little shady, but Rose has got the coffee shop and things are going well. Until! She’s got a leaky brain!!! That’s not a joke. Not a typo. Out of goddamn LEFT FIELD, Rose has got some horrible medical condition, so thank God she got married because Jack the lawyer’s got great health insurance. (this is ROMANTIC) and she’s got to have an operation and he stays with her and sleeps in the hospital chair and her coffee shop is somehow still going strong??? On Madison Avenue??? What sit-down coffee shop on Madison Avenue do you guys know that would succeed? None because it’s not downtown. I digress. Anyway, Rose makes a miraculous recovery, she and Jack the lawyer are now almost in love? At least having a shit ton of sex. They’re mostly happily married. Until, part two! The ex-fiance shows up and is like JACK THE LAWYER PAID ME TO BREAK UP WITH YOU. To which Rose is understandably flabbergasted. She confronts Jack the lawyer who fesses that he’s been seriously crushing on her since they met at her uncle’s Christmas party. She doesn’t remember this. He does. BECAUSE HE’S A STALKER. So, he knew about the will stipulation with marriage BACK THEN, which is why he used FIRM RESOURCES to investigate the ex-fiance and found out he was a con man, using Rose with plans to basically steal all her money. This infuriated Jack the lawyer because he thought Rose deserved better and then proceeded to basically con her himself, just in a different way. With marriage! He told her he needed to get married to show he was a family man to make partner. THAT WAS A LIE. He didn’t need it at all. He just—wanted to marry her??? To help her??? What a psycho. She leaves. He continues to lurk outside the coffee shop. They make up. No one mentions the stalking. The end.

I KEEP GIVING HELENA SECOND CHANCES AND SHE KEEPS...NOT DESERVING THEM

All In Series by Helena Hunting Sometimes I need an escape from the demands, the puck bunnies, and the notoriety that come with being an NHL team captain. I just want to be a normal guy for a few weeks. So when I leave Chicago for some peace and quiet, the last thing I expect is for a gorgeous woman to literally fall into my lap on a flight to Alaska. Even better, she has absolutely no idea who I am.Lainey is the perfect escape from my life. My plan for seclusion becomes a monthlong sex fest punctuated with domestic bliss. But it ends just as abruptly as it began. When I’m called away on a family emergency, I realize too late that I have no way to contact Lainey.A year later, a chance encounter throws Lainey and me together again. But I still have a lie hanging over my head, and Lainey’s keeping secrets of her own. With more than lust at stake, the truth may be our game changer.

— Last year I read a hockey romance by Helena Hunting that was very cute and traditionally published and she’s got a bunch more free Amazon books that, for some reason, I keep downloading and reading and they continue to be absolutely ridiculous. That first one was a not-so-secret accidental pregnancy (as previously discussed ONE TIME without a condom mention and bam pregnant) but the second one with Rook’s sister was actually pretty cute. I’m not sure why they all called him Rook. Almost all these series have at least one book with someone recovering from an injury and they inevitably fall in love with their physical therapist. So, that one was pretty ok. None of these, however, were quite as entertaining as (wait for it) QUEENIE AND KINGSTON. WHOSE FRIENDS AND TEAMMATES ALL CALL HIM KING. QUEENIE. AND. KING. Gag. I read it anyway. At least 99% of that decision was based solely on the fact that the story started just after King found out his sister was actually his mom. How am I supposed to stop reading THAT?!? I ask you. Highlights of Queenie and King’s romance included: him calling his mom/sister MOMSTER, Queenie being secretly married this whole time, WITHOUT KNOWING IT, his strawberry allergy that flared up because she’d had a strawberry milkshake and then GAVE HIM A BLOWJOB, her dad finding out they were dating because he was the GM of the team and saw that his starting goalie was having a MASSIVE allergic reaction, Queenie’s eventual ex-husband getting engaged to someone who previously tried to self-inseminate to trap Rook into a relationship (I am not making this up, I swear) and then when he found out that his fiancee’s kid wasn’t actually his, he got into a massive fight and earned a 20-game suspension. THAT’S A QUARTER OF AN NHL SEASON. Tom Wilson got fined five thousand dollars for practically killing Artemi Panarin on the ice! I did not read the last book in this series because it was MORE ACCIDENTAL PREGNANCY and because it was Queenie’s dad and King’s mom and that meant they’d share a sibling. Which is where I draw the line, guys.

THERE WERE SEVEN BOOKS IN THIS SERIES! EVERY SINGLE ONE HAD TO HAVE A SCENE WHERE THE DUDE UNDERSTOOD THAT PERIODS WERE A THING???? LIKE THAT WAS IMPRESSIVE SOMEHOW?!?!

Hot Jocks Series by Kendall Ryan I've never been so stupid in my entire life. My teammate's incredibly sweet and gorgeous younger sister should have been off-limits, but my hockey stick didn't get that memo. After our team won the championship, and plenty of alcohol, our flirting turned physical and I took her to bed. Shame sent her running the next morning from our catastrophic mistake. She thinks I don't remember that night—but every detail is burned into my brain so deeply, I’ll never forget. The feel of her in my arms, the soft whimpers of pleasure I coaxed from her perfect lips…And now I’ve spent three months trying to get her out of my head. Which has been futile, because I’m starting to understand she’s the only girl I’ll ever want. I have one shot to show her I can be exactly what she needs, but Elise won’t be easily convinced. That’s okay, because I’m good under pressure, and this time, I’m playing for keeps.

—I read all of these. All. Of. Them. They were exceptionally quick reads. Every single one had a copious amount of sex in it and a very weird, apparently required scene, where the dude had to be like I’M NOT SQUICKED OUT BY PERIODS AM I NOT THE ULTIMATE EXAMPLE OF MASCULINITY?? My favorite one was Grant and Ana’s, though, because it was so goddamn absurd I cannot believe someone wrote it. Basic gist was that Ana was dating someone on Grant’s team (he’s the captain, natch) but the guy was a dick and abusive and so one night Ana decides to leave, but she needs someone to help her and WHO DOES SHE TURN TO??? That’s right, reclusive captain Grant. Who’s spent the last few years watching his teammates marry-up and start families and he’s so jealous, but he can’t say anything because he’s a stoic MAN™. So he takes Ana and her dog (of course she’s got a dog) back to his super swanky bachelor pad and she just sort of...stays there? Video of the boyfriend accosting her at her job gets leaked and the boyfriend gets sent to the AHL which is not really how it would work, but fine. Naturally, Grant and Ana hook up. It’s emotional. Vaguely romantic. There’s no GODDAMN CONDOM. So, she gets pregnant. But, of course. Except! She doesn’t know if it’s dick boyfriend’s or Grant’s. Because he’s the male lead in a free sports romance on Amazon, Grant is the MOST understanding. He wants to help Ana. He would like to continue having sex with Ana. This is ready-made happily ever after. Only Ana’s like...eh?? She doesn’t want it to look like she bounced from one hockey player to the next, but also she sorta did and she kept telling Grant she just wanted to be friends, only to have sex, like, three chapters later. Then she just moved out! Just moved out. Seven months pregnant. Moving out. With her dog. Of course, this is a free sports romance on Amazon, so eventually she moved back in with Grant. Once she realized independence wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. And because he left practice to be there when she had the baby. Oh! And she got a DNA test after. To see whose kid it was. Grant ripped that ‘ish up. Just ripped it up. Which is cool, I guess. But, like, you didn’t want to double check? What if that kid has to go to the hospital? Did she put Grant’s name on the birth certificate? What are his parental rights?? Anyway, they’re all set to live HEA when....THE DICK BOYFRIEND DIES. Straight up. No explanation. Nothing. Just Grant tells Ana he’s dead, she’s like, oh wow that’s sad, they send some flowers to the funeral and that’s THAT. I assume this was to close any potential plot holes on the father of this baby, but it was hysterical and I cannot stop thinking about it. Strangely enough, the one where the couple made a secret sex tape in college and then got back together because it got released may have been the healthiest relationship in this series.

#book recs #book rec #book reccs #laura reads books #welllp these are books #i will not apologize for that bingo board #i think this is a highlight of accomplishments #like for me personally

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