#joelle theron

[sazanes]

Day 4 - Family/Home

“Maman read to me every night when I was little, it was magical!”

@kiaratheronappreciationweek @lizzybeth1986 @sazanes

[lizzybeth1986]

The Therons and the Ebrims in TRR3

I won't include the Amaranths in this because theirs is clearly an embarrassingly personal family squabble. But Portavira and Castelserraillan show two types of political views - one that focuses on the local province, and another that aims at creating a legacy for the country through art and diplomacy.

Both have their merits, but in a story that is supposed to highlight national pride and spirit, you would expect there to either be equal respect for both, or a bit more for the second.

Portavira

Landon's focus is his daughter, and if Penelope doesn't feel comforted by you he has real doubts about supporting you. But he can be swayed if you win the match.

Emmeline's focus is definitely on the match. If you don't win it, she says this:

Later:

Two things of note in the failplay of this scene:

1. The narrative views the failure of the match as a failure on the MC's part. Emmeline can openly state that she thinks the MC isn't taking Portavira seriously on the basis of one match, and the MC is more pleading and contrite in this context.

2. Take note of the dialogue choices after Landon and Emmeline decline. The MC is still respectful, not criticizing their choices. Similarly for Penelope. The MC has the same two options, and both of them have the baseline of respecting where she comes from.

The narrative also specifically wants us to like Landon and Emmeline, as is obvious from the way Drake and the MC speak of them:

In reality there's not a lot that gives this impression except for this one match to raise funds. Tbh the same could have been said of Liam's government's move to raise funding for Portavira through the fashion show...but this fandom isn't exactly going to be convinced by that when it's from Liam, lmao.

Castelserraillan

Kiara and Hakim agree to join the tour by default. Kiara, because you spend exactly one minute either insulting her or manipulating her, and Hakim because he appreciates that you wanted to save his exhibition, regardless of whether you did a good job or not.

Drake, when he enters, makes fun of the Theron house right away, making a quip about how he "expected more flags".

Still, Hakim not only shows him massive respect, it's also clear that he remembers Drake's father:

In comparison, Landon and Emmeline hardly engage with Drake except to express bewilderment when he stumbles. I hardly see Drake making any fulsome compliments about Hakim, and it's clear he is neither classist nor his aims superficial.

Hakim is written as more grateful to the MC than he needs to be once the festival is over, just for his inclusion into the tour to be default. It doesn't even matter whether or not Cordonia will enter the International Art Association. In fact he and Kiara are the only nobility that feature in the wedding by default without extra conditions.

Ezekiel can decline, but I'm not surprised considering he was written more for Penelope than for his family. Joelle's case...is interesting.

Joelle firmly believes that art and culture are important to building the morale of a country, and are markers of a country's prosperity and progress:

Now, this is a pretty valid point. It speaks to wanting the country not only to be safe and protected, but also thriving culturally and creatively. There really isn't much to mock in this viewpoint (well, unless you're Olivia Nevrakis:

Tbh it feels like there is more respect for this mindset than Joelle's, Liam's, Hana's or Kiara's).

Joelle can, of course, reject the offer, just like Emmeline and Landon did:

Unlike Landon and Emmeline, the MC's choices to respond to this are very different:

You do not see any equivalent to that final option for Landon and Emmeline, if they decline. The MC doesn't get to criticize their laser-focus on their duchy alone, nor is she allowed to badmouth any one spouse to the other, as she can here (she is allowed to call Joelle a "handful" to her loving husband's face). The narrative also doesn't mind making her sound slightly ridiculous, with her "there's nothing more important than art".

The narrative will employ the same tactics in TRH3 - writing Joelle so badly in her appearance during the Flower Festival that the depiction borders on caricature, and having the Ebrims call the Therons "traditionalists" even though there is very little indication of that in the books.

Even Kiara, when she hears of Joelle's choice to leave for Switzerland, is made to sound like she'd made a bad choice:

I only expand on this because I don't exactly want to crowd the essay more than I already have 😅

[thecapturedafrique]

NPAD: Art

Happy very late Nadia Park Appreciation Day! As a big TRR fan, I always imagined that Nadia would consider Joëlle Theron as one of her artistic idols, and from that I built a head canon to chronicle Nadia’s path as an artist!

Tagging @nadiaparkappreciationweek and its wonderful hosts @lizzybeth1986 & @sazanes!

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Nadia graduates with her BFA from the School of Visual Arts in NYC in 2015

She goes on to study at ENSA Bourges in France—Joëlle’s alma mater—to earn her DNSEP (the French equivalent of a MFA)

After graduating in 2017, Nadia returns to NYC where she does the standard starving artist routine for a solid year until receiving an offer to showcase some of her work for an alumni showing in Paris

She sends over some of her work and then finally agrees to move in with her cousin Erin, whose previous roommate (my TRR MC Ally) ran off to Europe

In mid-September ten days before the showing is scheduled to end, Liam and Madeleine’s engagement tour stops in Paris

While there, Kiara visits the gallery with Penelope and Hana to do some scouting for her mother, and when Nadia’s art catches her attention, she sends some pictures to Joëlle who is also an instant fan

With several artists having pulled out of the upcoming International Arts and Food Festival, Jöelle reaches out to Nadia to ask if she’d like to have her work displayed during the festival

Nadia immediately accepts; her pieces are well received and garner several high bids, which heralds the start of her career taking off

A couple of weeks later, when she attends Ally and Liam’s wedding as Erin’s plus one, Nadia introduces herself to Jöelle, who is happy to meet her, especially since she can now make the offer of sponsorship in-person

And thus, by the time PM begins, Nadia is an established artist; while the majority of her fan base is European and French in particular, her first independent showing at the start of the series marks her breaking into the American art scene

[kiaratheronappreciationweek]

We're on Day 3 of KTAW now, and there are two amazing themes lined up for you!!

As everyone who has ever read the series knows, Kiara is a polyglot. With a real passion for languages. So much so that she has managed to learn not one, not two - but ten of them!!! So tomorrow, we will be focusing on Languages!

Kiara's home, Castelserraillan, is also well known for its vineyards. Her mother Joelle was the main force behind this particular passion, and the entire family has an extensive knowledge on the subject. In fact, Kiara had even told Drake once that she "prefers wine to cocktails". So it is only fitting that we have a theme revolving around the subject of Wine!

Any content is welcome!! Just make sure your work centers Kiara, and presents a positive depiction of her. Fic, art, meta, headcanons, edits, icons, interactive media, even simple character appreciation posts!! We also accept WIPs, so if your piece isn't entirely complete by the end of the week, fret not - you can still send us the WIPs!

The themes are simply inspirations. If you bring a piece for one of the days later, it's entirely okay...just make sure you tag the posts with the day you meant it for! We will always be keeping a bonus week in case you couldn't complete the piece during the week itself, so our official deadline for pieces will be June 1st!

We'd also like all of you to know that KTAW 2024 will be open ALL YEAR ROUND. So if you're unable to finish a piece before June 1st, pls do send it whenever you're ready to (and tag us!), and it will definitely be up on our masterlist!!

Be sure to follow these rules while making your posts:

1. Use the tags #kiaratheronappreciationweek and #KTAW in your posts. Make sure to tag the day as well (#KTAW Day 1, #KTAW Day 2, etc)

2. Tag @kiaratheronappreciationweek as well as hosts @lizzybeth1986 and @sazanes in your work!

Fan Community blogs are super important to our promotion of events, so we'd definitely love for you to check out some of these awesome blogs and their challenges:

@choicesficwriterscreations - Primarily fanfic and fanart (no AI allowed). Check out their rules and roster of events!

@choicesmonthlychallenge and @choicesmaychallenge24 - Any and all content welcome! This month's prompts are delightfully Greek mythology-themed!

@choicespride - Any and all content welcome, as long as it centers LGBTQ+ characters and/or themes! They will be hosting this year's pride event soon!

@choicesholidays - Any and all content welcome, as long as it is centered around one of the holidays listed! Currently, they are hosting Spring Fling!

@choicesprompts - Any and all content welcome! Currently no events, but you could check out all the cool stuff they've been up to so far!

@choicescommunityevents - Any and all art welcome as long as it is on-theme! Currently hosting the AAPI Heritage Month!

SO excited to see all your entries!!!

Happy Kiara Theron Appreciation Week, everyone!!

[dcbbw]

Single Mom

This story is born of this week’s @choicesflashfics prompt #3 (which will appear in bold). It’s not the story I had in mind but was able to explore Riley as a mother, along with her fears and hopes for the lives she has brought into the world.

THANK YOU to all who will read this story; I hope you enjoy it. Please excuse and all typos, missing/extraneous words, and/or grammatical errors. I was fast and loose with editing and revisions, but MS Editor has this rated as 99% error-free.

The song inspiration has absolutely nothing to do with parenthood or jellybeans; rather, it was chosen because of it’s fun, relaxed vibe which I feel captures Riley as a parent and her relationship with her sons.

Song Inspo: Recess, Eli “Paperboy” Reed

Pairing: Riam and family

Word Count: 2500ish

Rating: T for Teen

The royal family stood inside the private terminal at Cordonian International Airport; through the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows one of the airliners in the Crown’s fleet sits on the tarmac, waiting for its most important passenger to board.

The King holds his youngest son, Theodore, in his arms feeling the toddler’s tears dampen his shirt collar. His oldest sons, Francis and Jonathan, cling and pull at his pant legs demanding Dada come home with them.

His wife, his Queen, just stares at him. Her eyes are shiny but remain dry. Her husband, along with Rashad Domvallier and Kiara Theron, is going to Sweden for an international conference on linguistic resources to aid the immigration crisis.

Riley realizes that travel is a large part of being ruler: networking, being seen places other than thrones and golf courses, sitting on international boards and committees.

It doesn’t mean she likes it.

“It’s only three days, and I’ll call often,” Liam reassures his family to no avail.

“We’ll be fine,” Riley says as she pries six-year-old fists from his clothing.

She holds her arms out for Theodore as Fric and Frac wrap their arms around her legs, their own tears beginning to fall.

“Hey!” she says brightly. “We’ll go to McDonald’s on the way home, and NO SCHOOL until Dada returns,” she promises.

The twins immediately stopped crying, speaking excitedly to each other in their secret language.

Liam’s look is stern as he double-takes at Riley’s words.

“Oh, NO! There will be school! The boys need structure and to continue their educational routine.”

Riley frowns at her husband over her baby’s head full of black, curly hair.

“And I told YOU, MY children will NOT be attending a school that changes its name from La Petite Academy to The School for Spoiled Kids after our sons enrolled! I will be getting them transferred to a public, Crown-sponsored school while you’re away.”

“The security issues with that …”

“Are NO different than with that private school you insisted on! In fact, aren’t many of the Safety Resource Officers in the public schools members of the King’s Guard?”

Liam rubbed his palm over his face. “We’ll discuss this when I return.”

He held his arms out to embrace his family once again before boarding the plane. He kissed all of his sons on the tops of their heads before his lips lingered over Riley’s.

“I’ll miss you,” he whispered.

“You’d better!” she retorted, her palm cupping his cheek.

With a sigh, the King grabbed the handle of his rolling suitcase and began the walk to the plane. He looked back once; his family was still there. They were waving and blowing kisses and wiping tears from their eyes.

He did the same.

Day 1

It was 8am when Duchess Joelle Theron tucked her large, brown-paper wrapped package underneath her arm and smiled in greeting to Mara as she entered the royal family’s quarters. And stopped in her tracks.

The Crown Prince and the second-born were fist-fighting; Grunts, yells, and cries of “STOP THAT!” were uttered by both parties as well as their mother. The sounds of hands slapping skin ended once Riley was firmly in between the children.

The baby sat on the floor, eating dry cereal out of a bowl as he watched it all unfold. Occasionally Baby Theodore took a sip of juice from his sippy cup.

“Your Majesty?” Joelle asked hesitantly.

Riley turned, a confused smile on her face at hearing her moniker; she had made sure to clear her calendar while Liam was away.

“Joelle! What a surprise.”

The Duchess’ eyes took in the situation: Six-year-old boys in dinosaur-emblazoned pajamas with mussed hair, scratched cheeks, and angry splotches along their forearms; they glowered at each other with mistrustful eyes as their chests heaved. The Queen’s natural hair was an unkempt afro and she wore a too-big chenille robe with frayed sleeves, deep purple in color. A television blared the theme song to a children’s show. The kitchen counters were filled with dirty dishes and cut fruit.

“Is everything okay here?” Joelle asked in genuine concern. There was nothing noble or royal about any of this.

“Oh yeah. Just that Mr. Frac here woke up choosing violence,” Riley clarified as she glared at her oldest. “What brings you to the Palace?”

“I painted a portrait of the heirs. It’s not a traditional painting as I’m dabbling with abstracts now. I’m headed to Krona for lunch with Adelaide, and thought I’d drop it off.”

“Let’s see it!” Riley exclaimed as she led the twins to separate corners, sitting them in chairs facing a wall; their backs were to each other and the room itself.

“Mommy?” Frac’s querulous voice called out softly.

Fric heaved a laborious sigh and placed his face in his palms.

Riley whirled. “It’s QUIET time, young man! Unless you want a spank-spank, which you may get anyway, keep those lips zipped!”

She shook her head. “Puttin’ hands on folks first thing in the morning,” she muttered as she watched Joelle unwrap the painting.

The Duchess Theron arched her eyebrow slightly, giving the Queen a nervous glance. “Is Liam aware of your parenting style, Riley?”

Riley’s face hardened imperceptibly; when she spoke, her tone was tight. “My husband and I are in agreement as to how to raise our children, Duchess.”

"No judgment, it’s just not an approach seen before in Court,” Joelle murmured with a nod of acknowledgement and an apologetic smile before proudly displaying her portrait.

Riley was rendered speechless. And not in a good way.

Against a background of thick, layered cream-colored paint were three-eyed penguin heads with bright orange beaks interspersed with what were either Fred Flintstone’s big toes or inflamed nipples. Top hats and brown leaves completed the portrait.

Abstract, my ass. THIS is indescribable.

“Can you see them in the painting? Is it obvious what I was going for?” Joelle asked eagerly.

The Queen quickly morphed her expression into one of pleasant surprise.

“It looks just like them!”

Day 2

The Rys boys were seated at the dining room table, coloring and drawing. It was the art portion of their homeschooling day, which was a one-off project Riley pulled out of her ass while waiting to hear back from the Prime Minister of Education.

She agreed with Liam that their sons’ education shouldn’t suffer, and that structure and routine were important.  She enlisted Annabelle Parsons, and the women came up with a lesson plan:  Science, which was focused on the solar system with particular interest on the sun. Math, where the boys reinforced their counting skills; Fric and Frac could count to 100. Their younger brother made it to 20 before getting confused. After playtime and lunch, they would have their weekly self-defense class with Mara.

Riley and Annabelle were seated in the living room, enjoying a quiet conversation.

“I’m worried about Frac,” the mother confessed. “He’s taking these separations from Liam harder than the others. I don’t want to punish him for having emotions, but he can’t run around beating up his brothers and calling his mother a heathen!”

Annabelle Parsons carefully sipped her sparkling cider as she considered her friend’s plight. Normally, Annabelle tended to imbibe harder drinks but whenever she visited the Queen, she partook of alcohol-free beverages out of respect for the children.

“Francis loves his father deeply, there’s no doubt about that. Perhaps you and Liam could make a game of it? Maybe a week-long countdown until the day of the trip? And you could have another countdown until his return? Like Christmas, but instead of Santa, it’s Daddy.”

Riley drank sparkling water and lemon. “That’s an excellent suggestion, but how to get my child … all of my children …  to express themselves in healthier ways?”

The Queen adjusted her wig before letting out a heavy breath.

“I want them to be well-adjusted and social, not cooped up in palaces and estates with only adults for socialization. Not saying that being exposed to different levels of experience and maturity isn’t good for them, but they also need time with children their own age, doing regular kid things. They need playmates. They need friends! That’s why I want them in a public school. They can’t rule if they can’t relate!”

“There’s that Beaumont child,” Annabelle reminded her.

Riley looked at her friend in shock. “OH NO! HELLLLL NO! That child is half Walker, half Beaumont and ALL creepy!”

Annabelle snickered. “Well, he is a member of the next generation of Court. Perhaps you can start now sowing goodwill.”

Riley rolled her eyes before laying her head back against the cushion. “I’m going to speak with Liam about a therapist for the twins. Everything about their lifestyle is so … unorthodox, or maybe it’s me that’s not used to it. But thinking counseling can help us help them navigate.”

“I think that’s a brilliant idea,” Miss Parsons encouraged.

“Mommy, I finish!” Fric half-hollered.

A smile came easily to his mother’s lips. “Well, let me come see what masterpiece you’ve created!”

She rose, making her way to the kitchen with Annabelle Parsons close behind. Theodore glanced up and returned to his paper, drawing circles in red crayon. Frac raised his head from his drawing, his eyes meeting his mother’s.

“When is Dada coming home?” he asked sadly. “I want my Dada.”

Riley’s eyes locked with Annabelle’s before returning her gaze to her oldest son. “In two days!” she replied brightly. “And you know what? We can make a game out of it. Want to?”

Day 3

Riley was boiling hotdogs and heating canned barbecue beans for the boys’ lunch. Outside, rain fell steadily; she and the Princes had made it back inside just in time.

After breakfast, Riley had taken the boys to the hedge maze so they could run off excess energy and touch some grass. Until the dark clouds had rolled in and completely discombobulated her sons. All three children had a … thing about getting wet outside of a bathtub.

Her preschoolers were in her and Liam’s bedroom (where they had been since Liam’s departure), playing with blocks. Her toddler was hoisted up on her left hip, watching food cook. Both looked up hopefully when they heard the front door open.

It was Drake.

Both went back to watching hotdogs boil.

“THAT’S the greeting I get?” Drake demanded as he crossed the living room and settled at the kitchen island.

Theodore hugged his mother more tightly. “Hi,” he greeted shyly.

“He’s my moody child,” Riley explained as she used a fork to turn the pinkish meat.

“NO HOLES!” the toddler shrieked in her ear.

Drake looked around the otherwise empty room. “Liam not back yet?”

Riley shook her head. “Tomorrow.”

“Where’d he go again?”

“Dada make rain with skinny witches,” Theodore replied.

“Not what he’s doing, where he is,” Riley corrected. She looked over at her company. “Sweden. Conference on immigration and linguistics resources. We’ll hear all about it at the special Council meeting.”

Drake gave his friend a long, hard look. “You really told your KID that?”

Riley pointedly avoided Drake’s accusatory gaze. “I never said that.” A pause. “Around the boys.”

She set Theodore on the floor. “Go tell your brothers lunch soon, okay?”

Her son nodded his head vigorously as he ran down the hallway.

The Queen turned the burners off on the stove, and began draining boiling water down the drain, careful to keep the hotdogs from spilling out.

“I know you think I’m unconventional, but I’m a good mom. Well, as good as I can be given I was only supposed to be the cool aunt … the auntie mommy as they say in America.”

Drake looked at her thoughtfully; a pensive look shadowed her features.

“Hey, Brooks,” he said softly. “I see all mommy. No auntie.”

Surprised relief lit up her face. “Really?”

“Really. Parenting is always a hit or miss, and I guess it has to be. I mean, there isn’t enough training and skills and experience to raise human beings, right? All you can do is better than what you were taught and use the lessons you’ve learned. At the end of the day, good examples and bad examples can achieve the desired results. Although telling children their fathers are a fictional TV character and a Korean actor, neither who has no idea any of you exist may be pushing boundaries.  But, I’m just the cool uncle talking.”

Riley smiled gratefully. “Thanks, Drake. That means a lot. And for the record, I don’t tell the children that anyone other than Liam is their father. No one has ever heard me tell them that. Liam … that’s a different story. And I did NOT tell the boys that Liam was making it rain with skinny bitches.”

“BB said it was ‘witches’, and you admitted to saying that.”

“SEMANTICS!”

They both turned at the sound of running footsteps.

“Hot dogs, hot dogs!” Fric chanted.

Frac held his stomach as if in pain. “I’m sooooooo hungry!”

As if all of them hadn’t had plates of apple slices and cheese crackers not an hour ago.

Theodore scrambled into his chair at the dining table. “BEANS!”

“Uncle Drake, did you bring us something?” Frac asked after determining his mother was fixing lunch plates.

Drake’s hand ruffled his godson’s hair. “You gotta share, big guy.”

Frac nodded in agreement. “What is it?”

Drake fished in his jean pocket, pulling out a sizable bag of jellybeans. “Here ya go.”

“Eat lunch with us,” Fric demanded as his mother slid a plate of plain, sliced hotdogs and a spoonful of beans in front of him.

Drake’s eyes met Riley’s; she nodded and smiled.

“Okay, deal!”

“And after lunch, you can play with us!” Fric chimed in.

Drake’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. Brooks’ children tended to not play fairly. He was still healing from the trauma of their last game of hide-and-seek in the hedge maze.

“Play what?”

Riely feigned hurt. “I can’t play?” she whined.

“YES! You know you always play with us, Mommy,” Fric replied as he warily inspected a circular piece of meat.

Homecoming

 Riley treaded lightly down the hallway, careful not to wake her children. It was just past 7am, and she both wanted and needed the quiet time to at least get the night’s dinner prepared and in ovens and slow cookers.

Glazed lamb, Chicken Tagine, potatoes au gratin, curried rice, and a vegetable medley. Desserts would be baklava and banana cream pie.

Her husband was coming home today!

She set a bowl of jellybeans and her phone on the kitchen island before rummaging through the refrigerator; the chicken had been marinating overnight, and the lamb had thawed. She placed them both on the kitchen counter, then placed a pod of green tea in the beverage maker.

The machine hissed as it heated water to brew her morning drink. When she heard the door to the quarters open, she didn’t bother looking around. Given the hour, it was Mara.

“Ahem.”

Riley whirled at hearing the familiar baritone.

“LOOOVE!!!” she quietly yelled as she ran to Liam’s waiting arms.

The couple kissed passionately: tongues probing, hands feeling and groping, noses touching. When they finally released the other, both were breathless.

“You’re back early! I was expecting you at dinnertime.”

Liam smiled tenderly as his eyes gazed into hers. “I couldn’t stay away another second.”

He heard the quiet and asked an obvious question. “The children are sleeping?”

Riley nodded. “In our bed.”

“I trust all went well?” he asked as he placed his luggage and bags filled with presents for his family in one of the time-out corners.

His wife was placing a pod of his favorite coffee in the brewer. She nodded.

“You basically know everything. Joelle came over; we were unprepared.”

Liam chuckled. “Where is this portrait she gifted us?

Riley looked over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. “THAT is a drunk date night reveal. It’s the only way it’ll make sense.” She turned back around to grab Liam’s mug.

The King looked over the jellybeans in the bowl and popped one in his mouth.

“And I told you about the boys’ counting prowess, and excitement over the solar system.”

“Krona has a new planetarium opening soon; we should make it a weekend trip for all of us.”

Liam grabbed a handful of the jellybeans this time around; they were delicious, and he was hungry. He hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before.

Riley was blending sugar and sweet Italian cream in their beverages.

“Did you and the boys have fun?” he inquired.

“We need to have a husband/wife, mother/father talk. I’m worried about Frac’s separation anxiety.”

Liam nodded somberly. “I agree. I’ve been thinking about your suggestions; we can discuss now, or this weekend.”

“This weekend will be fine. I won’t have you to myself until then anyway. But we went to the hedge maze, had reading time, and today is facial masks and dance party day!”

“Oh, I came home just in time,” he joked.

“And we played bean butt.”

Liam’s chewing slowed. “What exactly is that?”

Riley slid his mug across the granite countertop; her eyes widened when she saw the candies in her husband’s palm. With her giddiness over Liam’s early return, she forgot to empty the dish's contents in the trash.

She slapped the side of his hand, causing him to spill them.

“DON’T EAT THAT!”

“What’d you do that for?” he demanded angrily, wincing at the stinging on his skin.

“Bean butt? Long story short, I put a whole bag of jellybeans up my ass. One at a time. And then pulled them out."

Liam frowned and looked askance at the bowl. His thoughts tumbled in his brain.

Riley was his wife. His loyal wife.

She was clean. THAT was important.

He had put his tongue in her forbidden places before.

He’d already eaten some!

The King would take the risk. He scooped more.

Riley had her back to him, pulling out breakfast meats and eggs for breakfast.

“Drake played bean butt with us too.”

Liam looked aghast at his palm, and poured his jellybeans back into the bowl as if they were live fire. He then threw the entire bowl in the garbage can.

Welcome home.

Tagging: @jared2612 @marietrinmimi @ao719​​​ @indiacater @kingliam2019​ @bebepac @liamxs-world @mom2000aggie​​​ @liamrhysstalker2020​​​ @twinkleallnight @umccall71 @superharriet @busywoman​​​ @gabesmommie1130 @tessa-liam​​​ @beezm @gardeningourmet​@lovingchoices14 @mainstreetreader @angelasscribbles @lady-calypso @emkay512 @princessleac1 @charlotteg234 @alj4890 @choicesficwriterscreations

[twinkleallnight]

The Stolen Interview

Book: TRR AU

Characters: Rashad x Kiara, Joelle Theron.

Word count: ~2000+

Disclaimer: All characters belong to pixelberry.

Rating: Mature

Warning: Fluff

Prompt: prompt 1 by @choicesflashfics in bold

: Day 1 of @kiaratheronappreciationweek

Special thank you @lizzybeth1986 for brainstorming and the valuable inputs.

The warm sun rays of spring, sieved through the white clouds on the Castelsarreillan abode that nested the Theron family.

A pleasant breeze traversed through the windows of the library to flutter the pages of “Geetanjali” by Rabindranath Tagore, a book the youngest Theron, Kiara, was engrossed into.

As if just on cue, her phone chimed to distract her further. Her brown eyes fell on the known name flashing on the screen, bringing a smile on her face. She pushed her owl-shaped bookmark on the page she was reading and swiped the green button on her phone.

“Bonjour!” she chirped.

“Hello and sorry to disturb your reading hours.” The sultry male voice replied.

“How do you know that I am reading?”

“A little bird gave away your secrets to me.”

“Have you been spying on me?” Kiara questioned.

“Nah, just been observing you. What are you reading?”

“Geetanjali.”

“Oooh! You seem to be inclined to the east.”

“Since our last discussion. You have piqued my interest in that culture.” Kiara confessed honestly.

“And here I thought the interest was in a handsome brainy guy.”

Kiara giggled, “Someone has too many wrong notions about himself.”

“I guess I can challenge the smart lady of Castelsarreillan.”

“Bet!” she almost jumped in excitement.

“Okay. Accepted. Open the doors then.”

Kiara looked at the closed ornate doors of the library in surprise. She rushed to open the doors and found Rashad beaming at her, phone still against his ear.

“Bonne soirée ma dame!” he flashed the widest smile.

“Aadaab!” She cupped her hand raising it to her forehead to greet him.

“Your way or my way, it’s a lovely evening.”

“It surely is. Please come in.” She walked him in. “What brings you here, today?”

“I am here to meet your mother on my father’s behalf. I dropped in a bit early to catch up with you.”

“I am glad you did.”

He saw the book she was reading, “How are you finding this one?”

“It’s a unique experience. I haven’t read much of your culture before this.”

“This is just a part of my culture, you may say. Every time I visited India with Ma, I discovered a new treasure chest.”

“Like?” she raised her brows. Rashad loved this particular expression of hers. It made her eyes look like two big brown balls shining, bewildered.

He bit on his lip to hide his emotions and then continued, “English, French, Swiss, German etcetera. They all collectively form the European culture. Similarly, there are regional divisions that come under the roof of Indian culture.”

“Does Tagore come from your region?”

Rashad shook his head. “No, he is from the neighbouring land of Bengal. He was a Nobel laureate. Ma introduced his poems to me. She had a Pandora box of stories.”

“I love listening to those tales. I wish I could have met her in person.” Kiara expressed sincerely.

Rashad pursed his lips at the mention of his mother but then quickly changed the topic. “I would love nothing more than to spoil you with attention, but it’s going to have to wait until later. How about you come along with me for my meeting with your mother?”

“That sounds good. Just give me a moment.”

Kiara picked her book and neatly arranged it in a stack on the right. Rashad made a quick note of the titles she had placed on that rack. He knew she had a habit of arranging her “to read” books there. And he didn’t want to miss the opportunity to discuss and debate the reviews with her. He enjoyed following what she read and the talks that followed. Sometimes he quietly would push a book to her to gain her views about it. He was in awe of her intellectual prowess of varied subjects.

***************”*

Duchess Joelle Theron’s studio

“What do you think? Is this, okay? Am I looking good?” Rashad whispered while adjusting his tie maybe the tenth time.

Kiara swatted at his hand. “Stop fidgeting.”

Rashad’s eyes widened at her gesture.

Kiara gave a playful smile to lighten his mood, “You look handsome. As always.” She pinched his cheek and pulled it.

Rashad squealed, “Ouch.” And started rubbing on his stubble where she had pulled so hard.

Kiara covered her mouth with her hand to hide her laughter.

Rashad cleared his throat and adjusted his pose when he heard his two workmen lumbering down the hall with a heavy life-size painting in their hands.

“What is this?” Kiara gasped.

“You will see.” Rashad swelled up his chest with pride. “A small gift from the duchy of Domavallier for Castelsarreillan.” He guided the men to place the painting against a wall.

Just then Joelle, Kiara’s mother walked in

“Good evening, Lord Rashad.”

“Good evening, your grace. Please call me Rashad.”

“Rashad.” She smiled. Rashad looked from her to Kiara in amazement.

“What’s wrong?” Her brows furrowed.

“Oh, it’s nothing, your grace. Just that I realised where Lady Kiara’s bright smile comes from.”

Joelle narrowed her eyes, “I don’t know whether I should be flattered by your compliment to me or worry about your keen interest in my daughter’s smile.”

Rashad lowered his eyes to the floor. “My apologies.”

Joelle laughed, making Kiara jump with surprise. “Do you think these old bones can’t do some teasing?”

Rashad rubbed the back of his neck nervously. ‘This isn’t going well,’ he thought.

“So, what have we got here?” She pointed at the covered painting.

Rashad quickly stepped forward to unveil his gift, “It’s a small token from us on occasion of the upcoming flower festival in your duchy.”

He lifted the covers and Kiara drew in a breath. “Its Raja Ravi Varma’s painting!” She exclaimed.

It depicted a lady standing against a pillar plucking a lone flower in her hand. It looked like words were frozen on her lips. She was standing in anticipation. Her other hand caressed the tender petals of the pink flower while a man quietly stared at her from the other side of the pillar. He seemed to be mesmerized by her beauty. His expressions showed as if he was waiting for a reply from her.

Joelle gave her an astonished look. “You know about this famous Indian artist?”

“Of course, Maman. Raja Ravi Varma remains the most renowned painter of the 19th century from Travancore, India.”

Joelle addressed Rashad. “You must be knowing that He was a royal.”

“Yes,” he momentarily looked at Kiara, “Raja means King.” Giving the polyglot feed for the day, he shifted back to Joelle, “he belonged to a kingdom that interestingly followed the matrilineal system.”

Kiara pitched in, “They still follow matriarchy in few of those regions.”

Joelle nodded, a small smile on her lips. “What do you know about this painting, dear?”

“Maman, this painting is titled ‘The stolen interview’ a hushed moment between two lovers. Varma was famous for combining European techniques and Indian style in his work.

Joelle raised her chin, “I am impressed Kiki. When and where did you collect all that knowledge of Indian art?”

“Ummm, Rashad mentioned it from one of his tours to India.” She sheepishly looked at Rashad while he tried to hide the blush in vain.

Joelle gave Rashad an approving nod. “Rashad, please convey my regards to your father. This is the most beautiful and unexpected gift. I will treasure it for my lifetime.”

“The pleasure is all mine.” Rashad bowed his head with respect.

“Hakim will be here in an hour. Kiki, why don’t you give Rashad a tour of our vineyard in the meanwhile?”

“Sure, Maman.”

“See you soon, your grace.” Rashad scurried behind Kiara.

Joelle nodded; her eyes fixed on the painting.

Kiara guided Rashad out of the hall. Joelle turned to look at their receding figures. Her lips curled up in a knowing smile.

“Phew!” Rashad released a breath that he unknowingly was holding back. He loosened the knot of his tie and wiped the sweat beads from his forehead.

Kiara gave him a questioning look.

“How did that go?” He had his hands on his hips.

“What?” Kiara asked, confused.

“Nothing,” he waved off his hand. “You won’t understand.”

Kiara shrugged her shoulders and started walking.

Rashad matched her steps. “By the way I had just mentioned the art of Raja Ravi Varma. You went into the depth of the subject.”

“And I have you to thank for all that detailed study.”

“Me? How?”

“I picked up the book about the artist co-authored by Eric and Christian from your study.” She revealed.

Rashad stopped in his tracks and turned to her, his jaw hanging open.

“What is it?” Kiara gazed into his dark eyes.

“Lady! You never cease to amaze me.”

“I can’t help when someone raises my curiosity like that. So, I read all about his life, his work, his lithography.”

Rashad shook his head, smiling, “Did someone ever tell you that you are a walking encyclopaedia?”

Kiara strutted ahead proudly, “I like that Nickname.”

“Look at you gloating now! Are you going to fill me up with details about the vineyards too?”

“Now that you asked for it, I may.” She stretched out her hand, “This way my Lord.”

Rashad dramatically bowed, “After you milady.”

They both laughed at their silly act and walked down to the vineyards.

Joelle stood in the window watching them tread away. Hakim joined her, “Sorry, I am late. What are you looking at Jo.” He followed her gaze. “Is that Lord Rashad with Kiara?”

Joelle smiled and nodded. “Our daughter seems to be making some smart choices.”

*******************

In the vineyards

Kiara was busy explaining the quality of the fruit, the terroir, the production and storage process while Rashad heard out keenly. He plucked a few tiny flowers that grew on the winding path.

“They are like rose pearls, embedded into the green gown of the landscape.”

“What a poetic way of defining it. Here.” He handed out a flower to her.

“Thank you.” She gladly accepted it.

They came across a clearing that looked upon the valley.

“And this,” Kiara stretched out her arms, “is my favorite place.”

They both stood looking at the serenity before them. The soft breeze brought waft of the fresh crop every now and then.

After sometime Rashad turned to look at Kiara. She was still holding the flower he gave her. Her other hand caressing the petals while she kept looking in the distance.

“The stolen interview.” He said softly.

“What?” She shifted her focus to him.

He pointed at the flower in her hand. “The way you are holding and touching it, reminded me of the lady in the painting.”

Kiara shook her head, making light of it.

“Kiara?”

She searched his eyes in anticipation.

“I don’t want to stand on the other side of the pillar and keep stealing moments to watch you. I want to be on your side of the pillar.”

Kiara looked out at the valley again.

“Rashad, can you see the end of the land from here?” She questioned him, instead of replying to his words.

Rashad turned his attention to the valley too. He knew this was not going to be an easy conversation. “It’s a breath-taking beauty. What a vast expanse, as if it’s never ending.”

“That’s what attracts me the most. I want my life to be just like that. I want to keep exploring, learning, growing, crossing new horizons every passing year. I…I don’t know if …you….”

“I would love to be a part of such a journey.” Rashad stretched out his hand, palm opening to her.

Kiara looked at his inviting hand. She reflected on the time since she had known him. He encouraged her, he competed with her. He challenged her, he channelled her. His patience around difficult situations, his maturity in dealing with matters of state and his witty replies.

She turned to look at the valley again. He clearly gave her every chance to learn, explore and grow. She didn’t realize when she had grown fond of his company.

Rashad’s heart was pounding hard. Had he hurried through it all? In an attempt to strengthen the bonds, was he going to lose a good friend? She had turned to look away from him. She was now looking at the valley. That’s it. That’s the end. He closed his eyes, finding it difficult to face the truth. He slowly retrieved his hand….when he felt her slender fingers. His eyes snapped open.

Kiara had discreetly slipped her hand in his, though she was still gauzing the skies above the valley.

Rashad held her hand and matched her gaze. A subtle smile played on his lips. They both stood facing the valley silently, in their own moment of a stolen interview.

Tags: @3pawandme @alj4890 @angelasscribbles @bascmve01 @bebepac @busywoman @choicesficwriterscreations @dcbbw @gkittylove99 @harleybeaumont @iaminlovewithtrr @karahalloway @kingliam2019 @lizzybeth1986 @lovingchoices14 @nestledonthaveone @neotericthemis @mom2000aggie @phoenixrising0308 @princess-geek @riseandshinelittleblossom @sazanes @secretaryunpaid @sfb123 @sillydg @tessa-liam @tinkie1973 @txemrn @walkerdrakewalker @yourmajesty09

[choicesflashfics]

Week 21 Prompts:

“I would love nothing more than to spoil you with attention, but it’s going to have to wait until later.”

“I look at you and my heart breaks because all I see is loneliness.”

“You know I don’t have the self control for that.”

Keep Your Head Up - @txemrn (The Royal Romance)

The Stolen Interview - @twinkleallnight (The Royal Romance; Rashad x Kiara, Joelle Theron)

Loving a Polyglot - @twinkleallnight (The Royal Romance; Rashad x Kiara)

Fever - @delightfullysweet (The Royal Romance; Liam x F!MC)

The Vampires Live On: Part 3 - @bebepac (The Royal Romance; Liam x F!MC)

[griffinsabina]

[moodmusicmonday]

Y'all... the vibe of this playlist this week... it's just a complex of feels, and I'm in love with it! You NEED to check it out... no, for real. The whole thing. Put it on while you work, clean, study, drive, etc... it's so, so good!

We have some new faces this week, which makes us soooo super duper excited! Welcome, welcome! We're glad you jumped in! And of course to our regulars, I hope you know by now how much we LOOOOOVE you! We get so giddy when we see your familiar name pop up! We love out MMM family! 💜

Now... support one another if and where you can!

We'll see y'all next week!

~🎵~

@bebepac

The Rotten Apple, Chapter 10: Home Away From Home [TRH and beyond; Liam x Riley; Eleanor x m!OC (Nico)]

“Easy on Me” - Adele

“Goodbyes” - Post Malone ft. Young Thug

@kat-tia801

“Ghosts” - BANNERS; Birthright, Part 6:  How They Turned Our Dreams into Dust (TRR; Liam Rys x f!OC)

@lizzybeth1986

“As We Go Along” - The Monkees; Eleanor’s Kitchen, Chapter 3:  Djaj M’qualli [TRR/TRH; no romantic pairings; Queen Eleanor x Duchess Joelle Theron (platonic); Prince Liam x Lady Kiara Theron (platonic)]

@marshmallowsandfire

“Who You Are” - Kurt Hugo Schneider & Anna Clendening; All I Ask, Part 1: I Will Leave My Heart at the Door  (TRR; Drake Walker x f!MC)

@queenrileyrose

“Berenstein” - The Band CAMINO; Searching for Deliverance, a follow-up to Would’ve Gave It All [TRR AU; Leo Rys x f!OC (Riley)]

~🎵~

Tags (please let us know if you'd like to be added/removed):

@21-wishes @alj4890 @ao719 @atsuinawa @aussiegurl1234 @axwalker @bebepac @burnsoslow @charlotteg234 @chemist-ana @choicesmonthlychallenge @foreverethereal123 @issabees @jerzwriter @karahalloway @kat-tia801 @lovingchoices14 @marshmallowsaremyfavorite @neotericthemis @nestledonthaveone @peonierose @queenrileyrose @quixoticdreamer16 @sfb123 @socalwriterbee @tessa-liam @twinkleallnight @txemrn @walkerdrakewalker @zaffrenotes

[jicklet]

The people hating on Kiara for "going after" Drake always made me feel a little insane because she was so...mild about it?? And you show it here, at most, she's kind to him and gets a little flustered when he looks nice. Have these people never had a crush before? Bizarro land.

Thank you for writing these, I think I'm so used to rewriting questionable chunks of this series in my head anyway, that I skate over some of the less blatant bs without marking it. I especially appreciate the sections where you consider how these pairings might've worked if things had gone differently, it's an interesting thought experiment.

With all the drama among everyone else, Kiara was always refreshingly straightforward to me. You didn't have snark to snark combat or mind games like Olivia or Madeline, you didn't have to coddle her like Penelope, Kiara just told you where she stood and I went, thanks for letting me know, I can work with that!

I just replayed and it's wild how in Kiara's home, it's not only that it's suddenly about this brand new brother, they have her exit stage left almost immediately. I was looking forward to learning more about her and, now she's barely even here? And her family was fascinating!! Her dad the logical diplomat, her mom the free-spirited artist, and they're both clearly still so in love. What's not to like?

Drake and Kiara: When You're Fucking Racist

Series - TRR's Alternative LIs - The "Romances" that Didn't Happen

Previous - Hana and Madeleine: When You Reward Your Favourite Bully with One of Her Victims

A/N: Again, apologies for the length. There was a LOT to unpack in this one!! I'm really, really not going to be nice to Drake here. It was harrowing to go through a lot of these scenes again and I honestly don't have the patience or inclination to sugarcoat any of it.

CW: Mentions of gun violence and minimization of trauma. Mentions of racist fan vitriol towards a black character. Examination of the Jezebel stereotype.

Whenever I think about how unhinged the hatred towards Kiara (and especially towards Kiara's attraction to Drake) was, a specific edit comes to mind.

On the surface, it looks quite simple. Kiara in a white wedding dress, Drake right next to her in his blue formal suit. Both of them are smiling at the viewer. The background is a beautiful forest, and the entire picture is bathed in a lovely, muted sepia tone. A sweet, simple wedding scene.

The caption underneath this edit?

Classify under things no one asked for.

Kiara's dream come true!

The tags read "#i barf a little looking at this" and "#i must post to share the suffering". You find out in the comments that the OP created this edit inspired by one of the many fics where Kiara was Drake's stalker, and intended to make her creepy and deranged (but ultimately failed).

The comments are...tbh, things that this fandom has long since normalized and shrugged at when it comes to Drake stans. Multiple puke-face emojis. Multiple gifs signaling disgust. One stan even equates the ship name (Driara) to the word diarrhoea.

"She looks very stalkeresque and white "I drugged Drake so he's marrying me" wedding ready!"

"Well it's close to Halloween so we should expect scary shit"

"THAT is why I made that bitch my Maid of Honor...so she got the message LOUD AND CLEAR...it ain't NEVER gonna happen honey" (right below a barfing gif)

I wish I could say this example of Kiara hatred was the worst of the lot, or even the only one. It wasn't. I'm not sure even an entire essay would be adequate space to explore the sheer levels of vitriol, hatred and double standards dumped on this one character.

Until now, we've seen examples of alternative LIs that were treated with respect. With adulation. Often with kid gloves in case we hurt their poor lill fee-fees. Up until now, no matter what an alternative LI may have done, the LI matched with them wasn't allowed to treat them badly, nor was the MC able to get away with hurting them without punishment.

But in this series, Kiara was, is, and will always be an anomaly.

The Jezebel Stereotype

In most media, black women in particular tend to be subjected to a variety of stereotypes that often have serious, real-world implications. The Mammy, the Sapphire (that over time evolved to what we now know as the "Angry Black Woman" stereotype) and the Jezebel, being the most prominent ones among them. In this essay, I will be focusing specifically on the last.

An article in the Black Then website explains the definition and history of the trope this: "The portrayal of black women as lascivious by nature is an enduring stereotype. The descriptive words associated with this stereotype are singular in their focus: seductive, alluring, worldly, beguiling, tempting, and lewd. Historically, white women, as a category, were portrayed as models of self-respect, self-control, and modesty – even sexual purity, but black women were often portrayed as innately promiscuous, even predatory. This depiction of black women is signified by the name Jezebel."

So it isn't altogether uncommon to see stories where black women are juxtaposed against "pure", "innocent" white/white-passing women, and viewed as lesser. PB hasn't exactly escaped these stereotypes in their stories either - though there are a variety of characters and character types, we can't deny that there was a time when a black woman was made the antagonist, often in ways that were meant to measure her up to the MC/another white woman to her detriment.

(VoS screenshots from the HIMEME YouTube channel, ACOR screenshots from Vika Avey's YouTube channel)

Two very prominent examples of PB using this trope are Scarlett from VoS, and Xanthe from ACOR. There are other black women who serve as antagonists but in a more professional space, but these two particularly are measured on their attractiveness, sex appeal and "purity" in the narrative in comparison to either the MC, or someone close to them.

In VoS, Scarlett Emerson and Kate O'Malley are the sisters of the two male LIs (Grant and Flynn), but their treatment couldn't be any more different. Scarlett's role in the book is pretty short-lived. She's very prominent in the first half of the book as Kate's potential MOH who secretly hates her, before it's revealed in Ch 5 that Tanner was cheating on Kate with her (and that she'd loved him since she was a child). Notably, in that very scene, the MC places most of the blame on Scarlett (rather than on Tanner for choosing to betray his fiancée) by labelling the act as her seduction of him.

Thereafter she is either only mentioned, or has blink-and-you-miss-it appearances in one or two chapters. We see her in the "memory" portion of the bonus scene, but we are never shown what her future is like (even as minor characters like Miss Harleney get one!). Her bonus scene shows us how her bracelet ended up on Tanner's boat, and it is an uncomfortable scene to get through. Tanner berates Scarlett for having sex with him a week before his wedding, but it is she who points out that he asked her to come there! Yet the MC and others view her as the temptress who "seduced" Tanner, as if the man had no mind of his own.

The narrative often juxtaposes her with Kate, the pure, innocent, sweet fiancée (and she actually is! No pretence there) and the fandom lapped it up. There were many demands for Kate to be upgraded to LI status, which eventually resulted in PB allowing us to marry her if we chose. As I mentioned earlier, both Scarlett and Kate are sisters to two of our LIs - but one is made an LI, while no one bothers to even imagine what the other's future entails.

An even worse fate greets that of Xanthe, the sole female antagonist in ACOR. The slut-shaming and disgust over her overt sexuality is far more blatant here. And it is extremely ironic for Xanthe to be viewed in this way, because the MC herself is a courtesan and uses wiles to get men to do her bidding. While Xanthe herself is not perfect by any means - she is depicted as xenophobic and callous, going as far as to mock Syphax when he is sent away to a possible death as a gladiator - the MC's targeting of her goes beyond just her "righteous indignation" and develops into a form of hypocrisy. She has no qualms mocking Xanthe for her direct approach or her skimpy red dress (even though the MC herself wears a skimpy red dress and can seduce a man in a temple not too long after).

The end Xanthe meets is horrific in its implications - the black matron of her scholae (who began by promising the MC herself that "you need do nothing against your will") sends her away to sexual slavery in Sicily, while the black man who was one of the few bastions of morality in the book, escorts her, smiling, to the ship that will take her there. As far as the narrative is concerned, the end was well-deserved...even though PB has had no issues allowing white women to do far worse without any punishment.

We cannot view what ACOR did with Xanthe in isolation. They had built up to it early on - from the MC's reactions towards her, her patrons' dismissiveness of her, the MC's LIs' viewing her with derision and zero respect. The MC - despite her own unscrupulousness - is viewed as the "noble whore" to Xanthe, yet it is clear on even a surface read that there is not much difference between the two women.

The Jezebel stereotype, ultimately, is about dehumanizing the black woman it focuses on, so that her actions and choices are viewed as deviant from what is "normal" - feeding into either responses of disgust and derision, or a desire to objectify her. To some readers, it makes whatever awful or comparatively unfair end they meet, more palatable. Scarlett and Xanthe are not viewed as people by the narrative - especially not the way the MC of their books or even white female antagonists are. No one cares for their backstories, coos over their losses, wonders if they are okay. When they meet their inevitable end, the characters and so many in the fandom alike just shrug and move along.

How does a character like Kiara fit into this? Her smarts and linguistic talents are her most prominent traits, and while she does have feelings for Drake, she never really acts out-of-pocket towards him (more on this later). So at least from what we see in canon, there's very little about her that seems to apply to the Jezebel stereotype. Yet, the fandom is not only inclined, but eager, to view her as one. Kiara's feelings have been viewed in a far more predatory light, perhaps more often than any other female character in the series. Why is this so?

A response I have often seen - on reddit, on Kiara's wiki page, at times on Tumblr too - is how there is a "certain something" about Kiara that people "just don't like". Many players who prefer Penelope to her are often very aware of what she has done, but still insist they like her far more than they do Kiara. On a reddit thread about questioning the logic of having Kiara and Penelope as options for the MC's MOH in TRR3, certain players commented thus:

"I don't know why, I just dislike her a lot. Penelope is fine to me, but Kiara irritates me." (said commenter is an Aerin stan)

"I liked Penelope, I thought she was nice. But Kiara got on my nerves."

In her book, The Sisters Are Alright, Tamara Winfrey Harris makes an eye-opening (to me at least!) observation about how misogynoir works:

"Misogynoir, abetted by dehumanizing caricature, is like water. It fills its vessel, taking many forms, and then overflows, creeping unnoticed into the cracks of things, rotting the foundation. It spreads a belief in Black women’s inherent wrongness." (Italics mine).

Now of course, if I were to ask the current fandom, they would come up with a range of reasons. Some that emerged from fandom myths and became more popular than the truth in time, some from PB's excessive pandering to players that hated her. But the root of it all is in a certain "je ne sais quoi" that makes her automatically unappealing, resulting in those readers leaning towards misreading or misremembering her scenes, misrepresenting her motives, or watering down the impact of worse actions from whiter women. It results in a group of writers (who have thus far gone to the extent of retconning the worst of a white woman's actions just to make her look good) leaning into such readings, even when they're not true.

TRR1 Kiara: Pragmatic Courtier or Backstabbing Snake?

"Kiara is fake", "Kiara is a snob", "Kiara is self-serving", "Kiara promised to be friends with us but dropped us like a hot potato the moment we became unpopular". These are some of the most enduring takes about Kiara in the past few years, and readers who say this usually bring up a vague recollection of TRR1 and 2 as proof. Mostly that "Kiara was our friend" in the first book, and left us hanging at the beginning of TRR2.

Is that reading based in fact, though? Let's take a look at TRR1!Kiara and find out.

We are introduced to Kiara (along with Penelope, and standing next to Hana) in TRR3 when we meet Liam's other suitors. Olivia introduces each woman differently, and the descriptor she uses for Kiara is that she is the "daughter of a diplomat and fluent in ten languages" (note: Kiara never boasts of her linguistic skill, Olivia does. Nor are there any scenes of her looking down on anyone who doesn't speak her mother tongue French, unless of course you accidentally ask her to sleep with you).

Both she and Penelope note immediately that the MC doesn't quite fit in - if the MC questions the women about being allies with Olivia, a woman who calls them "harpies", they view that as an overreaction. When the MC tells the ladies at the Derby about getting lost, Kiara finds her tardiness and inability to fit in, a sign that she cannot keep up with the competition. Until the chapters in Lythikos, Kiara's and Penelope's characterizations are almost interchangeable, personality-wise. It is likely the team envisioned them more as European nobility rather than specifically Cordonian (based on Olivia's introductions), and they are both depicted as poised, refined and aware of their place in court.

It's in Lythikos that Kiara, at least, begins to show a more distinct personality (for Penelope it's after the Regatta). Unlike the rest of the court, who watches Olivia's unwanted kiss on Liam with either mild shock or disinterest, Kiara is angered by what she sees as a very obvious power-play - which gives the MC the opening she needs to gain an alliance.

Now this "alliance" scene of Kiara's is interesting, for two reasons. One is that fandom often uses this scene to establish her "double standards" in TRR2, claiming that Kiara opted to be friends with the MC. Yet nowhere in the scene does the MC or Kiara ever suggest a friendship with each other - they both agree to an alliance. Furthermore, this is an arrangement that benefits the MC more - there isn't exactly anything she contributes (or is expected to contribute) to Kiara from her end. Kiara's promise is that she will put in a good word in the MC's favour, and she upholds that promise throughout the social season.

Another is that among the courtiers, Kiara herself is the first person to identify and respond to the MC's potential if she shows it at the Derby and the tea party (though Hana is also a courtier, I view her strictly as an LI in this context - since her support is by default and is founded on a more emotional basis). Not many nay notice this, but there is a distinction between how Kiara responds to an MC in a successful play vs a failplay...in a way that none of the other suitors do. Take note of the screenshots below:

The top two pictures in this collage are dialogues that feature by default. The bottom two, however, are dependent on branch-coding. They only appear IF the MC has managed to win the approval of the King, the Queen and the press. If you don't succeed in the same, she will not mention your performance in the social season at all, nor will she say anything about the value of your alliance.

That is a far bigger deal than most players of this series realize. It means that Kiara has been watching us closely, and has understood our potential over the course of just three court events. Only two other characters are shown tracking our progress this way: Bertrand (who is our sponsor, so he has to keep track) and Queen Regina (who can guess already her stepson's feelings for the MC, which automatically makes her a person of interest). For Kiara to understand the MC's capabilities, and to openly admit she has potential this early in the competition - it takes a high level of rationality, honesty and pragmatism to come to such a conclusion. Unlike Olivia (who lashes out in jealousy at the MC), Penelope (who has to be told why exactly it's good to have allies), and Madeleine (who dismisses us as competition until it's too late), Kiara actually views the MC with a discerning, impartial eye and an objective approach.

So on the surface, it appears as if Kiara is written by a team that likes her! You could almost be convinced that they thought she was cool but were forced to pander to "crazy Drake stans" in their writing later (which is an argument I have heard often). After all, she's established as beautiful, skilled, smart and observant. You wouldn't do that for a character you don't like, right?

But even as early as TRR1, a disdain for Kiara creeps in from the writing that you rarely see for any of the others.

This is especially apparent when you look at how Kiara's proficiency with language is spoken about. It is supposed to be her most visible skill - Olivia identifies her by it, we see her peppering her English sentences with French words (of course, many may argue that she doesn't exactly sound like an actual French person...but let's remember that her writers aren't exactly very used to the language themselves or interested in doing extra research for authenticity!). As we approach the end of the first book, there are at least two dialogue options that result in people doubting her abilities or mocking her for speaking only English and French most of the time.

In TRR1 Ch 16, Madeleine optionally speaks to the MC over phone (believing her to be a reporter taking her interview) about her thoughts on Kiara. Kiara's tendency to speak mostly in French and English is supposed to be a sign that she "exaggerates her accomplishments". Mind you, this is from the same woman who claims to be the best choice for Cordonia despite her poor strategies and her antagonizing potential allies during the engagement tour (TRR2); who complains if the MC doesn't compliment her for mediocre work as a press sec (TRR3). The MC can also choose to diss Kiara in a similar way, treating Kiara like she is a circus performer and her skills as if they are meant for the MC's entertainment. The only solace I could derive from this dumpster fire of a dialogue option, was that Kiara managed to shut the MC up with her multilingual response.

No other time are we allowed to call a courtier's abilities and skills into question. The MC accepts on faith that Olivia is a badass with great fighting skills. Same with Penelope's ability as a seamstress. The MC is never even allowed to have legitimate complaints about Madeleine's work as press sec, besides maybe that she could "be a little nicer". So the fact that the writers not only have other characters doubt Kiara's talent, but also allow people to mock her about it in all three books...is really something.

Another possible indicator of this disdain is the fact that Kiara is the only suitor who never gets a chance to actually interact with Liam on-screen. Even Penelope, a fellow minor character, can approach and talk to him twice...and her gift to him is shown in Ch 18 whereas Kiara's and Hana's aren't. Despite the fact that Kiara is a potential suitor, the story never allows her to interact with Liam. She doesn't exactly have any interactions with Drake in this book either, but honestly nor does any other couple have much time together besides Liam and Olivia.

Drake and Kiara hardly seemed to be a possibility back in TRR1. Drake himself didn't seem to associate with anyone besides the MC and the group in the first book (and even with the group his interactions were infrequent). Kiara herself doesn't have many scenes that aren't related to the court or to the competition, even once she is no longer participating. The closest she comes to any sort of association besides Penelope, is a friendship with Hana that begins sometime before the Fox Hunt. Drake and Kiara never actually have any scenes together, or interactions, or references. It is likely that the idea to pair them up was entirely a Book 2 thing.

On a fandom level, neither Kiara or Penelope garnered much attention or fan reactions. They weren't noticed much, nor did you see their scenes too often. Probably that is why it was so damn easy to remember Kiara's entire equation with the MC wrong. Why certain stans of the book were able to get away with misrepresenting the relationship between her and the MC in TRR1, to hate on her in TRR2. I will not deny, though, that certain dialogue choices from PB (like "I thought we were friends!" in the Fydelia scene) may have had a hand in those beliefs becoming the "truth".

TRR2 Kiara - Pragmatic Courtier or Backstabbing Snake (Part 2)

I plan to get into the way the Drake and Kiara angle is framed in canon, but before that it's important to tackle that one elephant in the room - Kiara telling the MC the alliance is over. Because very often, people used this scene (coupled with their misinterpretations of Book 1) as their "justification" to hate her. Often, people would choose the ruder options (such as the Christmas card dialogue) and assume that Kiara was rude by default, rather than as a consequence of the MC's behaviour towards her.

Kiara and Penelope are the first to express surprise at the MC's return (and their reactions are shown as representative of the rest of the court). Kiara in fact is shocked that the MC dared to return (which is kinda warranted! Several people in these early chapters view that as a risky move, a gamble that could backfire on her. That's why Bertrand gets her a press secretary). Their scene with the MC immediately follows the MC's conversation with Liam and Madeleine (and mind you, in the option where the MC can tell her she was set up, Madeleine herself voices disbelief of the same. Conveniently, this is never used as a reason to hate her). Both women let the MC know of their change in status, and therefore the change in their relationship with her.

What gets missed overall, is that Kiara is a lady-in-waiting (which is an actual role with specific duties) to Madeleine, which means her loyalty now has to lie with this woman whether she likes it or not. For her to even agree to approach the MC and explain the situation, is a risk. In at least two dialogue options in this scene, she tells the MC straight-up that they will be in trouble if they're even seen talking to her (this becomes a moot point by Ch4, mostly because Madeleine herself is shown talking to the MC and allowing her into conversations in public, once Hana arrives).

Penelope is often viewed in a better light in this scene because of her obvious friendliness and her sadness at no longer being the MC's friend, but once you have the reveal of her being a traitor, her behaviour in this scene seems wildly disingenuous, and I'm surprised more people didn't call her a fake when the reveal came out. She had to know the allegations against the MC were fake when she rushed to hug her, having been an integral part of that fabrication. It makes her lament when she's caught, in the failplay, ("I can't do anything right. You were never supposed to find out!") that much more chilling. She is eager to have the benefit of the MC's friendship and emotional support, without ever being honest about her role in smearing her reputation.

The other was that - no matter what you may choose to think of this scene - Kiara was placing herself at risk to let the MC know it was over. Approaching the MC was the right thing to do, but what is never spoken about is the fact that it was also a brave thing to do. Rather than ghost the pariah of the court and never give an explanation, she tells her honestly what the situation is, and strives to protect her impulsive friend (who could get both of them in trouble) at the same time.

When you view Kiara's actions from that lens - when you look at the facts - suddenly the claims that Kiara was "fake", "a flip-flopper", "a backstabber", "unscrupulous and self-serving", sound pretty hollow.

TRR2: The Drake x Kiara "Romance" Begins...and So Does the Vitriol

So...an interesting thing about the general reaction to Kiara in the early chapters of TRR2. I was new to the fandom when this book was released. There was an annoyance at Kiara when the first chapter came out, but to my surprise it didn't exactly become full-blown hatred until she started showing an interest in Drake in Ch 3.

This book is often used as a reference by Drake stans when they speak of Kiara as an obsessed, stalker-type, sex-hungry woman - often in contrast to their "pure", "innocent" MCs. Basically...the Jezebel. But the five scenes we see of this ship in the book itself tell a completely different story:

1. Drake Helps Kiara Lift A Heavy Beam (TRR2 Ch 3)

Chapter 3 is perhaps the first time we see an indication of Kiara's attraction to Drake on a physical level. The scene takes place at the barn raising, but only if we choose to stay with Drake over Hana for the barn raising activities. Kiara shows up in a rather pitiable state - her friend Penelope abandoned her for thirty whole minutes, leaving her to lift incredibly heavy beams alone. Drake helps Kiara and mildly chides her for not asking for his help, and Kiara stares at his bare chest, mesmerized.

She isn't exactly alone in this - the MC herself ogles at his bare chest at one point (if we go by the lines in the narrative that read "his muscles glisten in the sunlight" which is def from the MC's PoV). This scene was meant as fanservice for stans who wanted to drool over Drake's physique for a bit, and belatedly build up an alternative (at least for all three male LIs, they were trying to do this in TRR2).

The MC can either point out Kiara's obvious attraction towards Drake, or suspect her of being part of the plot. This will not be the last time the MC or the group will view her with suspicion, with little to no basis in fact. In the option that calls attention to Kiara's attraction to Drake, she is shown covertly sneaking a second look at him. Drake is shown with a visible discomfort at even the idea that Kiara could like him, one that only the MC notices considering she is working in proximity with him.

The reaction to this was instantaneous from several Drake x MC shippers. One or two glances at Drake's chest was enough for Drake stans to begin typing posts in capslock, screaming "BACK OFF KIARA HE'S MINE". The excuses given at the time were that the MC didn't get much opportunity to romance him (Drake was trying to refrain from kissing her in Ch 2 because he felt guilty), and largely-inaccurate judgements of Kiara's character. Jealousy of this kind is sometimes seen as the norm when you have a popular ship and a third angle is created, but this was about to take form in some...very disturbing ways in later chapters.

2. Kiara was Once Savannah's Friend/Kiara's long-standing crush on Drake (Ch 4)

A misconception I often see in the fandom (particularly in relation to how Kiara's feelings for Drake aren't given the same level of consideration that Olivia's for Liam is) is that Olivia's are "more genuine", and Kiara's are "mere lust" or "only physical" and this is probably why she's not given as much respect as Olivia was. Even though, tbh, Kiara was far, far more respectful of Drake and his personal space, than Olivia was of Liam in TRR1.

Leaving aside the obvious problems with that train of thought (viewing sexual feelings as "lesser" just because they're not rooted in some intense emotion), this is not even true, and the first part of the Driara garden party scene is proof enough. Kiara says, straight up, that Drake had been "such a good friend to [Liam]. It's part of why I always liked you." (Bold mine). If the MC voices doubts about this (likely incorporated for readers who would question it as a retcon...and it was a retcon since they didn't interact in TRR1), Kiara tells her that she doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve, which actually matches her practical approach to most things. In fact just a few scenes earlier, when the MC questioned her about wanting a husband (when she'd mentioned earlier about wanting to join the ministry), Kiara informs her that it would never hurt to have both. So it makes sense for her character if she's someone who kept her feelings for Drake a secret, especially while in a competition for winning the Crown Prince's hand. But we cannot, in any honest capacity, claim that Kiara's feelings for Drake weren't deep enough, or lasting enough, or genuine enough. At least based on the evidence we have.

Another point this scene brings up is Kiara's friendship towards Savannah. Up until this point, the only people who did reference her were Olivia, Drake and Maxwell - and Olivia's mockery of especially seemed to imply that the ladies of the court weren't very nice to her. Kiara's account is very different from this, and actually quite affectionate ("she was one of us", "she was coming along so well in learning French"). It's not the closest friendship, but Kiara did care enough to tutor her in the language and clearly missed her. It is possible that this scene was positioned to both build up to the alternative romance and foreshadow Savannah's presence in Paris. There is a lot more that could have been done with this angle, but perhaps that is a discussion for another section.

3. Never-Have-I-Ever (Ch 9)

This is a small option in a drinking game - the MC can get to say "never have I ever had a crush on Kiara", and loses, because Drake says she isn't his type (ironically he claims he isn't her type in the next chapter). It's interesting that he does consider her as not as bad as some of the others in that group.

3. Flirting with Drake in Paris (Ch 10)

For five chapters, we don't see any more hints of this romance. We see Drake in plenty, and we see quite a bit of Kiara. But none of it shows them together.

Kiara's scene with Drake at the tea party, is in some ways a continuation of his diamond scene with Savannah. He knows now where his sister is and what her big secret was, but this scene is where he realises how little he actually knew about her, if even her "noblewoman friend" knew she had intentions to go to Paris and he, her brother, didn't. This scene also takes place at what I call a "rest period" in the story - the group has just come out of a high-intensity altercation with Bastien, and it is one chapter before the major reveal about Constantine. So the MC can relax a little, some of the loose ends of previous stories can be tied up, and we get a vibe check on at least two alternative ships.

Drake is rather civil to Kiara in this conversation, mostly because he's trying to get information about his sister out of her. There isn't much he contributes besides this - it doesn't seem to matter much to him that Kiara was a rare friend among the court to Savannah (tho TRR3 would later retcon this), and when she talks about herself he doesn't pay much attention. Kiara does make an attempt at a light flirtation which goes largely unnoticed.

The MC's response when she first sees them goes three ways - a neutral comment about the petit-fours, a "matchmake-y" comment that points to them that they "look cozy", and a "jealous" comment about interrupting them. The third one especially results in Drake inadvertently confirming he doesn't think of Kiara in a romantic light, and Kiara appearing disappointed. Remember, at this point she doesn't see much evidence that Drake and the MC romancing him are an item.

The follow-up conversation with Drake, too, follows along similar lines. The neutral comment just asks him about the information he gathered from Kiara, the "matchmake-y" one points out she has feelings for Drake and the "jealous" one is... something.

The third response is very obviously crafted for the more possessive Drake stans to get satisfaction from dissing Kiara, perhaps in a more aggressive way than the Maxwell stans could. While the Maxwell MC can pass an insult or two to discourage Penelope, the Drake MC will go as far as to tell him he belongs only to her, and can threaten to "push her into the petit-fours".

Ironically, this scene follows a scene with Olivia about her lingering feelings for Liam - and Olivia's grief, the MC's clear sympathy and Liam's concern for Olivia are all by default. There is a certain level of sensitivity the Liam MC is required to have for Olivia that is never once expected of the Drake MC, and that plays out in very dangerous ways in the next book.

This scene, again, brought forth rather violent reactions, and in fact the language of the MC's responses itself seemed to encourage that kind of response. A poster later compiled an entire set of these responses ranging from mocking, to "back off, Kiara!" to straight up demands for murder (I couldn't link to this post because the names of the people involved were included in it, but I do have quite a few of those screenshots for reference).

After this point, you don't see any more scenes where Kiara actively flirts. In fact for most of the second half you see her and Penelope very rarely. So it does feel really wild in retrospect that "obsessed Kiara" became such a popular interpretation, after one checking-out scene, one flirtation and one rather sweet and genuine compliment of him as a person.

4. Pranking Kiara (Ch 17)

A pattern you would have noticed by now is that there is a bit of a mean streak in Drake for Kiara that is either very dominant or latent, based on whether the MC tries to encourage him, or shows jealousy towards her.

And this isn't necessarily an indicator that he can never be interested in Kiara. A distrust for nobility is almost a norm for him at this point, and let's not forget that Drake's first few interactions with the MC too didn't exactly leave her with the best impression of him either. Kiara initially being on Madeleine's side at the beginning of the story could be a factor in some level of disdain too. Such complications could - in a good story - add layers to a potential romance in the future if that was the direction the writing was going for.

Around the MC who doesn't mind them as a pair, he shows a small sliver of an inclination towards Kiara herself. His response if the MC points out that Kiara was flirting with him (Ch 10) is that he doesn't believe he is Kiara's type, not the other way around. In this scene, a drunk Drake who is encouraged to write a "nice note" to her as a prank, can write "your hair is pretty and your French is totally not stupid". Both of these lines present a sign of a possibility that a romance could happen. His behaviour when an MC casually hints at this possibility, is of someone who may like this woman deep down, but show it in very strange ways (akin to the age-old metaphor of the "boy who pulls the pigtails of the girl he has a crush on"). They wouldn't have even needed to show his responses in this way if they weren't trying to hint at a possibility.

His response to a "jealous" MC is to delightedly bask in her possessiveness of him, and to go hand-in-glove with her as she insults or suggests violence on Kiara in any way. Now one could perhaps headcanon this as a behaviour that comes from being unused to female attention focused on him, coupled with his affection for the MC - but when you take into account his behaviour towards Kiara herself in TRR3 as well, there seems to be a blatant lack of consideration or compassion towards her as a human being. Compare this, again, to the way Liam's behaviour towards Olivia is written in canon, and interpreted by the fandom. Liam is expected to be kind to her, even if he's clueless about her feelings or if she is harming him (eg. Even when she kisses him, he cares enough to opt for a reaction that will not publicly humiliate Olivia).

Not so for Drake. He is very happy to follow in the MC's lead, even in hurting Kiara. And in this scene, he pretty much kickstarts it with the suggestion of a prank.

Drake knows where Kiara's room is (thanks to a nameplate on the door, and the familiarity of the hallway, which he likes for the view outside) and wants to prank her. The MC can either accept or refuse. If she accepts, there is one nice option, and two distinctly mean-spirited ones. The first proposes to mess up her book organizational system, and the narrative describes the attempt as "ruining any semblance of order to Kiara's bookshelves". These are materials she likely requires for her career as an aspiring diplomat, or even books she uses to update herself on the world. But to this MC and Drake, her work and interests are little more than a joke.

The second one is not only aggressively mean - it also is an attempt to ruin her personal space with her personal items. Going by the array of haircare the narrative mentions, maintaining her hair is very important to Kiara (I am not equipped enough to speak about black women and their relationship with their hair, but this option did make me very uncomfortable, because of the little I've seen on how essential regular haircare and good products can be for many black women). Not only does the MC suggest using all that product to render Kiara's bed practically unusable, she also insists Drake waste the full bottle of said product. Because, yknow. "It's a prank. Go big or go home". Drake has one moment where he tries to be less mean in this option (when he attempts to use less of her hairspray), but the moment the MC encourages him towards a crueller direction he does not hesitate. In fact, when the MC first suggests this option, he regards her with something approaching awe, and praises her as "an evil genius".

There's a mean streak in Drake here no matter which option you choose. If you do go for the nicer one, he complains at first that it's not exactly a prank and in fact does claim that they "could still put glitter in her cupboard" as an alternative prank. But the other two options encourage the player to give full vent to whatever underlying frustration/enmity/hatred one could possibly have against Kiara, goading a drunk Drake to be merciless towards the things in her room, in her absence.

Maybe, perhaps, one could just view this as a "fun vent" for the "possessive stans". It allowed the Drake MC and her LI the chance to gang up on her, mock her and cause her discomfort through things that were clearly important to her, treat her like the butt of their joke, and get away with it. When you encourage that kind of hatred with your writing, it can go into some very dark, disturbing places. And it did, especially in TRR3.

The overall response to this scene didn't show much, since it was just one small sequence in a larger scene - and most of the focus was on the heartfelt bonding between Drake and the MC when he takes her to his "special hideout" and his reveal about his motives behind calling the MC by her surname.

Many Drake stans, however, took note of this specific section, and took their interpretations in a completely different direction. Questions were asked about why Drake knew about Kiara's room - completely ignoring that he frequented the hallway regardless for its view and her nameplate is literally placed outside her door - and several fans suspected the two to be involved in an affair just on the basis of him knowing where her room was. These suspicions, again, would crop up from the fandom in a more dramatic way in TRR3.

5. Drinks at Homecoming Ball (Ch 19)

This scene takes place in the finale, just before Kiara and Penelope apologize jointly to the MC for their comments in the beer garden.

Drake is, quite predictably, at the bar in this scene. In some ways one could draw a parallel between this one and the "bar" scene between him and the MC in TRR1 - the only differences being that the two were alone in the first, and that he and the MC are free to romance each other now. However this time, the two ladies of the court could also communicate with him about drinks, and he could use his knowledge of alcohol to guess their preferences.

The scene with Kiara is, again, written to be both a possible sign of familiarity and a diss (mostly the second, I think). With Penelope he just vaguely mentions cocktails and focuses on the decoration for the drink - with Kiara he is able to name the specific wine even though in TRR3 he has no idea what tannins are. There are ways one could envision that as a sign that he notices more about Kiara than he lets on.

The diss, of course, comes with his claim that no matter how top-shelf the wine is, it will still always be "old grape juice" (which is a very strange thing to say because most alcohols are fermented from basic ingredients be it fruit or grains - where did he think his high-quality whiskey that he regularly carries around in his personal flask came from??).

Kiara's attempt to impress him is pretty obvious, but the diss isn't something that weighs too much on her mind. There are less indicators here of a dejection if he brushes her aside, unlike the scene in Ch 10 - she just looks a bit surprised he could guess the exact drink she wanted. Kiara in this scene is more likely to shift gears to something more important. In this case, that is apologizing to the MC for what she views as poor behaviour that sprung up under the influence of alcohol, and offering her an olive branch (the specific apology is for her asking the MC if she came to gloat, not for telling her the alliance was over at the beginning of the tour. In that scene specifically she feels she has nothing to apologise for, and I'm inclined to agree for the reasons I stated in that section).

The overall pattern for this ship seems to indicate that it's...kinda there in case the MC doesn't want to pick Drake, but I always feel like they focused a lot more on the jealousy options and didn't spend enough time to see what a possible relationship could look like. They do claim later that Kiara's affections were supposed to be one-sided, but the buildup at least seemed to indicate some small baseline of interest from Drake's end, even if shown in some rather bizarre ways. However, because there seems to be very little respect for this character already, having the MC threaten violence and having her and Drake overreact over what were essentially harmless interactions from Kiara's end really does indicate that the writers didn't mind taking potshots at her whenever they felt like it. Like I've said before, the trashfire that was Kiara's treatment in TRR3 didn't develop overnight.

Smart, Skilled...Disliked?: Kiara and the Writing Team in TRR3

On 25th Sept 2023, PB released a two-chapter series on Storyloom called "Choices Secrets", which involved at least three writers (Andrew, Kara and Chelsa) talking about ideas and plots and backstories that didn't make it to the released book. In one section, Kara Loo speaks specifically about the ending of TRR2:

According to this account, the original idea was to kill off Olivia and possibly use that as a segue into the Nevrakis plot of the book, since her aunt and Justin were the real villains at the end of the series. When they decided to keep her alive in the series, Kara mentions finding "more members of your group get injured, like Drake".

Interestingly, Kara referred to "members" in the plural, and Drake is the only person from the core group to get shot. So it's just as possible that the choice to have Bastien, Justin/Anton and Kiara sustain injuries, was made once they decided to do away with the storyline about Olivia's death.

Olivia got spared because her writers cared for her. Kiara was likely one of the people injured in her stead, and probably the only one out of them (except for the one who was the main villain) who wasn't getting a prominent scene that focused on her being a survivor of the attack until some readers protested (the entire intro of TRR3 was dedicated to Drake recieving tender care from the MC, Bastien gets showered with concern and care from Constantine, Liam and optionally the MC. The MC comes to the estate, makes a perfunctory mention of the injury once and proceeds to emotionally blackmail Kiara into joining the tour. Let's not even talk about Lythikos. That shit warranted its own essay). No matter how much you downplay the situation, the truth is that Kiara got grievously hurt in a terrorist attack and her writers didn't think it was important enough to address.

I often wondered in the beginning, why Kiara was chosen for this. A close friend at the time theorized that perhaps it was done to ensure Madeleine would become our press secretary, because there was no way the MC would be considering her for this position if someone less hostile (like Kiara) was around. Another wondered if we might get opportunities to address palace security through the experiences of the survivors. Being a Drake x Kiara supporter at least by the end of TRR2, I wondered whether it was a coincidence that they both were injured at the same ball, and the possibility of the two bonding over such a painful experience.

Well. Boy was I about to be disappointed.

Because why did Kiara have to be so badly injured, if it was going to amount to nothing? If they weren't even going to address it in her own home? If - after even players who didn't care much for her, noticed the silence around that attack - the best you could offer was a scene that followed the MC and her friends suspecting the victim of this attack??

Had I looked at Kiara's narrative treatment (from TRR1 onwards) closer back then, perhaps I wouldn't have expected so much. It would have occurred to me that maybe they hurt Kiara the most, because they cared for her the least. Kiara is viewed as smart, poised, talented. Madeleine even calls her "one of the more competant courtiers" at some point. But that doesn't always mean that the team that writes her deems her worthy of respect.

For one, the writers tend to lean more into fandom perceptions of her in this book, rather than looking at their own canon. Kiara being a snob is not canon - that is ridiculous considering that she was such good friends with Savannah, and her support of the MC when she fits in well. Kiara acting like her linguistic skill makes her better than anyone else isn't canon either - nor is she obliged to speak in all ten languages on a loop just for the MC's or Maxwell Beaumont's entertainment. Kiara being perpetually mean to her best friend is inaccurate at best - she is often frustrated by Penelope, sure, but she spends far time and energy helping her than anyone else in that court.

Yet the narrative gives both these statements as dialogue options for the MC, where she can bitch about Kiara...but somehow only ever allows the same MC to be nice and caring and loving to Penelope - never once reminding her of the hell she'd put the MC through in the past. And because the fandom expected the Kiara-Penelope friendship to focus only on Penelope, PB got away with having Kiara's "best friend" stay conveniently silent as the MC berated her in her own home. The narrative even threw Kiara under the bus in TRR3 Ch 16, in order to make Madeleine look better in Hana's memories of the TRR2 bachelorette, claiming falsely that Kiara shouted at Penelope so much while drunk, that the latter was brought to tears. There is way more energy spent in painting an inaccurate and negative portrait of Kiara, than there is in showing the truth.

For another, the way the courtiers' and their parents' agreement to join the tour is coded...is extremely suspicious. When you compare both a successful and a failplay, you will find that all the parents have the chance to reject the MC's proposal to join the tour...except for one. Kiara's father, Hakim. In a failplay where you purposely do all the wrong things...out of the entire group of people who are still doubtful about supporting you, only Kiara and Hakim join your tour by default, without any expectation of a reward (Madeleine demands her own department after the wedding). They will be a part of it no matter what you do, no matter your failures, no matter how badly you treat them.

Hakim may have joined mainly to confront his old friend the King, but he still stays on even after Constantine dies. The writers made sure to branch-code things in a way that Kiara and Hakim could never drop out even if the MC was awful to Kiara, and never once acknowledged what it must take for them to do that. After Kiara herself had been fucking stabbed!!!!

Joelle, Kiara's mother, and Ezekiel, Kiara's brother, can reject the offer if they aren't impressed with the MC, but out of these two characters only one is viewed with respect - the one they were going to pair up with Penelope.

The narrative doesn't mind letting the MC mock Joelle for her passionate support of the arts if she doesn't win her approval, and her insistence that it is the sign of a thriving kingdom...and they make her sound petulant and churlish in response to that mockery. This despite the fact that in a successful route, she says one of the most profound political statements in the books:

"Hakim and I don't just want Cordonia to remain stable and peaceful. Those are blessings, naturallement, but our kingdom can do so much more than just survive."

In contrast, when you look at the same failplay, Emmeline and Landon are treated with far more respect from the narrative, even though Hakim and Joelle's plans for the country would benefit Cordonia as a whole. Drake looks up to Penelope's parents as an inspiration, especially if he's going to become a duke. Meanwhile Hakim actually acknowledges Drake and his bravery in a way that none of the other dukes and duchesses did, and Drake never gives a shit.

Emmeline can accuse the MC of not taking their situation seriously, if she does a bad job at the polo match, and the MC only has the grace to look contrite rather than lash out at her. Landon himself is never judged for coddling his daughter the way he does. Their focus on Portavira rather than the country is respected, and the MC not meeting their demands is viewed as her weakness, not an overreaction from their end. They never get the snarky responses Joelle gets, where the MC can outright call her "a handful" in front of her own husband.

And then there is the matter of how PB deals with the problems of all the court ladies.

(Screenshots from the Skylia YouTube Channel)

The period of the Unity Tour isn't exactly an easy time for anyone. The LIs each deal with their own shit, and the ladies of the court themselves have their own reasons for being reluctant to return. The entire point of this tour is to address their specific concerns as well as that of their families', because without the courtiers themselves we wouldn't have as strong a court.

In Madeleine's case, we have to talk to her through a diamond scene and then educate her mother on her ways of mourning lost opportunities, among other things. In Penelope's case we are required to give her complete protection and emotional security, for her to even bother joining the tour (there is branch coding where she can refuse to be a part of the tour at all). Even for Olivia - who is already an ally - the diamond scene encourages us to stand up to her aunt, by letting Olivia know that it is valid for her to lean on others for support without being considered weak.

But for Kiara? The best we can come up with, while in her duchy, is some version of - "You're smart. You'd know that if you left now, people will say bad things about Cordonia and then it would be your fault". You either manipulate her, or insult her as being a useless excuse of a diplomat. As I mentioned in another essay, Kiara's comfort is a non-factor. The gap between the care we were expected to give to Madeleine and Penelope, and what we deign to give Kiara in Castelserraillan (which is...well...nothing), is massive. And this gap would only increase - not reduce - in the books to come.

It might seem a bit irrelevant to talk about this, especially when this essay is about Drake and Kiara. But it's important to take note of this inherent disdain the writers had towards this one character - and people close to her. Because it is only too easy to pretend that the writers "got scared of the crazy stans".

Of course the stans had a huge, huge role in this. Of course their vitriol and racism succeeded in bringing about (what I consider) one of the most disgusting dialogue options in this series...or perhaps in any series. But I doubt those "crazy stans" would have gotten this far, without a team that didn't mind being cruel to Kiara.

When the Fandom and Canon are both Heartless: Drake and Kiara in TRR3

As I've mentioned in previous essays in this series, playthrough divergences truly begin in TRR3 (eg. While the playthroughs acknowledge who you chose as endgame by end-TRR2, you can still access diamond scenes through a small tweak that allows you to romance other LIs). And whichever LI didn't get engaged with the MC had indications of a new romantic possibility coming up. These were scenes you wouldn't find in your own playthrough with that LI as your fiancé/e.

Kiara doesn't appear in TRR3 until Ch 7, when the entourage comes to her estate Castelserraillan. There aren't a lot of Drake and Kiara scenes themselves, and I will get into why, section by section.

1. Kiara Greets the Group at Castelserraillan (TRR3 Ch 7)

Many Drake stans - once they found their MCs engaged to Drake in TRR2 - seemed to be practically giddy at the prospect of showing off their newly-engaged status to Kiara, and hurting her through the news. They were perhaps more excited about this than their upcoming wedding.

Well, they got that chance in Ch 7. In every other playthrough, she still holds the same feelings for Drake, and compliments his suit as Drake awkwardly fails to meet her eye. In his specific playthrough, Drake defiantly shows off his relationship with the MC, and Kiara shows a slight wistfulness before she forces herself to be normal then wishes the happy couple well. You'd think that would be enough to satisfy the stans who had been baying for her blood all of the previous book.

A throwaway line about Drake knowing where Kiara's room was, had already raised the heckles of a whole bunch of his stans. Kiara's "wistful look" in her first TRR3 scene somehow added fuel to that fire. Suddenly, you got to see a raging torrent of posts demanding to know if Drake had had an affair with Kiara. Fanfic had already been written about Drake cheating on the MC with Kiara by this point - and some of those headcanons and fanfic hinged on making Drake the innocent/vulnerable one, taken advantage of by this sexy, obsessed woman who would be either a danger to him or would be juxtaposed with the "pure", "virginal", "perfect" MC. Drake would never be the problem here, and none of the stans screaming over the possibility of Drake sleeping with Kiara would dream of blaming him for it. No, Kiara was predatory, Kiara was obsessed, if anything happened between them it would be likely Kiara's fault.

This is where it's important to note, again, that none of the more obvious signs of the "Jezebel" stereotype seem to be used in canon for Kiara. While cruel in her own way, the TRR MC doesn't exactly slut shame her or believe Drake will be unfaithful to her, Kiara isn't accused of seducing (or even trying to seduce) anyone, and she actually places respectful personal boundaries for herself in her attraction to Drake, that she never crosses. She may indulge in a light flirtation with him, try to impress him or simply talk to him - but you will never catch her forcing her sexual attention on him like Olivia did with Liam. Yet in popular fanlore, even Olivia's feelings were often cast in a far more noble light in contrast to Kiara's.

In her essay, The "Offending" Breast of Janet Jackson: Public Discourse Surrounding the Jackson/Timberlake Performance at Super Bowl XXXVIII, Dr Shannon. L Holland explores the historical and contemporary uses of the Jezebel stereotype in depictions of Black women in popular culture and discourse, especially in contrast to white masculinity (which in these contexts, is often viewed as innocent and blameless - and much of the blame lies with the Jezebel figure). The "Jezebel" stereotype "has come to symbolize both a malign, cunning sexual object and an autonomous, liberated sexual agent" - she is at once an independent sexual being making her own choices, and someone who is "incapable" of reining in her sexual appetite...and is therefore often depicted as not only a threat to the "purer" (and often "whiter" or "lighter skinned") woman, but also dangerous for whoever she is "obsessed" with. And we see this time and again in the discourse around Kiara - the fanfic that depicts her in a range of scenarios (stalker, obsessed lover, abusive girlfriend who will break a bottle over Drake's head, at times even descending into murderer to get the man she wants). Which is how we wound up in a position where Kiara even breathing the same air as Drake was viewed as a threat.

It didn't matter that he was flaunting his love for the Drake MC in that playthrough to send a message to Kiara, or that he stayed silent with the others as his wife badgered her into joining the tour. It didn't even matter that Kiara never got a diamond scene the way the two other women did, despite being the most harmed among the ladies. What mattered was that Kiara existed. Her damn existence was the threat.

2. Cheering for Drake's Victory (Ch 10)

Ch 9 of TRR3 was released to players on April 27th, 2018. Immediately after, a mid-book hiatus was announced, mostly to work on some new art (very possibly the red pandas), work on the wedding, and make changes (such as shifting diamond scenes from character-centric ones to LI specific - they'd already started making changes to LI diamond scenes). The book would return 2 months later, in June.

In a livestream before the hiatus ended, the writers had made it very painfully clear that Kiara's feelings for Drake was one-sided. And by that I mean they really emphasized on the one-sidedness of her affection, almost as if to reassure the panicking stans. This would manifest in any future interactions between the two - both in Drake's single and engaged playthroughs - and any hope that such a pairing would even be hinted at was over. But there was one variation that the team had perhaps neglected to edit out.

A small one-word depiction of Kiara cheering Drake when he wins his duel against Neville, joining his friends to praise him. It really isn't much - just Kiara saying "bravo!" before Savannah rushes up to hug him, which is replaced by a scene of Drake himself going up to the MC and passionately kissing her in his own playthrough. What is definitely striking about this depiction is that Kiara was clubbed with his close friends and his sister, rather than the second group of people that largely represented the larger court (Rashad and Queen Regina) who offer their congratulations.

Given the way the writers wrote any remaining interactions between Drake and Kiara, and the fact that this small appearance doesn't really amount to anything, it is possible that this variation was part of an earlier draft that involved other hints, that the writers failed to notice when they put up Ch 10. If they had, I'm pretty certain it wouldn't have stayed in the book.

3. Leaving Court + Wedding Conversations

Remember how I kept stating in this essay that the narrative was going to take their enthusiastic pandering of the "possessive stans" end of the fandom, to some dark, disturbing places? Well, here we are.

Tbh, the writers could have just stopped showing any interactions between the two, or given Kiara another boyfriend if their aim was simply to show that Drake and Kiara would never be endgame. They had done that with Maxwell and Penelope already...oh. I forgot. They actually wanted us to care for Penelope.

Up until this point, Drake's mean streak re: Kiara was present, but not really as obvious as it gets here. PB takes that cruelty several steps further in these two chapters, starting with Ch 11. Ch 11 was fanservice to the people who shouted abuses and "joked" about killing Kiara in every chance they could get. Ch 12 showed this sentiment at its worst, covered it up with enough fluff so it would be harder for people who liked Kiara to notice...and let those players get away with it.

In Ch 11, Kiara approaches the MC and her group to inform them that she is withdrawing from the tour. Drake is the first to respond to this, remaking at the suddenness of the departure. The MC can speculate on a couple of things, ranging from sympathy (that she might be afraid), selfishness (that she is "bailing out" on the MC) and suspicion (that she is hiding something).

In all three options, a pensive Hana expresses sympathy and encourages the group to "reach out". In all three options, Drake will only view Kiara as a suspect.

Mind you - according to Ch 12, Drake is saying this knowing Kiara was injured at Homecoming Ball...and knowing exactly which weapon she was injured with. Aware that she has gone through an event as traumatic as that (if we go by his "just one step at a time" monologue to Kiara), better aware than most how it would feel...he still opts to act like her motives should be suspicious.

This is further emphasized in the Drake playthrough, through the armory scene that the MC takes with Maxwell.

As I've mentioned in the post on this scene, it is divided into three halves. The first half deals with whoever the MC rejected (either Liam, or Drake in Liam's playthrough). The third is buildup to Lucretia's plans to usurp the throne. The second is supposed to be about the excitement among the members of the court for the wedding, and of course as the only people who come for the tour by default (and Madeleine is already taken for the first scene), Kiara and Hakim are used for this scene!

I will only focus on the Drake version of this scene today. There are a few things you notice straight off the bat:

1. Since this is Drake's playthrough, the narrative seems to do away completely with any lingering feelings Kiara may have had are done away with. In this scene she is quite happy about Drake's wedding - in fact, practically chipper. Literally nothing about her behaviour here serves as a reminder that she once had feelings for him.

2. Drake's response to Kiara attending his wedding ties in pretty well with his earlier default suspicion of her. Unlike Hana who is surprised but also happy that Kiara is attending, he seems to voice it as a doubt or a question. While that makes sense and there is continuity, it's pretty awful that he is allowed to suspect her like this and feel no remorse when the truth about her is revealed.

3. Now as I said in the post, this scene is meant to be a buildup to Drake's ice-palace scene. He speaks about wanting a private, country-style wedding in a natural place there, and Kiara's gentle teasing in this scene is supposed to be an indicator of how much he dislikes the usual fanfare. Okay. Fair enough. You're uncomfortable with the fancy decorations and the insane planning, fine.

4. But it's Drake's attitude towards Kiara in this scene that leaves a bad taste in the mouth (unless you were one of those Drake stans that liked to threaten murder on this character ig). The narrative really went out of their way to make him sound uncommonly angry with her, just for asking about his wedding. He angrily hisses at her to keep her voice down the moment she asks about the wedding, and then lashes out the moment she teases him about his love for the MC and his reluctance to be very public about it in that context. Of course, people who either liked Drake or hated Kiara would downplay this scene - either blaming Kiara for not magically knowing his likes or dislikes, or acting like Drake's behaviour in this scene is no big deal.

And his explanation in the ice palace scene really doesn't cut it as a reason for why he should be this pissed off at Kiara's excitement. There is no real bitterness or resentment tied in with the fancy trappings that are mentioned in that specific scene - it's just that he likes simplicity better. If Kiara doesn't know him well enough to understand that - it's because he has never properly talked to her. She made attempts to converse whenever she could. You can claim he never owed her a conversation - but in that case she doesn't owe him a complete understanding of his wants either. He could have just politely answered the question and changed the subject, or quickly took his leave.

He is well-versed enough in court etiquette by this point that he could have managed to sound civil enough. That he could have made a quick, polite exit. But no, he gave her the kind of anger that one reserves for someone who is kicking a puppy or stealing candy from a child, instead. And it was Kiara's grace that allowed her to view that awful behaviour in a more positive light.

It's pretty clear this scene - and to some extent the framing of the next - was made specifically for those Drake stans who were screaming and throwing tantrums about a possible affair. It was to highlight that there was no way Drake could ever return Kiara's feelings - and the only way they could do that was by making sure he treated her as rudely and inhumanely as possible.

I didn't think it could get any worse than this, when I saw this version of the scene...but then I saw Ch 12.

The Talk

If you were to speak just about fandom reactions to this scene...the responses to Kiara chronicling her trauma after Homecoming Ball, were pretty positive. Plenty chose the middle option "You're suffering from the trauma of the event. You need help", and cooed over Drake's touching little monologue about "taking it one day at a time".

I admit at the time I was fooled too. But one thing did niggle at me as I played both this option, and the "understandably cautious" one (I would later understand that the latter was not very good either - it has a thin veneer of "validating" Kiara's feelings, but it still has the MC and Drake expecting her to put their needs before her own safety and sanity).

Drake was reassuring to an extent in both options, sure. But why were his responses so different? Why was his answer to Kiara so closely tied to whatever point the MC was making, rather than independent of it? After all, he was the one who should be able to better relate to Kiara - wouldn't he have thoughts of his own here? If the MC chose that horrible final option, Drake would correct her and comfort Kiara instead, wouldn't he? Wouldn't he???

It was only when I (reluctantly) pressed that third option ("not as driven as I thought you were") that I understood what Drake's role in this scene was.

He wasn't going to be there for Kiara. He wasn't even sympathetic to her! It wasn't even going to be about two traumatized people connecting over their trauma. Drake was a puppet. He was there to parrot whatever garbage came out of the MC's mouth.

Because in the third - and most horrific - option, the MC is allowed to minimize Kiara's trauma, and mock her ambitions in the face of what she has just gone through. Drake is allowed to agree with her ("sometimes ambassadors have to work in dangerous areas"). Kiara is forced by the same narrative to find value in these words.

And all of this, stems from a scenario where Drake and the MC go in suspecting this woman from the jump. Where Maxwell is happy to make jokes about her being a suspect. Where the only two decent people in this group - Liam and Hana - are conveniently written out of the scene, ensuring that these ghouls can act the way they want around Kiara, and get away with it.

Not once is Kiara herself ever allowed to know that the group suspected her by default, nor is she allowed to go through with her intention to leave court. The very roots of this scene are rotten.

Very often, when this scene in particular is addressed, not many people actually address Drake's behaviour here - or in the previous chapter. Stans will vaguely, and conveniently, blame the group as a whole rather than their favourites. Such a tactic allows them to never name the specific people or specific actions, and therefore the main people involved in speaking to Kiara the way they did never have to be held accountable. This is particularly relevant in the case of Drake.

It was Drake's idea to interrogate her. He was the one constantly harping about her "suspicious behaviour". He was the one aware of what happened to her yet chose to think of her as shady. He was the one who should have known better, yet was absolutely game to minimize her trauma or engage in emotional blackmail. And neither he nor the MC came out of this conversation feeling anything resembling remorse. Because, apparently, they never did anything wrong.

They got what they wanted. At best, Drake and the MC manipulated this woman (again) into returning to their court. At worst, they badgered and bullied her into that decision. Either way, she was going to return, and the narrative was going to pretend that the MC and Drake were great people for making it happen.

I have heard some justifications over the years for Drake's behaviour here. One is that he "tends to act like an asshole to everyone". Another is that Kiara is a noble so he was never going to see her in a positive light. Which is hilarious to me, honestly, because in the same book you have Drake reassure Penelope - the woman who had made the MC the target of a reputation-ending scandal - and comfort her when she sees Madeleine. If this was really about the chip on the shoulder he had for nobility, why was he so kind to Penelope? And if Penelope's mental health warranted a change in mindset and behaviour from Drake's end, why was Kiara not worthy of that as well?

The truth is this. Drake was allowed to express his mean streak to a black woman, bully a black woman (the pranks), lash out at a black woman (the conversation at the Lythikos Ball), suspect a black woman, and finally minimize her trauma if the Duchess he had a crush on wanted to. While being overly protective and chivalrous to the white woman who actually did harm her. No matter what way you spin it, that is what Drake's behaviour - especially in TRR3 - is.

The way the team trampled over this "pairing" post that miniscule hint in TRR3 Ch 7, would make a rampaging elephant look like a ballerina in comparison. They wanted to make it clear after the hiatus that Drake x Kiara would never happen, in any eventuality, in any future, in any universe. And no matter how much we pin this on "crazy stans" (who do hold some responsibility for sure, for their own veiled racism), it's a fact that the writing team was comfortable doing this. They had already found other ways to pile disrespect on their sole recurring black female character - what was a little more?

TRH and Beyond: Taking Away What Was Left of Kiara's Remaining Fanbase

Given all the narrative back-and-forth and shadiness, I'd have to say the end Kiara got in TRR3 was comparatively...decent. Not great...not exactly satisfying...decent.

Her fighting off the assassins at the boutique ("not again...not again!!") was the highlight of that scene. In Hana's playthrough, Kiara was her MOH by default, and the lines the MC could give if you chose her in other playthroughs was pretty sweet. At the end of the book, her father would make Kiara his heir, after her older brother Ezekiel abdicated. There were still things I was always going to hate (such as the fact that we could lie about "having Kiara's back" - we absolutely did not) about the aftermath, but all in all as a fan...I could maybe envision a fairly happy ending for her with what we got.

The next series, The Royal Heir, would debut on June 2019, almost a year after TRR3's own debut. This would be the first series that would go completely LI-divergent, spanning four books. It started out as an attempt to envision the future (and pasts) of the main characters, as well as tie loose ends...but descended into an incoherent, retconning mess with each book.

Kiara doesn't feature much in Book 1, but is pretty prominent in certain chapters like Ch 7 (Savannah's bachelorette), Savannah's wedding, and the Apple Ball in the finale. You'll often find a marked difference between the way she is looked at for most of the book, and how the MC speaks to her in TRH1's finale.

Savannah's bachelorette, for instance, features all the ladies of the court in Texas, with new "country" looks and engaging with Texan culture. Here, too, you see a sign of PB leaning into popular perceptions of Kiara rather than remembering their own writing, when we see how Savannah praises the MC by default but has very little to say about her former friend Kiara. Since Savannah's return to court in TRR3, the team seemed to have forgotten that other ladies of the court weren't very nice to her, and Kiara was the only one concerned for her. They have Olivia act sweet and caring towards Savannah in both TRR3 Ch 17 and TRH1 Ch 7, conveniently forgetting the insults she piled upon Drake's sister in the first book. Savannah never has to talk about Kiara's friendship at all, other than a teasing comment hinting at her French lessons. Savannah was never expected to have any gratitude or affection towards Kiara even though she was the only woman who cared about her in court before she left.

An interesting thing to note in the diamond scene of the bachelorette is the way the courtly ladies' previous/current "romances" are framed. Kiara's, in particular, warrants a lot of discussion. Unlike Olivia (who can address her feelings for Liam regardless of playthrough, if asked, and can actually show some level of resentment towards him for not picking her), Kiara's feelings are addressed only if the MC isn't married to Drake. If she is, Kiara mentions a fondness for "rugged, down-to-earth men" (which the MC and Penelope perceive to mean hunky and muscular), and avoids mentioning his name at all.

There are two very interesting things to note about this sequence. One is the pattern of how, and how far, are Olivia and Kiara are allowed to address their feelings for these men. Not only is Olivia allowed to be open about her feelings and her bitterness (despite Liam actually romancing her in TRR3!), the narrative demands our respect for her position and plight. The Liam MC lauds her honesty and her decision to move ahead, unfazed even by her anger for something Liam didn't even owe her. In contrast, in the Drake playthrough, the writing makes sure Kiara never mentions him by name. And not only that, when the MC and Penelope tease her about her romantic preference, she is shown to stammer and seems downright afraid of the MC.

The fact that there is such a gap in how Olivia and Kiara are allowed to act about the men they love, and the fact that this gap was normalized so much in fandom discourse that it didn't even warrant a discussion, tells us plenty about the fandom too. The fandom position has almost always been that Liam owes Olivia love, appreciation, kindness. And that Drake owes Kiara nothing, not even common human decency. Which is why the fandom wants Liam punished for the high crime of not loving Olivia back. Which is why Drake is allowed to treat Kiara like an irritating pest at his best, and like utter garbage at his worst...and almost no one so much as bats an eyelid.

Since most of the story of TRH1 seemed to revolve around the ranch, the ladies of the court made minimal appearances and most of those were in keeping with patterns established in TRR3 (except for maybe Olivia's spy scenes). Some of their parents - too - feature in Royal Council scenes: Godfrey and Landon are part of this council and are seen during the MC's announcement - no one from Kiara's family, besides her brother Ezekiel who is dating Penelope, make any appearances in this book. Towards the end of the book, however, you suddenly find a scene or two where the narrative is suddenly, and inexplicably, syrupy sweet to Kiara:

(Screenshots from the Skylia YouTube Channel. 1-5 are from Ch 18, during the council meeting. 7-10 are also from Ch 18, at the start of the ball. The last two are from the finale as buildup for the pregnancy photoshoot)

There are indications of Kiara's diplomacy and good advice in other parts of the book too (such as her suggestions for dealing with the foreign royals at the baby shower) but never were the praise and compliments as obvious as they were in the last two chapters of TRH1. Kiara was given a quippy dialogue to spout at Godfrey, who would later be revealed as the murderer of Queen Eleanor. All three of the MC's dialogue options in response would praise Kiara by default (a rarity). King Bradshaw would shower her with compliments too about her talent and expertise. And when Kiara approached us with an offer for a pregnancy photoshoot, the MC could cheerfully say "for you, Kiara? Of course!" as if they'd been bffs from the beginning.

There isn't any obvious reason why we saw this sudden change, but I can make an educated guess or two. A pattern that commonly emerges with attempts to address something that would benefit Kiara, is that the writers often only do it when enough people complain; that was how we got the horrible Lythikos sequence. Midway through TRH1, I managed to put up an essay exploring Kiara's treatment (centered around the Lythikos sequence in TRR3 Ch 12) in comparison to Penelope's and Madeleine's. It did not receive an immediate fandom wide response, but several readers did come away from that essay feeling like Kiara really got the short end of the stick, compared to all the other court ladies. I'm not sure whether that essay had a direct impact, but those three scenes PB added to the finale chapters do make me wonder. Was the team trying to prove to the fandom that they did like Kiara and wouldn't personally sabotage her, either for their own enjoyment or to pander to a section of the fandom?

If they did, then that plan didn't last beyond these two chapters.

Another possibility of course was to give Kiara something slightly positive before they did her dirty - again - in TRH2 and 3. Because in those two books, they managed to first make her - along with the rest of the council - party to a vote (that everyone was involved in, including the LIs!) that would later prove detrimental for the country. They would then have her be the only heir involved in the notorious Coventus Nobilis, which ensured that anyone who wanted to hate Kiara could tie her to her vote in favour of Bartie Sr, without ever asking any further questions. This was a far more successful attempt, because most of the fandom already believed the misconceptions of Kiara's characterization to be truth, and these storylines simply added fuel to the fire.

Kiara's biggest supporters tended to be a section of the Liam fandom, as well as wlw stans who tended to like most of the courtly women. Having her vote for Bartie at the end of TRH2, and her explanations in TRH3 about the "MC's ruling style" (which was really canon's way of making sure she did more a silent diss on Liam) was written specifically to place a serious dent among her fans who liked Liam. And sadly, it worked in part. Because even if one considered Kiara's thoughts on "reactive ruling" accurate, it was a fact that the nobility (she included) would have to be blaming Liam for something that the entire Council voted for, and that Liam and his friends fixed on their own.

Making Kiara the lone person to voice this argument, made her a target in this fandom. I mean, people were ready to praise Madeleine and speak of her as loyal (eagerly ignoring that she was actively involved in the child's kidnapping if you didn't coddle her enough), and badmouth Kiara in the same breath, claiming that Kiara wasn't worth forgiving and people should just get over Madeleine's deeds in the past.

This resurgence of hate didn't just erupt out of nowhere. Once they finished spending two chapters on two-second compliments to Kiara, PB reverted in the next two books to some of their usual patterns with her. For instance, remember how I mentioned that PB had an obsession with never letting Kiara and Liam interact? In TRH, they repeated this pattern, but with the Heir. The only scene Kiara has where she can so much as touch the heir is in the last part of TRH3, if you choose for Kiara to read to her. Penelope is regularly allowed to hold her even though she has often placed this child in dangerous situations (on one occasion, Kiara herself had to stop her) - even Madeleine is given an entire babysitting scene to win her favour. But Kiara is the only lady of the court who is made to stay away or care for the child from a distance.

Kiara's family (besides Zeke, and just because he is Penelope's fiance/husband) is subject to disrespect in this book too. Hakim and Joelle were both conspicuously absent from the pregnancy announcement presscon in TRH1 (where Landon, Godfrey and Bartie Sr somehow featured!!), and future books would either retcon the family or force them to do things the other families didn't have to do. In TRH2, the MC takes a tour of the Great Houses with her newborn daughter, and each house is expected to pledge loyalty to her and the crown in different ways. Hakim is written as "bending to his knees" for the child. This is something only Adeleide and Madeleine - whose house, might I remind you, are considered the house of traitors at this point - have to do. Landon and Emmeline are never expected to express their loyalty to this extent.

In TRH3, the narrative callously pushes the Therons under the bus to make the Ebrim family's reluctance to help the MC make sense - the Therons are now "traditionalists" who frown upon scandals and may not allow Zeke to marry Penelope on the account of her past annulled marriage (this makes no sense when you take a closer look at the Therons themselves in TRR3 - they're a far more balanced, far more progressive family than any of the other Great Houses. They even took Zeke's abdication well!). Furthermore, you'll notice that the framing of Penelope's past with Guy is worlds apart from the disdain the narrative shows for the Therons during the flower festival. It is notable that in the latter, the black women are depicted very negatively - Kiara is shown unable to manage her own competition, Joelle is depicted as pompous and incapable of losing gracefully, Drake gets to take sarcastic potshots at Lerato for trying to charm the MC into voting for her and Drake into convincing her to vote. Meanwhile white people like Landon and Marguerite are presented in a just as humourous but less mocking light (eg. Landon moving his table courteously before flipping it in the flashback).

Even into TRF (Ch12), the narrative gives us choices where we can stand up to people criticizing Landon and Emmeline's parenting ("Duke Landon and his wife raised a kind, generous daughter..."). We are allowed to be far less critical of the Ebrims overall, we are allowed to be more charitable even in the dialogue options for suspecting Landon than we are of Kiara (think of how Maxwell can suspect that Kiara was planning to betray us all along). At the end of the Flower Festival, Kiara is made to appear contrite as the MC can choose to either demand she make this right before the latter can forgive her, or indicate that she never will. Ironically, a Penelope who can choose her fancy wedding over the safety of the MC's child never has to face words that harsh.

You will also notice if you look more closely, that the narrative continues to frame events surrounding Penelope and Kiara in opposing ways. Penelope is perpetually viewed as a victim, and Kiara constantly as a suspect.

We are expected to support Penelope, and to mistrust Kiara. And even though Kiara's feelings had long since become a thing of the past, Drake still maintains his animosity towards her and her family. And like everything else, it is so normalized at this point that you barely even notice it anymore.

In TRH2, Drake is allowed to tar all nobles with the same brush because of Godfrey's actions. Though his statement about the nobility ("We can't trust any of them to have Liam's back...not unless it's in their own selfish interests") is about the entire nobility, it is striking that he says this just before they go to Castelserraillan. The Therons are also the only noble family that Drake makes sarcastic comments about (in reference to Liam informing us that their province is a trade hub, Drake quips that "they are going to want to trade babies with us"). These snide comments he rarely makes about other noble families, and serves as a sharp contrast to how he treats the Ebrims (during Penelope's wedding festivities, he is unnaturally invested in Penelope getting a happy ending with Ezekiel). We can't even claim that his behaviour towards Kiara is in line with his disdain for nobles, because Penelope is proof that he is perfectly capable of showing compassion to most of them!

TRH3 ends with Kiara doing an apology tour of sorts - diplomatic missions aimed at improving Cordonia's international relations. TRF finds almost all the ladies of the court - even Olivia - in very minimal roles, as the focus shifts to the Via Imperii. Still, the narrative makes more references to Penelope than to Kiara, to the extent that the epilogue ends on both the MC and Penelope celebrating their pregnancies (Penelope's first and the MC's second) together.

Overall, you will find that the narrative repeated certain patterns with Kiara - the tendency to find her suspicious, purposely limiting scenes with important characters like Liam (TRR) and the heir (TRH) while the white courtiers get almost unlimited access, the discrepancies in expectations for her vs other ladies (eg. Madeleine is hailed for being "good" even though that is solely dependent on how you treat her. Kiara is largely ignored whenever she does help, and attacked when she is written to support the enemy). Drake - even as a former alternative to her, who should have gotten over whatever nonsense beef he'd had with her earlier - is allowed to make snide remarks about her home and family.

It's pretty clear they could do this because they could get away with it... because most of the fandom made it so easy for them to get away with it.

Fandom

When I look back at how the perception of Kiara in the fandom progressed over the years, I find it half-amusing, half-sad how much of it is rooted more in fanlore, and how little in actual fact. And this is something you couldn't just pin on "crazy Drake stans" - they were the biggest promoters of these lies and misconceptions, sure, but normally analytical, commonsense readers often believed that Kiara was fake and a snob and awful to Penelope too.

I get some of it, given the timing of Kiara and Penelope's scene at the beginning of TRR2. It takes place at a low point in the MC's story, a time when she isn't even sure the LIs want to support her. Coupled with that is the lasting image of Penelope hugging you and complaining about Madeleine, making you feel like she's more willing to give you a sliver of solidarity. Coupled with that, is Olivia's newfound popularity in the fandom - once she emerges in Ch 5 of that book, fans believed they found their wildcard who would stand by them in complete solidarity among the ladies of the court (did they ignore Hana's already massive contributions to the investigation? Yes they did. Yes they did). Madeleine herself is shown giving quotable quotes about female solidarity and Tariq's guilt in TRR2 Ch 7, which - coupled with Justin's high praise of her - made people want to find things to like about her too. Penelope's own betrayal was overshadowed by an expectation to support a person with serious mental health struggles.

Kiara's the only one who doesn't get such backstories or explanations. So at least in the heat of the moment, in reading those chapters between weekly gaps, it makes sense that a false impression of her got somewhat solidified.

But when you build your interpretations out of lies and misinterpretations, how does it become so valid that even the writers bend to it and prefer to show that?

Every fandom has its "crazy stans". And this instance wouldn't be the first or last time they are pandered to. But when the same stans get backed up by the "saner", more commonsense members of fandom; when even neutral readers promote versions of a story without actually looking at the scenes in question - that's when a fandom is in danger of turning a "headcanon" into canon.

Kiara being a horrible friend to Penelope wasn't canon. Kiara being a snob was not canon. Kiara being creepy towards Drake wasn't canon either. Especially when you take the fandom response to Olivia's forced kiss on Liam into account.

And that brings me to another point. I had been asked once why I felt the need to compare Kiara to the other ladies in my defenses of her. It's important, when we speak of the kind of hate Kiara received, to understand how a lot of flaws that the entire court has (eg classism) is often pinned onto a lone person, and how several white female characters could get away with worse behaviour while Kiara alone was slammed for harmless interactions.

This is most apparent when you look at how Olivia's violation of Liam's consent is perceived, vs Kiara's harmless flirtation with Drake in TRR2. Which woman had fans foaming at the mouth and wanting to kill her? Which woman was given dozens and dozens of fanfic and content that depicted her as creepy, desperate, downright obsessed with their man? Which woman got the "oh well, he doesn't owe her anything 🤷🏽‍♀️" vs a "he doesn't love her back?? WHAT AN INSENSITIVE ASSHOLE!!1111"?

Perhaps this Olivia/Kiara comparison is where the fandom's tendency to cast Kiara into the Jezebel stereotype is the most visible. Kiara's very act of talking to Drake sometimes is registered as a threat to those stans, and it reflects in the way they speak of her, the way they speak of their MC's own relationship with Drake in association with her (eg. the number of posts rejoicing at the thought of showing off their "engaged to Drake" status at Kiara's estate), the way they're allowed to dehumanize her and villify her (eg. The edit I mentioned at the beginning). This is often encouraged by their friends who are fans of other characters, and you can see that in sharp contrast, Olivia - despite her actions in Book 1 and her resentment of Liam for not loving her back in other books - is still often viewed with sympathy and respect. Her feelings - still viewed as genuine, even pure. To the point where PB eventually allows Olivia to constantly address her feelings about the MC's and Liam's relationship, while forcing Kiara to not even utter Drake's name in his playthrough.

But you see this with other characters, and in other contexts too. Particularly how Madeleine can be duplicitous, hypocritical, and power-hungry, and it's Kiara who is called these things despite her actual honesty in canon. Madeleine can get away with actually helping Bartie Sr kidnap the MC's daughter in TRH3 without a murmur, in the same fandom where people can curse Kiara for voting for Bartie Sr "to take the child away" (despite her telling the MC and spouse that she was promised they would have custody of the child, therefore the claim that she "voted to take the child away from their parent" is inaccurate).

You saw some of these discrepancies in how Penelope and Kiara were spoken about too - Penelope's crime in TRR2 was considered easily forgiveable, while Kiara's innocence is constantly called into question. Kiara was often viewed negatively for what the fandom perceived as "meanness" to Penelope (when it was in fact Kiara worrying about how Penelope would fare when she wasn't around) while Penelope herself was never expected to be a good friend to Kiara. An interesting thing to note about the fandom response to Penelope and Kiara showed that often when posters wanted to hate on Penelope, she and Kiara would be clubbed together, almost as a unit. This was especially prevalent in TRH3. It was easy to express hatred for Kiara independently, but most posts that showed a dislike for Penelope (besides from specific Kiara stans) would often tie her with Kiara, as if there wasn't much to hate about her otherwise.

It is important to line up whatever hate Kiara gets with the responses to the other women - especially in the face of what the latter are allowed to get away with. In doing so, you get a better sense of what is allowed for a certain subset of women, and what isn't allowed or permitted for black women specifically.

Often, the fans who would not hesitate to call her alone fake, opportunistic and creepy were WOC, and there have been cases where some would use their identity as WOC to shield themselves from the criticism concerning their vitriol. It would often descend into "I don't hate her because she is black, I hate her because {insert inaccurate/false/convoluted justification here}". It didn't matter that much of this information wasn't based in fact, or had a heavy bias that they never applied to anyone else. It only mattered that because they were WOC, somehow that meant that they couldn't possibly be racist. That their unfounded hatred for Kiara had to be legitimate. As if there was no chance that someone who was WOC couldn't be antiblack too. I mean, the ultimate proof of this could be found in TRR itself - the two head writers of the TRR/H/F series' are Asian women - who have a pattern of liking mean (white) women, and who didn't mind throwing the black woman and her black family in their story repeatedly under the bus, who didn't mind minimizing and retconning the abuse and childhood trauma that the darker-skinned Asian woman in their story went through.

Overall, it is possible that the fandom did take some of their cues (for their impression of Kiara) from the inherent disdain found in canon itself. But many of them also misinterpreted several things about Kiara, then didn't bother to revisit those biases with a critical eye, or even try to see if they were wrong. And that baseless hatred fed the already-existing disdain that Kiara's own writers had towards her. Resulting in the kind of horrific, racist garbage that we got to see in TRR3, and the constant attempts in canon to pull her down in TRH.

Did Drake and Kiara Ever Have A Chance?

There have been various opinions - from both Kiara fans and haters - for why a Driara ship would never work. He hates nobles, she won't like his disdain for art and culture, he likes the simpler life, she's a snob...so on and so forth. Many people will agree it's not a great ship, but of course with differing opinions on why.

I, however, often wondered at possible scenarios where such a pairing could work. The magic of shipping is often that you can play around with personalities and pair almost anyone, and find enough reasons to explain why they would tick. And in Drake and Kiara's case, personally, I do feel like it's a complicated question to answer - primarily because I feel like the authorial intent at the beginning may have been very, very different to what finally happened in Drake's story.

A lot of Drake's early writing focused on the reasons behind his mistrust of the court and his tendency to view the people he loves who are part of it (eg. Liam and later the group) as anomalies. There are two ways you could take such a story in TRR2 - you could either get him to admit to the flaws in his own thinking (thereby providing a more nuanced insight) and allow him to grow from there, or you could just have him double down on his biases and never change beyond the superficial. The team of TRR - esp the head writers, Kara and Jen who were both v fond of him - definitely seemed to go in the latter direction.

Drake's prediction in Coney Island does indicate that he should let go of the past, and I honestly feel like the sequences where he learned about Maxwell straining House Beaumont's finances to help her, and Kiara and Savannah's friendship, could have been turning points for him if the writers weren't so obsessed with proving him right all the time - even when he was supposed to be wrong. Maxwell and Kiara, in their own ways, were proof that not every noble was the same, nor would every noble treat the commoners around them all the same way. However, the narrative trampled all over this possibility in TRR2 Ch 9, where Drake could optionally claim that the Beaumont brothers (among others) were "just looking out for themselves, no matter the consequences", or later when the narrative had Savannah be grateful to him for breaking her confidence to Bertrand, and have Maxwell try to earn his forgiveness in Ch 12 rather than the other way around. It allowed Drake to be selective about the nobles he admired or defended, while still free to treat certain others like garbage.

I could easily envision a Driara pairing for most of TRR2. I could even see it as potentially salvageable in certain parts of TRR3. But the moment they had Drake readily suspect her, the moment the team thought it would be okay for Drake to even suggest minimizing her trauma...that option was no longer worth seeing. Not for Drake, but for Kiara. Drake would have to be the worst possible guy I could find for her, in such a scenario.

But I could see potential in a storyline that had Drake understand that some of these people weren't the monsters he so desperately wanted them to be. In one where he could hear about Kiara's friendship with his sister, and learn about a whole new side of her. One where he maybe felt insecure ("I'm not her type") and could be reassured by a woman who had likely held a torch for him since they were teens/young adults. One where they could reach out to each other in their pain and trauma, and find solace. One where Drake knew that the family he may be marrying into would respect him, and his father too. There were possibilities there.

It would still take more work - his mean streak for one would need to be reduced by more than a half. A lot of it, of course, was kept for the Drake stans, but it really doesn't add much to Drake's character besides making him a mean-spirited, hypocritical bitch who only targets the lone black woman this way (and Olivia occasionally, if she goads him). If the narrative did want to keep a characterization where Drake acts weird around the girl he likes, they could - but that story would need a lot more work to be palatable.

All of this is to say that regardless of personal bias, there were possibilities there. There was a sliver of potential. And if they wanted to let go of that potential midway, they didn't have to go about that the way they finally did. They could have just worked on creating another love interest for her. They managed to create a brother for her overnight just so Penelope could have a boyfriend; they could have easily done the same for Kiara.

Multiple factors went down that explain why the Driara ship didn't take off. But many of them boil down to one specific root cause - the white women (whether they caused actual harm or not) needed to be protected, needed to be cherished. The black woman who dared to ask for the same things from their pet LI, would be viewed as a threat, a villain, a creep...just for breathing in his direction.

And her writers cared so little, that they took the fanon perception for her and stamped it onto their canon, like it was the truth.

They didn't do any of this for the woman who forced a kiss on a prominent LI. They didn't do this on the woman who betrayed the MC and set her up for assault. They didn't do this to the woman who bullied the lone female LI, and swore to continue doing so till she broke.

They did this for the one woman who was fairly innocent of most of these crimes, actually respected the LI and treated him well.

They did this because they could get away with it. Because they were confident that the fandom they wrote the story for, would let them get away with it. And tragically...they were right.

--

Resources I used to learn about the Jezebel stereotype:

The "Offending" Breast of Janet Jackson: Public Discourse Surrounding the Jackson/Timberlake Performance at Super Bowl XXXVIII by Dr Shannon Holland

Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake, the Jezebel and white masculinity by Khadija Mbowe (I actually got the recommendation for the first paper from this video essay).

From Mammy to Jezebel: The Portrayal of Black Women in American Cinema from the BlackThen website

[kiaratheronappreciationweek]

It's now Day 4 of KTAW!! We're halfway through the week and the entries we've gotten so far have been amazing. Can't wait to see more from you all!

We have two themes, again, for tomorrow.

Our first is a skill and trait that most of the Theron family is great at - Diplomacy! Kiara has been a great example of diplomacy-centric politics ever since we have met her - evaluating the MC's ability to navigate the social season a mere 3-4 events in. Hakim, her father, is a diplomat too who uses his reach and skills to make Cordonia a better country, as does her mother Joelle. It would be great to explore what diplomacy looks like to Kiara and the Therons.

Our second theme is Nature. You can interpret this in different ways - natural surroundings, nature vs nurture, you name it!

Any content is welcome!! Just make sure your work centers Kiara, and presents a positive depiction of her. Fic, art, meta, headcanons, edits, icons, interactive media, even simple character appreciation posts!! We also accept WIPs, so if your piece isn't entirely complete by the end of the week, fret not - you can still send us the WIPs!

The themes are simply inspirations. If you bring a piece for one of the days later, it's entirely okay...just make sure you tag the posts with the day you meant it for! We will always be keeping a bonus week in case you couldn't complete the piece during the week itself, so our official deadline for pieces will be June 1st!

We'd also like all of you to know that KTAW 2024 will be open ALL YEAR ROUND. So if you're unable to finish a piece before June 1st, pls do send it whenever you're ready to (and tag us!), and it will definitely be up on our masterlist!!

Be sure to do the following when you make your posts:

1. Use the tags #kiaratheronappreciationweek and #KTAW in your posts. Make sure to tag the day as well (#KTAW Day 1, #KTAW Day 2, etc)

2. Tag @kiaratheronappreciationweek as well as hosts @lizzybeth1986 and @sazanes in your work!

Fan Community blogs are super important to our promotion of events, so we'd definitely love for you to check out some of these awesome blogs and their challenges:

@choicesficwriterscreations - Primarily fanfic and fanart (no AI allowed). Check out their rules and roster of events!

@choicesmonthlychallenge and @choicesmaychallenge24 - Any and all content welcome! This month's prompts are delightfully Greek mythology-themed!

@choicespride - Any and all content welcome, as long as it centers LGBTQ+ characters and/or themes! They will be hosting this year's pride event soon!

@choicesholidays - Any and all content welcome, as long as it is centered around one of the holidays listed! Currently, they are hosting Spring Fling!

@choicesprompts - Any and all content welcome! Currently no events, but you could check out all the cool stuff they've been up to so far!

@choicescommunityevents - Any and all art welcome as long as it is on-theme! Currently hosting the AAPI Heritage Month!

SO excited to see all your entries!!!

Happy Kiara Theron Appreciation Week, everyone!!

[dcbbw]

Coitus Interruptus

This is my submission for @choicesflashfics​; I used the following prompt: “I can’t believe you would even think to leave me like this.” It will appear in bold.

This story is also the answer to a nonny ask: Has Riley ever faked the big “O”?

Thank you to all who read over snippets of this fic.

Thank you to all who will read the story. Your likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated more than you know. 

Please excuse any and all typos, missing/extraneous words, and/or grammatical errors. MS Editor rates me at 98% error free.

Pairing is (future) #Riam

All characters (except the children) belong to Pixelberry

Song Inspiration: Love to Love You, Baby, Donna Summer

Word Count: 2,400

Rating: Going with M/Mature because of lemon-scented Pledge

“You were simply wonderful this morning, love,” the King of Cordonia praised his Queen.

The couple were in the backseat of their chauffeured limousine, returning to the Palace after spending the morning at House Theron for a charity event sponsored by Duchess Joelle:

Gender is a Spectrum: A Union of Art, Fashion, and Inclusivity.

The program consisted of breakfast with the King and Queen, followed by an hour-long fashion show where models of all sexual orientations carried the Duchess’ latest art collection as they strutted and sashayed the runway in the latest haute couture from Ana De Luca, House Beaumont, and a rising up-and-comer from Duchy Domvallier whose works had been discovered on the app Fashion Parade.  

For the fashion show, Liam had been the emcee and Riley, one of the models.

“I starved myself to be able to fit into those skinny, too-small outfits!” Riley complained as she dug in her purse for her cellphone.

“You were modeling the extended size collection,” Liam reminded her as he nuzzled her neck. “And did so beautifully.”

Riley’s head swung around, her blonde bob swinging synthetic hair across her cheek. “Extended sizing begins at SIZE 8, Liam! SIZE 8! NOTHING on my body wears a size 8!”

She sighed as she resumed her search. “I swear, this baby weight … maybe dieting is a good thing.”

Liam didn’t bother to point out their baby, Theodore, was now seven years old.

“You’re on a diet?” he asked in surprise.

“Not really.” With a cry of triumph, her hand emerged from the handbag with the phone. She turned her head once more, her eyes narrowed with distrust. “Are you saying I NEED one?”

Liam shook his head quickly. “No.”

The couple had a rare weekend free; their sons were at Applewood visiting with Regina and their Aunt Lena. Both had plans for their open weekend.

Neither had communicated their plans with the other.

Liam had plans for his wife that involved no clothes, no work phones, and lots of sex. He wasn’t chancing an argument.

“AND you had breakfast this morning, so not starving,” he quickly changed the subject.

“Do you know how long ago THAT was?” Riley demanded.

Liam did know. Riley had eaten breakfast aboard the royal family’s private rail coach at 8am. It was now 11:30am.

“You call TWO pancakes and ONE sausage patty breakfast?? THAT is NOT breakfast! A snack, at best.”

Riley’s plans involved eating food she wouldn’t have to cook or share, simping over Gong Yoo, and finding a new hiding place for her snack wagon and hamper.

Ever since Liam’s children had entered the picture, Riley had no food to herself any longer. From the moment of conception, his kids had been nothing but crumb snatchers stealing all her food. If they had been her children, they wouldn’t do her like that.

Riley often wondered how she ended up a single mother, and sole food source to kids that weren’t even hers.

Liam moved closer to his wife, his lips ghosting her jawline. His thumb grazed against her nipple, hidden beneath a red cotton camisole tunic and black sports bra. His lips curved as he felt it harden beneath his touch.

Riley slapped his hand away. “I’m trying to make a phone call!” she chided snappishly.

“To WHO?” Liam demanded as he rubbed the offended spot on the back of his hand.

“The kitchens! I need sustenance!”

“We’ll be home in a matter of minutes,” the King argued. “You can order from the rooms, and we can … pass the time until it’s delivered.” He raised an eyebrow suggestively as his palm rubbed her thigh.

Riley stared at her husband; her expression was neither agreeable nor amenable.

We’re hungry for two different things, she thought. I’m Team Chicken Kiev.

Her gaze went back to her phone, and she continued dialing. Liam rolled his eyes, annoyance flashing briefly in them.

He knew when Riley was hungry, she was impossible to deal with. He should simply wait until she satisfied her basic hunger before gratifying his baser ones. But Liam was in heat for his wife, which made him obstinate, impatient, determined.

We can have a quickie, and after she’s eaten … she’s all mine, all weekend.

The King pulled his wife close to him, her cheek nestled in the crook of his shoulder as she prattled off a litany of menu items to one the Palace’s chefs: Chicken Kiev (it could be fried or baked, as long as it was crispy); wild rice with mushrooms and gravy; string bean almondine; fried spicy sausages; fried potatoes; devil’s food cake slices; baklava; milkshakes.

Liam smirked down at her. “I have all the sausage you need, love.” He waggled his eyebrows.

Riley’s eyes peered up at him. “Yours isn’t spicy or fried. Just bland and boiled.”

Once safely inside their personal quarters, the parents video chatted with their children, oohing over the excited chatter about attending a magic show the night before, and playing soccer with the local youth in the still-healing orchards earlier in the morning.  

They ahhed at the fact that after lunch, Aunt Lena was taking them to a street fair where there would jugglers, clowns, and cotton candy.

They bid their sons hasty farewells when the twins stated they wanted a dog, and their youngest began begging for a snake. A big snake, like the ones found in rainforests and jungles.

After the chat was over, Riley immediately called downstairs about her food.

Not ready yet. Soon.

She was leaned over, looking inside her nearly empty snack hamper and frowning at two packs of peanut butter and cheese crackers, when she felt Liam’s strong arms encircle her waist. His breath was warm and ticklish as his lips brushed over the raised hairs on the back of her neck.

Despite the rumblings coming from her stomach, Riley’s body responded instantly to Liam’s touch; she straightened up, pushing her back against his broad chest. She wriggled her ass against the crotch of his pants. She felt Liam’s lips curl against her skin, responding with a smile of her own.

And then her stomach loudly growled, and all thoughts of lust and lovemaking left her brain.

Where is my FOOD? How soon is soon? And now this man thinks I want the D.

The Queen exhaled a deep negro-spiritual sigh.

Let me handle this real quick.

Liam, of course, did not realize this. He thought her deep, put-upon sigh was a low moan caused by his roaming fingers and butterfly kisses. His wife’s eagerness in pulling off her clothes spurred him to disrobe in record time. The King did look strangely at his now nude wife as she hurried to their bed.

Riley preferred to saunter and tease him with her body.

“Come here, lover … touch my nakedness,” she purred as she crooked her index finger at Liam.

Riley was definitely never so bold, not when it was the two of them alone and intimate. This was when her vulnerability, her submissiveness to him freely revealed themselves.

But Liam’s need for her touch, her feel, her taste was almost overwhelming, and he began reasoning and justifying her unorthodox actions.

She’s in need more than me!

“I would deny you nothing,” Liam muttered in a husky whisper, his naked body joining hers on the bed.

He positioned himself so her breasts dangled enticingly above his mouth; his lips wrapped tightly around an elongated nipple, and he began to suckle gently. His hand curled around his very erect shaft, lightly stroking himself from head to base. He whimpered softly at the feel of his wife’s fingers in his hair.

“OW!” he yelled as she pulled his hair, hard. “What the HELL, Riley?”

“I want you inside me. Deep inside me,” Riley explained as she settled spread-eagled on the bedcovers. “Come ON,” she whined as she surreptitiously glanced at the clock.

It’s GOT to be soon now!

There was a scowl on Liam’s face as he stared moodily at his wife. His scalp tingled where she had yanked his hair. He wanted nipples on his tongue. But Riley wanted him inside of her.

I did say a quickie first ...

The King pulled himself up on his knees, his gaze trained on his wife’s sex. He plunged two fingers inside her entrance; they flexed and curled against her walls as arousal dampened his skin. The Queen’s hips arched against his hand; slowly, Liam removed his digits, placing them in his mouth before licking them clean. He pinned her wrists above her head as he sank into her.

Immediately, Riley’s neck arched as her hips bucked against his; moans, obviously forced, were uttered along with encouragements such as, “Fuck me harder, baby. Give me your dick!”

Liam stopped his thrusting; if one were counting, he had only gotten in three. His hands released her wrists, and Riley immediately began flailing her arms about. His wife looked like a one-person show consisting of really bad porn, crooked wig included.

Liam slowly pulled out of her tightness; Riley was still gyrating her hips, throwing in a back arch for good measure before her grand finale.

His eyes alternated between widening and thinning as Riley continued her histrionics, oblivious to the fact that Liam was no longer participating.

“Oh baby … oh baby … I’m cumming. I’m cumming, Liam,” she gasped, not a drop of sweat anywhere on her body. No trembles, no panting of breath. Nothing to indicate she had exchanged pleasure with the man she claimed to love.

Because she hadn’t.

“RILEY!” Liam bellowed.

Her eyes flew open, and she grinned up at him. “Was it good for you, too? Yeah? Okie doke, lemme up!”

Liam’s palms were pressed into the sheet-covered mattress, one arm on either side of his wife. “Did you just FAKE an orgasm with me?” he demanded angrily, his complexion reddening with frustration and disbelief.

Chimes rang throughout the suite, indicating that someone had entered the quarters.

“All’s fair in love and hunger!” Riley exclaimed as she pushed Liam off her, leaving her wig behind on her pillow.

“I can’t believe you would even think to leave me like this!” Liam hollered in annoyance, his index finger pointing to his half-erect penis.

His wife didn’t even look his way. In less than 10 seconds, she had tossed her nightgown over her head, grabbed a robe, left Liam alone in the room and was greeting wait staff.

She kissed the startled employee full on the lips as her eyes took in all the food.

After two pieces of Chicken Kiev, two whole sausages, a huge portion of fried potatoes, and some green beans, Riley felt common sense return to her body. Her eyes rolled in ecstasy as she devoured a slice of the chocolate cake; it fully restored her senses and sensibilities. Completely satisfied, she hummed softly to herself as she stored the leftovers in the refrigerator.

Now she was ready to perform her wifely duties.

Happy wife, happy life.

The Queen entered the bedroom, her eyes taking in her still-naked King; Liam’s hands were interlocked behind his head, which rested on two king-sized pillows covered in silk casing. His body stretched the length of the bed, one ankle crossed over the other. He was watching an international news channel.

He did not look at his wife.

Riley bit her lip before standing in front of the television screen. She gave Liam a sultry look before enticingly sliding the robe off her body.

Liam picked up the remote and turned the electronic device off.

Undeterred, Riley slowly licked her lips as she skimmed her palms over her curves. Her fingers tugged at a black lace strap, rolling it off her shoulder.

Liam turned onto his side, away from Riley; he pressed his palms together, resting his hands on the pillows; his cheek lay on the back of his hands.  

“ARE YOU SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?” Riley shrieked as she threw her robe at him.

Her husband lifted his head, his eyes mere slits as he glared at his wife. “I AM AS SERIOUS AS YOU WERE PERFORMING YOUR … “

He sat up, throwing his arms in the air. “I don’t even have WORDS for what the hell you did!”

“I WAS HUNGRY!” Riley stamped her foot against the carpet.

“You lied to me and made a mockery of the most sacred act of our marriage. I have nothing further to say to you,” Liam replied coolly as he laid back down in the bed.

Riley continued to stand, a stupefied look on her face. “I’m ready now,” she whined.

Liam exhaled a loud breath. “I am neither hungry nor horny.”

“I cannot believe you are making a huge deal about me delaying sex,” Riley huffed as she continued to undress.

“This isn’t about the SEX! It’s about you thinking you can get away with faking an orgasm with me! And in such an obvious way, as if you think I’m stupid! You were extremely selfish, Riley and you attempted to play on my intelligence!”

“You KNOW how I get, Liam! You KNOW!”

“Apparently, I don’t.”

Riley pushed her lips to the side as she considered how to make this right without admitting she was wrong. Naked, she climbed into the bed, pressing her ample breasts against Liam’s muscular back.

“Show me on the doll where I hurt you,” she whispered against his tawny-complexioned skin.

Liam attempted to shrug her off, but Riley clung to him like a burr.

“Is it here?” she kissed his shoulder blade.

No response.

“Here?” Her lips brushed the nape of his neck.

Despite his best efforts, Liam felt his cock stir as his erection began to grow.

“STOP THAT, Riley!” His hand harmlessly swatted air.

Riley’s hand reached around to encircle his shaft; she smirked in satisfaction. “Ahhhh, here it is. Let me kiss it better, love.”

Liam frowned as he debated his options: Continue to refuse his wife or receive oral gratification. His pleasure derived from hers; he had never needed her mouth on his sex, but he did want it. He did enjoy it.

Immensely.

She owed him an apology.

He rolled onto his back, his eyes closing in pleasure when he felt her other warm wetness wrapped around his cock.

The couple spent the remainder of the afternoon in bed, lost in each other.

Riley didn’t fake anything this time around.

Liam made sure of it.

Tagging:  @jared2612​​ @ao719​​ @burnsoslow​​ @marietrinmimi​​ @merridithsmiscellany-blog​​ @queenjilian​​ @indiacater​​ @kingliam2019​​ @bebepac​​ @liamxs-world​​ @mom2000aggie​​ @cmestrella​​ @liamrhysstalker2020​​  @neotericthemis​​ @twinkleallnight​​ @umccall71​​ @superharriet​​  @busywoman​​ @gabesmommie1130​​ @tessa-liam​​ @phoenixrising308​​ @beezm​​ @gardeningourmet​​ @lovingchoices14​​ @foreverethereal123​​ @mainstreetreader​​ @angelasscribbles​​ @lady-calypso​​ @emkay512​​ @jovialyouthmusic​​ @21-wishes​​ @princessleac1​​ @charlotteg234​​ @queenrileyrose​​ @alj4890​​ @yourfavaquarius111​​ @motorcitymademadame​​ @bbrandy2002​​ @eversoaringqueen12​​​ @queenmiarys​​​ @choicesficwriterscreations​

[tibby]

definitive ranking of all of the trr gang’s parents:

godfrey: sucks for a lot of reasons but he committed the worst crime imaginable: being from england. 0/10.

king kyle maclachlan: yeah yeah his name is constantine but looking like kyle maclachlan is his only redeeming quality so. lame, royal, didn’t care about his kids, slutshamed mc, died the cringe and fail death of being crushed by falling rubble. 0.5/10.

regina: is this old bat still alive? genuine question. 1/10.

lorelai lee: fuck you for how you treat(ed) hana. 1.5/10.

mc’s mystery parents: either dead or just don’t care that their daughter moved to a foreign country, got married, had several attempts made on her life, had a kid, became a duchess and possibly a queen, had a movie made about her, and obtained several fancy hats. if it’s the latter then they have the potential to be the funniest characters of all time but if it’s the former that’s just boring. 2/10.

barthelemy beaumont: as a person with morals and a bertrand stannie, i give him a 0/10. however, as a lover of chaos and comedy, i have to give credit where credit is due and award a full 10/10. he committed regicide, pretended to be in a coma for two decades so he could do evil schemes instead of raising his kids, bankrupted his family on said schemes and then claimed it was because he kept trying miracle cures, decided to come back onto the scene by crashing his son’s rehearsal dinner and announcing that he was cured, blackmailed and kidnapped various royals so he could obtain custody of mc’s child, and his weakness is crows. say what you will about the guy but he’s committed to the bit. overall i think that’s like, a 2.5 or something.

emmeline ebrim: was fun until it turned out she was part of the evil cult and therefore everything she did in the past few books made her fake as hell. still a milf though. 3/10.

lionel nevrakis: shitty dad and can’t even do a successful coup, but i respect the feminism of taking his wife’s name. also i really like his scar. 3.5/10.

milf adelaide: objectively too high in this ranking given that she gave madeleine about fifty complexes and betrayed you several times, but she was the first milf in the series and she’ll always have a special place in my heart for that. nothing like an older woman who just wants to party. 3.8/10.

camellia nevrakis: shitty mother but sexy as hell and hated king kyle maclachlan. credit where credit is due. 4/10.

xinghai lee: the whole “unconditionally supporting his wife” thing would be nice if it was for anything other than allowing her to mistreat hana. 4.2/10.

landon ebrim: absolutely useless in every situation and kind of two faced but he doesn’t seem to be actively evil. mostly he’s just dumber than a sack of bricks. a solid 5/10.

annabelle beaumont: dead and hasn’t appeared in any flashback scenes so it’s hard to know, but maxwell used to be a mama’s boy which is good enough for me. 5.5/10.

bianca walker: much like her daughter, she’s really fucking boring, but she seems nice enough and apparently makes good coffee. also i know that she had “”fallen out of favour”” and it was their choice to stay in cordonia but ditching her children in a foreign country not long after their dad died is kind of a low blow. however it’s also pretty funny. 6/10.

hakim theron: loses points for being friends with king kyle maclachlan for years and not supporting ezekiel’s vet dreams, but overall a nice man who cares about his kids. also one of the few parents in this series who hasn’t tried to ruin mc’s life. 7/10.

drake’s dead dad: all the flashback scenes suggest that jackson was a cool guy, even if i don’t support his choice in career. bonus points for his untimely death kicking off the comedy of errors that is drake’s life. nice ass, sorry you died protecting nobility. 8/10.

queen eleanor: we only get her in flashbacks but she has yet to disappoint. cared for her son but also his ragtag group of besties, something her cringefail husband couldn’t do. will be heartbroken if we find out that she was up to evil shenanigans in the royal finale. kind of shitty that it took a bunch of idiots stumbling onto things for someone to solve her murder but cordonia isn’t known for being competent. the secret daughter thing was kind of wild and i sort of hope we never get any context for it. hope she found a better spouse in the afterlife. 9/10.

joelle theron: loves her children equally, loyal to mc and everyone in the cordonian crew, doesn’t appear to be part of any secret groups and didn’t play a role in any fail coups, cares more about art than she does boring royal stuff, total milf. would hang up one of her paintings on my wall. 10/10.

[edenbrookcelestial]

meet my mc’s: ashild cuchulainn

titles: duchess ashild of gallifrey

champion of the realm (given by King Liam Rhys)

the mystery woman (given by the press)

master of the hunt

place(s) of residence: new york (previous)

cordonia; the royal palace

duchy of gallifrey

marital status: married to Duke Drake Walker

children: 1; Saoirse Cuchulainn-Walker ( the heir to the Cordonian Throne)

close friends: king liam rhys of cordonia

lady hana lee

duchess olivia nevrakis of lythikos

lord maxwell beaumont of ramsford

duke bertrand beaumont of ramsford (?)

notable allies: queen amalas of monterisso

hakim & joelle theron

kiara theron

landon & emmeline ebrim

penelope ebrim

lady madeleine

notable enemies: anton severus (imprisoned)

lucretia nevrakis (imprisoned)

duke godfrey (imprisoned)

queen isabella and king bradshaw of auvernal (expelled from cordonia; residing in auvernal)

duke barthelemy beaumont (currently in control of the duchy ramsford, vying for legal guardianship of the crown princess)

[elfilibusterismo]

also like,,, the ROE fam only had a fraction of filipino blood

[squidward voice] spare filipino rep? spare filipino rep, pb?

the only other filipino characters i can remember are alma velasco from moty, reyna mercado from the freshman, and joelle theron from trr (makes kiara and ezekiel half?). it's time for my man tatum mendoza to be confirmed filipino me thinks.

[tabloidtoc]

Us, February 4

Cover: John Travolta and Kelly Preston -- Love, Loss and Scientology 

Page 1: Red Carpet First Look -- Lucy Hale 

Page 2: Red Carpet -- Winter White -- Jessica Biel, Lupita Nyong’o, Dakota Johnson, Karolina Kurkova, Rita Ora 

Page 3: Alexandra Daddario, Jennifer Lopez, Lily James, Emily Mortimer, Emily Blunt 

Page 4: Who Wore It Best? Mariah Carey vs. Mischa Barton, Nicole Kidman vs. Kat Graham, Gemma Chan vs. Bel Powley 

Page 6: Victoria Justice vs. Paris Jackson, Brooke Burke vs. Jenna Dewan, Elisabeth Moss vs. Monica Lewinsky 

Page 8: Jamie Chung vs. Shay Mitchell vs. Zoe Lister-Jones 

Page 10: Loose Talk -- Goldie Hawn on being in the delivery room with Kate Hudson, Sam Smith on his eye infection, Anne Hathaway on her singing, Hugh Grant to whoever broke into his car, Jake Gyllenhaal 

Page 13: Contents 

Page 14: Hot Pics -- The Women’s March in LA -- Lea Thompson 

Page 15: Maria Bello, Marisa Tomei, Adam Rippon, Lauren Jauregui, Sarah Hyland, Laverne Cox 

Page 16: Lauren Burnham and Arie Luyendyk Jr., Drew and Jonathan Scott, Wells Adams and Brandi Cyrus, Gayle King 

Page 17: Robert Downey Jr., Ryan Reynolds, Peta Murgatroyd and son 

Page 18: Christie Brinkley, Reese Witherspoon and mom Betty, Rita Ora, Robert Pattinson has a new hobby -- making clothes 

Page 19: Jimmy Fallon and Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ruben J. Carbajal of Hamilton in Puerto Rico 

Page 20: Miranda Kerr, Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie, the stars of Glass -- Anya Taylor-Joy and Sarah Paulson and James McAvoy and Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson

Page 21: Sarah Jessica Parker and Molly Shannon, Hailey Bieber, Justin Bieber 

Page 22: Camilla Belle and Linda Cardellini, Miley Cyrus, Vanessa Hudgens 

Page 23: Michael B. Jordan, Rooney Mara 

Page 23: #10YearChallenge -- Ariel Winter, Khloe Kardashian, Adam Lambert and Katy Perry, Kylie Jenner 

Page 24: Regina King, Beyonce, January Jones and Kiernan Shipka, Jennifer Lawrence 

Page 26: Stars turn out for their favorite NFL teams -- Billy Magnussen, Jordan Rodgers and fiancee Joelle “JoJo” Fletcher, Ciara and kids, 50 Cent 

Page 27: Ty Burrell and Nolan Gould, Chanel Iman and daughter, Dennis Quaid and girlfriend Santa Auzina, Gabrielle Union and Dwayne Wade, Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady 

Page 28: Barefoot Contessas -- Emma Thompson, Florence Welch, Lena Dunham, Kathie Lee Gifford, Anne Hathaway 

Page 29: Jessica Simpson, Chrissy Teigen, Kristen Stewart 

Page 30: Let It Rain -- Ted Danson, Duchess Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, Jude Law 

Page 31: Ryan Seacrest and Jenny McCarthy, Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra-Jonas, Karlie Kloss 

Page 32: Pooch Power -- Adopt, Don’t Shop -- Hugh Jackman with Dali and Allegra, Tallulah Willis and Merl, Halle Berry and dog 

Page 33: Lisa Vanderpump and Harrison, Luann de Lesseps and dog, Katy Perry and Nugget 

Page 34: Stars They’re Just Like Us -- James Middleton, Rachel Bilson, Tiffany Haddish 

Page 35: Julianne Moore, Milo Ventimiglia and Wilmer Valderrama, Emma Roberts 

Page 36: Hollywood Moms -- Desiree Hartsock on motherhood 

Page 37: Behati Prinsloo works hard to ensure her daughters with Adam Levine are well-behaved, Tia Mowry’s daughter’s first word was Mama, Debra Messing’s son helps with her wardrobe 

Page 38: Love Lives -- Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos secret to happiness 

Page 39: Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas share a sense of humor, Gina Rodriguez and Joe LoCicero are so ready to wed, Tom Holland and Zendaya enjoyed a dinner date in LA yet have never confirmed their relationship 

Page 40: Anthony De La Torre’s pickup line worked on Lana Condor, Jana Kramer and Mike Caussin are communicating better, Rosario Dawson dating New Jersey senator Cory Booker 

Page 41: Ashley Graham and Justin Ervin spice things up 

Page 42: Jessica Simpson celebrated baby Birdie 

Page 43: Jillian Michaels fighting with Andy Cohen and Al Michaels over the keto diet, Brad Pitt and Charlize Theron possible new couple alert, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s daughter North is excited for a new baby brother 

Page 44: Prince Philip was not plans to give up driving after car accident, Gwyneth Paltrow’s expensive Goop Health summit is scheduled for March 9, Stars who shut down haters -- Katharine McPhee, Tiffany Haddish, Ellen Pompeo, Vanessa Lachey, Gabrielle Union 

Page 45: Celebs weigh in on who should host the Oscars -- Fiona Xie suggests Awkwafina and Ken Jeong, Seth Rogen picked Nick Kroll and John Mulaney, Glenn Close suggested Jeff Goldblum, Sarah Silverman suggested Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, rumor has it the Avengers will reunited on stage, VIP Scene -- Camila Mendes, Dania Gurira, Martha Stewart, Amanda Bynes, Matthew Morrison and wife Renee, Ashlee Simpson and Evan Ross, Leonardo DiCaprio and Camila Morrone, Dorinda Medley 

Page 46: What’s in my Bag? Kelly McCreary 

Page 47: Paris Jackson checks into a treatment facility, Scott Disick and Sofia Richie are extremely serious after nearly two years together, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino behind bars 

Page 48: Cover Story -- John Travolta’s most candid interview ever 

Page 52: Meghan Markle’s showstopping pregnancy style, Kate Middleton did it so differently 

Page 54: Sister Wives at a crossroads 

 Page 56: David Burtka on how to throw a winning Super Bowl party 

Page 60: Style 

Page 61: Celebs love leisurewear -- Christina Milian, Gigi Hadid, Chrissy Teigen, Shanina Shaik, Olivia Munn 

Page 62: Beauty 

Page 64: Backstreet Boys 

Page 66: Rent cast reveals why the show still works -- Brandon Victor Dixon, Tinashe, Vanessa Hudgens, Buzzzz-o-Meter -- Carrie Underwood, Mila Kunis, Courteney Cox, Bear Grylls, Meghan Markle 

Page 67: Matthew McConaughey on Serenity 

Page 70: Fashion Police -- Joey Fatone edition 

Page 72: 25 Things You Don’t Know About Me -- Marcia Gay Harden