#sophie was never the kind of character to want a pregnancy or children

[clarasghosts]

it's been said before, but leverage season two really is a masterclass of writing around a lead actress' pregnancy. they knew they'd have to give her time off for maternity leave, so they set up a character development plot line near the start of the season which was a natural direction for the character to go based on how she'd already been written. then for the first several episodes leading up to her leave, film her from the chest up or show her back, with only some reliance on loose shirts and large jackets. have her character's development/crisis require her to take time off for herself, but write small scenes that can easily be pre-recorded, so she's never actually gone from the show. then let her return.

it's a great combination of understanding the character, being able to plan good plots ahead of the time, and not being so misogynistic that you resent actors for getting pregnant.

[millenialmfa]

Bridgerton Thoughts

That literally no one asked for or cares about, but I need them out of my brain before season 3.

This will have some book spoilers, so be warned. Also, for context, I’ve watched season 1 & 2 and Queen Charlotte. I’ve read books 4, 5, and 6.

Who is season 4 about?

I think it will either be Benedict or Francesca. I think Benedict is the more obvious choice (I’ve heard murmurs that people think Sophie will be introduced this season). I also think Netflix would be aware of how upset people were initially that the show wasn��t going in book order. Also, for plot reasons for Eloise’s future season, Benedict kind of needs to be married with a kid.

However, I think it is very possible Francesca may get her season next, depending on how they handle her this season. If they have her meet and marry John this season, they could easily frame the next season around her and Michael. But honestly, whether this works or not is really going to depend on the amount of screen time she gets. I would wager most people who haven’t read the books completely forgot that she’s even a Bridgerton sibling.

Why can’t next season be Eloise’s season?

This is honestly for fully selfish reasons. Eloise’s book has been my absolute favorite so far. I LOVE her love interest (very largely in part because he has the same name and personality as my spouse). Because of this, I want them to do her story right, and I don’t think they will capture the magic of that book with the current state of Phillip and Eloise in the show.

Eloise needs a lot of character development in my opinion (not a dig at her, I’m so excited to see how she grows and I think it will be very rewarding). Maybe it’s possible that they do it all in this season, but I don’t want them to rush it. It is critical that by the time Eloise gets married, her and Pen are friends again. I will be heartbroken if they drag out the mending of this friendship for multiple seasons. Technically yes, Eloise’s wedding is literal weeks after Pen’s in the book, but I think the show writers can easily navigate this. Maybe instead of Pen’s wedding being the catalyst, it will be her pregnancy in a later season that pushes Eloise towards Phillip.

Now onto Phillip. The issue being that Marina is still alive, and his children are way too young at the moment. Could the show have Eloise be the stepmother to toddlers? Yes, but is that as rewarding? No. In the books, Eloise is the favorite aunt and has incredible experience with kids. This is what endears Phillip’s eight-(?)year-olds to her. In the show however, she doesn’t seem to particularly care either way about her nephew. Also, it’s not nearly as impressive to win over someone’s toddlers as it is to win over the absolute devil children (lovingly) that Philip has in the book.

The other issue is that in the books, Eloise has already turned down multiple marriage proposals for a variety of different reasons. What’s so fun is that these suitors’ “shortcomings” end up being massive character traits of Phillip. He is NOT perfect. He frustrates her and she frustrates him. But he is a good person. Your spouse isn’t supposed to be perfect, they are someone you choose to love because your life is better with them in it, in spite of their flaws.

Long story short for this one, I hope it’s not Eloise because I love her story so much, it would break my heart to see them do it poorly.

Season 3

I’m so freaking excited. This upcoming season is the reason I even started watching Bridgerton. I had heard about the steamy Netflix regency show, and honestly never had a huge interest…UNTIL I heard the next season would feature a love interest who is considered “plus size”. I’ve always been in the size 12-16 range, so this intrigued me. I knew I wanted to watch season 3, so I watched the show and even read 3 of the books (now I’m hooked).

I’m excited because it looks like the writers are definitely keeping some of the incredible scenes from the book, but I’m also excited about the potential differences. Especially when it comes to Lady Whistledown and the Peneloise friendship.

And speaking of friendships: I am feral with the idea that I will (hopefully) get to see Lady Danbury and Pen’s friendship on screen. Their scenes together were such a treat as I was reading, and I would give my left tit for them to keep those interactions in the show.

And of course, the music! Secretly hoping for a rendition of Unholy or Heart Attack.

The Colin discourse~

I’ll be honest, I’m a demisexual/virgin!Colin truther. I was really excited about the prospect of a male lead with no experience but a whole lotta lust. I was a little disappointed in the news that came out from the Sun article (though honestly I’ve lost the plot on whether it’s been confirmed or disproven). However, I think there’s the possibility that this could still be interesting for his character and for foreshadowing.

If he does indeed go see sex workers, who’s to say that they won’t have red hair? Or be on the curvy side 👀. Would be a fun little Easter egg to display Colin’s preferences.

As for the voyeurism … kind of interesting to me that he takes the wallflower role in the bedroom with people he’s not emotionally connected to. Kind of like Penelope preferring to watch the drama unfold from the sidelines. I think it’s an interesting parallel that shows that both leads watch others as a spectacle or show, and prefer to really connect and engage with select people. Yes, Colin is sociable and charming; but it’s superficial. He laughs and has deep conversations with Penelope almost exclusively.

It’s also possible that Colin is seeking out sex workers because he has no desires for the women he meets on his travels. Maybe he’s trying to explore why none of the women he meets give him butterflies. Perhaps he seeks out these workers because he doesn’t have to connect with them. He likes that the presence of feelings are unnecessary with them. He doesn’t have to fake his disinterest.

Ultimately, I don’t think him seeing sex workers is a sinking of his character. I think it could serve to show that the only person for him (romantically and sexually) has always been Pen. I think it’s an opportunity to show differences in how he physically engages with others vs his future wife.

And I still disappointed? Yeah, a bit. But if it’s happening, I’m gonna try to give a positive twist to it. *I want to note, i am not upset that they are sex workers. I think sex work is real work and they should be protected. I honestly prefer this to him being romantically/emotionally involved with someone. I was just really hoping he would be as inexperienced as Pen*

Future Seasons

What am I hoping to see in future seasons? I’m excited at the prospect of continued diversity within the love interest casting. As far as I know, Sophie (Benedict), John (Francesca), Michael (Francesca part 2), Lucy (Gregory), and Gareth (Hyacinth) have not been cast yet. These are all great opportunities to bring in more actors of color.

I suspect Gareth will be played by a black actor, considering in the books he is Lady Danbury’s grandson.

I would be OVER THE MOON for Michael Stirling to be played by an Asian actor. Michael is arguably one of the “hottest” most “playboy” characters of the books, and it would be nice to see this played by an Asian actor. Unfortunately, American media doesn’t often portray Asian men as the typical “hottie” or “leading man,” though it has gotten better in recent years.

I’d also love to see a Latinx actor cast as a love interest. I feel that sometimes this group gets overlooked a lot in “diversity conversations.” Though I may be projecting a bit with this one, as my boss recently said she “forgot about the Hispanic population” when talking about diversity goals. As part Puerto Rican (thought very white presenting) that still didn’t feel super great.

I saw the article recently that said Bridgerton wants to bring in more LGBTQ+ storylines in future seasons. Now, I’m a staunch advocate for each Bridgerton sibling ending up with their book love interest. BUT, how incredible would it be if those character were gender bent? Same character traits, storylines, names (example, Lucien instead of Lucy), but now a queer love story can be explored in a way that doesn’t alienate fans of the books.

I don’t think the showrunners will actually do this, as it’s more likely stories for side characters (ex: Brimsley), but it’s fun to dream about a queer couple being the front and center leads of a whole season. Especially if it’s in a way that doesn’t give people the excuse to complain that it ignores the book characters. Nope, it’s the same character, just a different gender.

[eleanor-bradstreet]

After Willow Bark, what would Benedict and Sophie's first visit to Romney Hall after his illness be like?

Would Eloise have children quickly in her marriage?

How would the twins warm to their closest Aunt and Uncle? Having Aunts and Uncles are probably a new concept for them.

Hello there,

What a lovely question! I imagine after the wedding the broader Bridgerton family head back to London and Benedict and Sophie visit just before Phillip and Eloise depart on their honeymoon. So many little moments come to mind.

They tour the gardens, with Bridgerton siblings and spouses splitting off into pairs. Despite everything, Benedict remembers the bedside conversation he had with Eloise and her uncertainty before the wedding. He is now fully emotionally available to her and asks a lot of questions to make sure she is happy as a wife. She rolls her eyes at him and convinces him she is and he admits he never thought he'd see the day. Then he starts to make jokes at her expense.

Sophie adores her new bestie Phillip and asks him to teach her everything he knows about medicinal herbs. Since she watched him save Benedict's life, she wants to learn herbalism and use it to help her growing family and others. I HC Sophie as a respected healer/midwife in her part of the countryside. She refuses to sit still as an aristocratic wife and wants to help others, always thinking back to her mother who was pregnant, helpless and died young.

The twins are shy at first. You're right, they are probably a bit undersocialized and not at all used to having extended family. They warm to Benedict when he starts picking on Eloise in front of them - messing up her hair and bothering her. He scampers off with them and Phillip catches the three of them planning pranks, which he has to chastise.

Benedict has a heart-to-heart with Phillip. He thanks him again and says he does not doubt his character and will never forget his actions. BUT, as Eloise's closest brother he must demand that Phillip cherish and protect her and keep her happy. Phillip promises he'll do so, as long as Benedict stops teaching pranks to the twins. They laugh and Benedict starts to share his tips for deescalating Eloise when she gets riled about things.

The twins are still wary of Sophie until she volunteers to tell them a bedtime story. Cinderella (of course). The twins chatter about how they are orphans just like Cinderella and Sophie explains to them how she is too. They bond over this and she tells them how lucky they are to have a kind aunt and uncle in Phillip and Eloise to take care of them, and that she and Benedict will take care of them too, and will give them cousins to be friends with. She explains how none of them are really orphans anymore because they have a huge family with the Bridgertons.

As for Phillip and Eloise's own children, if this were my HC/adaptation, I wouldn't see them have any. Both to honor show!Eloise's anxiety/trauma around pregnancy and childbirth, and to honor their family as a sort of found family of misfits. Phillip was crushed under the structure of a traditional family his whole life, and Eloise despises the tradition in the first place. I find it important to portray found/chosen family and childfree individuals as equally valid to biological families and parents. Between Eloise's reading and fearless detective skills, plus Phillip's herbal knowledge, I imagine they would take precautions to prevent pregnancy. (Barrier methods were a thing in regency times.) BUT I know canonically they have three children in the books. If they were to do so, I envision they would start ~2 years into their marriage after they both did a lot of soul searching to overcome Eloise's anxieties and Phillip's fear of becoming his father.

I don't know if you were expecting an essay, but here it is 😅 Thank you for this lovely, thought provoking question! My favorite 'happily ever after' to envision in the Bridgerton universe is precisely this one. Benophie and Philoise as neighbors in the countryside, visiting each other weekly where Ben and Eloise get up to shenanigans while Phillip and Sophie roll their eyes and sip their gin, sharing a deep friendship. Phillip grows herbs to supply Sophie's midwifery practice. They look after each other's children, Sophie nurturing them while Eloise radicalizes them lol. Benedict paints the whole array of flowers Phillip grows. It's idyllic 💙💚

[bookwyrminspiration]

correct me if im wrong (tho honestly does canon even exist anymore) but i remember some time in legacy ??? maybe ??? it was mentioned that Gisela needed keefe to be something very specific. I cant remember most of the details but i think one was that he needed to be a boy??

but thats kinda irrelevant.

My question is do you have an idea of what she would have done if he wasnt what she needed? From the way she talks about the whole thing it doesnt really sound like she has it down to an exact science. So do you think shed say 'fuck it' and just hope it still worked despite it or would she just have like.. tried again ? Honestly thats probably less likely just due to the whole weird genetic thing with elves (like idk i feel like cassius would only wanna have one child for the sake of that)

god im sorry talking about characters having children always weirds me out but i think when you dont focus too much on it its a fun topic. (( the mechanics of whats going on with sophie and keefe)

- 🌫

(( -- man im giving myself a 'name' cause i always find you reply to these and then im never able to continue on w/ convo :( ))

Nonsie, I think if there's any place in this fandom where canon still exists it's my blog. I'm one of the few safe havens for canon simply observing while the rest of the fandom devolves into ideas further and further from the source material. Though I will admit sometimes the attempt to adhere to canon results in even more chaos (ogre titty skin...)

But onto your actual ask! You are not wrong! Lady Gisela mentioned once that the requirements she needed, as far as we can tell, were a male empath. That's why she married Lord Cassius, as originally he was going to serve in Keefe's place as whatever she needed. But then he was found to be incompatible with whatever she wanted, so instead she made what she needed and had Keefe, who is also a male empath. I do not remember where this is in the series though otherwise I would try to find it for you.

(cw: i talk about the mechanics and specifics--not graphic or anything--of lady gisela's plan when it comes to having a kid, which might be a little weird or uncomfy. )

As for what she would've done if Keefe wasn't "correct" or however I should word that, I think she probably had backup plans. Plan Bs. Well, having a kid was the Plan B (ironic) as Cassius was Plan A. You're right, it doesn't sound like it's an exact science and she has room for error. So if Keefe hadn't been an empath, hadn't been male, what would she have done? I have an idea, but it's just my idea and me theorizing so don't take this too seriously.

I think, based on her actions throughout the books, she would've tried again. Had another kid. There are two different versions to this plan that all depend on whether or not she knew Keefe would be an empath, but otherwise it's about the same. Given the experimenting she did on herself and Cassius, if that was able to alter Keefe's abilities and give him the one she wanted him to have, then it's just a matter of chance being male or female. That is assuming being male was one of the requirements; I can't remember the line very well but it might not have been.

Assuming she knew that her child would be an empath, then as soon as the sex of the kid is confirmed she'd know whether or not they'd be able to serve their purpose. If not, she and Cassius can have another kid and go through the same process again. Given the thing about having more than one kid, she could use the Neverseen's washer to erase Lord Cassius's memories of the incompatible kid and he'd be none the wiser. And if she'd kept the pregnancy hidden, there's no reason anyone else would've known either.

If she didn't know her child would be an empath, then it would be a bit more complicated given that she'd have to wait until they manifested to see if it had worked. In this case, I think Lady Gisela would have to go with an aloof, reserved kind of approach to parenting the kid. As in, keeping them away from people as much as possible until they manifest. That way fewer people know about them and it's easier to disappear given the need. They could use some excuse about private tutoring and raising their son away from everyone else to ensure he would be the best of the best or something. This way would be more time consuming, but elves are immortal so she's got time; there's no rush for any of this.

You know, this just makes me ask...why keep Cassius around at all after she had Keefe? Could she not have taken him and literally raised him in the Neverseen? that way he'd agree with her and be ready to accept what she wanted as what's best with no outside influence. he wouldn't fight her on nearly as much if she indoctrinated him from the beginning. Maybe she needed him exposed to the outside world to understand what was wrong with it or didn't have time to be a single parent (and sorry, but realistically the Neverseen wouldn't serve as a large, strange adoptive family coming together to take care of Keefe and have movie nights on the weekends). Well really I think it's because Shannon needs Keefe on our side and as a friend/love interest to Sophie, but I wonder if this was a world completely accurate to the character's best interest if Keefe would've grown up literally in the Neverseen.

All of that to say that I think Lady Gisela would try again. Her options are limited and having more kids is only a matter of time, as creepy as it sounds to say it like that. As far as it goes for elves, I don't think there's a limit or deterrent from having more aside from the superstitions. I mean, she'd already attached herself publicly to Lord Cassius in hopes that he'd work out, but he didn't and filing a matchfail in search of another empath near his strength would be undoing so much progress. Aside from the stigma of being a matchfail, she'd be started from stratch trying to find another empath like him on her lists who would agree to be with a match fail. She does have time on her hands, but this kind of work is so tedious and just over complicates things.

It's simpler and safer for her to stay with Cassius and try again until she gets the results she wants. This way she avoids public attention for seeking someone else out, and gets access to Cassius's strong empath genes to mess with as she needs. Which was clearly successful given that it produced Keefe.

Also no need to apologize! I don't mind the topic at all, so in fact I instead extend my apologies in the event that any of what I said was unsavory or uncomfortable to you. it's an interesting topic and definitely has a lot more focus on it in this series than I've seen in others. There is...a lot of pregnancy related content in keeper. All the information about Sophie's human mother and how her embryo was altered, the fertility things with Lady Gisela and Lord Cassius, troll hives and their pregnancies explained, Silveny's whole thing complete with a birth scene. It's overwhelming at times.

Oh and cool name!! it shows up funky on desktop for me but I saw it on mobile and I must say: very nice. Also now I'm curious what other asks you've sent me. You could've just sent more telling me what ask you're continuing though! Like "hey it's the nonsie who sent [insert here]" Either way, it's always cool when people give themselves names, so nice to officially meet you!

[thoroughlyskeptic]

“We both went to the London premiere but not together. We weren’t engaged and there was no reason to sort of show off to the world." USA Today November 18, 2014.

I'd like the Nannies to express their opinion about this please. With the full understanding that no person or persons on this side of the computer can control, sway or change Ben's mind or heart. That's not the point. The point is to understand what you believe is the psychological reasoning behind the decision to use that phrasing with his pregnant, soon to be fiancé and soon to be wife and soon to be mother of his child. According to People magazine and the Daily Mail, and those, including nannies, who said they have seen a Birth Certificate, Christopher Carlton Cumberbatch was born on June 1st.  Dislike it all you want, having a birthday makes it possible, and given human nature, likely that people will speculate on the date of conception, especially considering the facts, including the timing with regards to the Oscars and the shotgun* nature of the wedding. If it was a full term no problem pregnancy, 40 weeks, not under or over due, she was 2 and a half months pregnant when the above statement was made.

This story you nannies have built up, that Ben and Sophie have a true perfect love forever, that they never fight, how do you reconcile that with the whole unvarnished truth? Unless Sophie was totally gormless, she must have known she was pregnant. If Ben was dating her and truly in love, he would have known she was pregnant. They married three months later. He was in true love with the women he married, the woman he proposed to, whom he didn't mention by her name in interviews, and didn't want to walk down the red carpet to his movie premiere with the woman making his dreams come true, his dreams of being a father.

Now you are going to yell about things like privacy. That what he said was meant to protect Sophie and hide the pregnancy. I think anyone who is at all skeptical could answer that one. No one eager for privacy about their personal life talks to reporters, USA Today, or People magazine at all, let alone does a wedding dress spread in Vogue. I'm surprised it was in the print edition, and not the digital only. After all, maternity bridal gowns aren't really "en vogue". The long and short of it is that photo spread was well positioned and they managed to photograph her to look like she wasn't 5 1/2 months pregnant, perhaps to make that style of gown more in demand. Shotgun weddings tend to favor empire waists and lots of flounce to disguise the bump.

Now, I know the next question from the peanut gallery will be, why bring this up? They have stayed together, have two more kids together and it has been x and whatever years.

Here are several responses. Pick one or more in any combination.

1. Our feelings don't have to be right to be valid.

2. You have the option to object to our perfectly valid emotional reaction.

3. We have a right to block you from our page. You also have this right.

4. If you object to our opinions, you do not have to read our blogs or interact with us in anyway. If you are constantly feeling harassed because you see content from skeptics, BLOCK THEM, don't blame them! If the worker at Sea World handed you a poncho to protect yourself and you didn't use it, you can't blame the Shamu if you get splashed.(Sorry for the outdated and insensitive analogy but I wanted something easy to understand. I disagree whole hearted with the captivity of intelligent creatures be they aquatic or terrestrial mammals.)

5. We are valid in our own right as people. If you attack us on a personal level, we will defend ourselves and we have the right to do so.

6. As long as we do not interact with anyone,(i.e. Ben, Sophie, Karon, his management, etc) we can say whatever we want on our own blogs. The majority of us have never met him and don't want to. As far as we are concerned, Ben is an imaginary person that we are writing as a character for a long running D&D campaign.

7. However, the same does not apply to you. Many of you have gone out of your way to meet him. You believe that by sending hate to skeptics or doxxing them you will earn validation from him. I worry that some of you are on the brink and if he doesn't acknowledge you one time, or does something that you can't justify with your world view, one of you will snap. You think this about us, I know. But the nannies on the whole have much more emotional investment in Ben's personal life. (As a for instance, The skeptics call him Ben because at least one nanny has said that, "we don't know that he prefers that nickname so we should use his full name" another said "nicknames are for close friends and family and we aren't those, so we should call him by his full name or Mr. Cumberbatch." If Ben even has two thoughts about any skeptic or nanny(especially how they address him in blog posts) for the entire year I'd be surprised. Unless, of course, it when he has to think about you lot bothering him, stalking him, and generally making a nuisance of yourselves.

******

I also know you complain that the skeptics don't "love" Ben in every thing he does and don't always watch all his work. The gatekeeping within the fandom, not include how you discount and loathe the skeptics, is extreme. Fans must be all or nothing.

1. Not everyone has the money to participate fully, whether that is buying movies, theater tickets, merchandise or going to conventions to hear him speak. Disregarding fans based on their ability to participate, especially due to financial inability, is gatekeeping and it is the worst kind of gatekeeping. You are saying the only good fans are rich ones.

2. Generally the nannies viewpoint is Eurocentric as well. Some people have jobs, have children to raise, have other things that take priority over "being a fan". Being a fan requires time that poorer countries, less developed countries generally lack. Some countries censor the movies that are shown. Doctor Strange was not shown in the East the way it was in the west and unless you can afford to travel to another location,(Say the London Premiere that didn't quite happen and the nannies were upset because he didn't preform like a good little monkey in a suit for them?) you are made to feel left out by the uber fans.

3. Some people have emotional triggers. Ben's roles tend more towards the dramatic then comedic. Drama can deeply affect those who have experienced similar situations. He has been in movies dealing with Cancer, Childhood Abuse, Incest, Slavery, War, Pedophilia, have I missed any major triggers?

4. He is also in the MCU and the Hobbit movies which have flashing lights which makes them inaccessible to those who have seizures and migraines. Another oft used gatekeeping tactic in fandoms is the restriction of accessibility. In the US, there are compliancy laws for disabilities(although they aren't always obeyed) but smaller, poorer countries may not have accessible movie theaters. Fans with disabilities can not travel as easily as more abled fans. Smaller independent films Benedict made at the beginning of his career may not have captions or audio description or may be unafforable for those that have medical costs to consider.

5. There is also gender bias in the Cumberbatch fandom. One need only look at their chosen name, Cumberbitches. I can think of 15 more gender neutral terms off the top of my head but men and those who identify as male were inherently excluded from the fandom. I can think of ONE male fan. Maybe one that writes under his wife's account as to not get ridiculed. Because they would be ridiculed by the nannies, that is who they are, the "gatekeepers of the fandom", deciding who is worthy to be a Ben fan.

They have made fun of fans before. Not just skeptics. People they don't like or don't want in their little clique. So the majority of Ben's fans are middle aged rich white women. Not because that's who he's trying to reach as an audience but because that is who his uber fans allow to worship him.

If you are in need of examples of how out of control the uber fans are take the following for an example.

Someone did a nice tweet about other actors. It had nothing to do with Ben, although it did feature Tom Hiddleston and other Marvel actors. The ubers starting by saying Ben wasn't listed, then jumped into, well, a screenshot is worth a thousand words.

As they say, that escalated quickly...

*Shotgun Wedding is an American term for a marriage precipitated by the pregnancy. It comes from an American colloquialism, termed as such based on a stereotypical scenario in which the father of the pregnant bride-to-be threatens the reluctant groom with a��shotgun in order to ensure that he follows through with the wedding.

[imherongraystairstrash]

Hi! If you are still open to request, can I please suggest you something? I haven’t thought a prompt for it but a situation, I saw you have written many Gabrily fics and wondered if you’d do one with them deciding to have Kit? Like after the hard time they had to have Anna maybe were a little hesitant to have another and how they reached to the conclusion that they wanted one more ? Of course if this fits right with you. Thanks for taking the time on reading this ask have a nice day

Hellooo! I’ve finally finished it! I cannot tell you how long I’ve been writing this fic for 😂 I made it so that Cecily’s pregnancy was a surprise since I like to think that none of their children were planned, just because of how I see these characters. They don’t seem like the kind of people who would plan to have a child, they’d just let life throw at them what it may. Hope you enjoy!

Carry Him In Thy Heart:

Characters: Cecily, Gabriel, Christopher, Jem and Brother Enoch (We can’t have a birth fic without our main man: E-Bro) 

Gabriel was frustrated. Yet again, the clave was being difficult, and Bridgestock was annoying as usual. He washed his face, got changed and climbed into bed beside Cecily, who was sleeping with infectious serenity. Gabriel matched her breathing and instantly felt better. He didn’t embrace her, for fear of her waking up, and instead turned around and thought about the meeting. Didn’t Shadowhunters know better? How can they be so foolish?

He sighed and turned around just as Cecily opened her sleepy eyes.

“No no no no, did I wake you?” Gabriel said, pulling her close and holding her against his chest. 

Cecily said something, but it came out muffled.

“What?” he asked, pulling away.

“I asked if you were all right.”

“Of course I am.”

Cecily looked at him with knowing eyes. 

“Gabriel, you have to trust me. I’m your wife.”

“I do. Of course I trust you.” 

Cecily held up her hand to his face. “Then tell me what’s troubling you.”

“The Clave.”

Cecily laughed. “Why is that the root of every Shadowhunter’s problems?”

Gabriel shook his head. 

“Well, I’m glad I didn’t go.”

Gabriel looked at her in concern. “Are you feeling better?”

“Much better.”

“Did the Silent Brothers say what was wrong?”

“They said it was normal, no need to worry.”

“Oh,” Gabriel said. He was about to ask what she meant by normal when Cecily spoke.  

“I missed you,” she said as she wrapped her arms and legs around him and kissed his cheek.

“I missed you, too.”

She smiled and kissed him again. Suddenly, she was kissing his face all over. 

“Cecy,” he laughed.

“I really missed you.” she giggled as she climbed into his chest and held his face in between her hands. She kissed him until she was breathless, and then collapsed on top of him. He wrapped his arms around her waist.

“Better?”

“Much better.”

They sighed in unison and rested in each other’s comfort. 

Cecily rested her head on Gabriel’s chest and put her arms around his neck. He was still surprised at how perfectly fit together; like a lock and a key. 

“We should get away one of these days.”

Gabriel closed his eyes and smiled. “Where would we go?”

“Idris,” Cecily continued, her voice coming out a bit muffled, “and sleep in late, take Anna to the pond and not stress over the Clave. Just us, and our two children.”

Gabriel nodded happily until he registered what Cecily had said about children and his eyes shot open in surprise. Was Cecily perhaps still sick? 

“Cecy, we only have one child.”

She sat up and put her hand on her stomach, her face in pure triumph and joy. “Not for long!”

Gabriel shot upward and accidentally bumped his head against Cecily’s.

“By the angel, Cecy, I’m so sorry.” He hugged her and kissed the spot where their heads collided. 

“It’s all right, it doesn’t hurt.”

“I’m such an idiot.”

Cecily laughed and kissed him. “You are my idiot.”

Gabriel had briefly forgotten about Cecily’s announcement, until he once again remembered. 

“Are you really pregnant?”

Cecily smiled widely and nodded. 

“Is that why you were not feeling well this morning? Oh Cecy, I don’t want you to suffer the way you did with Anna.”

Cecily rolled her eyes. “Gabriel. I want this. I want another child.”

“Me too.”

Though few people would have guessed it, Gabriel and Cecily both absolutely adored children. Anna was their pride and joy and it’s safe to say that either would give their lives to protect her, should they have to. They also loved their nieces and nephews dearly and were always happy to babysit them. Gabriel had desperately wanted another child, but he could never ask Cecily to endure what she had once more. He had seen the toll her first pregnancy had taken on her and could never bear to see her that way again. He also felt incredibly lucky to have Anna and since the day she was born he knew if she were his only child, he could die happy. But that didn’t mean he didn’t want another. 

“I would rather nine months of discomfort than always wonder what could have been. Nine months of discomfort for a lifetime of happiness.” Cecily continued, putting a hand over her belly. “I want Anna to have a sibling. We are both blessed with wonderful brothers. I want her to have the same connection.”

Gabriel put his arms around her. “I heard from Sophie that not all pregnancies are the same but I didn’t want to risk the chance that you’d have another terrible one.” He felt Cecily smile against his cheek. “But since you’re already pregnant, maybe this one won’t be as bad.” She pulled away and he got to see her beautiful smile. He loved it when Cecily smiled; she was more radiant than the brightest star. Now, she put his hand where the baby should be.

“I feel him,” she said, “I love him and I’ve only known for less than a day.”

She put her forehead against Gabriel’s and a hand on his cheek. 

“Him?” He asked.

“It’s a boy. I know it.”

Gabriel looked down.

“Gabriel,” Cecily said, bringing his head up and meeting his lips in a tender kiss. “I’ll be okay.”

“I know you will. You’re the strongest Shadowhunter I know.” Gabriel said with a smile.

…

His green eyes were dark in the absence of light, but Cecily lost herself in them enough times to know they were dazzling. He tucked her under his chin and fell back on the bed, holding her tightly. 

“I love you.” Cecily whispered, half asleep. “With all my soul.” 

…

“Angel have mercy on my soul!” Cecily screamed.

Child birth was worse than she remembered. Much worse. Perhaps it was because this pregnancy was not difficult as Anna’s had been. After months of pain, Anna’s birth had been a relief, almost. However, this pregnancy was almost easy, which meant that the birth… She wasn’t accustomed to pain at this magnitude.

Brother Enoch had once again come to deliver the baby, as he had done with Anna. Jem was behind him and Tessa was with Anna and James. Gabriel was patrolling which meant Cecily was alone. 

“I’m going to die,” said Cecily, while she pushed.

No, you won’t.

“Yes, I will.” Cecily fell back and took heavy breaths.

You have to keep pushing.

“I’ve been pushing for the past twenty minutes.” Cecily felt like crying, if not from pain than frustration. “He’s not coming out.”

She wished she could give up. She wished she could run away to earlier this morning, where she wasn’t giving birth. She closed her eyes and tried to shut out everything. Every moment of her life blurred away so that she couldn’t think of anything, couldn’t remember anything lovely and sweet and good. All she could think was that she was going to die. The feeling seized her and dug it’s sharp, unforgiving claws into her and refused to let go. She couldn’t die. Her daughter needed her. Cecily felt her breath come shallow. 

She didn’t hear him come, but she became dimly aware of Jem standing beside her. He took her hand and held it in both of his.

Push, Cecily.

She looked up at his closed eyes.

I believe in you; you’re a Herondale and you won’t give up. You’re a devoted mother, a wonderful mother and you sacrificed too much to give up. Push, Cecily.

She obeyed. She could trust her brother’s parabatai. She let out a cry in pain as she pushed again. She gasped in air, but there wasn’t enough of it. Jem squeezed her hand. She focused on breathing. If she can keep drawing one breath after another, she can push a couple more times. A couple more and her baby would be free. 

At some point, there was a clanging of wood against the floor and Cecily’s other hand was clutching a warmer one. A hand was placed on her back allowing her to rest a little bit.

“That's it, Cecy. You’re doing so well.” 

Cecily put her head on Gabriel’s chest in between one push and another. 

She kept going and going; time had lost it’s essence and all that existed was pushing, breathing and tears, until it was finally over.

The second her baby’s cries filled the air, Cecily became boneless. Had Gabriel not been holding her, she definitely would have crashed backwards into the bed. Jem turned to go, but she squeezed his hand.

“Thank you.” She whispered. “I would probably still be giving birth if it weren’t for you.”

Jem bowed his head (which is his way of smiling) and went to help Enoch. 

Gabriel kneeled beside her and whispered sweet words into her ear. He kissed her temple, then her forehead and finally brought his lips to the back of her hand. Their son hadn’t stopped crying, and though she couldn’t feel her legs, Cecily fought the urge to go to him. 

Thankfully, it wasn’t long before Enoch placed her son on her chest. 

Immediately, he stopped crying. 

“Oh, no.” Cecily said, looking down at him, her eyes prickling. “Take him away before I start crying.”

Gabriel chuckled behind her and kissed her temple again.

He was beautiful. The sweetest baby she’d ever seen. His tiny fingers stretched out and flexed as though he were reaching out to Cecily. Cecily kissed his small, outstretched palms, which were impossibly soft against her lips. Her heart swelled. 

You did very well, Cecily Lightwood. I’ve seen few births as difficult as that one.   

“Thank you, Brother Enoch.” Cecily said. 

And though only half an hour ago she could only see darkness, now she saw light. Her children live up to their family name. She held her son closer and thanked the Angel for blessing her once more. 

Tagging: @hitheresomeoneusingthus​ @tsccreatorsnet @celias @rinadragomir @youngreckless @atla-lok143 @livia-dovehallow @autumnangel20

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

It would be cool if they did another 400 days type mini series with some characters. like showing us the beginning/middle/different parts of the apocalypse from the perspectives of: Marlon, Louis, Violet, Sophie, James, and Lilly. I think it would do well

I think something like this would do well, too. We talk about this a lot and I keep hoping that if we continue to talk about it, they’ll somehow hear us and actually do it haha. 

Just think of the possibilities- a game with each episode dedicated to following a different protagonist during a different time in the apocalypse, telling a previously unheard story. They could even do more character-driven stories that focus more on that aspect rather than the walkers and outside dangers, y’know? 

Really the only downside I could see if they actually did this is that people outside the fandom would be whiney about it? I mean, people who casually played Telltale games would look at Skybound like “Rehashing old characters who aren’t muh Clementine? Pass.” Y’know? And to be fair, I could see people within the fandom being disappointed, too. 

But a majority? I think we’d all be happy to just have another twdg installment if Skybound wanted to make one... as long as they leave Clementine alone. That’s my one condition haha. 

Leave her alone, Robert. 

I’ll even throw out a bunch of possibilities for episodes-

Carley and Doug - I would love an episode that starts with Carley working as a reporter just as the walkers come. We could meet her crew, go through when they were attacked and explore the trauma she experiences after watching her producer get eaten alive in front of her. 

Then, in comes our hero: Doug. Doug saves her life, and the two of them manage to escape and hideout. This is the perfect time to explore Doug’s character, too, as well as the relationship he and Carley had before they met up with the drugstore crew. 

We can learn more about how Carley came to be so good with firearms and more about Doug’s technical background. Not only that, but it would be interesting to see these two actually interact since, y’know... they canonically have romantic feelings for one another. 

Then the episode could end with them meeting Glenn outside, who brings them back to the group at the drugstore. 

The St Johns - Here me out, but I would totally be on board for an episode about these people and how they starting picking off their farmhands for food. We don’t even have to play as any of the St Johns, we could play as a farmhand that actually escaped that fate after discovering what these people were doing. 

It could definitely be more horror based, too. Like a cat and mouse sort of chase scene with the protagonist and Andy or Danny with them escaping with their life at the end and journeying off. 

We could also see more of the bandits and how that agreement came to be with them. We could see more of Jolene, too. 

Lilly - Okay, I want to know what the hell happened to Lilly between s1 and s4. From what I’ve gathered and inferred, Lilly wandered alone for years before finding the delta, the first place she ever considered home since... well, the motor-inn. Which... is nuts. 

Then there’s all the trauma of losing Larry on top of what a piece of shit he was. I know I laugh at her for being all “No more ice cream, no more hair dryer” when she was telling Clementine about Larry cutting their power but we don’t know much about just how abusive Larry was. 

Plus, we don’t know what happened to her mom. Larry still carried her wedding ring even into the apocalypse and died with it in his pocket. There’s just... a lot of things. 

So I think an episode about Lilly by herself could be an interesting exploration of her being her own enemy, y’know? When I say character-driven, I mean solely character-driven with Lilly having flashbacks or nightmares or talking to herself or even hallucinations. Think Michonne, but even better executed. And with no ghost children. Maybe a ghost Larry, though. Which is arguably worse. 

And it could end with someone from the delta finding her. 

Christa and Omid - I feel like this is an obvious one since everyone loves these two and we’re still salty that they never brought Christa back. So it’d be cool to see these two either before meeting Lee’s group, or their time with Clementine between s1 and s2.

This is the only time I’ll allow Clementine to be here. If they feel they have to plop Clementine into this, then do it this way. We could explore Clementine’s guilt of what happened to Lee and the trauma she suffered while with the stranger, we could explore Christa’s pregnancy and learn more about her and Omid’s relationship. 

We could see some dad moments with Omid as he and Clementine bond, perhaps dive into the fear and anxiety of a baby that’s coming, too. 

Kenny and Sarita - So... while Kenny’s not my favorite person, I can’t deny that I’d be interested in seeing him after he apparently escapes the walker horde after killing Ben and what he went through before he met Sarita. 

Hell, have an episode where we play as Sarita as she stumbles upon Kenny and how she saved him from the restaurant he was hiding in. We could get a glimpse into Kenny from Sarita’s point of view and what they went through during their time together. We could learn about Walter and Matthew, too. 

Honestly, I just want to know more about Sarita as a character rather than a plot device to die in order to further Kenny’s development, y’know?  

Bonnie - Yeah, yeah, I know. No one likes Bonnie and “who wants to play as Bonnie again?? she sucks??”, but damn it... I want them to redeem how badly they fucked up with her story in 400 Days. 

I want an episode about her struggling with her drug addiction and how it affected her when the dead started walking. What she was willing to do to get her fix, y’know? Bring back Leland and Dee and how they helped with her road to recovery.

Leland himself even said that when they found her, she was still so stuck on those drugs. I think exploring that could be a fascinating experience. 

Jane - An episode about Jane and Jamie? An exploration of Jane’s struggle with keeping her sister alive while having that internal survival instinct trying to take over all leading to her finally giving Jamie what she wanted- to leave her. Then how that guilt and loss took a toll on Jane and hardened her.

And like, I know Jane is kind of in the same boat as Bonnie where a lot of people [specifically Kenny followers] absolutely hate her and would whine about an episode dedicated to exploring her character, but I don’t care. I’d play it, I’d love to understand Jane more, even if I don’t particularly like her. 

David - This one is here for selfish reasons. I want an episode all about David. I don’t care what you do, but I want to see David’s struggle of literally losing his entire family in a single night, as well as losing the world to the apocalypse and having to move forward.

Like... seriously, remember what Kate was all “I bet David was happy when the world ended” or some shit? I actually disagree, Kate, since the day the world ended, he lost his father, mother, brother, uncle, his fucking children, and you, his wife within a night.  He spent years thinking you all were dead while traveling with Ava and his unit, fighting the dead and trying to survive.... but no, the day the walkers came was probably super great for him. Ugh. 

The bonus is we get more Ava, too. Also, I don’t think anyone would oppose if you threw in the whole “David and Lingard might’ve had a thing”... just sayin’. We stan bisexual David. 

Javier - Throwing this one in there because I think an episode about Javi, Kate, Gabe, and Mari would do incredibly well. Everyone misses the Garcia’s, everyone was bummed that we ever got a follow up to what Javi was up to after ANF. 

Y’know... since ANF was a mess, they probably didn’t feel they could do a follow up because people wouldn’t play... but I’m telling you, we’d play another adventure as Javier Garcia. I don’t know what kind of story you’d tell, but it doesn’t matter. Well, it does... but ya get me. 

Plus, more Gabe and Mariana content. C’mon. 

James - *slams fists on table* I want my James and the whisperers episode damn it!! And I’m gonna keep saying it until someone either makes it or pays me to shut up. 

I don’t care if you like James or not, you can’t deny how fascinating it would be to have an entire episode dedicated to the whisperers. On top of that, we’d get to see James and Charlie and how their relationship suffered during their time with the whisperers, as well as James realizing what a monster he became. 

Maybe we could have a scene where James actually makes his famous mask, or a scene of James escaping them and leaving Charlie behind. It could end with James in his camp until he hears gunshots one night. When he goes to investigate, he finds Clementine and AJ trying to escape Lilly and Abel and we get him intervening from his perspective. 

There ya go, there’s a second Clementine cameo that doesn’t fuck everything up. Ta-dah. 

Sophie and Minerva - A popular one that most of us would want. Them after they were taken away and how they suffered within the delta. It’d be cool to play as Sophie, and tragic since we know how that would end. But we could be the one who acts out and tries to escape all while doing our best to keep Minerva from giving into them... which again, imagine the heartbreak. 

The Ericson crew - Like with the twins, this would be a popular one that most people would want to play. While I’d rather they kept their fingers off Louis and Violet since they’re bound to fuck them up, I can’t deny that I want to know what happened at the school during the first days. 

We could even play as Ms. Martin as she chooses to stay and take care of all these kids, how she bonds with them before inevitably meeting her fate in the greenhouse. 

And c’mon, you know you want to see baby child versions of our Ericson kiddos. Imagine Louis and Violet at these young ages? Seeing other kids we never got to meet? We’d eat it up! ...Well, assuming they did a good job with their characterizations. Y’know. 

---

Those are all the major ones I’d like to see, but hey, if any of you had other ideas for episodes following characters I didn’t mention, feel free to share! 

[starfata]

Opinions on Bridgerton Novels so far

Have read the first three Bridgerton novels- mostly for the Whistledown content, although I enjoyed both some of the romance and all the Bridgerton family antics.

That said, most of the romance is of the instantaneous attraction/love at first sight variety, with denial of feelings For Reasons, and there are a few scenes where if it was a fic, I'd tag Possessive behaviour and possibly Dark __Male character__. Nothing Too Awful, the usual I will Be her ONLY lover, You're Mine, with a little bit of Legally I Own You in the first book and I don't have to explain myself to you in the second, with some minor blackmail (what if I accused you of theft and got you placed in my custody) and pressure (be my mistress, despite the fact I can never marry you and will thus marry someone else in the future).

In my honest opinion, each book had a point where it honestly could have been better. But I'm a fanfiction author, so that's par for the course really.

For the Duke and I- the entire storyline made me uncomfortable. Simon has decided not to have children- and therefore not to marry. The fact he eventually changes his mind on both counts was discomfitting- there was never any point he wanted children before the pregnancy scare. He got on with Daphne's siblings, but he never imagined his own or regretted his choice not to have any. And the potential conception scene- was uncomfortable as hell, especially as he reacted to the violation.

Either make the choice entirely about a young man spiting his father (maybe make him younger, a contemporary of Colin's rather than Anthony's, less settled in himself and the decision purely out of spite rather than trying it in to his trauma), or have the conception be purely accidental- withdrawal decreases the chance of conception, but pregnancy is still theoretically possible. Have the fight after Daphne realises that she's expecting, gleefully informing her husband that it's a miracle- and have her be stunned by his reaction, and head to her mother's in the aftermath.

For Book Two, The Viscount who loved me- I will restrain myself on the matter of Anthony's irrational certainty, because I really liked Kate. But the compromise scene could have been him forcibly moving her away from the bee, a scuffle of some kind, her dog Newton's fault- not 'the bubbies'. That was just super awkward.

Finally, An Offer from a Gentleman, a regency Cinderella with a touch more scandal- in theory, the two year separation was unnecessary. Why couldn't it have been resolved sooner? Why couldn't Posy or the housekeeper have given Sophie some money to leave? I know, drama.

My one serious complaint? Considering how much of Sophie's storyline involved her mixed feelings on her parents, couldn't there have been a more significant dowry- something the countess couldn't access without the permission of both the current Earl and the lawyer- personal belongings of her grandmother? A letter from her father, saying he was glad his bloodline would continue even if his name didn't? He seemed that kind of guy.

Actually, two serious complaints. Why didn't Benedict's art play a more significant part? He could have had his realisation about Sophie's identity while sketching her! The Wentworth's were possibly a cameo from another series, but they weren't essential to the story.

For the books as a whole- small intimate weddings(rushed to avoid scandal) seem to becoming the norm for the Bridgerton family. I'm kind of hoping there's a grand wedding in the fourth, or an outright elopement at some point in the series.

Finally, I love how Whistledown opens each chapter, even if she doesn't have any relevant gossip. That is rarely the case, I admit, but the one that comes to mind is Chapter 17 of An Offer from a Gentleman.

This Author has it on the finest authority that two days ago, whilst taking tea at Gunter’s, Lady Penwood was hit on the side of her head with a flying biscuit. This Author is unable to determine who threw the biscuit, but all suspicions point to the establishment’s youngest patrons, Miss Felicity Featherington and Miss Hyacinth Bridgerton.

LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 21 MAY 1817

Possibly the funniest in the entire series- so far. She didn't feel so much like a character in the first book so much as an afterthought, but that might be my background reading speaking- I read an article where Julia Quinn admitted she hadn't decided on Whistledown's identity until the first book was mostly finished. In the next two, she feels like a much more solid prescence- I'm sorry I spoiled myself about her identity, because I'd love to know if I could have solved the mystery.

Probably not though- I've never been that kind of reader.

[stormxblooded]

⤷ ( essie. gmt. 26. she/her. ) the courts offer bread and salt to cassandra seaworth, nee baratheon of house baratheon. many say that the twenty seven year old ruling lady of cape wrath is known to be determined and lively, though ill tongues whisper that she is stubborn and tempestuous. when her is uttered , one is reminded of a lone figure standing on the side of a cliff as waves crash below, dark eyes dancing with mirth, a sudden strike of lightening illuminating the sky, a discarded box of jewels left abandoned and untouched . may she be blessed and protected in this war of crowns. ( fc: sophie cookson )

Hi All !! I’m Essie, and I’m so excited to be writing with you all. Below the cut is some information on my little hell-raiser Cassandra, as well as wanted connections. I’m going to pop a plotting call on the D*scord when I get in, but if you would rather I messaged you here, please send me an IM! 

BASIC INFORMATION

Full Name: Cassandra Seaworth, Formerly Cassandra Baratheon before her marriage.  Nicknames: Cassie (a childhood nickname), Sandy (by her friends) Age: 27 Occupation: Ruling Lady of Cape Wrath (Formerly a lady of Storm’s End) Religion: Faith of the Seven Character Tropes: Dating What Daddy Hates, The Fashionista, Jerk With a Heart of Gold, Almighty Mom, Deadpan Snarker Character Inspiration: Ariel (The Little Mermaid), Princess Margaret (The Crown), Lydia Bennett (Pride and Prejudice), Molly Weasley (Harry Potter) Personality Type: ESFP Alignment: Chaotic Good Enneagram: Type 8 - The Challenger  Deadly Sin: Wrath Heavenly Virtue: Diligence

FAMILY

Spouse: Sir Seaworth, a landed knight and wanted connection, married for seven years  Sons: Devan Seaworth (aged 7), Steffon Seaworth (Aged 4) Daughters: Marya Seaworth (aged 4), Lucinda Seaworth (3 months) Father: Steffon Baratheon  Step-Mother: Araela Baratheon Siblings: Katherynne Baratheon, Marina Baratheon, TBD Baratheons

BACKGROUND

tw for mentions of pregnancy and childbirth

Born a Baratheon, high expectations were placed on Cassandra almost from birth. A healthy pregnancy and a remarkably easy birth resulted in a sweet babe with a head full of dark hair. For the first few years of her life, Cassandra was a merry, happy-go-lucky child, though her natural inquisitiveness forced more attentive supervision than most. As she grew older, her penchant for trouble, cultivated by a stubborn refusal to do anything she didn’t want to do and determination to behave how she pleased, emerged in full force. 

Cassandra’s trouble making was a concern for the Baratheons, who hoped to make an advantageous marriage for their daughter. They worked hard to try and turn her into a respectable lady, to stop playing pranks on the servants, to bite her tongue and choke back the cheeky remarks she often spat. All attempts were fruitless, though, and all they could do was pray to The Seven that she would grow out of it. They had more success with her education. Whilst she had no skill at needlework or singing, deeming them a waste of her time, Cassandra was bright, and excelled in academics. She has a talent for numbers, able to do complicated sums in her mind, and a photographic memory, allowing her to recall the history of Westeros, a particular interest of hers, in great detail.

As she came of age, The Baratheons began to try and arrange a match for their daughter. By this time, her personality had developed into something far more forceful. Acid-tongued when she felt like it, and dryly sarcastic always, she seldom smiled. Despite this, the Baratheons were hopeful. Cassandra was beautiful and talented, a gifted dancer, and could, when she put her mind to it, be incredibly witty and charming. A number of noble houses were approached, with the Great Houses given precedence. 

Cassandra had no intentions of following through with her families plans. Aged 20, before any wedding could take place, she eloped with her current husband. The Seaworths were not lords, but landed knights, and the marriage was way below her station. However, she was deeply in love, and a few months pregnant, when they wed, and for her, there was no other option. 

Since her marriage, Cassandra has kept her distance from the Baratheons. She misses them, but the scandal of her actions still follows her, and for the love of her siblings, she stays away, visiting rarely. It pains her - she wants her children to know their aunt and uncles, but she also wants to protect them from feeling less-than. She’s a mother of four, now - her eldest, Devan, twins Steffon and Marya, and the newborn Lucinda, and is heavily involved in her children’s upbringing. She fed them at her own breast, even the twins, and carries out most of their education herself. 

Under her watch, Cape Wrath has grown prosperous in a way it never has been before. She’s proud of what she’s done, and feels that it vindicates her choices somewhat, but as much as she loves her life, she can’t help but feel a tinge of regret. She loves her family, and doesn’t regret giving up everything for love, but there are times where she wishes she could have given her children more.

WANTED CONNECTIONS

Former Betrothed: Before she married, Cassandra was engaged to this character. Her elopement effectively ended that. If not a Great House, this character would have to be from a house that is quite rich and powerful. At no point was there any love between them, and the marriage was entirely arranged by their families. There are two ways I can see this playing out. The first is that they were blindsided by her running away, and angry at the embarrassment it caused. For the second, the two of them have a good relationship and remain friends to this day. He was as against the match as she was, and actually helped her make her escape and wished her luck on the way. 

Childhood Friends: What it says on the tin tbh, childhood friends who grew up with Cassandra. Since her wedding, they may have drifted apart or intentionally decided to keep their distance due to the scandal it caused, resulting in a bit of an estrangement between the two, or else they may be a fierce defender of her choices. 

Enemies: Cassandra leans towards sarcasm, but at times can be harshly blunt and downright insulting. This character has been on the receiving end of her less pleasant personality traits, and the two clash madly and cannot stand each other. 

Trade Partners: Under Cassandra’s watch, the Seaworths have risen to prominence, using their skill at sailing to deliver goods all around Westeros. She has an extensive network of trade partners that she utilises to help build a legacy for her children. 

Misc. Friendships: I honestly just love all kinds of friendship connections! Especially F/F connections, competitive friends, unlikely friends where opposites attract, friends who don’t really like each other all that much but pretend they do while making little jibes at each other, or platonic M/F friendships would all be very much welcomed and adored! 

[bellemorte180]

The “Why I Hate the Magic Baby” storyline

Okay, maybe hating miracle babies is a bit far. What I mean to say is, I don’t like the storyline about Hope in The Originals. Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE stories where characters have a one-night stand and end up pregnant. I will read the shit out of that. I don’t hate the Hope story line because Klaus slept with Hayley. The concept that they slept together doesn’t bother me. In fact, it was very in character for the both of them. Klaus had feelings for Caroline. Hayley had feelings for Tyler. They slept together because they were drunk and feeling sorry for each other and boom…sex sounded fun.

Plus, they are both horrible people. Hayley fans fight me on this, but Hayley is an awful human being and The Originals ruined her- I actually liked her in The Vampire Diaries. Setting up massacres and being manipulated by someone smarter than her because she was searching for her parents…she had an interesting storyline, lacked morals and was willing to do what needed to be done to get what she wanted. That’s my kind of character. Then The Originals made her into a Mary Sue and ruined her. They should have kept her an awful person…I would have enjoyed her character more.

Well…that was an unexpected tangent.

ANYWAY.

I don’t like that Hayley got pregnant. It bothers me because it felt like a giant “take-back” and that shit is a pet peeve of mine in writing. It was stated by Damon in season one that vampires can’t get pregnant or get others pregnant. Not biologically possible. Except Klaus’s sperm is magic and can impregnant werewolves and it is written off as “natures loopholes”.

First off, sorry Klaus but no one is that special. Sorry but no.

Second, what the fuck does that even mean?

They NEVER explained it. Ever. I might have been able to buy what they were selling if they explained it. Like, for example, lets pretend that Jane-Ann and Sophie wanted to overthrow Marcel so badly that they did some real black magic and sacrificed a child or something to make the pregnancy happen.

And then Klaus’s child was literally evil. Because MAGIC HAS CONSEQUENCES.

Yeah, Okay, I could buy that. It gave an explanation as to how the pregnancy occurred and also showed that it could never happen again.

Because the storyline we got, opened up a whole can of plot holes. Like, can Klaus get other werewolves pregnant? Can other Hybrids get pregnant or impregnate others? If Hayley wanted more children and is a Hybrid, if she had sex with another hybrid could they potentially have more kids? Or is it just Klaus because is sperm is like pixie dust or something?

These things were never answered.

Now you may ask, what about Caroline’s twins, do you hate them. The answer to that is Yes and No.

Hope was an intentional storyline that was never properly explained other than stating “I’m a unicorn.” The twins were created because Candice King was pregnant, and they needed a way to explain the actress’s pregnancy. Honestly, I would have hidden the pregnancy the best I could have if I was in charge, but I can at least understand the storyline behind the twins to a point.

Josie and Lizzie existence were at least somewhat explained. They were conceived by a witch and a human, something totally possible. Then the witch died while pregnant and a spell was preformed to transfer babies from one womb to another. It is explained by Valarie Tulle that the spell exists and has been attempted before; just never done right. The only part I don’t like was the fact that they never explained how Caroline’s body was able to support the twins other than “why not?”. Like, that should not be possible.

Honestly, if the writers wanted to create baby storylines or even thought that in the future, they would want to open this door, they should never have made it cannon that vampires can’t procreate.

To sum it up, the whole magic baby thing felt like a giant take back of what was already established in the show. It felt like really bad writing all around and opened up to many plot-holes.

[madsdefencesquad]

Hey, I really love your posts and I see we have similar points concerning Mad and Kevin. :) However, I wanted to ask you if you're confident she will be Kevin's endgame. I personally think she is the most likely contender considering all the hints the show has given to us, Justin's and TPTB's interviews and everything... I just try not to expect anything to avoid disappointment, but there's indeed more evidence to Madison being his wife than Cassidy or Sophie. So, what are your thoughts?

Oh my goodness, likewise! Absolutely love your posts about them too

I am pretty much 99% certain that they are endgame. And I’m not just saying that because of the overwhelming foreshadowing in the show itself and Justin’s interviews, etc., but because it makes the absolute most sense for the show itself. This Is Us is a masterfully crafted show about the realities of life that weaves different storylines and characters together in a way that makes ridiculous sense once revealed but without taking away from the conversation and the build-up and the questions/debates for the fans to pore over between episodes and seasons. And that’s why the whole Sophie and Cassidy (and really, all of Kevin’s other women) are in fact, red herrings to Madison being his greatest romantic love. They are part of Kevin’s journey, but not the destination. It has and always have been Madison all along.

The 1% doubt I have of them not being endgame is if 1. the writers suddenly go “Oh well, I guess Sophie’s a fan-favourite and we better please the super loud Sophie and Kevin shippers and/or the hopeless romantics” and honestly, I really don’t think they’re going to go this route because never once have they apologised for the decisions they’ve made in the past controversial or not (esp. regarding Miguel); 2. if they do a completely off-kilter writing decision like kill off Madison (which they won’t because this isn’t some soap opera, for crying out loud) or 3. if they decide to throw away all of Kevin’s character progression in all 4 seasons and by goodness, are we really going to go full Game of Thrones again (or HIMYM) because I will be 10000000% done. I trust them enough to not make such a devastating writing decision.

Season 4 was the season that really cemented it for me that they have planned for their eventual coming together all along. This season, we saw the opening and closure of Cassidy who, mind you, is actually not even that relevant to Kevin’s life apart from making him realise that he wants to have a family that he can take care of. Sure, they can bring her back again as a romantic rival or whatever but logically, how would that even make any sense? Kevin’s not going to all of a sudden leave Madison behind while she carries their children. He’s going to be spending all of his time and energy with her. He is all in. And also, they’re in a completely different state to them and I doubt Cassidy will just leave her own son behind for the sake of pursuing a romantic relationship with someone who is also expecting children with someone else. LOGIC, sis! They were also never in love either!

And even more importantly this season, we saw the closure of the Sophie arc. This may be controversial for a lot of stans (mind you, I loved Sophie too), but if they still believe they’re going to end up together, then we may be watching a very different show altogether. Sure, we can argue that Sophie looking at the ring may play a part in that like, the writers may make Sophie break off her engagement after realising she wants to be with Kevin, and hey, they can use it as another “obstacle” for Kevin and Madison but let’s put our logical hats on, shall we? So, let’s say they do go that route and Sophie comes back to the picture, do we seriously actually want Kevin to leave the woman, who is the mother of his children and the person that he fell so in love with that he went about and proposed to her so they can get married and raise their family together? Not to mention how much of a blow this is for Sophie’s character too. Do we really want her to only exist in Kevin’s life? Like, she can’t have her own happiness with Grant and the future they’ll have together too? That shot of her smiling/laughing upon seeing Kevin’s perfume ad was the biggest giveaway. Like Nicky, she found it amusing because she knew Kevin, not because she was pining. If you saw that as pining then, we are definitely not watching the same show lol Also, during the “What If” ep with Randall, I was so keen to see what would happen to Kevin and I told myself that if he’s married to Sophie in this What If, then that’s it. Sophie’s 100% not gonna be his endgame. And sure enough, she was. And I was like oop there it is.

The only other reason that I can think of for them to not get together is if Madison decides to not go through with getting married. But again, logically, why would Madison, who already told Kevin that she will not ask anything of him when raising the kids even say yes to marrying Kevin in the first place? Some can argue it’s because of the hormones and how overwhelmed she may have felt during the pregnancy but really, I’ll only understand this route after season 5 because right now, we have zero evidence on how they are like with each other as they navigate this pregnancy together. And even then, I’ll still be hard-pressed to believe that she’ll just say yes to Kevin, let alone have Kevin propose out of nowhere too. The fact that he didn’t pursue Sophie at her mother’s funeral showed that he’s grown. He knows how his decisions can hurt others. He didn’t promise Madison that he’ll fall in love with her and become her husband when he said “all in”. He said “the love of my life will be my child” to assure her that he will be there for their baby/ies; it was the responsible adult response for the woman, who is carrying his child. CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT (please don’t throw it out the windowwww).

Also, the amount of times they’ve tried to make us think that Madison and Kevin are not going to be each other’s endgame to the point of ridiculous is another huge reason as to why they are going to be. Like, why emphasise it so much? Madison literally talked about it TWICE in one dang episode! If they really aren’t going to be, SHOW US, DON’T TELL US. Because right now, we’ve got two seasons left of the entire show and since next season is all about them getting to know each other that leads to them falling in love and to the proposal and then the rest is navigating this new relationship they have WHILE parenting AND leading up to getting married PLUS Kevin and Randall’s fight and Rebecca’s situation, and to do all this in TWO SEASONS ONE OF WHICH IS THE FINALE THAT CONCLUDES EVERYTHING, then they have absolutely no time whatsoever to bring back another woman in Kevin’s life or introduce another one (!!!!). We’ve already got enough characters and storylines as is.

Anyway wow, this is soooo long (I’m soo sorry!!) but I just have sooo much to say! But TL;DR they make the absolute most sense in a logical, realistic, foreshadowed, mega-hinted, clued-in, stop-emphasising-that-they’re-not-endgame-in-every-scene-because-you’re-making-it-obvious-that-they’re-going-to-be kind of way and that is why they are going to be endgame. 

[dream-beyond-the-fantasy]

Jimmy: 3, 5, 13, and 29 Julie: 12, 16, 20, and 30

Jimmy

3. Ask them to describe their love interest.  Man, where do I begin?  With Julie, there is more than meets the eye.  I only thought I knew her all those years.  But it wasn’t until I took her to prom that I really saw her and got to know her.  Julie is smart, sweet, kind, and funny.  I never realized how much she cares about me.  Just knowing how much Julie loves me… it just makes me want to be a better person, one deserving of her love and faith in me.  She has such a big heart.  Julie is beautiful, sexy, and strong, but she just doesn’t recognize these things about herself.  I love how she gets excited about little things, like chocolate, books, or something good happening to her favorite characters.

5. Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech! Will they give one, and what about?  Overall, Jimmy doesn’t really do speeches.  He is usually the quietest one out of his friends and his family.  But he has no problems speaking up when he wants to.  Of the few times he made a speech of his own volition, Jimmy was proposing marriage and gave one at his wedding reception.  The combined gist of both speeches:

 how his feelings for Julie came out of nowhere and surprised him

his feelings for her might actually be love, a love that he wants to nurture and see grow

how he is just start beginning to truly know her and that he wants to continue to do so

he knows things are moving fast and that this isn’t how either of them wanted to become a couple, married or otherwise

he knows she is scared and uncertain of the future, especially of becoming a parent, because he is too

he believes that they can make it work and that their bumpy start could lead to something amazing and long-lasting if they believe in each other and work together

13. Name one thing their parents taught them.  Probably the most important thing his mother taught him was how to cook and bake.  Jimmy started out just wanting to spend time with and help his mother, an overworked wife and mother of three.  But he soon discovered that he had a knack for it and really enjoyed cooking and baking, as well as finding new foods and recipes to try.  It also came in handy when he started his family with Julie, who knew nothing until he taught her.  But they both prefer when he does the cooking, as she views it more as a chore or an undertaking, while he enjoys the work, as well as making her and the kids happy.  The most important thing that Jimmy learned from his father was to do the right thing and to take responsibility for his actions.  Jimmy may not have always done this, which led to disappointment in himself and from his parents.  As a consequence, he has always tried his best to live up to these principles.  One reason, but not the only one, Jimmy chose to propose was because he wanted to take responsibility for Julie and the child he helped create, as she was in this situation because of choices that he made.

29. What recurring dreams do they have?  Jimmy dreamed about Julie after she left for college.  Even though they talked on the phone and exchanged letters, he missed seeing and spending time with her.  It was what prompted him to surprise her at Berkeley, leading to their weekend together.  After San Francisco, he kept dreaming of her and their time together.  He couldn’t get her out of his head.  After learning she was pregnant, Jimmy has recurring nightmares of losing Julie or Julie and the baby, which only got worse when they learned that she was carrying twins.  These nightmares would have him waking up in the middle of the night with a cold sweat.  He would always have to check on Julie, watch her sleep and talk to the unborn child(ren).  Jimmy would have these nightmares each time she was pregnant, but thankfully they decreased over time, especially after he finally told her about them.  Jimmy would also dream about his children - were they boys or girls? what did they look like? what were their personalities? what kinds of situations would they get themselves into?

Julie

12. Do they like romance in the books they read (or in the book they’re in)?  Yes, Julie typically likes the romance in books she reads.  In fact, romance is one of the key elements in her choosing a book to read or enjoying a book.  Reading about romance led her to being a romantic.  She grew up reading Jane Austen novels and Jane Eyre, among others.  However, she would be quick to point out the problems that the characters were creating in their relationships.

16. If money wasn’t a limit, what would they wear?  Money usually wasn’t an object in what clothes she would wear or buy.  It was more of her confidence levels, what her parents (read: stepfather Sid) thought and would allow her to wear, and what she felt she could wear as a mother.  But she would have liked to wore some Vivienne Westwood, Nolan Miller, DKNY, Versace, and Gucci.

20. What do they like that nobody else does?  Julie likes to watch soap operas, something that she got from her mom.  Becca only watched them a little in the 1980s, but only for big stories that everyone talked about.  She tries to share her love for them with her kids, but Lily only liked them when she was little and Sophie is the only who shared Julie’s love for them.  Julie has a lot of pregnancy cravings that have everyone looking disgusted and thinking she is insane for eating.

30. What would they do if they knew it would be forgiven?  Julie wouldn’t really do too much differently.  Well, as a teenager, she probably would have been more rebellious and snuck out more.  But that would have worked more if her brother had been her guardian, rather than Sid.  Johnny would forgive his little sister anything, so he came to terms with her relationship with Jimmy.  He was more angry with Jimmy for sleeping with her/going along with her idea.  Jimmy would have supported her and have forgiven her if she did have an abortion, provided that she told him, even though it would hurt.  But the reason why Julie doesn’t is because she would never forgive herself for doing to Jimmy and his child.

[nellie-elizabeth]

Outlander: Of Lost Things (3x04)

Another of my absolutely favorite scenes from the books was featured in this episode, and I loved it a lot. I do have a few qualms, though...

Cons:

For the first time, I felt like the 20th century plot couldn't keep up with the 18th century story. Basically, we see Claire, Roger, and Bree continue to hunt for signs of Jamie. But eventually, Claire comes to the conclusion that she can't keep searching for a ghost. She decides it's time to go home to Boston, where she has her home and medical practice waiting for her. There wasn't really enough going on to justify an episode's worth of materials, and consequently these scenes almost felt like they were discarded bits left over from last year's finale, as we've finally caught up with the events we left off with last season.

And then there's the Brianna problem. Sophie Skelton is... not doing a great job. Her line delivery is stilted to the extent that she comes across like somebody performing in a high school play. Her dialogue is maybe a little bit hokey too, as she talks about hope and love and never giving up... but the thing is, the other actors on this show have been able to pull off lines like that, and she can't. The only thing that gives me hope for her character is that her best moments are the ones with Roger. As we move forward, the majority of her scenes will be with him, and not with Claire, so maybe their chemistry will develop into something more enjoyable to watch. For now, I'm disappointed that Bree, an excellent character from the books, is translating so poorly to the small screen.

My last complaint is with the pacing, which I think might be a constant worry this season. Voyager is a big book and a lot of stuff happens. The stuff at Helwater, which for the most part I absolutely adored, went by so fast that we missed a lot of the nuance. The Lord John stuff was excellent, but there should have been more of it. And there should have been more ambiguity in the Geneva pregnancy situation. There were a number of shortcuts, the most annoying of which was Hal's intrusion into the story. Apparently he got drunk and spilled the beans to Geneva about Jamie's true identity, which is what allowed her to blackmail him into coming to her bed. Hal comes across like a drunken idiot, which is so contrary to his character from the books. I don't imagine Hal will play much of a role in the series, as he's a relatively minor character who is probably easy to cut out for the most part. But still - John's brother is pretty awesome and I felt like we got a bit of character assassination with him in this episode.

Pros:

Despite the pacing being a problem, the stuff at Helwater was still pretty great. Geneva is a notorious figure from the books, widely reviled, as she coerces Jamie to have sex with her and then gets pregnant with his child. We can all love Willie and still hate on Geneva, right? The show made her similarly bratty and unbearable, but there was a certain level of care in the sex scene between her and Jamie. I might have liked it if that scene hadn't gone on quite as long, but... the moment where Geneva tells Jamie that she doesn't know what to do, and asks him to show her... that moment connected the scene with Jamie and Claire's first night together. The situations were quite different, but in one key way they were not: Jamie and Claire did not know each other all that well the first time they had sex, and Claire taught Jamie how it was to be done, as he'd never done it before. And now Jamie is giving the gift of a gentle first time to a young woman who is about to be married off to an old man against her will. Say what you will about Geneva, and I'll say an awful lot, but the way she was handled in the show made me sympathize with her quite a bit.

Isobel Dunsany was a delightful surprise. I don't remember exactly how she was described in the book, as it's been a while since I read it, but this portrayal of her felt right on. She's timid and a little awkward, clearly overshadowed by her abrasive and stunning sister and the memory of her deceased brother. But she's kind and she sees things more clearly than one would suppose. She knows that Geneva's child is Jamie's, and not Geneva's late husband's, and yet she keeps the secret. After Geneva's death in childbirth, Isobel strikes Jamie in fury, but later actually apologizes to him. Due to their differing statuses, Isobel could have easily been cruel to Jamie and he would have been powerless to stand up for himself. She also dotes on Willie, even knowing his true parentage, and promises Jamie to look after his son. Isobel kind of rules and I wish we could see more of her.

The real meat of this plot thread, for me, is the stuff with Lord John. (Surprise, surprise. Expect me to gobble up every morsel of this man the same way I did for Fergus last season). Lord John is such a good person and I'm just so crazy about him. I'm glad we got to see at least one chess game, although of course I would have preferred a whole series of them like in the book. But to watch these two men, with the weight of such a history between them, able to crawl their way to a friendship is just... it's so fun. It's more interesting than a lot of Jamie's friendships. Of course he loves his sister and Ian. Of course he loves Murtagh and the other members of his clan. Those are friendships built on blood and culture. With John, it's... against all odds. The best scene in the episode is when John reveals to Jamie that he knows William is his son. The two go for a walk, and Jamie asks John for a favor - will he look after Willie, and act as a father to him? If he does, Jamie would be willing to... well, let John have his way. John is slightly horrified by the offer, and Jamie says "do you not want me, then?" John replies, quite matter of fact: "I shall probably want you until the day I die," but of course he won't take Jamie up on that offer. In fact, John has his own news - he is to be married to Isobel. He cares for her, and this way he will be able to look after Willie. Jamie is grateful, and says that John shall always have his friendship, if that means anything to him. John says it means a great deal.

Okay. Just... yes. This scene is everything to me. It's sort of a useless conversation to contemplate sexual mores of this time period. Of course John being homosexual would have been seen as a horrific, criminal thing to his peers of the time period. And the fact that Jamie knows this key thing about him means that Jamie has power over John in a very dangerous way. But Jamie trusts him - even likes him - anyway. In the books, Jamie actually gives John a chaste kiss on the lips to seal the promise to look after Willie. While that is an iconic and excellent moment from the book, I really like the way they played it out here as well. Back in Ardsmuir, John's come-on to Jamie took the shape of putting his hand over Jamie's, and then stroking his finger. The clasping of hands took on an intimate tone that Jamie found unacceptable. Now, all this time later, Jamie puts out his hand for John to shake, and when John takes it, Jamie puts his other hand up over John's, in a parallel of John's action back in the prison. Such a subtle thing. Such a moment of acceptance and trust between these two very different people. Without giving too much away about future events, let's just say that these two don't always have the smoothest sailing relationship, but their abiding bond remains, and it's one of the best things in the whole series.

Before I wrap up, I should also mention Willie, Jamie's illegitimate son. I'm going to ignore the fact that the little boy playing Willie doesn't much resemble Sam Heughan, because... come on. I'm sure they'll cast a ginger to play older Willie when the time comes. This kid was adorable, and even though they didn't have much time together, this episode managed to solidify Jamie and Willie's bond quite nicely. Jamie says earlier that he's lost "two children," referring to Faith and Brianna, and if you think about it, he's also lost a foster son in Fergus. So watching him play with his child, chastise him for being spoiled, secretly baptize him as a "stinking papist," and even give him a carved wooden snake like his own brother, also named Willie, had done for him... all of this stuff was adorable and heartbreaking. Poor Jamie is deprived of the chance of raising any of his children.

The ending sequence of this episode, played under a Bob Dylan song, hit the right note exactly. You see Claire and Brianna back on a plane to Boston, Claire having given up on her hunt for Jamie through the pages of history. This is cut with clips of Jamie leaving Helwater to return to Scotland, a freedom granted him because of his actions in saving the infant Willie from Geneva's deranged widower. As he leaves, we see Lord John and Lady Isobel standing in tableau with their de facto son Willie. John stares wistfully after Jamie. Willie actually runs after him, and John and Isobel chase after him to hold him back. Jamie rides slowly away from his son, unsure if he'll ever see him again. Touching and perfect and so freakin' sad.

I'll leave it there. Based on episode titles, I'm fairly certain that the big reunion is going to be episode 6, meaning we have one more episode to catch Jamie up to the print shop, and get Claire back into the proper century. As impatient as I am, I also wonder how the rest of this season is going to go, pacing-wise. Thus far, I've been really happy with the material I've gotten, and my only big complaint has been wishing for more.

8/10

[siennablxke-blog]

TRIGGER WARNING: ( so many gdi ) incest, teen pregnancy, child loss, death, murder, domestic abuse, mental illness, mental abuse, suicide, child abuse, neglect

okay, i think it’s safe to say i’m weak and have been wanting to rp sienna forever but just didn’t have appropriate resources. for those of you who aren’t aware ( aka most of you ) sienna is from the british soap opera hollyoaks and she is my baby.  i’m gonna list some little facts and background information. please note: she’s quite possibly the most tragic soap character i know so this is probably gonna be hella triggering so i’ll make sure to tag everything just to be safe.

sienna is very posh. a real daddy’s girl who was head girl and has a trust fund. externally she seems like the most put together person in the world.

her mother walked out on her when she was just a baby, taking mark, sienna’s twin brother and leaving sienna with her father.

several times when she was a baby, before her mother left, she’d tried to kill sienna ( & mark. ). she was very mentally unstable after mental and physical abuse from her husband patrick. she returned a few years later and told sienna and patrick that mark was dead. he wasn’t. after this she was sectioned and a restraining order was taken out.

sienna was a real daddy’s girl and lived a posh life. her father was a controlling and occasionally used to beat her as well when she did things wrong.

at thirteen she got pregnant after meeting a builders son working at a school her father was at. patrick locked her in a basement until she had then baby, which she called sophie. he took the baby and told her she’d died.

sienna wasn’t allowed to grieve for the baby she lost, or even talk about her. this really messed her up later in life, but wasn’t evident until her mid-twenties.

when she was a adult her twin brother tracked her and her dad down. he had another family in hollyoaks. they got on well at first and moved to hollyoaks to be closer to him.

whilst reconnecting with her brother sienna found comfort working at a local pub run by the osbourne family. she was a friend to husband and wife, darren and nancy osbourne. after seeing nancy getting seriously addicted to painkillers she became rather angry. long story short: she decided darren deserved better, ended up sleeping with him and then faked a pregnancy. whilst doing this she continued to make nancy look bad, drugging her with painkillers and even making her look like she’d kidnapped her own children.

she went to her biggest extreme when a kid who was staying with the osbourned ( tom ) discovered she wasn’t pregnant. she ended up locking him in a basement at her mothers old house and convincing him he’d been behind an explosion that had killed darren and the police were looking for him. she kept him there for months.

when it all came out and tom was found/ sienna was exposed she lost it. took the youngest kids and did exactly what her mother had done, tried to gas herself in the car with them in. she was stopped and arrested. nancy was found in the boot of her car after they’d fought and sienna had pushed her, causing her to hit her head.

sienna was sectioned after this. whilst in the psychiactric hospital her brother learned that ‘sophie’ hadn’t died. her dad had lied. so sienna became obsessed with finding her daughter.

after being discharged and released from prison on bail she started on a quest to find her daughter sophia. it took a while and a few interferences from her dad but soon sophia found her, sophie being a fourteen year old girl named nico.

after getting her daughter back sienna learned that nico’s father was in fact her twin brother mark. ( i’m still weirded out by this plot but yah this happened in hollyoaks ) they hadn’t known each other and barley remembered the time as they were fairly young and it was a quick meeting. after this sienna relapsed, becoming obsessed with having a perfect family for nico -- she ended up abducting her brother, chaining him to a radiator and trying to force him to marry her.

aaaand queue sectioning no.2

if you think that’s it, i’m not even finished.

her brother had to go on the run after covering for nico for an  assault/attempted murder/murder. ‘tis complicated.

after getting discharged sienna actually settles and ended up in a relationship. buuuuut she believed him to be cheating on her so her and nico went to his house, where she was attacked by a young woman. nico hit the oman over the head to protect her mum. they took her to hospital but she died on arrival.

the young woman, turned out to the daughter that her boyfriend ben hadn’t told her about. sienna decided to say nothing to protect her daughter.

nico kind of went of the rails after this and actually made sienna look sane. after patrick threatened to tell ben about nico killing his daughter, nico killed him. ( he’d been suffering from motor neurone disease so was dying -- people assumed he’d killed himself or his second ex-wife, maxine: who he’d abused had done it. )

things seemed to get better and sienna got engaged to ben, but he started acting like a dick and calling sienna bad mum so she had an affair with a guy called trevor ( who was practically ben’s biggest enemy )

nico found out, and despite the fact that sienna gwas married to ben, she ended the relationship -- causing freak-o nico to stab trevor.

sienna kicked her out and tried to get back to normal after ben took the fall for nico and went to prison. she started a fling with an ex-convict & murderer : warren fox.

when nico came back she gave her another chance but once again things went wrong and, whilst trying to learn who’d killed her father -- sienna ended up getting set up. whilst in a prison cell nico confessed to her. sienna took the wrap.

a few months later, after hearing nico was getting worse, she changed her statement and police started  looking for nico. it was halloween, sienna had ended up also looking for her to help her escape -- they ended up in a fun fair maze which was set alight by another killed ( well what can i say, it’s a soap. ) nico was killed in the fire, sienna was rescued by warren.

she blamed him for nico’s death though and went on this whole scheme to kill his son, which resulted in a burned garage and an angry warren. he let her go though.

aaaand that’s about it -- that’s where sienna is up to know. four years of pure craziness but i love her sm. she’s currently in that whole sly-cunning-grieving-looking for love stage of her life. her most recent work being that she poisoned someone.

yah she’s learned nothing.

probably still needs therapy.

but such a pretty package on the outside and so darn posh. you’d never know anything that had happened to her if you weren’t living in hollyoaks.

if you’ve made it to the bottom of this without bailing congrats. also feel free to hmu for any kind of plots. totally up for someone to come along for sienna to become a little obsessed with. and if anyone wants their life ruined -- she’s your gal!

[topmixtrends]

FULL DISCLOSURE: As an adult, I’ve only ever really invested in one piece of non-comics art, a painting (Psychedelic Self-Portrait, 2012) by Aline Kominsky-Crumb, the self-described “grandmother” of autobiographical comics. Those who have read her stories know that Kominsky-Crumb spent parts of her early life grappling with an artistic interest and ambition that was at times encouraged and at other times stifled by those — family, lovers, handsy male art professors — around her. While Kominsky-Crumb ultimately found her calling in the wildly confessional, wryly self-deprecating, and always entertaining comics that have been collected, in part, in her book Love That Bunch, her fine arts sensibility — and especially her investment in portraiture — is never far outside the picture.

Kominsky-Crumb’s characters and settings, drawn in an expressive style as willfully intense as the sometimes shocking, often boundary-pushing content of her work, are studies in the contradictions that make up individual inner lives. Her alter egos’ moods fluctuate, from deep self-loathing to keen self-admiration to an assortment of anxious and unanxious states in between. The Bunch (her most often recurring alter ego) takes care of her body’s appearance, but, she wonders in front of hand-drawn mirrors, does this make her overly obsessed and superficial? Her protagonists worry about what others think, but they are also often pictured in flagrante delicto (popping a zit; joyfully being mounted by a husband; seething at a mother or even, though far less frequently, at a young daughter). For me, as for the many who have been captivated by Kominsky-Crumb’s work, the attraction is in the exposure, in the ways her comics get readers to think in new ways about common themes and subjects — sex, love, money, family, trauma, work, aging, motherhood — that are so often represented in tired, masking clichés.

On a sunny day in early May 2018, I called Kominsky-Crumb from my Brooklyn, New York, apartment to speak to her at her friend’s house in the desert in Tucson, Arizona, where she was staying on a brief four-day break from her book tour. Since the 1990s, she has been living, with her husband and earlier also with their daughter, in France.

¤

TAHNEER OKSMAN: I want to start by asking you how this expanded 2018 edition of your 1990 collection Love That Bunch came about. It’s a large hardcover. The design is careful and beautiful. Can you tell me the story of how it happened?

ALINE KOMINSKY-CRUMB: I ran into Peggy Burns at the Angoulême Comics Festival a few years back. We had a drink together, and she said to me, “I’ve just become the editor at Drawn & Quarterly, and one of the things I really want to do is a book of your work.” I said, “If you do it, I’ll do a new, long story for it too.” I did a new cover and endpapers, and I really got excited about it. It’s such a nice version of my work. And I’m old enough now to appreciate the attention.

I was very taken by the cover image of the book, a portrait which is a lot less expressionist than your comics. It looks more like a painting than a cartoon version of you. Why did you decide on that cover?

It’s because that’s who I am now. I’ve been teaching yoga for 25 years, and I have a very different feeling about my body, myself. A different self-image. And that cover reflects who I am now. I felt like, how can I draw what I was 30 years ago, or 40 years ago? I am that person but I’m an evolved, different version of that.

Reading the book from start to finish (which involved a lot of rereading of pieces you had published in different contexts and over three or four decades), I was struck by how many of the themes persisted throughout those years. I was also struck by how often the Bunch’s childhood seemed to come up again and again in different iterations. Why do you think these themes have stayed relevant in your work over time? How does it feel to look back on this body of work?

This collection seems very complete. I feel a great sense of relief that it exists. It covers a lot of territory, and it’s a good representation of my career as a cartoonist.

It’s not like there’s a direct evolutionary line. It goes all over the place, and keeps going back to things. There’s a period of time where you feel better, a period where you feel worse. Where you’re fatter, where you’re not in touch with your body, where you’re drinking too much, doing too many drugs, whatever it is. And I think the work reflects those different periods, but I think there’s a general trend toward fulfillment and self-awareness. Some of the early images are really out there — I was so crazy then, I was just trying to rebel against my upbringing completely. I had so much pain and so much anger. Those stories are very painful, very anger-driven. Some of the later stories are not quite so full of venom as the earlier work.

I was wondering too about how that notorious “monster” image of Blabette — the character who represents your mother — was included in this blown-up version in the index. I’ve heard you talk in the past about how that image caused you some trouble when your mother saw it.

That was the book designer’s decision, but I said it was okay because it was a very significant image in my early years. Now I get along great with my mother. She’s 90, and she’s really a character. I’ve developed a lot of compassion for her, thinking and realizing what she went through as a young mother with a pathological husband who was a liar and criminal. And she was 19 when I was born. Having been a mother and having lived a lot longer than when I first wrote those stories about her, I have much more compassion.

She also had a second husband, after my father died, and she took care of him when he was very old. She was such a wonderful caretaker that I think she evolved because of that, and I think I saw her differently after that, how much compassion she had. It made me love her and accept her so much more. And now we get along great — we enjoy each other and we have fun together. I spent February with her in Miami, Florida. We went to the gym together; we did yoga together. She schlepped to the Everglades with me to look at wild animals, which she never does. We went shopping together and we had lots of dinners with friends and family. I really had a good time.

I was interested in some of your depictions of motherhood in your comics — both the ways you depict Blabette and seeing the Bunch as a mother. I’m a new-ish mother, and it still seems rare today — though a lot less so — to get accurate and genuine depictions of some of the negative emotions and experiences involved in motherhood. How do you think being a mother affected your relationship to your work?

Robert and I both being egotistical artists, both of us felt like we were doing much more childcare than we should and neither of us felt like we had enough time to work. It was the worst that we’d ever gotten along in our whole relationship. We kind of hated each other during that early time.

And the thing that was the hardest for me, and sent me into years of therapy, was that my love for her, which was overwhelming, was painful instead of pleasurable. I couldn’t deal with that and so I went into therapy and what I finally realized, which was pretty obvious, is that I didn’t feel that from my mother. When I felt so much love for my daughter, I guess I realized I didn’t get that from my mother. So it made me feel pain rather than pleasure. And I worked on that a lot.

I think I was able to become a better mother as time went on, but in the early stages it was very difficult for me. I loved her so much — I felt like my heart had been moved to the outside of my body, and it could be pierced so easily by anything. I have never felt so vulnerable in my life as when she was a baby. It was the most overwhelming thing I’ve ever experienced. My pregnancy was easy, the birth was easy, but then when she was there, it was so hard.

Sophie now has three children. She is the most natural, best mother. And she recently said to me, “Yeah, but you were such a great mother, that’s why it’s easy for me.” I said, “Really?” I realized that I did a much better job than I thought I was doing at the time, and she does a lot of things now that I did then. I was a real hippie and I was very organic and I had cloth diapers and I hung them out in the sun and I had chickens and goats. I was really back-to-the-land California hippie. And she’s a lot like that, but in France. Being a grandmother and seeing Sophie as a mother has been a wonderful experience for me. And it has reinforced the fact that I was not a total fuck-up. At the time, I felt really inadequate and unprepared and very bad at motherhood.

I also felt guilty because I was thinking about my art and I was editing Weirdo magazine and I was doing a lot of comics then. It was the peak of my work phase of comics, and I was very productive before that. It was difficult, but I stayed productive throughout her childhood. I was able to do it somehow. Eventually, we got some childcare, but not for a while. I was too scared to leave her with anybody. And I breastfed for a long time. But gradually things got easier.

Your character talks a lot about the influence of creativity in her life. Sometimes she seems to have this kind of ambition, to produce work and be known, but sometimes she just seems to want to be able to do her work and be left alone. Other times, she wants to focus on life and love and sex. What role do you think ambition has played in your life, or your autobiographical characters’ lives?

I think I was in general ambition-impaired. But I think women have a harder time than men. For me, I’m very domestically oriented. I run a tight ship of a house and I really enjoy doing all of the domestic things, like cooking and gardening. It’s very time-consuming, but it’s also deeply satisfying. For all of my life, I’ve been torn between those kinds of “female,” domestic activities — they are totally satisfying to me — and wanting to get my voice out there in the world and participate in the general culture and have my say. I don’t think I ever had ambition in terms of caring about money or getting into movies or TV or whatever. But I do think I wanted to leave something, for posterity, in the culture. Say something. So I had that drive.

But then, I was also totally obsessed with sex and approval from men and wanting to have fun and taking drugs. All of it. It was all simultaneously going on, and there was a lot of conflict.

The way you describe it, you seem somehow more balanced than many people, who sort of zero in on one thing or the other.

Well, I managed to eke out some kind of body of work. And I managed not to be such a terrible mother, and to have a clean house. [Laughs.]

That’s superhero status, right there.

I think so too, a little bit. I was just helping my friend skim her pool, and I was thinking, I love doing this. I love working in my garden. I love cleaning and making order and aesthetic beauty in the house. It is a gratifying creative thing to me, along with everything else. I love decorating — I’m redoing another house. I take these old houses and make them beautiful again. I find that very satisfying also. It’s hard to say that one thing is necessarily more important than another.

You seem always to fluctuate between making comics and doing other stuff. This includes yoga and home decoration, but also working in other art forms, like the video and art show you collaborated on with your friend Dominique Sapel (Miami Makeover: Almost Anything for Beauty, 2012), and the paintings you do. How do you know when it’s time to make comics, or when it’s time to do something else?

Stories tend to fester in my brain and soul until they need to come out. After I’ve been working on comics for a while, and it’s so restrictive and uptight — it’s all black-and-white, these little boxes — after a while I have a huge desire to break out and do something in color. Either work on my house or decorate my house or do paintings. It kind of goes in cycles, and one reacts to the other. And then if I’ve only been working on my house, I might find I need to do something more meaningful and intellectual, and stop and go in my studio.

Sometimes I feel crazy, like I’m running from one to the other. But on the other hand, one thing informs the other. It’s also seasonal. When the spring comes, I want to start planting flowers like crazy. I feel more out there and I don’t want to be confined inside, so I work less. Now I have three grandkids, so I play with the children a lot and take care of them to help Sophie. And I love that too. That’s also creative and satisfying.

Another issue that comes up a lot in your work, and seems to be a uniting theme of the new story you included in Love That Bunch, “Dream House,” is money and class. Why do you think you have such an interest in the topic?

My grandparents were very successful and very comfortable and for the first five years of my life they lived in a big house and I was there a lot. I was very influenced by my grandmother, who had impeccable 1920s furniture. She was very elegant. She dressed beautifully. My fashion and decorating sense definitely come from her. Then when I was five, my parents moved to a very modern 1950s house and my father was a bum and a pathological liar and he never had any money. But they moved to a very fancy area where everyone had money and we had no money and I was always ashamed of my parents and my house and my outfits. I think part of my obsession with it was being in a place where everyone had that stuff and I didn’t, and feeling very inferior.

Later, when the 1960s came, I realized that was all bullshit, all of it, and I was kind of angry about having been raised in such a horrible place with such bad values. I had to deal with those things for a very long time in order to come to terms with them. And gradually, Robert and I developed our own reality with our own values and a bohemian lifestyle. We were poor at times, we had money at times. But that wasn’t what made our life rich. We found other ways of being rich, and that was cultural and trading things with people and being able to grow things and eating our own food and being able to fix things ourselves. We discovered a whole other way of life that had nothing to do with how I grew up. Gradually, I evolved beyond my upbringing. But in the beginning, having been subject to that value system and not having the tools or the equipment to deal with it was a very painful and difficult thing.

Lots of critics have focused on the traumas you depict in your work: sexual and physical and emotional violence. I noticed, in rereading your work in this new form, that there were several stories throughout the book that touched on issues of grief. One was about the loss of your father, another was about the loss of a grandparent. And there was a bit, toward the end, in your new story, that seemed to touch on grief in relation to your brother’s life and your relationship with him. All of this is done with your characteristically over-the-top sense of humor interspersed throughout. Why do you think you’re so drawn to the comedic, even when writing and drawing about these darker topics and themes?

I can’t tell a story unless there’s humor involved. I was raised with stand-up comics in New York, like Jackie Mason, Joey Bishop, Alan King, Henny Youngman, and Don Rickles. That kind of humor is really soulful to me. There’s a history of Jewish humor and storytelling where it’s somewhat self-deprecating. There’s pain and pleasure involved, but there’s also always this fatalistic dark humor about all of it. That’s what makes me want to tell a story — when I can see all of those sides to it.

I could see the absurdity of some of these grief rituals. Like, you’re sitting shiva and instead of sitting on wooden benches they give you cardboard boxes and my overweight relatives caved in the boxes. It’s almost this incredible social commentary about family deterioration at the same time. While I was grieving with my family, as it was happening, I was also thinking, my god, this is unbelievable. I’m really interested in these things happening simultaneously. That’s what makes a story to me: weaving together all of those details and contradictions because that’s how life is. It’s not linear, there’s not one theme. You’re weaving a tapestry. That’s what’s good art to me. And literature too. That’s what I want to read myself.

Are you thinking of any literature in particular? What do you read?

I read a lot of comics. I love Phoebe Gloeckner and Julie Doucet. Alison Bechdel, Carol Tyler. I love Chester Brown and I love Dan Clowes and Chris Ware and all these artists. And I love Lena Dunham and Broad City and Amy Sedaris.

I think it’s all linear, from my work to that. Whether or not they read my work, it’s in the collective unconscious and that autobiographical style of work has developed and spread. I’m always interested in reading that kind of stuff. One of my favorite writers is Jean Rhys. And I also like John Fante and Bukowski and writers from that period, too.

Lately I’ve been trying to keep up with The New Yorker and journalism because I’m so concerned with what’s happening in the United States. So I’ve been reading nonfiction since Trump got elected, to try to figure out what’s going on, and listening to good radio shows too, which I stream from France. I can’t ignore it.

I’ve spoken with a lot of cartoonists who like listening to radio while they work.

Yes. I listen to radio while I’m drawing. I can’t listen to it when I’m writing, but when I’m drawing I’ll stream NPR. I go to KQED in San Francisco, I go to KCRW in Los Angeles, I go to WNYC in New York. I go all over the country to try and figure things out. I also listen to BBC and French radio stations. I listen to ARTE Radio, which is German and French, and I try and get as much input as I can. Especially having grandkids, I wanna have some hope. I do have hope — I have hope that young women are going to take over from the fucked-up old white men, and that’s my hope.

This leads nicely into another question I had, which is about role models and mentorship. In one of your pieces about being in art school, you show the Bunch having a female art professor and finally feeling encouraged in her work, at least for a time. You’ve also been an important role model and champion of autobiographical comics for lots and lots of cartoonists — from Phoebe Gloeckner and Julie Doucet to Gabrielle Bell and Lauren Weinstein and Vanessa Davis. Could you talk about role models and mentorship — whether you feel like you had any, and what, if anything, you feel is your role as a pioneering creator?

I came from a fine arts background and started as a painter. My role models were Frida Kahlo and Alice Neel. Those were the two who influenced me most in terms of my style and how I saw I could express myself. And then Justin Green also, who wrote Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary (1972), the first autobiographical comic as far as I know. He influenced me a lot. When I first went to San Francisco, I went there to meet him because I was very influenced by his work.

I also loved Little Lulu comics when I was a kid. Those were the only comics I really read a lot. And I think of Little Lulu as an early feminist character — she was tough and strong, and I really liked that a lot.

I have had friends in my life, too, who were strong women, who have had an influence on me — some older friends. I had one friend who passed away. She said things to me in my life at moments when it was really important. And I have one cousin who is younger than me that I feel I had a really good influence on. We’re close friends and I think I steered her in a direction away from our horrible family values and into a much better way of being.

I’ve met so many inspiring younger people on this book tour. I’m happy about that. What more could you hope for, than that people will keep doing good work and even better work? Because the graphic novel is considered an important art form, people actually study it and learn it and they’re better than we were. We were just groping around, trying to figure out how to make comic books. There was no history and not much precedent — nothing really to base one’s work on. A lot of the work was really crude and not really self-realized in a lot of ways. The work I see now is better — it’s really impressive. And comics have themselves been influential. Alison Bechdel’s work is a Broadway show, and Lena Dunham’s work seems like it could have been influenced by early comics.

In 1976, I drew myself on the cover of [the first issue of all-female comic anthology] Twisted Sisters, sitting on the toilet. And then Lena Dunham put herself on the toilet on an episode of Girls. When I saw that, I fell out of my chair. People said I was crazy and brave for drawing myself, but that’s just a drawing — you can be distanced from it. But she put herself on the toilet on-screen, and I was blown away by that.

Looking back, do you still feel a connection to these earlier versions of yourself on the page? Or are they just characters you used to know?

There’s a connection, but it’s more and more distant, and I feel like a much more evolved creature than I was then, thank god. I don’t use any substances, I’m much more clear-headed, I have replaced alcohol and drugs and cigarettes with yoga for the last 25 years and that’s a very positive change in my life. It took me a long time to get there. Meditation has been a great tool for me as well, and it has helped me so much. I still incorporate that early self in myself. I think it helps me feel compassionate toward young people.

People can really fuck up when they’re young and still come out of it, as long as they don’t die of a drug overdose or get in a car accident while drinking. As long as you stay alive, there’s hope.

¤

Tahneer Oksman is the author of “How Come Boys Get to Keep Their Noses?”: Women and Jewish American Identity in Contemporary Graphic Memoirs.

The post As Long as You Stay Alive There’s Hope: An Interview with Aline Kominsky-Crumb appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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Review #27 - Holding Fire

Holding Fire Author: April Hunt Genre: Bodyguards, Contemporary Romance, Military, Romantic Suspense Rating: ★★★★ Recommendation: give it a shot; once was enough Summary: A unknown but potentially deadly threat on Elle Monroe’s life results in the hiring of Trey Hansen and his fellow Alpha Security team to become her bodyguards. Of course, this all comes to light after Elle and Trey have had a one-night stand of sorts. And though Trey doggedly chases after Elle, the latter is not too keen on entering a committed relationship when she’s been burned before.

Female Lead: I love Elle for almost all the reasons Trey loves Elle. For nearly thirty years, she’s been the submissive type that does everything that is asked of her. The majority of her life has been about keeping up appearances and being the faithful and dutiful daughter or girlfriend/fiancée for people who basically use her in any way they can to move up the ranks in their political aspirations. And why does she do it? For some sorely needed affection that Elle knows all too well that she’s not going to get. And yet for years she continues to live her life under the control of her father. This is an honest and genuine part of her character; this is relatable; this makes Elle human and real to me. So when she reaches her breaking point and removes herself from her father’s control, I love and support her all the more. It takes courage and strength to stand up for herself even in this type of situation that people might scoff at, but Elle is adamant that she’s going to live her life on her terms now even at the age of thirty, and I couldn’t be more proud of a fictional character.

It’s so clear why Trey loves Elle—the qualities he finds attractive in her. She is sweet but she’s also strong. She’s kind and caring and instinctually helps those in need. Even when Elle decides to take control of her own life, she still puts others before herself, and that’s admirable. She’s still insecure, though. After being cheated on, knowing how men can treat women so horribly, Elle is rightfully apprehensive about committing to another relationship. She has fears, and sometimes those fears are the ones actually controlling how she’s living her life. But in the end, it’s the good in Elle that wins out. Her good qualities far outweigh her insecurities, and that’s what makes Elle a solid female lead. Male Lead: Trey was cool, fine, a little one-note but still a good character at the same time. What I liked most about him was that he was pretty forthright most all of the time. Other than withholding some information from Elle regarding the threat against her and subsequent safety measures, the character is known for telling it like it is as noticed by just about everyone in the book. I mean, a guy that actually wants to talk and communicate? That’s kind of refreshing, and I thoroughly enjoyed that Trey had no unnecessary secrets or traumatic background hindering his ability to move on and work toward a future.

The reason I think Trey is a little one-note is because I felt like Hunt alluded to stuff in Trey’s background/childhood that could’ve been a little more character revealing, but I didn’t think it was really expanded upon. Maybe I just didn’t read closely enough, but I felt that there was definitely something in his childhood that wasn’t all that great—despite good parents—and yet Hunt never fully expressed what that was and whether or not it had a major impact on Trey’s character and/or his relationships with his family and/or other people. Again, it could have been given Trey a little more depth, but all in all, he’s a pretty good character. And he clearly loves Elle in the right way, so I can’t complain too much. Plot & Writing: Despite taking much longer than I anticipated to get through this book, Holding Fire was a solid, above average, pleasantly surprising read. This is another bodyguard and romantic suspense book done right with the threat on Elle’s life consistent and persistent throughout the book while also complimenting the romance. Most of the book was great, but there were some moments that made me pause—both in good and bad ways.

So, I’m going to skip right over to the big fight between Elle and Trey that was the semi-pinnacle of the whole story and how it was resolved. The fight? I understand Elle’s fear—the main point that drove the argument and led to her subsequent decision being the fact that she is still slightly afraid of committing to a relationship when there’s something she just can’t give Trey: children. But then, when Vince, Trey’s friend, knocks some sense into Trey, he’s the one that ends up apologizing? That confused me a little. It was clear to me that Elle was indeed the one pushing Trey away even though she didn’t want to. So, why was Trey’s epiphany moment and magical ‘I love you’ the reason Elle took him back? But actually, that’s not even really the reason Elle took him back! Because she found out she was miraculously pregnant, and so because she was okay now, she would forgive Trey? This makes no sense to me. Even if Trey never told Elle directly that he loved her, it was very obvious that he only wanted her as evidenced by both his words and actions. I personally don’t think Trey was the one that needed to apologize nor do I believe that one magical ‘I love you’ solves all problems, which, again, it kind of didn’t.

And then let’s talk about that whole pregnancy situation. Honestly, I thought making Elle pregnant at the end was a huge cop out on Hunt’s part. Elle’s originally thought inability to have children played a small but significant role throughout the entire book. For Hunt to then just miraculously make her pregnant was wrapping up the ending with a big bow, and it was far too neat and kind of unrealistic. Again, referring to the previous paragraph, the pregnancy seemed to only make things okay for Elle because she could have children and give Trey a family. In my opinion, Elle should’ve been the one apologizing for pushing Trey away when he was clearly in love with her and didn’t care as much about having a family as having Elle in his life. But when Hunt put that surprise pregnancy in, for me it felt like the foundations of the argument were negated, which they kind of were because the foundation of the argument genuinely was about the fact that Elle couldn’t give Trey the life he wanted. So then that leads me to the question of why Trey still apologized in the first place. It’s this strange, never-ending cycle of confusion for me here. A little unfortunate since I really did enjoy this book, but I just couldn’t reconcile Hunt’s solution to the presented problem.

One thing I will say. Unprotected sex leading to a pregnancy? Yeah, that’s consequence for you. And yes, it’s understandable that they didn’t use a condom because they were both clean and Elle was pretty sure that she couldn’t ever get pregnant. But then she does! So, if I really wanted to stretch and look for the silver lining in the whole pregnant thing, I guess that’s it? That actions have consequences and a lack of condom can in fact result in pregnancy? Yeah… sorry, I just had to comment on that.

Oh, and also. Hunt did a very interesting thing with her sex scenes. Meaning most of them were actually faded out and not descriptive or explicit except for like one of them. At first, before I got to the descriptive one, I was very surprised that Hunt was kind of fading out those scenes. I have no issue with less explicit/faded out sex scenes, but I was just genuinely surprised given the kind of book Holding Fire appears to be. But then, when you actually get to the explicit scene, it kind of does make sense and is a little genius on Hunt’s part? Because she faded out all the other ones, it makes the one she does go into detail about all the more intimate and revealing. So, I guess kudos to Hunt on pulling that off. Secondary Characters & Plots: The Alpha Security team was super fun. I really did like all of them for the moments we got to see their personalities shine. My favorite from the Alpha Security team was probably Logan, so hopefully he gets a good book if Hunt continues to write for all of them in the series. I loved the relationship between Charlie and Elle. I loved the addition of Sophie, Trey’s mother. Elle’s father and ex were predictably horrible people, but they were adequately written. I’m happy that Elle had a solid friend in Shay, though we didn’t get to see much of that or her for that matter.

I’m pretty sure the whole ‘can’t have kids/pregnancy’ thing is considered a secondary plot even though I discussed it in the main writing section. Either way, I reiterate that I liked the addition of this subplot but again was disappointed with the way it was resolved as discussed above. Favorite Part(s): Uh, every time Trey tells Elle how much he wants her and how much she means to him? Seriously, I loved his straightforwardness. There were no secrets or games with this guy; no unnecessary angsty and emotional drama. I love angst, but Trey’s honesty and genuine pursuit of Elle was a breath of fresh air. Final Thoughts: Holding Fire was a fine read. Seriously, despite my ramblings in the above paragraphs, I did enjoy the book. It was a solid romantic suspense storyline and generally good writing by Hunt. Good characters, good bodyguard moments to get your fix, and enjoyable overall. I would recommend if you’re into this genre.