#yes i said quinn because it sounds like flynn

[come-along-pond]

@dancingsunflowers-ocs asked the ‘it they had a kid’ ask game with Rapunzel and Jefferson.

Name: Quinn Gothel

Gender: Cis-Female

General Appearance: Curly hair like her mother, but dresses like her father and looks like him in every other way

Personality: boisterous, Day dreamer, smart

Special Talents: Sewing!! She loves making and designing clothes

Who they like better: Grace

Who they take after more: Jefferson

Personal Head canon: Although the youngest sibling, she acts more like the older one

Face Claim: Millie Bobby Brown

[thegirlwholied]

@bibliophileiz​: What are the Bridgerton books about?

I needed to move this reply into a post due to length because I am in Full-On Bridgerton mode at the moment! 

I don’t know if you’ve already seen the trailer but Netflix, Christmas Day, the adaptation arrives and I am *in like Flynn*. I’ve been looking forward to it since it was first announced & texted my friend who’s also read Julia Quinn immediately.

I used to not read romance novels. This probably had a lot to do with the covers usually looking ridiculous to me, and the local librarians all being friends’ moms or friendly with my mom, so even if one had caught my attention... O_o. I always loved the romantic thread in my preferred sci-fi and fantasy, mystery, historicals, or more ‘literary’ reads.... but I made it to twenty-two without picking up a true ‘romance novel’, aside from Jane Austen. 

And then, twenty-two, in grad school, & with all reading feeling like *work* because I was doing so much reading for my classes... I started whipping through romances like WHOA. I started them as more a “I need junk food, in reading form” escape... I’d been reading a lot of young adult and urban fantasy, & I slipped from there into paranormal romance. & then Regency. Paranormal/mystery/Regency are still my go-to romance genres. 

Since starting I have frequently mentally apologized for past internal dismissal to the wonderful & hard-working & SMART women behind so many of these books (for example: Eloisa James, a Shakespeare professor when not writing romance). That said, I do consider some are more junk food than others - creating a perfect Snickers bar of a book still requires serious effort! - but, picky in all my reading, I do tend to find some writers where I think “oh, these are a cut above most of their genre and why can’t more books be like these ones.”  

Julia Quinn’s books are, in my opinion, that crème brûlée at a five-star restaurant you ate at once and then think of every time you have crème brûlée somewhere else. She & Courtney Milan are the first Regency writers I think of. I’m usually not much of a rereader (though this year has been an exception! comfort reads galore!) but I have reread the Bridgerton books more than once. 

Even the elements that *could* sound silly - the Bridgerton series is about a Regency family, with alphabetical names, running from Anthony to Hyacinth, and each one gets a book - are airy to perfection as delivered, with cleverness & depth - they lost their father young - and the blend of historical research with modern sensibility makes you think - i.e., the Bridgertons’ father died of a bee sting allergy, unfathomably to them, especially since he’d been stung once before (and the allergic reaction really usually isn’t until the 2nd time!). And I’ve never been able to get that out of my head, all the things we understand now but not then - my favorite Regencies all tend to play with some element of this, and the extent of the writers’ research always awes me. Best, the characters really do feel like a family; the banter’s on point, and while I’m partial to some of the romances more than others & my take on them in a reread can shift, as a whole, the books are just a downright joyful series with great world-building. 

The high-society scandal sheet of Lady Whistledown, which both starts the chapters and plays a key plot point in the series - who is Whistledown? she sure seems to enjoy writing about the Bridgertons! a multi-book mystery! - also gives us the simple answer to “what the books are about”. Alas I did not opt for the four-word answer, ha, but I am 100% sure the TV show was pitched that way: “think Regency Gossip Girl.”

& yes, Julie Andrews is the voice of Regency Gossip Girl and that choice alone makes me love the adaptation already.  & the casting! I <3 the casting. 

I suppose I had a phase of scorning happily-ever-afters, and while sometimes I doubt them, being able to rely on those in romance is a fantastic hallmark of the genre. With TV, happily-ever-afters and locked-in endgame couples do become more of a question mark, but I am excited to see what twists are taken and confident the core of the books will be captured. And, of course, the books will always be there.

I thoroughly recommend the Bridgerton series for anyone in the mood for anyone in the mood for reading some crème brûlée &, in a time when it’s really impossible to make plans or look forward to events, I am so looking forward to the Christmas gift of this show.