#im very excited about the beginning | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ghosttotheparty · 1 year ago

Text

a mess of holy things 1 also on ao3 // next cw: implied religious trauma/abuse

It feels weird to be in this room.

It’s so… empty.

Not that Steve’s room at his parents’ house back home is full. His walls were always void of photos and art and everything people on TV had, still are now that he’s gone, always covered in that wallpaper his mother picked when he was eleven. He was never allowed to talk badly about it, not that he would have had he been granted permission. But these walls don’t have wallpaper on them. They’re bare, white, empty.

He stares at them when his parents leave.

He sits on the edge of his bed, which is smaller than his bed back home, and naked except for the two blue suitcases he brought with him, and he looks across the room. At the bare wall. He doesn’t really feel the urge to cover it with anything, but it still feels sort of unnerving to look at. Like there’s something wrong with it.

But Steve doesn’t think the walls are what his father is worried about with him living here for college.

He’d had to listen to him for weeks after getting the acceptance letter in the mail. The school is popular for its business course, which of course is the reason Steve applied in the first place, despite his indifference when it comes to business, but it’s in the city. Steve had never been to a city before today.

It’s noisier than it is back home, he thinks as he turns to look out his window. From where he’s sitting he can only see the tops of trees; he got lucky in that his room faces away from the other dorm buildings around his, and he takes a moment to watch the leaves blow in the wind for a moment. He can hear voices from downstairs, muffled but still audible. It sounds like they’re arguing, but Steve can’t tell if they are or not; he had the same issue back home when he could hear his parents’ voices from his room upstairs. Though they were usually arguing when he cracked his door open.

He can hear cars from outside, a motorcycle revving, a distant siren that fades after a few moments. Some laughter that somehow feels more distant than anything else.

He stands after another second, crossing the small distance to his desk that’s in front of the window, setting his hands on the chair as he leans over it to look outside. He’s on the third floor. When he leans over farther he can see some people gathered in a circle in the grass. One is laying on his back, his hands on his belly as he laughs, and as Steve watches, a girl next to him reaches over to smack his leg. One boy in the group is smoking a cigarette. Steve looks away.

There’s a corkboard on the other side of the bed, next to some shelving. Steve looks at it, listening to the boy laugh. He doesn’t think he has anything to put on it, but maybe he can get a calendar or something.

It feels so quiet in here. Even with the noises outside.

But he’s never minded the silence.

He unpacks slowly. He does the cardboard boxes first. There isn’t much, just some old textbooks from his father, textbooks he used when he went to business school. Steve tried to tell him that they probably use different textbooks now, especially considering he goes to a different school than the one his father went to, but he insisted these books are the best, so Steve stayed quiet. He doesn’t like to argue, especially with his father. The books are padded with his bedding, which he tosses onto one of the suitcases while he unpacks, as he stacks the books on one of the shelves next to his desk.

His winter clothes go into the wardrobe, his towel and soaps into the bathroom, and when he finds his paper and post-it notes and stationary, he makes a note to buy toilet paper and a bathmat. He knew he’d forget some things.

When he unpacks the suitcases, he does so slowly. He won’t admit it to himself, but it kind of feels like he’s procrastinating as he does it, like he doesn’t want to get to it.

He knows what he’s looking for, what he’s avoiding. It’s in the second suitcase, carefully wrapped in one of his favorite sweaters, and when he spots the red knit, he pauses, standing up straight and just looking for a moment.

He unpacks everything around it. It’s hot in his room when he finishes, and he’s sweating through the shirt he’s wearing. He opens his window and plugs in the fan his father packed for him before he pauses and cracks open the window above his desk. The group of people has left, probably because the sun is going down now, but he can still smell the cigarette smoke lingering in the air. But he can’t tell if it’s just his mind providing the smell because he knows it was there or not.

That’s happened before, him smelling or hearing things that he knows aren’t really there. Lingering cigarette smoke or weed smoke, the remnants of secular music that rattle around in his head like it’s empty except for echoing drum beats. It’s frustrating. He doesn’t want to hear the music, or smell those smells, and he knows he’s not supposed to. He’s caught himself humming along to songs that he doesn’t even know more times than he can count, and every time he just lets his head fall. He recites prayers that tend to take the place of the music.

His suitcase is empty except for the sweater. He supposes he should just finish so he can make his bed.

He kneels on the mattress, reaching over into the suitcase to pull it out, holding it with both hands like it might break even though he’s had it for as long as he can remember, and he knows that it won’t shatter to pieces in his hands. He still kind of feels like his hands have that ability. To break anything.

Especially something like this.

He unwraps the crucifix, and he doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath. The cross is wood. Jesus is gold. Steve doesn’t think it’s real gold, but it’s gleaming at him nonetheless. He drops the sweater on the bed again, and with a shaking hand, he sets the crucifix on one of the shelves next to his desk. It’s up high, looking down at the rest of the room in judgement.

Steve looks away, exhaling.

He puts the sweater in his wardrobe, folded carefully so he doesn’t stretch the yarn. And then he makes his bed. It’s hard to get the corners of the mattress right because of how the room is laid out, but he manages it, and when he’s done, he takes a shower. He’s grateful to his parents for paying for him to have his own bathroom, grateful that he doesn’t have to wait for showers to be available or risk having to talk to people in the hallways.

He thinks that might be part of why they paid for it. They, meaning his father specifically. He makes the decisions. Steve’s mom just agrees and stays quiet.

His dad doesn’t like the idea of Steve being in the city.

Not because of the noise, or the trash, or because it’s something that’s foreign to Steve, somewhere that he doesn’t feel particularly, entirely safe, but because of the people that Steve is surrounded by. In his words, heathens and hippies, chain-smokers and Satanists. Steve had to very carefully tell him that he’s responsible for who he spends time with, and he’s always been conscious of his friends’ mindsets and focuses and goals. Which is the truth. His only friends from home he met in church as a child.

Though met may be generous; their mothers had been friends and they had been stuck together in the playroom when they were small, but as soon as they were old enough to sit still, even when they didn’t want to, they were separated to sit with their families. But they were all Steve knew, so they stayed together in school, even when Steve decided he didn’t really like them that much. Which is why he’s kind of glad he’s here in the city; it’s so much less likely that he’ll run into a familiar face, someone he went to school with. He feels just inches closer to escaping.

Escaping.

He shouldn’t be thinking about that.

He shouldn’t be thinking about leaving home. He shouldn’t be happy about being here in this empty room instead of in his parents’ house.

It’s highlighted in his copy of the Bible, the one he got when he was ten that he’s kept on his bedside for almost a decade. It’s highlighted in yellow. Important.

Ephesians 6:1-3.

1 aChildren, bobey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. 2 aHonour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) 3 That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.

It’s hard sometimes. But he tries. And he likes to think that that’s enough for now.

He doesn’t have anything to eat. His parents didn’t get anything for him on the way to his dorm, and then they left right after helping him move everything into his room and lecturing him about being mindful of who he’s friends with. So he just takes a shower and says his nighttime prayer, and he goes to bed.

His room isn’t as dark as his room at his parents’ house. There are lights outside, lining the sidewalk his room overlooks, and they peer through the windows when he pulls them shut. He stares at the ceiling. He kind of wishes there was something to see on it instead of white paint. But when he closes his eyes, he can pretend he’s facing the sky full of stars.

He manages to drift off after a while, but he wakes up around midnight to the smell of weed. He wrinkles his nose, blinking his eyes open and squinting as his eyes adjust to the darkness. He rolls over, furrowing his eyebrows as he looks across the room to his open window, and he sighs heavily. His limbs are sore as he gets up heavily. He’s pretty sure he has a bruise or two on his legs but carrying in the boxes.

He’s still squinting as he leans over his desk to look out the window. There’s another group of people where the others had been earlier, and of course Steve would get stuck with the room right above a popular smoking spot. There are fewer people in this group than there had been in the other, but two of them are smoking, watching a third as she spins at the center of their little circle. Her skirt fans around her legs, and another person starts clapping. The girl giggles and sits back down heavily, reaching for her friend’s cigarette. Steve watches for another moment before he pulls his window shut. He moves his fan closer to his bed.

It’s not that it’s particularly weird to not have friends.

But he doesn’t speak at all without anyone he knows around, and his throat starts to feel weird after about a week. He didn’t realize how little he spoke when he wasn’t with his friends. He knew he didn’t talk much at home, but that’s… different.

It’s not necessarily that he wasn’t allowed to talk at home. He just wasn’t supposed to. He didn’t have to.

And now he doesn’t have to because there’s no one to hear him. Attendance is taken in the form of a sheet of paper by the door, every student’s name typed out neatly, waiting for a signature next to it, and Steve isn’t to volunteer answers when his professors pose questions to the class. He listens quietly. Takes notes.

He supposes he’s avoiding the others’ eyes after a while. He doesn’t know why; it’s like he’s scared that they’ll look into him, that they’ll find something he doesn’t want them to. A few of them offer friendly smiles, polite waves, and Steve reciprocates, but in a way that lets them know he won’t be joining them, or making conversation, or any of the things normal people do. Steve doesn’t really think he counts as a normal person. His parents would say that he isn’t like the others, because he’s enlightened, because he’s saved.

But he’s starting to wonder if that’s exactly what it is, just… Maybe not in the way his parents think.

He doesn’t know if he feels lonely. If he knows what it feels like to be lonely. It’s an odd feeling, this uncertainty, but he doesn’t think it’s a bad feeling. The solitude is nice sometimes. The quiet. But he does wonder if this is what his life is going to be like from now on, so quiet and slow and…

Boring.

It’s boring.

He’ll barely admit it to himself, but he’s bored in his dorm room. Bored of the white walls and plain blankets, of his textbooks and his professors’ droning voices. Bored of the same breakfast every morning (eggs and toast, a cup of black coffee), of the same walk to his lectures (past the other dorm building and two lecture halls, through a pathway that cuts across a park that’s spotted with benches and trash cans). Bored of his degree. Already.

He doesn’t tell his parents all of this during their weekly phone calls, of course. His voice is rough as he speaks to them, but they don’t question it. Of course they don’t. Steve doesn’t think they even notice. Their calls are always filled with the same conversations:

My classes are going well.

Everything is turned in on time.

I have an essay due in a few weeks.

The outline is already done.

My hallway has been quiet.

My professors seem nice.

I haven’t made any friends.

I’ve been focussing on my schoolwork.

Friends aren’t my priority right now.

They let it slide. As long as he’s passing his classes, as long as he’s praying. They don’t ask if he’s been to church since he started college. (He hasn’t. He doesn’t know if he wants to, even though he knows where the church is in the city, even though he knows what times services start and end. He practically has the schedule memorized.)

And he’s bored.

Bored.

The library in the city is better than the one on campus in Steve’s opinion.

It’s a bit noisier with the city outside, with cars and trucks and motorcycles, sirens and construction and shouting, but it’s not just students there, which Steve thinks is what he likes. On campus, every room is filled with people his age, people he should know how to talk to, people he should be spending time with and chatting with and becoming friends with, and there’s this pressure on his chest the whole time. Like he’s doing something wrong as he’s looking through his textbooks and analyzing his notes.

In the city, there are a few people that Steve would recognize as students at his college, but there are also children carrying picturebooks, whispering loudly to their parents, and teenagers doing their homework, and elderly people looking through shelves of books, and Steve somehow feels less lonely here.

He starts going to the public library a few weeks into the school year on a whim; at first it was just to see what the library was like, just to get out of his dorm room and finally explore a little after so much boredom, but it’s become a common thing for him. It’s nice to see the city, even if there’s a sense of wrongness that follows him around as he looks at the other people. At the women in their short skirts, at the couples making out against the walls of buildings. All the people his parents would scoff at and turn toward Steve to give him a lecture because they can’t give it to the person they’re actually judging.

But for some reason, Steve likes seeing these people. He doesn’t know if it’s a sense of adventure that he gets in seeing these people and not hearing a whole spiel about how they’ll end up in Hell and how God is watching them, and oh, may God lead them to the light, despite the fact that they tend to look pretty happy with themselves as and where they are. There aren’t as many of these people in the library (save for the couple Steve saw making out behind a bookshelf; he managed to get away before they noticed him there.), but he still likes it there. There are so many more people in this public library than the one in his hometown, but it’s still just as quiet.

There are more study rooms in this library than the one back home. There’s one on the second floor that Steve likes: it’s small and sort of tucked away into a corner, the door creaky and a little hard to push open. The table is wobbly the same way his desks were in high school, and there are old doodles on it, some in ink or smudged graphite, others carved into the wood and smoothed down over time.

Every time Steve reaches for the door, he says a little prayer that there’s no one inside, and so far, he hasn’t walked in on anybody. He always anticipates it, stepping inside and making wide-eyed eye contact with a stranger, mumbling an apology in his rough, barely-used voice before he leaves and never comes back just because he can’t handle it. But maybe his prayers are working. Or maybe he’s just lucky.

He thinks he’s just lucky.

He’s also lucky that no one has come in while he’s working. Maybe because it’s so tucked away, hidden in some bookshelves, nobody really sees it.

The quiet city sounds are even quieter when he’s in this room, the vehicles and sirens and loud laughter all muffled behind the walls, and the sounds of his studying seem unusually loud in turn, the scratching of his pencil, the turning of his pages, and soft thuds of the table leg tapping the ground as he works, wobbling back and forth and back and forth. He likes it here. It might be his favorite place that he’s found since he started college, quiet and peaceful and away from it all.

He hears a truck pass outside as he turns the page in his textbook. It’s a second-hand book, one he bought after reading the supply list for one of his classes, and some of the lines are already marked, highlighted in a fading yellow or circled with smudged pencil. He ignores the annotations at first, copying down the text that he thinks is important, and then he goes back to see what the book’s previous owners thought was important. He hesitates, then writes it all down too.

He startles when the door opens abruptly, jumping and looking up, his hand fumbling with his pen. He drops it as a man enters the room, carrying a backpack. He’s got long hair that seems to obstruct his vision until he tosses his head, flicking his hair out of the way, and he closes the door behind himself, letting out a breath before he looks up and his eyes meet Steve’s.

“Jesus Christ—”

Steve’s eyes widen as he watches the man startle, turning to hide his face as he presses a ring-clad hand to his chest.

“Sorry,” the man says breathily, flinging his hair away again. “Shit. Uh.” He takes another breath, awkwardly running a hand through his hair, pushing it back, facing Steve. It’s longer than Steve’s ever seen on a man, past his shoulders and wavy, frizzy like it should be curly. There are bits of metal on his face, piercings in places Steve’s never seen: on the bridge of his nose between his eyes, on his eyebrows, his mouth. “There usually isn’t, uhm, anyone in here.”

“Oh,” Steve says finally, blinking at him. His eyes flick up and down the man’s body, scanning the angel on his t-shirt, patches and pins on his denim jacket, the rips in his jeans. He’s never seen anyone dressed like this before, so… dark. Even his boots are intimidating. The rings on his fingers look heavy, and Steve has to tear his eyes away from them.

“I’m just… I’m just studying,” he says finally. “If you… wanna share.”

“Okay,” the man says, and he’s smiling awkwardly now. He has a nice smile. It digs lines into his cheeks and makes his eyes squint, but Steve can still see how dark and shiny they are. Like a deer’s.

He watches the man sit at the other end of the table, watches him set his bag on the ground and pull some books out of it to set them on the table. Steve glances at the books and stops, staring. Atop one book that's plain brown, untitled, the spine bare, are a few colorful ones, reading Dungeons & Dragons above various illustrations of monsters. Steve feels the man glance over at him, and he looks away sharply, back down at his textbook and notebook.

It’s suddenly too quiet, even though there’s more noise than there was a minute ago. Steve listens to him rifle through his bag and glances out of the corner of his eye to watch him pull a pen out of the biggest pocket.

Steve looks away again. Finishes the sentence he’d been writing when the man came in. Turns the page of his textbook and tries to read the next paragraph.

It’s not a minute later that he looks up at the man again. He’s sitting funnily. One leg brought up onto his chair, arm around it, his cheek almost resting on his knee. The rip in his jeans shows his skin under it, and he looks even paler against the dark fabric. He’s writing in the brown book, and Steve’s eyes skim down to his hands. He’s right-handed, and his nails are painted black. The polish is chipping.

Steve looks back and forth between him and his notebook, glancing and staring, noticing something new every time he looks. There’s a tattoo covering the back of his hand. It looks like some kind of flower.

When he leans back in his seat, looking down at his book, he lifts a hand to his mouth and nibbles at his nail for a moment before he grimaces and lowers his hand. When he lowers his hand, Steve can see the tattoo that’s covering his neck and throat; it’s a bat, its wings outstretched, its mouth in some grotesque expression. Steve looks away.

He feels nervous, somehow.

The man seems nice enough. He smiled at Steve. Apologized for his reaction. He’s being quiet, respectful of their shared space. Keeping all of his things on his side of the table.

But the angel on his t-shirt has a skull instead of a face. He’s wearing at least three necklaces, silver chains and one with a charm that Steve can’t quite identify. There are tattoos on his fingers, partially hidden under his heavy rings that click every time he does something with his hands. The patches on his jacket have symbols on them that would prompt Steve’s parents into prayer.

And Steve isn’t sure how to feel about him.

He knows he isn’t supposed to like him.

But it feels odd to dislike someone because of their hair, their clothes, the art on their skin.

And he has a nice smile.

Steve faces his notebook but can’t tear his eyes away from the man. He watches him write, glancing back and forth between the colorful Dungeons & Dragons books and his brown notebook, watches him twist one of his rings around his finger, watches his lips twist as he thinks. It’s a while that Steve sits here, watching and staring, looking at his tattoos, at his piercings, at his hair (which he keeps re-tucking behind his ear).

“I can feel you looking at me,” the man says finally, and Steve drops his pen, his face flushing with heat.

“Sorry,” he says quickly, eyes wide, but the man just smiles at his notebook, scribbling something down before he looks up at Steve again. And Steve can see his piercings clearly now, two through both of his eyebrows, one through the bridge of his nose, one on either side of his bottom lip. They’re silver studs, and they gleam in the sunlight coming in through the window.

“‘S okay,” he says lightly, gently, smiling. “I get it a lot.”

It’s quiet for a moment as they look at each other, and Steve feels oddly self-conscious as the man’s eyes flick over him, like he’s analysing the shirt Steve is wearing, the way his hair is pushed back. But the man’s smile doesn’t waver, even as he leans over his notebook and gestures to Steve with a jerk of his chin.

“Whatcha doin’?”

“Uhm.” Steve finally looks away, glances down at where his handwriting has lifted up off the lines of his notebook, distracted. “…Business management and administration.”

“Sounds exciting,” the man says dryly, and Steve just shakes his head, which prompts a laugh from him. “I’m assuming you go to college here?”

“Uh, yeah,” Steve says awkwardly, crossing his arms over the table. “I’m a freshman.”

“How are you liking it?”

“Uh,” Steve says again. “…I like it.”

He just raises an eyebrow like he’s amused, silently promoting Steve, like he’s poking him in the side.

“It’s kinda lonely,” Steve says with a light shrug.

“You don’t have friends?”

“I…” He shrugs again. “I’m not… very social, I guess. I had friends in high school, but I think…” He hesitates, oddly unfamiliar with the sound of his voice after being silent for so long, but the man looks so patient, listening closely like he actually wants to hear what Steve has to say. “I think I didn’t really like them that much,” he says finally. “I took a gap year after grad and they all left for college and it was like I… I could breathe without them.”

He shrugs again, but the man is just smiling now. Like he gets it. He has a really nice smile. Steve looks at it, at the way his piercings shift slightly as his lips curve.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Steve blinks. Looks back into his eyes. (They’re so dark.)

“Sorry,” he says, cheeks flushing with heat again. “I just… I’ve never seen anyone like you before.”

The man’s smile turns sly, and he sets his chin on his palm, resting his elbow on the table.

“Never seen a freak?” he says smoothly.

“I don’t know if that’s the word I’d use,” Steve says hesitantly. The man laughs brightly, almost childishly, and Steve can’t suppress his own smile.

“What’s, uhm. What’s Slayer?” Steve asks, glancing at the man’s shirt, watching him lean back to look at his own chest like he’s forgotten what he’s wearing.

“It’s a band,” he says. “One of my favorites.”

“What kind of music is it?” Steve asks curiously, and he doesn’t think he'd never be talking this much if it were anyone else, but the man’s eyes are trained on him so kindly. Steve knows he should be avoiding him at all costs, but he seems sweet in a way that Steve can’t really describe.

“Metal,” the man says lightly.

Steve looks at him blankly, and he starts to smile again, pressing his lips together.

“What kind of music do you listen to?”

“I don’t listen to music.”

“At all?”

Steve shakes his head, squeezing his upper arm.

“My father says media distracts the soul from its righteous duties.”

He looks up at him nervously, because that’s such a weird thing to say, isn’t it? But the man’s eyes are sparkling at him, and he’s still smiling.

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

Steve raises an eyebrow.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You look righteous.”

“You don’t.”

A laugh bursts out of him, and Steve finally cracks a smile, tilting his head at him.

“Yeah, I know,” he says finally, still beaming at Steve.

And then they fall quiet, just looking at each other. Like they’re both studying each other, taking note of what’s different. His long frizzy curls, Steve’s carefully tamed hair. His painted, chipped nails, Steve’s bare ones that he’s never really thought twice about. His worn t-shirt and patched jacket and Steve’s collared shirt that’s tucked into his pants.

“I, uhm…” the man finally says, hesitating, tapping a finger on the table lightly. “I live really close to here, if you wanna give Slayer a listen.”

Steve blinks, taken aback by the invitation, but before he can respond, the man gestures to Steve’s books.

“Unless you’re too busy with business management.”

Steve flips his notebook shut silently. The man laughs brightly.

“Sure,” Steve says, surprising himself. His parents would kill him.

But it feels kind of exciting, putting his books in his bag as the man does the same, still smiling. Steve thinks he must smile a lot.

permanent taglist: @estrellami-1 @theplantscientist @spectrum-spectre @carlprocastinator1000 @starman-jpg <3 holy things taglist: @stevesbipanic @pearynice @ao3whore @slowandsteddie <3 (comment to be added/removed to/from either list!!)

♡ buy me a coffee ♡

#and so it begins #lmk if you want to be added or removed from either taglist!!#some aspects of this fic might be kinda heavy so its no problem at all if you want to be removed :)#very very excited about this fic tho im so stoked #steddie #steddie fanfic #steve harrington #steve harrington fanfic #eddie munson #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things #stranger things fanfic #a mess of holy things

145 notes · View notes

purpleshadow-star · 1 year ago

Text

So, in preparation of the movie coming out next month, I reread Red, White & Royal Blue. I just finished it, and then I rewatched the trailer for the movie, and tbh, I have some concerns.

The thing I love so much about the book is the emotion. Alex and Henry are complex people with deep emotions. Confident on the outside, but struggling and nervous and anxious on the inside. Sure, the trailer looks fun, but I'm really hoping the more vulnerable sides of Alex and especially Henry are going to be shown in the movie.

The trailer also makes it seem like Henry doesn't like Alex either, at the beginning? Like, at the beginning of the book, the fact that Henry never really started out their interactions with antagonism like Alex did stuck out to me so much. Henry himself even says it! We know that Henry liked Alex the whole time, and it's shown through the fact that he always tried to be civil while Alex was the one who started their conversations with snark and sarcasm. That's why Alex enjoyed the moments when Henry would let a bit of fight come out. That's why it was such a noticeable thing to Alex when Henry snarked back at him during his first visit to England post-wedding.

In the trailer, it makes it seem like in the beginning, Henry doesn't like Alex just as much as Alex doesn't like Henry, if not more so. Movie Henry seems so openly antagonistic towards Alex, especially in the cake scene, and tbh it just feels wrong to me. The failure to portray Henry's feelings for Alex and his reluctance to participate in Alex's antagonism like the book does (especially considering we were seeing Henry through Alex's pov) makes me worry about whether or not Henry's more complex emotions will be shown in the movie at all, and Alex's too for that matter.

Also, I noticed that in the scene where Alex and Henry talk in the kitchen at the palace during Alex's fisrt visit to England post-wedding, it seems like they took out what was important about that scene and replaced it with surface level antagonism and snark to really sell the whole 'rivals to lovers' thing or something. It's like they're trying to convince us that Henry sees Alex just as much of a rival as Alex sees Henry, when that's just not the case. In the book, that's the scene where Alex really starts to see Henry for the first time, even if just for a moment. Not the put together Prince of England, but the sleep rumpled, pajama-clad insomniac who just wants some ice cream.

In the move trailer, it shows Henry wearing a dress shirt and tie, and his tone is snarky when talking to Alex, when in the book, Henry is genuine and unsure of himself. This is another time when we see that Henry has never really tried to be antagonistic towards Alex out of nowhere. In the trailer, it seems like Henry is going to be acting in the opposite way.

I'm not saying the movie has to be a word for word exact portrayal of the book because I don't believe that. A good adaptation will inevitably have to change things, but it only works if the changes make the story better, or at least if they make sense. Right now, I can't see the benefit of changing Henry's character so much. The Henry that I saw in the trailer, at least at the beginning of it, honestly doesn't feel like Henry at all to me.

The last third or so of the trailer, especially the clip of (who I'm assuming is) Bea asking Henry if he loves Alex, gives me hope that they'll get into the more emotional sides of these characters, but tbh I'm still kind of worried.

(Also, side-note, I hate the fact that June's character was cut entirely. She was there for Alex when he needed her, and her character gave us more insight into the complexities of the first family. She showed us that kids of divorce can see things differently when it comes to their parents, and as a child of divorce myself who has had differences of opinion with my sibling, I loved seeing that in the book with June and Alex. And, of course, there was her whole dynamic with Nora. I hate that she won't be in the movie at all. I hope they don't also cut the fact that Nora is queer.)

I don't know, I was skeptical of the movie at first after just seeing the teasers (though, tbh, I'm always skeptical of book to movie adaptations at first. Maybe it's the Percy Jackson fan in me), but after the trailer came out, I had more hope. Now, after rereading the book and having all the details fresh in my mind, I'm worried again. I know that trailers are made of clips that often times make more sense in context, so I hope the movie itself gives us more than the trailer implies. It makes sense that they'd want to mostly show the happier, more fun sides of things in the trailer so people will want to watch the movie.

I get that they might just be trying to go for a fun, not super deep, silly, comedic movie kind of vibe, but tbh, as fun and silly as rwrb is, it's also so much more than that. Some of my favorite parts of the book are the more serious parts. The parts where we see Alex and Henry's anxiety and insecurities. I really hope the movie shows at least some of these moments.

I'm definitely still going to watch the movie once it comes out, but I'm kind of concerned about how the story, and especially the characterization of the characters, is going to be portrayed. Hopefully, I'll end up being concerned about nothing. The last third of the trailer suggests that this will be the case, and I really hope it is!

I think the movie can still be enjoyable even if it doesn't show us the deeper and more nuanced sides of these characters, but can you blame me for hoping to see the reason why I fell in love with the book in the first place, the deep emotions of these characters, portrayed on screen?

(Tbh, I kinda lost track of my thoughts here. I think I'm concerned about Henry's drastic change in character more than anything else. It's easy to believe that there are more emotional scenes in the movie that we haven't seen hints of yet because obviously they can't show everything in the trailer. Henry's characterization, on the other hand... we've been shown two different clips of him that explicitly imply that he will be much different than the Henry we see in the book, at least in the beginning. Again, context is everything, so maybe it'll make more sense in the movie, but I can't imagine what context could be given to make those clips of Henry character accurate. And tbh, imo, there's no excuse for replacing soft, pajama-clad Henry in the kitchen scene with a dressed, snarky version of him)

(Also, the election isn't mentioned at all in the trailer? Tbh I think the book could have integrated the political parts a bit better than it did, but I still enjoyed it, especially at the end with election night. I guess if they set the movie in current day, an election won't make much sense, but the election and the stress and responsibilities that come with it add so much to Alex's character, and I honestly hope it's still included in the movie)

#idk if this made any sense #dont get me wrong im still excited for the movie but im going into it with slightly lower expectations now #also a faint sense of dread for how theyre going to treat henry #it feels like they chose to turn henry into alex 2.0 at the beginning and i hate that 😭😭😭#like obvi im just getting this from trailers and teasers so it could be very different in the actual movie #but then again the purpose of a trailer is to give the audience an accurate taste of the movie #so id think theyd try not to misrepresent their character in the trailer #idk i have mixed feelings #hopefully im concerned about nothing #i am still excited for the movie tho i promise #i never talk about rwrb on here so this prob seems random coming from me but i really do love the book #red white and royal blue #rwrb #rwrb movie #alex claremont diaz #henry mountchristen windsor #firstprince

33 notes · View notes