#really wants his surname soooooooo i've talked about all that but like he also wants that cause possessive possessive they are freaks

[arklay]

1997 PROPOSAL PWEASSEEE

wip title meme ♡

— proposal

this one is so special but so hard to do justice. i've talked about this before in an old ask game, but you know me, i always love a chance to scream about these two. after going out to dinner together, they are just going on a stroll through raccoon park, hand in hand, because diana loves the woodland path. and yes, she did get distracted at one point by a little lizard

when they are heading back over the bridge at the pond, diana notices him fiddling with something in his pocket with the hand not holding hers, but she doesn't think much on it, or how distracted he seems. but when they are heading through the plaza, and she's ready to head out the gate and back to his car, he pulls her over to one of the benches and sits down, so she quickly follows suit, and that's when she realises he's nervous, of all things. not nervous as in how you'd expect someone to be, but still off, which she can easily recognise at this point

he unlaces his fingers from hers to actually hold her hand in both of his, then he chuckles, shakes his head, then looks out at the park. the silence is always comfortable with them, and diana begins to look around too, until he begins to talk

"i never thought i would do this with anyone, but i have been thinking quite a bit recently" she looks over at him and he turns to fully face her "and i would like to call you my wife" her eyes widen more than he's ever seen and he brushes his thumb over the back of her hand as his other hand reaches into his pocket

he makes a quiet off-hand joke of if she'd do him "the honours" just to bring a small smile to her face and hopefully ease her nerves, before he brings the ring he had spent months designing specifically for her in between them, and he doesn't ask her to marry him, but he asks her if she would spend the rest of her life with him, because it's not even about marriage, or ever having a wedding, it's a promise of his devotion and commitment to her, and they can leave it at that. she looks down at the ring with wide eyes yet with this rather blank stare, and he wonders if this was too sudden, and the silence does become uncomfortable at that point

"i know you have your reservations towards marriage, but i promise you a ring will not change things between us. it certainly won't change the way i feel about you"

there is something here alluding to what happened with her ex-husband, so that makes me sad. after a moment, diana does say yes, of course, and he slips the ring on her finger, then she runs her finger over the stones while admitting it makes her uneasy, to which he says he's aware, but she goes on to talk about their connection and how she thinks this time may be different for her, and he jokes that he sure hopes so, because he doesn't wish to die by her hand

so, they joke about the demise of the last one, and how she could never pull something like that on him because of how perceptive he is, before it turns serious again, and it's her turn to leave him speechless, bringing up a conversation they had months prior

"...that is the only explanation for how your soul seems to know mine so well. i have never loved anyone but you, i will never love anyone but you. i swear it"

so there's lots of little kisses and thanking the fact that no one is around to see them, or to hear the way they just implicated her, then he tells her he never really thought much of marriage or saw the appeal in it, but he would like it with her, and there is the possessive aspect that she is his (he skipped a vital step here. you could've called her your girlfriend bestie, but that's cool i guess). but it's in this moment that he calls her his equal, and says he regards her as such when no one else has proved worthy

there is more to this, such as him being very dramatic and making diana all flustered again for a moment before they kiss and she starts laughing midway through it, and he pulls back to ask her what's so funny. she calls him a sap, earning a glare from him, but it's all really just soft. i have the whole outline of this done, but writing it is way harder to get across the feelings involved with it all

[an-aura-about-you]

i just saw your tags please tell me more about red white and royal blue

OKAY SO

Red White & Royal Blue is a queer romance novel by Casey McQuiston. It is the story of Alex, the 21 year old son of the President of the United States, and his enemies to lovers bromance turned romance with Prince Henry, the grandson of the current Queen of England.

And that bit of it is honestly mostly fine to me! I like that Alex is kind of a dumb boy baby bi who didn't realize the gay shit he got up to with his best friend was, indeed, gay shit. I like the part when Henry's older sister Bea tells Alex about how their father died when Henry was relatively young and how that grief just shoots down to the bottom of your soul, deeper than you thought yourself capable of feeling, and now when terrible things happen you automatically plummet to that same emotional low. I like the stuff going on with Rafael and how he was willing to tank his reputation in order to take down his potential abuser.

But hooooooooly shit the alternate reality this book exists in is so distracting.

First thing I should cover is that Alex's presidential parent is his mother Ellen Claremont, the first woman president elected in 2016.

Yes.

Claremont's reelection campaign in 2020 is a prominent part of the book, and Alex's secret romance with Henry is exposed by her Republican opponent via Alex and Henry's private emails.

*clicks tongue* Yeah.

Also, a lot of this does end up going down in 2019 and 2020, with not even a hint of pandemic, which, fair, I'll accept that. But it does feel really weird in the face of this other stuff.

And across the pond, Henry has to deal with his family finding out he's gay, specifically him coming out to his older brother Phillip and their grandmother Queen Mary. All of this feels so very weird to type out. The Queen and Phillip do not take it well at all, and at one point Henry does indeed threaten to abdicate, at least privately to Alex.

Soooooooo.

And this one's admittedly nitpicky, but Harry Potter references? Really? We do not need those, do we? Especially when you're indicating that you have people you care about that are indeed trans? (I've pulled up the Wikipedia article and have been informed that these references are removed from a later edition. On top of that, the author is nonbinary, so I imagine this might have been done not just because of readers commenting on it but them regretting writing in those references in the first place.)

And you know what, I don't know how much I've listed there is the problematic shit. Frankly, I sometimes have blinders on for this. I did not get involved in any of that "It's Totally Normal To Practice Kissing With Your Friends" shit, so idk how much of that is made up by media and how much of that really happens under the veil of wanting to actually kiss those of the same perceived gender. And since a lot of the stuff I read in this genre tends to be fanfiction (because I personally prefer having my blorbos at the ready to play Barbies with), I have no idea if the sex scenes are typical for this type of book compared to the wild-ass shit I read on the regular.

There's also the issue of Alex's race, which I am in no way qualified to talk about in depth but does merit mention: Alex is the child of an interracial marriage. His mother is white and his father is Latino. He is referred to as Alex, Alexander, Alejandro, Claremont (his mother's surname), and Diaz (his father's surname). The narration makes it clear that he is not perceived as white passing, that he is obviously Latino. And I have no idea what that might stir up. I didn't notice anything that made any alarm bells ring for me, but I am very white.

Overall, I was glad I listened to it. It hit the nice little niche it was aiming for, and I think there should be more stuff like it. But maybe put it in a universe not quite so close to ours like that.