#also. William. Kate. when I catch you in these streets.

[luxurybrownbarbie]

One more take because I’m in the office for another two hours and bored.

Henry Charles Albert David. He knew exactly what he was bringing this woman into. I get it. He found someone who is, by all accounts, his perfect match, worth building with, and he didn’t want to chase her away with the realities of The Firm. But my god… he needed to say something to prep her. He threw his wife to the wolves, assuming she would be okay, and it nearly killed her. Who. Else. Did. That. Henry. I’m glad he has enough sense to protect her now that they’re locked in.

[sassyfrassboss]

“Since I didn't like her straight away but it was hard to find people that felt the way I did at the time I actually googled "people who hate Meghan Markle" and Tumblr popped up.” I’ve been BRF fan since the 90s and William was the good looking, athletic guy reluctant to be king one day and Harry was the fun-loving party Prince. I thought Harry would be William’s Princess Margaret (sometimes wayward but fiercely loyal and do all of the social engagements the monarch didn’t/couldn’t do). I watched when Catherine came on the scene and then Chelsea and Cressida. Harry absolutely had a type, tall, blond, from a good family. Then we get to 2016 and there are rumors he’s dating some random American actress who no one has heard of with some dime a dozen blog and on some basic cable legal show that she’s not even the star of. Let’s face it, Suits is not Law&Order or SVU. Not to mention, she’s short, brunette, and not from a connected family. She appeared out of nowhere and all of is sudden has a VF cover? I thought for sure he’d end it then because none of his previous girlfriends talked about their relationship with him but Meghan did. Then there’s IG in Toronto and “the statement” and I knew she was going to be trouble. She made damn sure everyone knew they were together. She still does it, referring to “my husband” and Duchess of Sussex on every article ever written since they married. Superficially, she looked smug as hell too.

Harry absolutely had a type, tall, blond, from a good family. Then we get to 2016 and there are rumors he’s dating some random American actress who no one has heard of with some dime a dozen blog and on some basic cable legal show that she’s not even the star of.

Yeah so when the news started coming out that he was "possibly" dating this divorced American actress I was like "yeah right..." then when it came out she was half black i thought "not a chance in HELL is this true" because let's face it...this is the guy who wore a Nazi costume and was known for throwing around racial slurs. No way was this story true. Then it WAS true and I thought, eh maybe he is turning a new leaf. Of course there was talk he didn't know she was half black until they had been dating a while and he was afraid to break up with her because he didn't want her to call him a racist.

While all of this was going on we got the spooning banana Instagram post and then the coffee cup with bracelets IG post. When that came out and you saw she was baiting someone into connecting the dots so she could FINALLY brag about her once in a lifetime catch I thought "she's toast...nothing Harry hates more than someone flaunting their relationship and talking to the press." Because at the time Harry was way more tightlipped about his life than William. Harry guarded his privacy fiercely and was known to drop people faster than a hot potato if they talked about him to the press. I never thought the relationship would get past this point.

Then Love Shield 1.0 and I was like you..."uh oh...we are in trouble here..." Also because there was ZERO evidence she was being harassed and she claimed in the statement. There weren't hundreds of paps chasing her down the street like Kate or Diana. In fact, it seemed that Meghan was courting and LOVING the attention. Smiling big and bright at the cameras and making sure to wear her "H" necklace. This is when I knew she was a manipulator and a liar.

Then when she was in London and kept walking in front of the Daily Mail offices to get photographed. She looked ridiculous walking around London in her "wellies."

When "Wild about Harry" came out I 100% thought "that's the end of her" so when they were engaged shortly afterwards you could have knocked me over with a feather I was so shocked. I expected breakup news, not an engagement.

[houseofbrat]

I have a theory. Bear with me.

What if - what if - the whole kate being ill is just a lie and a distraction ? And really, Kate's been put on notice and she's with her family,  who are suspiciously dead silent through all this, and the sickness story is just cover for William to debut as a single man. Something is very, very odd and off about this whole thing.

He just allowed pics of him and a woman getting cozy at the last event he did and he announced eartshot I'm Capetown without saying if he or kate would be able to attend. I have a feeling he'll be attending solo.

Doesn't it make sense? They could have all made a deal behind closed door on how to roll out the divorce narrative in a way that makes it gradual and let's the public get used to seeing the single dad with other women? 😮

And in return Kate gets a lot of control over the kids (other than the boarding school issue), lots of money to keep her comfortable and of course, bailing out her parents!

And this explains why kate wasn't at last year's earth shot (the story about George having exams is ridiculous) because they need to separate her from earthshot, it needs to be associated with william alone and lead us to the sexy (barf) single young (not) dad phase of his life, complete with lots of news stories about new romances to keep the press happy.

I could be out to lunch, but I don't think I am. 🤔

Here's what I agree with you on:

Kensington Palace isn't being honest about Kate and is engaging in deception. A deception that will harm both Will & Kate but will unquestionably hurt Kate more. And Kate didn't attend Earthshot in Singapore due to George's exams.

Here's what I don't agree with you on:

1. William having an affair. Having affairs is always a risky thing to do when you're married, regardless of fame, wealth, or royalty. William is not a huge risk taker, and certainly not in his personal life. He is a boring dude, who got the reputation for being a "catch" because he was good looking and a royal. That's it. 2. I haven't seen any pictures of William being "cozy" at the Air Ambulance Charity banquet, but I doubt they're that exciting. Also, if William was actually having an affair, Fleet Street would have posted some anecdote to support that insinuation by now. They haven't. Because he's not having one and isn't likely to in the near future. 3. I'm not sure whether or not William (or William along with Kate) will be going to Capetown for Earthshot. Earthshot has usually been held in November, which is eight to nine months away. What I do know is that it was the most lackluster location announcement I have seen regarding the Earthshot Prize to date. It literally looks like a slapdash announcement made to fit a deadline. You know, a situation where a homework assignment is due, but you aren't going to be turning in your best work, yet you turn something in anyway because it's better than getting a zero. That's what this announcement looked like. And the real question is: Why? Why make this kind of announcement on a Friday, which is pr dumping ground? Why did they not make this announcement next week on Monday or Tuesday, where they could also release more information, such as the dates of Earthshot Week? And also drum up more interest and excitement? Last year Singapore wasn't announced until 14 May, after the coronation. Why announce so early this year? It makes no sense.

So, yes, I have no doubt there are weird shenanigans going on at the Kensington Palace communication office and Adelaide Cottage. Kate is allegedly still so ill that William could only do a whopping two engagements this week, yet she is well enough to travel to Anmer Hall at Sandringham, whether it is by car or helicopter. Priorities.

However, William cannot even have his press office confirm that he can do his regularly scheduled engagements this month or in the future after he gets back from another vacation to Sandringham. He has done a whopping three engagements for the year. Meanwhile, King Charles--who has cancer and is receiving cancer treatments--will be back in London next week for some face-to-face meetings.

But we're not supposed to side-eye The Prince & Princess of Wales because if we do then we're just jelly haterz.

Even though all of the UK press knows that the way Will & Kate are conducting themselves is completely abnormal.

But, hey, if Will & Kate want a war with the UK press, then they'll get one. Never pick a fight with the press because the press lives for them, particularly in the UK.

Will & Kate shouldn't have violated certain agreements, but they did. And breaking an agreement with the UK press is like violating an armistice agreement, i.e. a declaration of war.

"They've broken the armistice."

And there isn't going to be a special place for Kate to jump to in order to get out of this one. No trip to Mustique will fix this.

Can't wait to watch it from the US of A.

[michaelgruberfan]

Gruber talks with some students for MLive! (X) Published Nov. 25, 2011

"Michael Gruber, star of Western Michigan University's 'Late Night Broadway,' shares talents and tips with students"

Article below the cut:

In a cabaret setting at the Williams Theatre, graduating seniors in the WMU theater program will present the routines they hope will get them gigs at future auditions. Then, Gruber will do a set of standards and lesser-known songs — a few touching ballads, but most of them humorous — about love: “Falling out of love, falling into love, how love confuses us, tortures us; it’s contagious, it’s something that human beings seek out.”

One can almost replace “love” in that sentence with “a job,” except jobs aren’t very contagious these days. Gruber will teach a bit about falling into a job when he coaches the seniors the week before the show.

“I’ll impart what I’ve learned over the 23 years of my career, give back something that great directors and teachers have taught me,” he said from his home in Minneapolis, Minn.

To Broadway and back

Gruber was on Broadway in the original company of “Miss Saigon,” “Kiss Me Kate,” “Cats” and “A Chorus Line,” and has done regional theater around the country. He moved from New York to the Midwest and changed his career course to do more writing, teaching and smaller theater work that he finds rewarding.

“There are so many paths” to a career in performing arts, he said. “There really is no formula. A lot of it is luck, a lot of it is timing, a lot of it is your contacts. If the door is closed in one area, figure out how to be crea-tive in getting around it or finding a new way in.”

Theater has been struggling in the recession, he said. The movie industry stays strong, with its wider audience base, he said, “but I think theater, because it’s more expensive. ... We’re the first ones to get hit when the economy is bad,” he said.

“Live theater is expensive. It’s expensive to produce; ticket prices are high. On the other hand, people love to be entertained when there’s a crisis, to escape.”

His advice to graduates: “Be creative.”

While performance students spend years working on their craft, that isn’t all it takes to succeed, Gruber said.

“I think what young performers miss coming out of school is that you also have to be creative about how to market yourself, how to make contacts, how to present yourself ... all that stuff.”

Gruber believes there’s also too much focus on Broadway as the destination for stage performers.

“Life experience is what we’re looking for, because we’re looking for a long career in the art. New York is only one-half of 1 percent of the amount of work available in this country,” he said. “And it’s not always the best and most satisfying work there, either.”

Traveling for the work

Gruber has learned to occasionally reinvent himself.

“I’ve done 10 shows in New York,” he said, “but I’ve also done a lot of small theater all across the country. I just work because I love to work, so I go wherever the work is offered.”

He remembered a rewarding time at Saugatuck’s Mason Street Warehouse in the cast of “What A Glorious Feeling” in 2005. It was the debut of a new musical, and he got to discover the beauty of Lake Michigan in the summer.

“It was like a summer vacation,” he said. “We didn’t get paid very much, but the experience was so rich and fun. It pays off.”

Connections lead to more work. At Mason Street, he met the writer of the show’s book, Jay Berkow. On the faculty of WMU’s theater department, Berkow is directing “Late Night Broadway.”

Gruber is looking forward to working with WMU students.

“Their passion (rubs) off on me and give me a kick of adrenalin,” he said. “I’m excited to see what they do.”

He kept catching himself calling the students “kids,” and apologized, adding that he just turned 47.

“They’re young adults,” he corrected himself, noting they are eager to make the step from school to stage. That eagerness will make for a great evening, Gruber hopes.

“You get some young, fresh energy, and then you get an old fart,” he said, laughing.

[causeiwanttoandican]

Robert Lacey excerpt

I fully expect them to say William was the one commenting about the baby’s skin color after this. Battle stations! Book excerpt

The Times

Prince William ‘split his household from Prince Harry after Meghan bullying claims’

June 07 2021, 7.00am BST

‘So, are you saying,” asked Oprah Winfrey, talking to Meghan and Harry in their famous interview of March 2021, “that there were hints of jealousy?”

She was inquiring about the Sussexes’s wildly successful tour of Australia and the South Pacific of late October 2018, and the couple shifted uncomfortably in their plush wicker chairs.

“Look,” replied Harry, “I just wish that we would all learn from the past.”

By bringing up “the past”, the prince was venturing into an area that was almost taboo. He was making a sensational comparison between his mother and his wife. Harry was suggesting that Meghan had demonstrated in Australia the same massive star quality as Diana and was now having to face the family envy that went along with that.

“It really changed,” he said, “after the Australia tour, after our South Pacific tour . . . it was . . . the first time that the family got to see how incredible she is at the job. And that brought back memories.”

Memories of what? Again Harry shied away from putting words to the almost unmentionable. But Oprah had prepared and polished this moment, like so many others in the interview, and she had a reference ready to prompt her prince’s revelation. The latest, fourth season of TV’s The Crown had depicted Charles and Diana’s 1983 tour of Australia, showing how Diana had been “bedazzling” in her ability “to connect with people”. Episode six had depicted how the crowds would groan when they realised that Charles, not Diana, was walking down their side of the street — hence the beginnings of the “jealousy” on the family’s part.

“So is that what you’re talking about?” asked Oprah. “It brought back memories of that?”

“Yeah,” Harry finally replied in a fashion that was both dismal and unmistakably aggressive.

What on earth had happened, viewers had to wonder, to the old and once-familiar happy side of Prince Harry?

When trying to define the moment that marked the decisive rift with his brother William — the break-up and actual separation of the joint household they had established together in 2009 — Harry would fix upon his triumphant return with Meghan from their Australian tour at the end of October 2018. But if asked the same question, William would have fixed on a more specific event: the explosive argument he had had with his brother earlier that month.

Both brothers agreed how bitterly they had clashed back in the early days over William’s attempt to slow Harry’s courtship of Meghan — “Don’t feel like you need to rush this . . . ” But both of them had subsequently moved on. Harry’s transparent contentment with Meghan had relaxed the tensions, give or take the odd row over bridesmaids’ dresses. The “no speaks” had eased just a little by the time “best man” William escorted his brother down the aisle in May 2018.

Then five months later came the conclusive and determining rupture — the division that has lasted to the present day — though here the brothers’ retelling of history diverged. As Harry explained it to Oprah, Meghan’s Australian tour success sowed the jealousies that caused feelings to “change”. According to this scenario, William and Kate resented the Diana-like popularity that was generated by Harry’s wife. William had a different recollection.

We now know that Princes William and Harry were no longer on speaking terms before the Sussexes set off for Australia. Feelings had already “changed”, as Harry put it, and drastically so. The brothers had parted on extremely poor terms, with the trouble centring on Meghan’s stringent treatment and alleged bullying of her staff.

Most Kensington Palace courtiers were noted for the comparatively long tenures of their comfortable and prestigious jobs. But it came to look as if employees could not wait to escape service with Harry and Meghan. Those who left formed themselves into an informal fraternity that they titled the “Sussex Survivors’ Club”. They had finally hit back, and their organising agent had been PR man Jason Knauf.

The joint communications secretary for Kensington Palace — who was still, at that date, working on behalf of both of the brothers and their wives — had become concerned by the numerous stories of mistreatment being brought to him by colleagues whom he knew well and trusted.

Texas-born and New Zealand-educated, Knauf, 34, was a popular character in Kensington Palace, widely noted for his friendliness and loyalty towards his colleagues. He had been considered a real “catch” when the brothers snared him from the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2015, and one of his concerns was that professional management practices should be more effectively enforced inside the traditional British palace. Knauf’s American sensibilities caused him to see the Meghan situation as raising principles of human resources management in the palace system that needed to be formally addressed.

Knauf’s first priority was to set down the facts, as he saw them, for the record: “I’m very concerned,” he emailed to William’s private secretary Simon Case, in a document he drafted in October 2018, “that the duchess was able to bully two PAs out of the household in the past year.”

Knauf described Meghan’s treatment of one aide as “totally unacceptable . . . the duchess seems intent”, he wrote, “on always having someone in her sights”. Specifying another staff member, Knauf alleged Meghan had been bullying her as well, “seeking to undermine her confidence”. His office had received “report after report”, he wrote, from people who had witnessed “unacceptable behaviour” by Meghan towards this member of staff.

“Meghan governed by fear,” claimed one courtier. “So many people said it. Nothing was ever good enough for her. [She] humiliated staff in meetings, [would] shout at them, [would] cut them off email chains — and then demand to know why they hadn’t done anything.”

As early as 2017, around the time of the couple’s engagement, according to a subsequent report in The Times, a senior aide had spoken to the couple about the difficulties caused by their treatment of staff. “It’s not my job to coddle people,” Meghan was said to have replied.

“Americans can be much more direct,” wrote the authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand in defence of the duchess, “and that often doesn’t sit well in the much more refined institution of the monarchy.”

A Brit might have raised an eyebrow at Meghan’s alleged behaviour, then looked the other way. The Yank decided to act. Knauf was actually one of Meghan’s most senior advisers — her chief adviser, in fact, when it came to public relations. Earlier that year she had gone to Knauf for help when drafting the disputed letter of severance that she sent to her father. She valued his PR expertise.

Before that, Knauf had helped Harry to word the fierce anti-media statements that he had framed to try to protect Meghan from press harassment, both as his girlfriend and then as his fiancée. The PR man had taken considerable stick from some of his non-royal contacts who criticised him as being overprotective in fighting the newcomer’s corner. Like so many people in all the palaces, Knauf had started off on Meghan’s side.

But as the months went by the American’s feelings became more ambiguous, as numerous colleagues — women whom he greatly respected — continued to bring him stories of what they said they had suffered at Meghan’s hands.

“I can’t stop shaking,” one aide had told a colleague in anticipation of an encounter with Meghan. Another reported that the prospect of confrontation with the duchess had made her “feel sick”. “Emotional cruelty and manipulation”, were the words of a third, “which I guess could also be called bullying.”

The b-word featured prominently in the accounts of several, along with an even more sinister set of initials: PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder was a deeply serious condition to allege — flashbacks, nightmares and feelings of deep anxiety — but that was how one complainant said that they had felt.

Several people maintained they had been “humiliated” by the duchess, and that criticism extended to Harry as well.

“I overheard a conversation between Harry and one of his top aides,” recalled one Kensington Palace courtier. “Harry was screaming and screaming down the phone. Team Sussex was a really toxic environment. People shouting and screaming in each other’s faces.”

Shouting and screaming? PTSD? Making people feel sick? Prince William went ballistic when he heard the “dossier of distress” that Knauf had gathered. We do not know whether the communications secretary brought his allegations directly to his boss or submitted them via Simon Case. What we do know is that the prince was astonished and horrified. He was instantly furious at what he heard.

“I remember Christian Jones [William’s press secretary and later private secretary] explaining to me how the Cams [the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge] are paternalistic with their staff,” recalls one royal correspondent. “They copy the Queen in that respect with all her Christmas parties and Christmas presents to her people. They’re proud to treat their staff like family. They recognise that they don’t get paid loads of money, so they are just really nice to them. So this was a very deep clash of philosophies, with Meghan being used to a Hollywood service culture — getting exactly what she wanted whenever she wanted in that famous way that Harry said.”

William personally knew and liked all the individuals whom Knauf had named in his dossier. The prince regarded them as assets to his household — colleagues to be cherished and for whom he was responsible. Human beings. Like Knauf, the prince was appalled that his respected staff may have been put in this position.

For William, Knauf’s allegations also clarified something that the prince had long believed — that Meghan was fundamentally hostile towards the royal system, which she failed to understand as an outsider. William wondered if she had not wanted to leave from the very start — even dreaming, perhaps, that she could whisk Harry back with her to North America.

But Meghan’s lawyers and PR representatives said this was quite the wrong interpretation of their client’s thinking and behaviour in a statement that they issued to The Times early in March 2021. They denied all allegations of bullying as inaccurate and the product of what they described as a “smear campaign”. The duchess wished to fit in and be accepted, they insisted. She had left her life in North America to commit herself to her new role.

I have never met Jason Knauf. What you have just read is based upon the published accusations that Knauf set down on paper — refuted as “defamatory”, it must be stressed again, and “based on misleading and harmful information” in the view of the Duchess of Sussex’s lawyers. It also relies upon William’s personal account of these events to one of his friends who then spoke to this author.

The moment the prince heard the bullying allegations, he related to this friend, he got straight on the phone to talk to Harry — and when Harry flared up in furious defence of his wife, the elder brother persisted. Harry shut off his phone angrily, so William went to speak to him personally. The prince was horrified by what he had just been told about Meghan’s alleged behaviour, and he wanted to hear what Harry had to say.

The showdown between the two siblings was fierce and bitter. William’s pre-engagement questioning of Meghan’s suitability had been quite reasonable, in William’s opinion. His fraternal doubts had been provisional, based upon how the new recruit appeared to be. The elder brother did not really know Meghan in those early days.

But now William had seen enough of his sister-in-law to feel sure that, sadly, he did know her and that many of his reservations linked unhappily with what Knauf’s colleagues had alleged. William believed Meghan was following a plan — “agenda” was the word he used to his friend — and the accusations he had just heard were alarming. Kate, he said, had been wary of her from the start.

Meghan was undermining some precious principles of the monarchy, if she really was treating her staff in this way, and William was upset that she seemed to be stealing his beloved brother away from him. Later courtiers would coin a hashtag — #freeHarry. It was only half a joke.

“Meghan portrayed herself as the victim,” recalled one Kensington Palace staffer, “but she was the bully. People felt run over by her. They didn’t know how to handle this woman. They thought she was a complete narcissist and sociopath — basically unhinged. Which was why the pair of them were drawn to each other in the first place — both damaged goods.”

William felt deeply wounded. “Hurt” and “betrayed” were the two feelings that he described to his friend. The elder brother had always felt so protective. He had seen it as his job to look out for Harry but this was the moment the protection had to stop. At the end of the day the British crown and all it stood for with its ancient traditions, styles and values — the mission of the monarchy — had to matter more to William than his brother did.

Harry, for his part, was equally furious that William should give credence to the accusations against Meghan, and he was fiercely combative in his wife’s defence. Some sources maintain that in the heat of the argument Harry actually accused someone in the family of concepts that were “racist”. But it must be stressed that neither brother has ever confirmed that the hateful r-word was used face to face.

Only William and Harry can know what they said to each other and they have respectfully maintained their silence on that. But Harry made clear to the world in his interview with Oprah that he considered his family’s response to Meghan to have been essentially racist — using the heavily freighted code words “unconscious bias” to provide an intellectual framework for his analysis.

Where could the two brothers go after such painful and damning notions had been thrown into their debate?

We have reached the crux of the drama. What painfully unforgettable and surely unforgivable things have been said? These are not passing differences. They are two core sets of values in conflict — love versus duty — going to the very heart and deriving from the deepest beliefs and loyalties of each man. Two opposing identities butting heads. In the months following the tragic and not-obviously bridgeable rift of October 2018 between William and Harry, the younger brother solidified his belief that his family were suffering from “unconscious bias”.

William, for his part, felt just as strongly about Meghan and the need for her subversive “agenda” to be removed from the operations of the British monarchy, which she did not appear to understand or respect. He certainly wanted Meghan removed, for a start, from the hitherto harmonious joint household that he and his brother had operated together for the best part of a decade. William simply did not want her or Harry around any more.

When accounts of the rift started seeping out through the winter months that followed, it was generally assumed that the volatile Harry must have set the pace in the splitting up of the joint Kensington Palace household. He was the brother who visibly departed, stalking off to set up a new home in Windsor, with offices for himself and Meghan in Buckingham Palace.

But the reverse was the case. It was William who made the decisive move. Following his furious confrontation with his younger brother in the autumn of 2018, the prince instructed Simon Case to start the process of dividing their two households immediately. William wished to be separated from Meghan on a day-to-day basis — and that meant being separated from his brother as well.

“William,” says a friend, “threw Harry out.”

©Robert Lacey 2021 Extracted from Battle of Brothers: William, Harry and the Inside Story of a Family in Tumult by Robert Lacey, to be published by William Collins on June 24 at £9.99

[hearteyes-for-killmonger]

Book II, Part 1: Fatboi

"It's nice that you're buying me all of this, William," you gesture to the plates of food on the wooden table.

"Bill," he corrects.

"Uh.. Bill," you smile politely.

The scenery is nice. You love Boathouse, you just don't go often. No particular reason.

"...But I'm not fucking you," you whisper.

"Jae, I understand that... Sometimes it's just nice to go to dinner with a beautiful woman," he shrugs hanging a hand in the air. He doesn't like to hear it, but it needs to be said. You aren't having sex with him. Especially not when he's offering a meal of this caliber. He needs to drop a few hundred and put another few hundred in your pocketbook first. He also needs to buy said pocketbook.

Your eyebrows furrow as you cut into your second crab cake. You're in a backless light blue silk dress with thin straps and snake holographic heeled sandals. It's a look that looks pricier than it is. In reality, your entire outfit together is under $100. Your hair is in one-month old passion twists.

Bill? Bill is a balding mid-fourties white guy you met in the Hispanic food section of a Walmart. Since then, you've been out with him twice. Tonight he wears khakis, a brown blazer, and a blue button down with brown loafers. It's smart, but it doesn't say too much, kind of like Bill. He's boring and ordinary, but he's willing to feed you so you'll keep him company.

After dinner, you hop in your car and check your rearview to make sure he's not following you on the way home.

"Jill," you perk over the phone to your fellow Gemini in cahoots. You know she's working the bar at Pandora's Box today.

"Did you secure the bag," she asks bluntly.

"Well, I got some crabcakes, some red wine, an appetizer, and a dessert, strawberry shortcake. He took me to Boathouse and spent about $70 on my meal."

"That's it? No pocket money?"

"He hasn't been trained," you say dryly. You've been craving a daddy of the sugar kind but he didn't offer. "I'll have to be more aggressive. I'll get it next time," you promise yourself.

When you're not working the Louboutin floors, catching up on reading or sleep, shopping for makeup and clothes, reconnecting with a few friends, or having lackluster sex with disappointing randoms, this is how you spend your time... With well off men who are bored and looking to spend.

They were easy to spot. The toughest part was making sure they put money directly in your hand.

One Month Later

As Fatboi smacks loudly on what sounds like a late dinner, you stop at a red light and drum on the wheel. Your feet are tired from standing all day in your black slingbacks and you just want to go home, take a shower, and get in the bed. Sex isn't even an option for the night. One, you're too tired. Two, you're on Day 3 of your period. Three, there's no one good to fuck.

"I was just over there," you whine, too exhausted to entertain his shenanigans.

"Just come over, I'll feed you when you get here. I got steaks and pasta." Fatboi's deep voice booms loudly through the bluetooth of your charcoal Hyundai Accent and you turn the sound down another few notches before cutting left and making a wide turn to merge onto the highway. "Then we can fuck," he adds. You knew it was coming.

"I'll take the food, but the sex? Hell naw," your voice nearly cracks. "So you can sweat over top of me like last time!? I could hardly breathe, sir." 

"But the dick was good though," he says. He's confident and it shows but he's not lying on his stroke. He'd put in a little bit of work so it was good, but he kept laying all his dead weight on you and his sweat got in your mouth both times you'd fucked him. That part wasn't good. You'd fucked big teddy bear men before and they hadn't done that. Even if you weren't on your period, you probably wouldn't have sex with him again unless he was the final option. You would choose him over the weak dick you've had in a heartbeat, however. He definitely outranked the others. You can hear his TV in the background but can't place the show. 

"I fuck with you," you assert, "I'm just looking for something different right now.. plus I'm on my period and I'm tired--"

"Uh huh, I'm a pause you because I didn't ask for that information," he grunts, "Dri' safe Jae. I know you not the best driver out here on these streets."

You gasp, mouth hung open in offense. "You rode with me one time!" 

"It was enough," he scoffs.

"Oh... well then... let me introduce you to the dial tone." Ending the call, you put your attention back on not missing your exit and call Jill.

It's late and dark and you keep cutting your bright lights on and off so that you don't blind traffic. Pulling up to your building, you park in your usual spot in front of the shady tree taking your keys between your fingers like Wolverine on the way to the door, your phone flashlight shining ahead. Thankfully, the little spotlight over the door is on and the bushes have been pruned so no one cam hide in them. It's safe enough to make you feel like you're okay coming in, or else you'd have to change your schedule. You weren't trying to do that. Putting the key in the outside door, you make it in. The door locks automatically behind you.

"Whaaat," you whine picking up your ringing cell. "Yeah I just got in, thank you.. I'll bring you the batteries tomorrow I just got a new pack but I'm sleepy.." Pushing the button for the elevator, you're happy to see it's already on the ground floor. The doors open immediately.

"Boy, you live right down the hall come and get them then! Silly." He was tripping over some AAA batteries. "Well I'm going to sleep."

You step off the elevator and look down the hall at Fatboi's door, knowing he ain't coming to get the batteries, before turning in the direction of your door. Your black glitter Kate Spade satchel almost hits the ground. Almost.

"Jae." 

[yespolkadotkitty]

Pero Tovar x mixed race OFC, Isla Han

Thank you @heatherbel for the beta!

Welcome to my next crazy adventure, a Romancing the Stone/Kate and Leopold mash-up. Big love to the really excellent @fleetwoodmactshirts for the original idea and planting the seed for the romanting the stone twist.

There might be quite a lot of British humour in this? Just know that Manuel is a character from the cult classic Fawlty Towers.

Chapter One

Present Day

ISLA: C’mon Lau. Put me out of my misery. Just tell me he won’t be at my office this year.

LAURA: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

ISLA: Don’t pick now to start being modest. At least get someone actually Spanish this time. Last year’s effort was way more Manuel than Antonio Banderas. Just saying. 

LAURA: And yet you insist that you weren’t into that…?

ISLA: He was dedicated, I’ll give you that much. My editor wasn’t impressed when he started to strip in full view of the conference room, though.

LAURA: He was worth the money, all right. Should’ve got someone to record it for Youtube.

I snorted and tossed my phone on the sofa. My birthday was tomorrow. Which meant, just like every year since I’d started my bestselling series of novels, I’d get a visit from a guy all trussed up like my swarthy Spanish mercenary, Alejandro.

It had been five years and my friends - Laura was the ringleader - never failed to embarrass me. All the guys they hired were complete bollocks. Dressed in cheap party-shop chainmail and leathers. 

Some of them tried a Spanish accent (always terrible). 

Others stripped (even worse). 

Last year, poor Manuel had done both, exceeding my expectations, and tripped over the chainmail around his legs on his way out, yelping loudly as he fell face first into a waste paper basket.

At least everyone else had been entertained.

I closed my eyes and leaned back on the sofa. It hadn’t escaped my notice that I’d managed to write the man of my dreams into books that had sold well all over the world, and yet I couldn’t find an actual man who held my interest much longer than the time it took for them to say “what you drinking tonight, love?”

It was probably just as well. I’d rather live in my delicious fictional world of Alejandro and his warrior Princess bride as they traversed the globe, saving others in need and having sex on any surface that stayed still for longer than five minutes.

I heard footsteps on the stairs and opened my eyes. My gaze caught on the poster of the cover of my first novel, The Spaniard. I’d had the image blown up to A1 and framed after it had sold a million copies and the artist’s rendition of Alejandro had stolen my breath. He looked the perfect combination of menacing and beautiful, his full lower lip creased in the centre, like the angel who made him had pressed a thumb there to mark a job well done. His inky hair curled, tousled, over his forehead and his chestnut eyes, one marked with a long, wicked scar, blazed out from the page. Little wonder people had been compelled by him and his broad-shouldered form in the layers of chainmail and leathers.

The footsteps came closer and my brother Paul poked his head around the door. “I’m off out. Want anything from Tesco’s?”

“No, thanks.” I did in fact, want some milk, but when Paul said he was going out he could be gone for ten minutes or five hours. God knew what he did when he went on these little sojourns.

“Okay, text me if you change your mind. See you later.”

“See you.”

I listened to him clatter back down the stairs of our shared townhouse and a minute later, the front door slammed shut.

My parents would be appalled if they knew I essentially let Paul sponge off me. But I was lucky; I could afford it. And Paul had been my rock in our early years, when our Dad had several nervous breakdowns and was sectioned. I’d have been lost without him.

Besides, I didn’t like rattling around this big house by myself. There was only so much TV I could watch, and the bright lights of London held limited appeal after a few years.

LAURA: So... will you record the next guy? I mean, not that I’ve hired anyone.

LAURA: Yet.

LAURA: Please?

I laughed, decided not to reply, and instead got up off the sofa and climbed the stairs to my office to continue work on my edits.

*****

London, 1269

“I should have known bringing her here was a mistake,” William Garin groused as he and a fellow mercenary, Pero Tovar, crouched outside their somewhat ramshackle lodgings, waiting for a man to exit.

Pero snorted. “Bringing a woman into any situation is playing with fire, no? Someone always gets burned.”

William sighed, shifting position behind the large hay bales. “Not my sister. I brought her here to protect her from the kind of gobshites we have in Ireland. Not to have her catch the eye of another.”

Pero drew out a strip of dried meat from his belt pouch, offered it to William. The Irishman shook his head.

“Suit yourself, amigo.”

“He’ll be coming out any minute, and you’re eating?”

Pero scoffed. “I can eat and fight at the same time, cabrón.” He finished the dried meat, and took out another strip.

William shook his head, but he was smiling. “Do all Spaniards eat this much?”

“They do when their Irish comrades starve them, and make them sit for hours behind stinking bales of hay to protect their virgin sister, si?” 

William clapped him over the head. “I - look alive, Tovar.”

The door to the small, two-storey thatched house opened. Catriona, William’s sister, a comely redhead, peeked outside, then ducked back in.

A tall man, pale-skinned, thick dark hair with a closely trimmed beard, exited, then briefly doubled back to kiss a smiling Catriona.

“Bastard,” William gritted out.

“Patience, amigo,” Pero cautioned. “We see where he goes, and then we plan.” He shoved William’s head down behind the hay bale, letting him up when it was safe. “And now we follow.”

“Eejit.” But William followed Pero’s steady lead.

They tracked the man through the dirty London streets, narrowly avoiding a fishwife emptying a chamber pot out of a high window. Two girls half Pero’s height wheeled a cart of freshly baked pies down the narrow alley opposite, the scents mingling with the more unpleasant stink of everyday life.

The stranger turned, and Pero yanked William behind a rickety butcher’s cart, crouching and ignoring the stocky man’s “oi!”

“He’s stopped looking,” William confirmed, and they tracked him down nearer the big river that snaked through the dogpile of the city. 

Pero’s attention was briefly snagged by an enterprising young pickpocket, currently targeting a well to do merchant admiring trinkets with what was likely his mistress. The boy caught his eye, hesitated. Pero winked. Who was he to cut the boy off in his prime?

The stranger disappeared into the mouth of what looked to be an abandoned hovel, and William and Pero darted after him on feet made silent by years of training.

The hovel was dark inside, dank. A light blinked on in the gloom; like no light Pero had ever seen the like of.

“What is this witchcraft?” He muttered.

“Don’t dally, man!” William tugged Pero after him, rushing to grab their quarry.

The Irishman tripped, caught the surprised stranger by the collar - and then everything went black.

******

“Tovar! Tovar!”

Pero opened his eyes, groggy. He lay on a smooth, flat surface. Not unlike the floors of the fine throne rooms of kings he’d served during his years as a sellsword. He smoothed a hand over the unblemished ground, blinked.

“Snap out of it, man!” William grabbed him, shaking roughly. “Follow the bastard!”

A terrible banging, drums perhaps, assaulted Pero’s ears from somewhere outside their strange, smooth grey prison. A pile of rubble was stacked in one corner. Crude art littered the walls; also the same luxurious smoothness there.

“William - where are we, amigo?”

But the Irishman was preoccupied. “Do you not see he’s getting away?”

Pero climbed to his feet, his head aching. Mierda, it was so bright here.

William was already giving chase, so Pero followed his friend as best he could with his head spinning from wherever they’d followed the stranger to - the stranger woo-ing Catriona. Sweet Catriona, who he’d seen grow from a child.

William shoved a rickety door open, and all at once a pillar of light hit them. William stumbled, falling back on to Tovar, who hit the ground with a grunt.

“Ay, cabrón!”

“What in Heaven’s name-?”

They gaped through the doorway. A huge metal pole grew from the earth, a bright light at its apex, streaming down on the ground. Some feet away sat what looked to be a small fort on wheels. But wheels unlike any Pero had ever seen before. The unholy, piercingly bright light shone into the wheeled fort, illuminating a chair inside. 

Used for torture, perhaps.

“Where are we, amigo?” he whispered again, to William.

“We’ll make enquiries later. For now, the bastard’s getting away. Come on!”

“Of course, amigo, where you go, I follow,” Pero muttered. 

But what other choice did he have?

They ran out of the door, towards the wheeled fort of torture, and into the unknown.

Tagging the Pedro pals: @thirstworldproblemss @jaime1110 @chews-erotically @songsformonkeys @alwaysbethewest @beccaplaying @nelba @synystersilenceinblacknwhite @gamingaquarius @buckstaposition @pedropascallion @soldade @agirllovespasta @pajamasecrets @thegreenkid @cryptkeepersoul @kindablackenedsuperhero @littlemissthistle @alienprincesspoop @keeper0fthestars @f0rever15elf @mrsparknuts @abuttoncalledsmalls @mrschiltoncat @thempiregroovy @dornish-queen  @mourningbirds1 @a-seeker-of-imagination​ @knittingqueen13​ @ mstgsmy​  @roxypeanut​ @poenariuniverse​

[heavyarethecrowns]

And what do you DO? Queen wants Kate Middleton to get charity job to counter claims she is workshy - Aug 2008

The Queen is becoming increasingly concerned that Prince William’s girlfriend Kate Middleton still does not have a job.

And senior Buckingham Palace aides say that what is now referred to in the Royal inner-circle as the Kate Problem should be resolved before William announces his engagement to her.

The Sovereign’s private concern about Kate’s lack of a career was first reported in The Mail on Sunday in June.

She has already been nicknamed Waity Katie because of her apparent willingness to do nothing but socialise and shop until William decides when to propose.

Now, Royal aides have revealed that the Queen has privately suggested that Kate, 26, should get involved with a charity to counter the potentially damaging public perception that she is workshy.

According to friends of the couple, plans are in place for Clarence House to announce an engagement either shortly before or just after Christmas.

Several dates have been earmarked for a wedding, which could be as early as May or June next year.

But one senior Royal source revealed last night that the Queen is convinced that it is vital for the Royal Family and its reputation that both Prince William, 26, and his girlfriend should be working before an announcement is authorised.

This newspaper understands that it has been suggested that Kate should get involved with an animal or children’s charity because it would be a ‘safe’ role that would not lead to any comparisons with the late Princess of Wales.

The source said: ‘There is concern at the very highest level that Kate Middleton still does not have a job.

The Queen is keen that the Monarchy should lead by example and that the Princes and their girlfriends should all be seen to be hard workers.

‘The Queen has made it known that she feels Kate should get involved with a charity, possibly an animal charity, where she can be seen to be doing something proactive and something entirely safe.

‘It is important that Kate isn’t seen to be doing anything controversial, and she needs to do something completely different from any of the charity work that Diana did.’

It is understood that Kate has been approached by several charities to represent them, including a number involving children, but she has yet to accept any of the roles.

At present, her only charity work is as a committee member of a roller-disco fundraising event for Oxford Children’s Hospital.

Kate was invited to a fundraising event at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Chelsea in May this year but pulled out at the last minute even though Prince William attended.

‘Kate has been asked many times to do charity work,’ a friend confided.

‘She is often asked when she is out at parties. I was with her at one event when a representative from a rather high-profile charity suggested that Kate get involved.

‘She was really keen at the time and said she would love to get on board. She gave the organiser all her details but, when they wrote to her, Kate didn’t even reply.

‘She has quite a bad reputation for being rude when it comes to responding to letters.

She often fails to RSVP when she is asked to attend events. She once failed to reply to a wedding invitation from one of William’s friends and it didn’t go down very well.’

And the friend pointed out: ‘Kate is well aware of what’s being said about her not working. She is, however, in a bit of a rut.

‘She is really keen to develop her photography career and also has an interest in fashion. But she’s quite limited in terms of what she can do because of the interest in her.

‘She was offered a job by a leading fashion house a while ago but she said that everything had to go through Clarence House.

'In the end it was just too difficult to make the whole thing work and nothing ever came of it.’

Kate has not worked since she quit her job as an accessories buyer for the High Street fashion chain Jigsaw last November.

She recently took some photographs for the online company Party Planners run by her parents Carole and Michael but sources say she has not done any other paid work for months and is still being financed by them.

As Prince William’s girlfriend, she is one of the most photographed and discussed women in the world.

But the fact that she is seen to spend her time shopping, holidaying and partying instead of working hard at a career has triggered a bitter backlash.

The Mail on Sunday’s website was last week inundated with comments by angry readers who criticised Kate’s  lack of drive.

Dozens of comments were posted in reaction to one article about the couple’s visit to the London nightclub Raffles after their return from a holiday on the Caribbean island of Mustique.

One reader, Natalie from Bristol, wryly remarked: ‘It’s good to see them letting their hair down.

They must be exhausted after their holiday.’ In another less than flattering comment, Tracey from Paisley wrote: ‘This waste of space – Kate Middleclass never does anything but party and enjoy herself. Evidently work is not a word in her vocabulary.’

Identifying herself as Karen from the UK, another internet reader concluded: ‘A pair of lazy louts, it’s about time they both got a proper job.’

Echoing what many senior courtiers are said to believe, reader Sara Ruiz ‘from England’ noted: ‘What would she do if he breaks up with her?

'Currently she just goes to the gym, to the hairdresser, shopping, on holidays and to party hard. She’d better hold him tight or the encounter with reality is going to hurt her a lot.

‘What are you thinking, girl? What kind of respect do you expect from the people?

‘You could have been someone as you had the studies and the means to do it but instead you have let everybody see that you are just a lazy girl. Shame on you!’

Despite the fact that Kate does not receive a salary, she has enjoyed a number of luxurious holidays this year.

As well as a skiing trip to Klosters with the Royal Family, she has twice visited the Caribbean.

Kate and William were in Mustique two weeks ago after he completed his training with the Navy.

The couple and a group of friends stayed at the luxury home of Belle and John Robinson, the owners of Jigsaw.

Kate spent her mornings swimming laps of the private pool before hosting lunch parties for her friends.

She also enjoyed trips aboard a luxury yacht with Prince William and the couple attended several private parties.

A source said: ‘Kate and Wills had the best time ever. Kate’s brother James and sister Pippa were also out there and it was a totally idyllic break.

'They had the most amazing villa free of charge, complete with their own maids.

'They were living it up, with booze-fuelled parties most nights. Kate would swim in the pool every morning and then they would spend the rest of the day sunbathing and getting on to these amazing yachts.’

Last night, Clarence House refused to comment on Kate ‘because she is a private person’.

Despite this reluctance to co-operate with the Press, Kate’s friends say she has access to Press officers and senior aides at Clarence House, where she is free to come and go at her leisure.

‘Kate has a hotline to Clarence House and she listens to everything the Royal aides tell her to do,’ said a friend.

‘When they advised her to pull out of the cross-Channel dragon boat race last summer, she did it immediately.

‘Kate is approached about doing lots of things but the Clarence House staff are often against her taking part because they think it’s too high-profile and they want to keep Kate out of the limelight. She’s in a bit of a Catch 22 situation.’

Kate lives with her 22-year-old sister Pippa in a flat in Chelsea paid for by their parents.

Because of her celebrity status, she is given free clothes by leading designers, including the Brazilian label Issa.

Her romance with Prince William has also enabled her to buy a cut-price Audi, the preferred make of car for the Royal Family.

She doesn’t even need to pay for gym membership, having full use of William’s private gym at Clarence House.

[aion-rsa]

Best Serial Killer Movies of the ’90s Ranked

https://ift.tt/3tcsgCf

Someone must have left the freezer door in the morgue open, because grisly reminders of the past are thawing before our eyes. You can see it this weekend with the release of John Lee Hancock’s The Little Things, a throwback to the days when movie stars hung out at crime scenes instead of in spandex, and it’ll be more apparent next month with the launch of Clarice, a television spinoff of 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs. All the evidence points to only one conclusion: the serial killer thrillers of the ‘90s are back!

Not that we’re complaining. For a macabre minute or two, every Hollywood name appeared eager to play either the detective or the killer—the hunter or the obsessed, which often proved interchangeable for both characters. Granted that means there can be something formulaic about many of these movies. Yet they can also be bleak, hard-edged, and ambiguous. From our modern gaze, where the dominant studio conventions prefer reassuring morality tales and sunny lighting, these movies’ preference for shadows and discomfort in the mainstream is kind of startling.

So grab your magnifying glass and fortify your stomach, because we’re about to revisit some of the best (and worst) of ‘90s serial killer thrillers. (Also this list is strictly for the decade when the genre was at its height and it excludes slasher movies like Scream, which may feature serial killers but were not exactly adult-oriented thrillers.)

12. Eye of the Beholder (1999)

Eye of the Beholder is a tonal oddity that only passingly flirts with the conventions of ‘90s serial killer thrillers, all while it tries to pay homage to (read: rip-off) Alfred Hitchcock. But any credit it deserves for deviation—including making Ashley Judd’s central femme fatale the killer—it loses in execution. As a muddied, impenetrable tale about an intelligence officer (Ewan McGregor) who spies on and falls in love with a serial killer, Eye of the Beholder is a scattershot of bad ideas that run the gamut from ludicrous to misogynistic.

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but this movie will close the lids over your pupils inside of 30 minutes.

11. Nightwatch (1997)

It feels a little mean to rag on Ewan McGregor back-to-back, but maybe serial killer movies just aren’t his genre? That could be at least one takeaway from an ill-advised double feature of Eye of the Beholder and Nightwatch, the latter of which is a remake of a 1994 Danish film that I’ve not seen… and probably won’t since both the original film and American remake are directed by the same man.

McGregor plays medical student Martin here, a kid who gets an after school job by becoming the night watch security at the local morgue. But as a series of grisly prostitute murders pile up, Martin realizes he needs to figure out who the killer is—that or continue to be framed by the necrophiliac fiend who keeps coming by the morgue for one last liaison. It’s exactly as skeevy as it sounds. Do yourself a favor and go your whole life without hearing Nick Nolte sing “This Old Man” while climbing onto a corpse.

10. Natural Born Killers (1994)

The movie that Quentin Tarantino disowned, Natural Born Killers is a seedy mess based on a Tarantino script that was heavily rewritten by Oliver Stone, David Veloz, and Richard Rutowski. The concept itself is a seemingly inevitable escalation of the “bad romance outlaws” archetype that’s been floating around Hollywood since at least 1950’s Gun Crazy, and which was then made iconic by Bonnie & Clyde (1967).

But whereas those films relied on bank robbers living fast, Natural Born Killers descends into a seeming final form with Mickey and Mallory (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis) as giddy serial killers who are eventually out for maximum carnage. Technically the pair are supposed to be presented as victims of traumatic child abuse—and who are then wrongfully glorified by the media. But Stone’s sloppy and tanked vision lacks the discipline to achieve anything beyond its maliciousness. Early sequences imagining Mallory’s abusive childhood like it’s a television sitcom, and later psychedelic visions of Robert Downey Jr.’s opportunistic news reporter as the Devil, do little to divorce the film from its shallow self-satisfaction in close-ups of heads being shot.

The movie came under controversy in the years after its release for inspiring alleged copycat killers as well as school shooters. It feels irresponsible to blame media for actual violence, but it’s still quite an indictment that Stone’s attempt to criticize media glorification became a favorite for many a disturbed individual with a gun.

9. Kiss the Girls (1997)

When studying competent, middle of the road Hollywood thrillers, Kiss the Girls is a solid place to start. As a decently made bit of studio convention, the movie is anchored by strong elements like Morgan Freeman as James Paterson’s literary hero, Alex Cross, and Ashley Judd as Kate, the victim who survives a masked killer’s attempt to abduct her into his harem.

Moments like Kate’s escape sequence through the North Carolina wilderness are effectively filled with adrenaline, and Judd particularly gives the salacious piece conviction. However, it is salacious to a fault. Even if the movie toned down the source novel’s even more lurid misogyny, the film studies Kate and the other victims with a lascivious male gaze, blurring sex with violence, real world horror with leering entertainment. Right down to its title, the film can be rightly criticized as Hollywood glamourizing another story about violence against women. Whether that damns the whole movie depends on the viewer, but it certainly keeps it low on our list.

8. The Bone Collector (1999)

Marketed with a hell of a tagline about there being thousands of taxi cabs in New York City that’ll get you home—and one that won’t—The Bone Collector is almost comically slavish to the clichés of ‘90s moviemaking. The wrinkle here is that after a faux cab driver begins abducting his victims off the street, the crime psychologist who must stop him is entirely stuck by his bedside. Due to a tragic accident, Denzel Washington’s Lincoln Rhyme is paralyzed from the neck down. Yet he is still able to catch serial killers by communicating in the earpiece of police officer Amelia Donaghy (an entirely unconvincing Angelina Jolie).

Read more

Movies

Lost Girls Review: Netflix Takes on the Long Island Serial Killer

By Rosie Fletcher

Books

The Last Book on the Left Takes on the Grim History of Serial Killers

By Alec Bojalad

Together the pair stay one step behind the mystery killer’s tracks as he executes a series of increasingly gruesome and ridiculous murders. It’s preposterous, and in some ways a forerunner for Saw with the satisfaction it takes in absurd death traps, but Washington is effortlessly compelling, even when he never leaves his apartment. As a bit of absurd Hollywood fluff, right down to the ultimately lackluster unmasking of the killer, it can be entertaining, even if you’ll deny it afterward.

7. Copycat (1995)

More potent than I remembered, Copycat is a genuinely well-crafted Hollywood thriller that may not reinvent the wheel but takes it out for a damn good spin. In the driver’s seat is Sigourney Weaver as Dr. Helen Hudson, a criminal psychologist who is an expert on serial killers until one follows her into the bathroom after a guest lecture. He nearly hangs her from the ceiling. Following that white-knuckled opening, the film jumps years ahead and Helen has become agoraphobic and afraid to leave her home.

Yet when a local series of murders reveal the pattern of a predator imitating the methods of his favorite “celebrities”—one crime scene is like the Boston Strangler and another emulates the horrors of Jeffrey Dahmer—Helen is pulled out of retirement by a no-nonsense detective (Holly Hunter). The winning chemistry between Weaver and Hunter—who are refreshingly free from the studio-mandated romantic subplots in some of the other movies on this list—and the blunt force power of their performances aid this sincerely disquieting flick. A needlessly convoluted third act aside, the movie still works as a warning about the danger of fanboys a generation early.

6. Fallen (1998)

Denzel Washington appears again thanks to this clever supernatural spin on the serial killer genre. At the beginning of Fallen, Washington’s John Hobbes appears on top of the world. The serial killer he chased for years (Elias Koteas) is about to breathe deeply in the gas chamber. Yet after the lever is pulled, and with Koteas singing the Rolling Stones’ “Time is On My Side” until his last breath, a funny thing happens: the murders continue.

In fact, more than just the killings, strangers in the street sing “Time is On My Side” in Hobbes’ ear, and he soon realizes that he faces a devil of a killer whose been operating since the beginning—quite literally since the villain is a demon who was once an angel that fell with Lucifer. It’s a bizarre premise given strutting confidence thanks to Washington’s performance, as well as good supporting work by John Goodman and Donald Sutherland. Twenty years later and its ending still sticks with me.

5. The Exorcist III (1990)

If you haven’t seen The Exorcist III, we know what you’re thinking: “Really?!” Yes. In fact, this isn’t even an exorcist movie; it should’ve been titled Legion like the 1983 novel it’s based on. Alas writer-director William Peter Blatty was forced to use the title and do reshoots that added an exorcism in the climax. Still, this supernatural thriller which involves a serial killer back from the dead is far better than it has any right to be.

Following the character of Lt. Kinderman from the 1973 masterpiece, the middle-aged gumshoe is now played by George C. Scott instead of the late Lee J. Cobb, and he possesses Scott’s usual love for contrasts between the restrained whisper and a bombastic howl. He also makes a sympathetic, secular detective forced to face the horrors of Hell when a series of murders committed against Catholic priests appear to be the work of the Gemini Killer (Brad Dourif), a serial killer whom Kinderman sent to the chair more than 10 years ago.

Read more

Movies

The Exorcist III is a Classic and Better Than You Remember

By Jim Knipfel

Movies

The Exorcist Is Still the Scariest Movie Ever Made

By David Crow

Somehow the fiend—plus Kinderman’s long dead pal Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller)—appear to now be living in the same body of a John Doe kept in a mental asylum. With an unrelenting atmosphere of dread, palpable tension, and more of Blatty’s intellectual struggle with concepts of faith and evil, the film is more high-minded than its hacky title suggests. It also features one of the best jump scares in movie history.

4. Summer of Sam (1999)

The only movie on this list directly based on an actual serial killer’s crimes, Spike Lee’s Summer of Sam is a serious-minded joint. However, it’s only partially about the murders perpetrated by David Berkowitz, aka the “.44 Caliber Killer,” aka the Son of Sam. Rather the film focuses on the effects a serial killer has on the culture of New York City during the sweltering summer of 1977, and how it affects young lives trying to make it in the big city.

Influenced by Lee and his co-writers Michael Imperioli and Victor Colicchio’s memories of growing up in 1970s New York, the pic is a love letter to a grim moment in history when the city was about to explode with murders, blackouts, crime, and disco. All of this is digested from the vantages of Vinny (John Leguizamo), a philandering hairdresser guilt-ridden for cheating on his wife (Mira Sorvino), and his childhood pal Ritchie (Adrien Brody), who’s left the old neighborhood behind to join the fledgling punk rock scene.

With a greater interest in how a serial killer affects the culture and institutions of a city on edge than being a traditional crime drama, Summer of Sam is a bit of a forerunner to David Fincher’s far more polished Zodiac from a few years later. With heavy-handed dialogue and a plot too big for Lee to fully get his arms around, even at 142 minutes, Summer of Sam can be uneven and messy. But it has the sweaty incorrigibility of a long night out, and of revelries half remembered like from a fever dream.

3. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

The rare serial killer movie told entirely from the perspective of the killer, Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley is disarmingly creepy. Despite its glossy awards bait sheen, there is a cold-blooded streak that runs deep to the heart of the piece, likely due to Patricia Highsmith’s source 1955 novel. Starring Matt Damon fresh off his Good Will Hunting golden boy sheen, the film uses its casting to disorient and ultimately disturb.

Like Highsmith’s book, the film is not structured like a traditional thriller. It instead favors a detached ambivalence about its seemingly nebbish hero as he agrees to become an errand boy for the rich by traveling to 1950s Italy in order to retrieve a silver spoon cad (Jude Law) for his father. But the more time Tom Ripley (Damon) spends with Law’s Dickie Greenleaf, the more he grows envious of Dickie’s lifestyle, his wealth and confidence, and maybe even his affection for socialite Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow). There is a subtle—too subtle due to ‘90s Hollywood conventions—homoerotic undercurrent throughout the film as Ripley slowly works up the courage to take his first life. It won’t be his last.

Read more

Movies

Knives Out: When Murder Makes You a Better Person

By Natalie Zutter

Movies

Seven: The Brilliance of David Fincher’s Chase Scene

By Ryan Lambie

Highsmith wound up publishing four subsequent sequels to The Talented Mr. Ripley, but unfortunately no more were made with Damon. Perhaps because this was too unsettling for an ongoing franchise.

2. Seven (1995)

While watching David Fincher’s masterful Seven, the thing that immediately stands out is the oppressive nihilism that permeates throughout. There were decades of neo noir before this detective yarn about the hunt for a serial killer, but none demonstrated such an overbearing sense of despair before the opening credits were even concluded. And perhaps what makes it unshakable is how welcoming the film is toward bleakness; it succumbs long before the gut-punch finale.

Telling the story of an old cop days from retirement (Morgan Freeman) and a hotheaded rookie detective (Brad Pitt), Andrew Kevin Walker’s script has an economy of pace that still impresses despite its cynicism. Very quickly one murder becomes two, then three, and soon four. Yet none of the atrocities are reveled in by Fincher’s blocking; they’re off-screen mutilations which leave psychic damage on his two leads and, eventually, us. The deaths also quickly establish a pattern that their serial killer is targeting seven souls, each intended to embody one of the seven deadly sins.

The movie is a classic now for its climax where the killer “John Doe” (a reptilian Kevin Spacey) turns himself in and leads the cops into the darkest pit, but it’s the entire package that makes this one linger more than 25 years later. At the end of the film, Somerset quotes Hemingway by saying, “‘The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.’ I agree with the second part.” I’m not convinced his film does.

1. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

As the film that kick-started the idea that serial killers could create their own film genre, The Silence of the Lambs still remains the best of its kind. Blessedly unaware that it was creating conventions for countless copycats, the film tells its psychological drama with simplicity and clarity. Whereas other films on this list bask in their bleakness, there is a dogged optimism and even perverse warmth to this Jonathan Demme adaptation of Thomas Harris’ Silence of the Lambs novel. And that’s of course largely attributable to the casting of Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster.

As Dr. Hannibal Lecter, Hopkins is of course monumental. It’s a performance that turned a quinquagenarian into an overnight movie star, and became Hopkins’ calling card as he returned to the not-so-good doctor’s well one too many times. Still, he’s undeniably enthralling as Hannibal, a cannibal psychologist with superhuman powers of observation and mental menace. Even so, Foster is often overlooked by critics for her own contributions as the FBI trainee who’s proverbially fed to the incarcerated Lecter—a pretty face to get the serial killer to consult pro bono on the crimes of another mass murderer. It’s just one more example of casual sexism faced by Clarice that gives Foster as much to play as Hopkins.

Read more

Culture

David Fincher’s Zodiac: The Movie That Never Ended

By Don Kaye

Movies

The Little Things Ending Explained

By David Crow

Surrounded by the slights and prejudices of men—be they in law enforcement or straight jackets—Clarice is constantly underestimated. She finds an intellectual rapport with Hannibal, but she pulls herself out of the darkest night, and the screaming of the lambs, without assistance. Her perseverance matched by Hannibal’s darkly seductive qualities is the juxtaposition that makes Silence of the Lambs one of the finest films of its decade.

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[papermoonloveslucy]

TRYING TO CASH THE PRIZE CHECK

December 9, 1950

“Trying To Cash The Prize Check” (aka “The ‘Everybody Wins’ Prize Check”) is episode #109 of the radio series MY FAVORITE HUSBAND broadcast on December 9, 1950. 

Synopsis ~ Liz goes on the radio quiz show and wins a check for $500, but she only gets to keep it if she can cash it within 25 minutes, and the banks are all closed!

This was the 15th episode of the third season of MY FAVORITE HUSBAND. There were 43 new episodes, with the season ending on June 25, 1950.

“My Favorite Husband” was based on the novels Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, the Record of a Happy Marriage (1940) and Outside Eden (1945) by Isabel Scott Rorick, which had previously been adapted into the film Are Husbands Necessary? (1942). “My Favorite Husband” was first broadcast as a one-time special on July 5, 1948. Lucille Ball and Lee Bowman played the characters of Liz and George Cugat, and a positive response to this broadcast convinced CBS to launch “My Favorite Husband” as a series. Bowman was not available Richard Denning was cast as George. On January 7, 1949, confusion with bandleader Xavier Cugat prompted a name change to Cooper. On this same episode Jell-O became its sponsor. A total of 124 episodes of the program aired from July 23, 1948 through March 31, 1951. After about ten episodes had been written, writers Fox and Davenport departed and three new writers took over – Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Pugh, and head writer/producer Jess Oppenheimer. In March 1949 Gale Gordon took over the existing role of George’s boss, Rudolph Atterbury, and Bea Benaderet was added as his wife, Iris. CBS brought “My Favorite Husband” to television in 1953, starring Joan Caulfield and Barry Nelson as Liz and George Cooper. The television version ran two-and-a-half seasons, from September 1953 through December 1955, running concurrently with “I Love Lucy.” It was produced live at CBS Television City for most of its run, until switching to film for a truncated third season filmed (ironically) at Desilu and recasting Liz Cooper with Vanessa Brown.

MAIN CAST

Lucille Ball (Liz Cooper) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. With Richard Denning, she starred in a radio program titled “My Favorite Husband” which eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon.

Richard Denning (George Cooper) was born Louis Albert Heindrich Denninger Jr., in Poughkeepsie, New York. When he was 18 months old, his family moved to Los Angeles. Plans called for him to take over his father’s garment manufacturing business, but he developed an interest in acting. Denning enlisted in the US Navy during World War II. He is best known for his  roles in various science fiction and horror films of the 1950s. Although he teamed with Lucille Ball on radio in “My Favorite Husband,” the two never acted together on screen. While “I Love Lucy” was on the air, he was seen on another CBS TV series, “Mr. & Mrs. North.” From 1968 to 1980 he played the Governor on “Hawaii 5-0″, his final role. He died in 1998 at age 84.

Gale Gordon (Rudolph Atterbury) had worked with Lucille Ball on “The Wonder Show” on radio in 1938. One of the front-runners to play Fred Mertz on “I Love Lucy,” he eventually played Alvin Littlefield, owner of the Tropicana, during two episodes in 1952. After playing a Judge in an episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” in 1958, he would re-team with Lucy for all of her subsequent series’: as Theodore J. Mooney in ”The Lucy Show”; as Harrison Otis Carter in “Here’s Lucy”; and as Curtis McGibbon on “Life with Lucy.” Gordon died in 1995 at the age of 89.

Bea Benadaret (Iris Atterbury) was considered the front-runner to be cast as Ethel Mertz but when “I Love Lucy” was ready to start production she was already playing a similar role on TV’s “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show” so Vivian Vance was cast instead. On “I Love Lucy” she was cast as Lucy Ricardo’s spinster neighbor, Miss Lewis, in “Lucy Plays Cupid” (ILL S1;E15) in early 1952. Later, she was a success in her own show, “Petticoat Junction” as Shady Rest Hotel proprietress Kate Bradley. She starred in the series until her death in 1968. 

Bob LeMond (Announcer) also served as the announcer for the pilot episode of “I Love Lucy”. When the long-lost pilot was finally discovered in 1990, a few moments of the opening narration were damaged and lost, so LeMond – fifty years later – recreated the narration for the CBS special and subsequent DVD release.

Ruth Perrott (Katie, the Maid) does not appear in this episode. 

GUEST CAST

Frank Nelson (’Happy’ Hal Brubaker) was born on May 6, 1911 (three months before Lucille Ball) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He started working as a radio announcer at the age of 15. He later appeared on such popular radio shows as “The Great Gildersleeve,” “Burns and Allen,” and “Fibber McGee & Molly”.  Aside from Lucille Ball, Nelson is perhaps most associated with Jack Benny and was a fifteen-year regular on his radio and television programs. His trademark was playing clerks and other working stiffs, suddenly turning to Benny with a drawn out “Yeeeeeeeeees?” Nelson appeared in 11 episodes of “I Love Lucy”, including three as quiz master Freddy Fillmore, and two as Ralph Ramsey, plus appearance on “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” - making him the only actor to play two different recurring roles on “I Love Lucy.” Nelson returned to the role of the frazzled Train Conductor for an episode of “The Lucy Show” in 1963. This marked his final appearance on a Lucille Ball sitcom.

Nelson adds one more quizmaster to his list of credits with ‘Happy’ Hal Brubaker. He joins Smiley Stembottom and Freddy Fillmore. 

Bobby Jellison (Mr. Uh-Uh-Uh) will play the recurring character of Bobby the bellboy throughout the Hollywood episodes of “I Love Lucy”.  Viewers may also remember him as the milkman in “The Gossip” (S1;E24). He makes one more appearance as another luggage jockey in “Lucy Hunts Uranium,” a 1958 episode of “The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour”.

Jerry Hausner (Loan Store Clerk) was best known as Ricky Ricardo’s agent in “I Love Lucy” and as the voice of Waldo in “Mr. Magoo” and several characters such as Hemlock Holmes, The Mole, Broodles and Itchy in “The Dick Tracy Show.”  On Broadway, Hausner had the role of Sammy Schmaltz in Queer People (1934). On radio, he was a regular on such shows as “Blondie”, “The Jim Backus Show”, “The Judy Canova Show”, “Too Many Cooks”, and “Young Love”. Hausner died of heart failure on April 1, 1993. He was 83 years old. 

Wally Maher (Mr. Trimble, the Grocer) was born on August 4, 1908 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was known for Mystery Street (1950), The Reformer and the Redhead (1950) and Hollywood Hotel (1937). He was heard with Lucille Ball in the Lux Radio Theatre version of “The Dark Corner” (1947), taking the role originated on film by William Bendix. He died on December 27, 1951.

Sandra Gould (Woman in Audience) is probably best remembered as the second actor to play Gladys Kravitz on “Bewitched” (1966-71). On “I Love Lucy,” she played Nancy Johnson in “Oil Wells” (ILL S3;E18) and makes a brief appearance as an alarmed strap-hanger in “Lucy and the Loving Cup” (ILL S6;E12). In 1962 she appeared in the fourth episode of “The Lucy Show” as a bank secretary.

EPISODE

ANNOUNCER: “As we look in on the Coopers this morning, they’re at breakfast, and from the way Liz is looking at George, she’s either madly in love or has some ulterior motive in mind.” 

Liz wants to buy a new dress to wear to the club dance on Saturday, which costs $89.50. George won’t allow it but Liz is determined to get it by hook or by crook. 

Later the doorbell rings and it is Iris Atterbury. A downbeat Liz tells Iris about the dress she wants. Iris is going to a radio broadcast and wants Liz to go along to cheer herself up - and possibly win enough money to buy the new dress. 

The show is called “Everybody Wins” hosted by ‘Happy’ Hal Brubaker (Frank Nelson), a local radio game show. It is sponsored by Grandma Grimes Cold Cream.  The first contestant is the woman with the reddest hair - Liz Cooper! Another woman in the audience (Sandra Gould) objects!

WOMAN: “Are you kiddin’ sister? At home, I’m a redhead. Next to you, I’m a brunette!”

Liz wins a $500 check just for stating her name. The catch is, Liz must cash the check in 25 minutes without telling anyone it is a stunt for a radio show.  She’s assigned a man (Bobby Jellison) to watch her to be sure. Liz confesses that her husband is a banker. Brubaker reminds her that the show went on the air at 3pm when the banks close.

Liz and Iris tear out of the studio toward the bank. They bang on the door to get the guard’s attention. Liz sees George but can’t tell him why she needs to get in. Their watchdog chaperone intervenes with a warning “Uh uh uh!��� every time Liz starts to explain. Mr. Atterbury comes by and Iris asks him to cash the check, but Mr. Atterbury says to come back in the morning.  Liz pleads with him, but Mr. Atterbury cites state law. Liz stages a fake stick-up to get the cash. Mr. Atterbury points out that she hasn’t got a gun.  

With twelve minutes left, Liz and Iris start out to look for somewhere else to cash the check. 

End of Part One

Bob LeMond does a Jell-O commercial that gives a recipe for a quick dessert during the holidays.  

ANNOUNCER: “As we look in on the Coopers again, Liz and Iris have just left the bank to try to find another place to cash the $500 check from ‘Everybody Wins’ which Liz can keep if she can cash it in the next 15 minutes. George and Mr. Atterbury have prepared to return to their work.”

At the bank, Mr. Atterbury and George are alone. He turns on the radio. 

MR. ATTERBURY: “I wouldn’t want anyone to know that we go over the books with ‘Arthur Godfrey’”! 

Arthur Godfrey (1903-83) was a tremendously popular host and entertainer. His CBS morning radio show “Arthur Godfrey Time” aired five times a week. He also had an evening program titled “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts” which soon transitioned to television. It was the lead-in to “I Love Lucy” in 1951 and promoted Godfrey did on-air promotion for “Lucy.”  Many years later Godfrey guest-starred as himself on “The Lucy Show.”  Although tremendously popular whenever he aired, Godfrey was noticeably absent from afternoons, so it is unlikely that George and Mr. Atterbury tune in to his program at 3pm. 

When the radio comes on, however, it is tuned to “Everybody Wins”, not Arthur Godfrey.  

HAPPY HAL BRUBAKER (over radio): “Thank you, Mrs. Malone for being such a good sport and jumping off the high ladder with an umbrella. You missed the mattress so you don’t get a prize. Thanks anyway, and we hope that little old leg of yours mends soon!” 

This verbal gag is brought vividly to life on television with the appearance of a heavily bandaged former winner Mrs. Peterson (Hazel Pierce) who went over Niagara Falls in a barrel!  

George and Mr. Atterbury tune in just in time to hear Hal Brubaker report that Liz Cooper has not yet returned from cashing her check!  They realize what all her secrecy was about and, after a brief disagreement, they fill their pockets with cash and race off to find her!  

Liz and Iris see a loan shop sign “Do You Need Money? Hmmm?” in neon. The clerk (Jerry Hausner) tells them he will deduct the interest and the carrying charges giving her $14.32 with $50 weekly re-payments for 36 weeks! To get $500 they need to borrow $13,000! 

They run out of the shop with only six minutes left. George and Mr. Atterbury spot them, but rather than explain and waste time, the girls duck into a taxi to go to Trimble’s Grocery, where Liz is sure Mr. Trimble will give her the cash. 

Elderly grocer Mr. Trimble (Wally Maher) is in a chatty mood, wanting to talk about a mushy eggplant he sold her. He agrees to cash the check but is slow counting out the money from the cash drawer, making Liz a nervous wreck. He finally finishes, only to misread the check and count out $5.00 instead of five hundred! 

Liz and Iris give up and go back to the radio station. Meanwhile, George and Mr. Atterbury give up chasing Liz and Iris and decide to go to the radio station.  Liz arrives with a minute and a half to go. Defeated, she tears up the check just as the boys come racing in with the $500 cash.  With 45 seconds to go they scramble to reassemble the check!  Liz finds the final piece just as time expires. 

Brubaker reveals that he tricked her. The “Uh Uh Uh” man had the money all the time and would have cashed the check had Liz just asked. George is outraged and punches Brubaker in his ‘Happy’ face!  As a consolation, George agrees to give Liz the money anyway - plus $89.50 for the new dress.

LIZ: “Oh, George!  You really are my favorite husband!” 

In the final live Jell-O commercial, Lucille Ball takes on the character of a famous lady novelist and Bob LeMond is her interviewer. Lucy adopts a nasal voice as Elizabeth Dopplefinger Hopenshmice. The voice is similar to the one she will do as Isabella Clump in “The Million Dollar Idea” (ILL S3;E13). Elizabeth says she first imagines a book cover and then writes a story around it.  Bob LeMond says he would like to see a bowl of Jell-O on the cover of a book, but Elizabeth prefers a more romantic cover and kisses him. LeMond still wants Jell-O on the cover.  

Bob LeMond reads the credits. There is a recorded message from Instant Sanka.  

END EPISODE

[skippyv20]

Thank you😁❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Princess Diana: How her legacy lives on 22 years after her death

HER CHILDREN: Her boys are all grown up now, but Diana’s children were her life. Princes William and Harry have gone on to do their mother proud, following in her footsteps by supporting charities she championed and having families of their own.  

HER GRANDCHILDREN: If she were alive, Princess Diana would be a grandmother three times over.

HER NAMESAKE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE: William and Kate’s second child, Charlotte, is named after her grandmother. Her full name is Charlotte Elizabeth Diana. lt also pays tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and Kate’s mother Carole Middleton, whose middle name is Elizabeth.

THE PERCEPTION OF AIDS: In the 1980s many people believed you could catch AIDS from shaking hands. But Diana changed the way millions across the world saw the disease when she was pictured shaking hands with a HIV patient in 1987 without gloves. Later that year, Diana opened Britain’s first AIDS ward in London and continued to help HIV and AIDS charities until her death.

Prince Harry has also actively continued to fight the stigma through his work with the Terrence Higgins Trust. 

The non- profit new services center for akt (the Albert Kennedy Trust) in Hoxton, East London serves members of the LGBT community who are experiencing homelessness and other housing issues.

CHARITY WORK:  Recently, Prince Harry and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge co-founded the Heads Together campaign to open up the conversation around mental health. Prince Harry also revealed the struggles he has had with his own mental health, saying he sought therapy after bottling up years of grief over his mother’s death in an interview with The Telegraph. He was praised by mental health experts for the honest admission.

William and Harry have continued their mother’s charity work, bringing attention to such issues also as homelessness and HIV awareness

Both Prince William and Prince Harry support charities in Africa. Prince Harry famously spent some of his gap year in the continent and later set up his charity Sentebale which cares for child victims of extreme poverty and HIV/AIDS in Botswana and Lesotho.

Prince William is a royal patron of the Tusk Trust, which helps protect wildlife and conservation efforts across Africa. Before her death, Diana was a patron of the Chipangali Wildlife Orphanage in Zimbabwe which rescued and cared for orphaned, injured and abandoned wild animals.

Another area Diana devoted her time and resources to was looking out for vulnerable children. She was the President of the charity Barnardo’s, whose services include counseling abused children and supporting child victims of domestic violence, from 1984 to 1986. 

Prince Harry attended an event to celebrate 40 years of WellChild—a charity which supports sick children, where he is patron.

As well as Harry’s candid interviews about grieving for his mother, Prince William has used the heart-breaking event of losing his mother at such a young age to support other children going through a similar thing. As the royal patron of Child Bereavement UK, William has spoken of grief being "the most painful experience that any child or adult can endure.“

As patron of Great Ormand Street Hospital for Children and The Royal Marsden Hospital, known for treating cancerous children, Diana was often pictured comforting sick youngsters.

Speaking about her work with the Royal Brompton Hospital, London, she said: “I make the trips at least three times a week, and spend up to four hours at a time with patients holding their hands and talking to them. Some of them will live and some will die, but they all need to be loved while they are here. I try to be there for them.”

Prince William continues the legacy today, as president of the Royal Marsden Hospital, the same renowned cancer institution his mother represented from 1989 until her death in 1997. 

WORK ON LANDMINES: In 1997 Diana caught global attention when she walked through a live mine field in Angola to call for an international ban on landmines. That iconic trip brought about a global landmine treaty which was signed later that year and came into force in March 1999. Unfortunately, Diana didn’t live to see it.

THE DIANA AWARD: The Diana Award was set up in the Princess of Wales’s name to honor young people who carried on her work to change the world for the better. There are currently 47,000 people around the world who have received the accolade and it continues to be handed out to those making a difference.

THE DIANA MEMORIAL FOUNTAIN: This public memorial to Diana was opened in London’s Hyde Park in 2004. The design aims to reflect her life, with water flowing from the highest point in two directions as it cascades, before meeting in a calm pool at the bottom. The memorial is also said to symbolize Diana’s quality and openness.

         DIANA MEMORIAL GARDEN: In 2017 the ‘white garden’ at Kensington Palace was dedicated to Diana to mark 20 years since her death. The garden, said to have been one of Diana’s favorite places, is filled with Forget-Me-Nots and white roses, her favorite flowers. The garden is open to the public to visit. Tickets cost around $25. 

TV TRIBUTE: William and Harry spoke about their mother publicly for the first time in a TV documentary 20 years on from her death. 'Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy’ shared their memories, regrets over their last phone conversation with her, and how they have struggled to cope with their grief at times. But it also showed what well-rounded, caring, fine young men she brought up and how determined they are to keep her legacy alive.

ENGAGEMENT RING: When William and Kate announced their engagement, he proposed with Diana’s sapphire and diamond ring, one of the most coveted in the world.  

DIANA’S TIARA: The Duchess of Cambridge is also regularly spotted wearing Diana’s jewelry. The diamond Cambridge Lover’s knot tiara was a gift to Diana from Queen Elizabeth back in 1981. Kate has since worn it to important state events, including the Queen’s State Banquet for President Donald Trump.

PARENTING STYLES: Kate and William’s parenting styles often draw comparisons with the way Diana raised her sons. The couple are keen to keep the children out of the public eye so they can enjoy as normal a childhood as possible, but the children are educated outside the palace walls, as William and Harry were. The young Royals are dressed similarly to Diana’s boys at that age, the family are publicly seen having fun together, and pictured in relaxed photographs, with Kate famously taking official snaps of the children herself.

[critic-corner]

13 Contemporary Rom-Com Novels That You’ll (Probably) Love

Even though this is a mainly fashion and film blog, I do like to consider this a platform where I get to share my thoughts and opinions on anything of interest properly and well, reading is a big passion of mine. Even though I do talk about it on Instagram a little but, for whatever reason I don't on this blog.

Many of my reader friends ask me for recommendations, so I took this as an opportunity to create some book-related lists even though it's a little hard to do that because lists are never-ending. Anyway, I'll try. Also, don’t worry it’s not gonna turn into a book blog, it’ll just be a small segment of my entire blog.

You can click on the book title to get your own copy!

One Day In December

Laurie is pretty sure love at first sight doesn't exist anywhere but the movies. But then, through a misted-up bus window one snowy December day, she sees a man who she knows instantly is the one. Their eyes meet, there's a moment of pure magic... and then her bus drives away. Certain they're fated to find each other again, Laurie spends a year scanning every bus stop and cafe in London for him. But she doesn't find him, not when it matters anyway. Instead they "reunite" at a Christmas party, when her best friend Sarah giddily introduces her new boyfriend to Laurie. It's Jack, the man from the bus. It would be. What follows for Laurie, Sarah and Jack is ten years of friendship, heartbreak, missed opportunities, roads not taken, and destinies reconsidered.

I have never understood the love at first sight trope but because this story travels for ten years where the characters get to know each other intimately, it worked out perfectly. My favorite part about the book was how you will see these characters grow and make important life decisions. By the end, I was so emotionally invested that I was sad when the book ended.

This is definitely one of my favorite contemporary novels. I have been recommending to all of my friends, even the ones that don’t read that often. If you are a rom-com fan, get this book because it’ll simply warm your heart.

You can get your copy on Amazon - paperback or kindle.

The Royal We

American Rebecca Porter was never one for fairy tales. Her twin sister, Lacey, has always been the romantic who fantasized about glamour and fame. Yet it's Bex who seeks adventure at Oxford and finds herself living down the hall from Prince Nicholas, Great Britain's future king. And when Bex can't resist falling for Nick, the person behind the prince, it propels her into a world she did not expect to inhabit, under a spotlight she is not prepared to face. Dating Nick immerses Bex in ritzy society, dazzling ski trips, and dinners at Kensington Palace with him and his charming, troublesome brother, Freddie. But the relationship also comes with unimaginable baggage: hysterical tabloids, Nick's sparkling and far more suitable ex-girlfriends, and a royal family whose private life is much thornier and more tragic than anyone on the outside knows. The pressures are almost too much to bear, as Bex struggles to reconcile the man she loves with the monarch he's fated to become. Now, on the eve of the wedding of the century, Bex is faced with whether everything she's sacrificed for love-her career, her home, her family, maybe even herself-will have been for nothing.

If you know me, you’d know that I’m a royal family nerd. So, when I came to know about this book last year, I was all over it because it seemed like a perfect escape. And while I was expecting it to be all cheesy, I was surprised by how realistic it seemed. Yes, it has been heavily influenced by the Kate-William romance, but that only added to the thrill of it. If you want a nice royal romance which also seems relatable, this is definitely the way to go!

You can get your copy on Amazon.

This Love Story Will Self-Destruct

Meet Eve. She’s a dreamer, a feeler, a careening well of sensitivities who can’t quite keep her feet on the ground, or steer clear of trouble. She’s a laugher, a crier, a quirky and quick-witted bleeding-heart-worrier. Meet Ben. He’s an engineer, an expert at leveling floors who likes order, structure, and straight lines. He doesn’t opine, he doesn’t ruminate, he doesn’t simmer until he boils over. So naturally, when the two first cross paths, sparks don’t exactly fly. But then they meet again. And again. And then, finally, they find themselves with a deep yet fragile connection that will change the course of their relationship—possibly forever.

This book was been marketed as When Harry Met Sally reimagined and I couldn’t disagree more. Apart from the fact that the two characters meet time and again, there isn’t much else relating this story with the movie and that’s not a bad thing. I just don’t want you guys to shocked like I was. Rom-coms have a fluffy, carefree vibe to them and technically, it has those aspects, but there is an underlying sadness to the story because of the female character (with whom I surprisingly found myself relating with, by the way).

I am that person who prefers character-driven stories over plot-driven ones and while this book doesn’t really fall in either of those categories, I fell in love with the two main leads. It’s been months since I read this book and they still casually pop up in my head every now and then, and I constantly find myself talking about them like they are real people. If you are a fan of emotionally-driven romantic novels, you might like this one.

You can get your copy on Amazon - paperback or kindle.

Unmarriageable

In this one-of-a-kind retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in modern-day Pakistan, Alys Binat has sworn never to marry—until an encounter with one Mr. Darsee at a wedding makes her reconsider.

One thing to always keep in mind before reading a retelling is that you cannot expect it to be amazing. At most, it can be great. I’m saying this because the ghost of the original and the eventual comparison will always be lingering over the book which will definitely hinder the reading experience. So, just go into it expecting a nice time, and not hoping to find your all-time favorite (if you do, then obviously that’s great).

Coming to Unmarriageable, the original premise of Pride & Prejudice fits perfectly on a Pakistani back-drop, or just any desi family. And while I was expecting to fall in love with the romance, I ended up enjoying the social commentary that Soniah Kamal did and that was probably because of how similar Indian people are. All in all, it was not the best Pride & Prejudice re-tellings (I think I’m yet to find that), but I sure as hell had a fun time reading it.

You can get your copy on Amazon.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine. Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

This is one contemporary novel that has managed to step out that genre and successfully enter the literary talks. I have been hearing about this book for over a year and absolutely fell in love with it. If you are not the best in social situations and have a hard time navigating through them, you might like it very much. The story is told entirely through her point of view so it was very interesting to see this lonely person find her way to life (albeit unknowingly). What surprised me was just how funny the novel was. This can easily become one of your favorites!

Also, I have to appreciate the cover designer of this novel. There are two covers and both of them are genuinely so amazing!

You can get your copy on Amazon.

Always Never Yours

17-year-old Megan Harper is about due for her next sweeping romance. It's inevitable—each of her relationships starts with the perfect guy and ends with him falling in love... with someone else. But instead of feeling sorry for herself, Megan focuses on pursuing her next fling, directing theater, and fulfilling her dream college's acting requirement in the smallest role possible. So when she’s cast as Juliet (yes, that Juliet) in her high school’s production, it’s a complete nightmare. Megan’s not an actress, and she’s used to being upstaged—both in and out of the theater. Then she meets Owen Okita, an aspiring playwright inspired by Rosaline from Shakespeare's R+J. A character who, like Megan, knows a thing or two about short-lived relationships. Megan agrees to help Owen with his play in exchange for help catching the eye of a sexy stagehand/potential new boyfriend. Yet Megan finds herself growing closer to Owen, and wonders if he could be the Romeo she never expected.

I was going into the novel fully expecting it to be cheesy or even cringey and got out surprisingly loving it’s realistic portrayal of human emotions. My favorite part was the female character and her straight-forward way of thinking, even though it sometimes prevented her from becoming vulnerable. If you are a Shakespeare nerd, I guarantee that you’ll have a ball reading this one.

You can get your copy on Amazon - paperback or kindle.

The Sun Is Also A Star

Natasha: I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won’t be my story. Daniel: I’ve always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store—for both of us. The Universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?

Another book that I expected to dislike but surprisingly didn’t. I hate insta-love stories, but weirdly enough this one seemed convincing to me. The characters were likable and do keep in mind that the demographic the novel was trying to reach was young adult and it worked perfectly for that in my opinion. One particularly great thing about the writing-style is the fantastic use of different POVs (point-of-view). If you've ever wondered about the life of those strangers that you only meet for 10 minutes or cross on the street, then I think you’ll particularly enjoy this one.

You can get your copy on Amazon.

My Oxford Year

Set amidst the breathtaking beauty of Oxford, this sparkling debut novel tells the unforgettable story about a determined young woman eager to make her mark in the world and the handsome man who introduces her to an incredible love that will irrevocably alter her future—perfect for fans of JoJo Moyes and Nicholas Sparks.

I went into this book expecting just another rom-com, my bad. I should have paid more attention to the fact that they mentioned Nicholas Sparks on the back cover and you should too because otherwise the second half will completely take you by surprise. This book has all the elements of a giddy romance - Oxford, with it’s Harry Potter-esque interiors, English poetry and amazing fleshed out characters. It will also (probably) break your heart, so keep the tissues close by.

You can get your copy on Amazon - paperback or kindle.

Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating

Hazel Camille Bradford knows she’s a lot to take—and frankly, most men aren’t up to the challenge. If her army of pets and thrill for the absurd don’t send them running, her lack of filter means she’ll say exactly the wrong thing in a delicate moment. Their loss. She’s a good soul in search of honest fun. Josh Im has known Hazel since college, where her zany playfulness proved completely incompatible with his mellow restraint. From the first night they met—when she gracelessly threw up on his shoes—to when she sent him an unintelligible email while in a post-surgical haze, Josh has always thought of Hazel more as a spectacle than a peer. But now, ten years later, after a cheating girlfriend has turned his life upside down, going out with Hazel is a breath of fresh air. Not that Josh and Hazel date. At least, not each other. Because setting each other up on progressively terrible double blind dates means there’s nothing between them...right?

This is my second Christina Lauren novel and well, I had a ball reading it just as you’re supposed to with any of their novels. This one, in particular, stands out because not only is it well written but the characters felt oddly realistic. The first chapter did feel like the book will probably filled with all kinds of tropes because the female character is so fashionably eccentric but thankfully, non of that happened. It’ll make for an amazing weekend read!

You can get your copy on Amazon - paperback or kindle.

Vision In White

Childhood friends Mackensie, Parker, Laurel and Emmaline have formed a very successful wedding planning business together but, despite helping thousands of happy couples to organise the biggest day of their lives, all four women are unlucky in love. Photographer Mackensie Elliot has suffered a tough childhood and has a bad relationship with her mother, which makes her wary of commitment. But when she meets Carter Maguire, she can't stop herself falling for him, although his ex-girlfriend is prepared to play dirty to keep him. Mackensie soon realizes she has to put her past demons to rest in order to find lasting love...

This is first of the four in the Bride Quartet series and while I would literally suggest all four of them, just give this one a try first. There are a lot of things I like about this book, the main being the sisterhood that is majorly present in the entire series. Secondly, even though the female character has a dysfunctional family that leads her to being kinda sorta commitment-phobic, I like the relationship showcased is so healthy. Normally, in romantic books, there’s a lot of miscommunication to drive the plot ahead but this book works a nice example of how to showcase a healthy couple even if one of them (or both of them) are fighting internal battles. It’s a perfect cozy read!

You can get your copy on Amazon - paperback or kindle.

Practice Makes Perfect

Payton Kendall and J.D. Jameson are lawyers who know the meaning of objection. A feminist to the bone, Payton has fought hard to succeed in a profession dominated by men. Born wealthy, privileged, and cocky, J.D. has fought hard to ignore her. Face-to-face, they're perfectly civil. They have to be. For eight years they have kept a safe distance and tolerated each other as coworkers for one reason: to make partner at the firm. But all bets are off when they're asked to join forces on a major case. Though apprehensive at first, they begin to appreciate each other's dedication to the law— and the sparks between them quickly turn into attraction. But the increasingly hot connection does not last long when they discover that only one of them will be named partner. Now it's an all-out war. And the battle between the sexes is bound to make these lawyers hot under the collar...

This is one of the best workplace romances that I have come across and would highly recommend to everyone interested in that genre. It is a little cliche but it’s not trope-heavy which is definitely a plus. It has the right amount of heat and character development that a good fluffy contemporary demands. It’s just nice, fun ride!

You can get your copy on Amazon.

By The Book

An English professor struggling for tenure discovers that her ex-fiancé has just become the president of her college—and her new boss—in this whip-smart modern retelling of Jane Austen’s classic Persuasion.

If you couldn’t tell by now, I’m a sucker for Jane Austen re-tellings and unlike Unmarriageable, I really liked this one a lot. As I mentioned above, you can’t have your expectations with re-tellings high, but even if you expect some genuinely nice exploration of relationships (like Austen used to do, among other things), but in a modern setting then I think you will really like it. The fact that it’s completely from the female character’s point of view, makes the writing a lot more intimate. Give it a read, you may like it.

You can get your copy on Amazon.

The Upside of Unrequited

Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love—she’s lived through it twenty-six times. She crushes hard and crushes often, but always in secret. Because no matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can’t stomach the idea of rejection. So she’s careful. Fat girls always have to be careful. Then a cute new girl enters Cassie’s orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly’s cynical twin is a lovesick mess. Meanwhile, Molly’s totally not dying of loneliness—except for the part where she is. Luckily, Cassie’s new girlfriend comes with a cute hipster-boy sidekick. Will is funny and flirtatious and just might be perfect crush material. Maybe more than crush material. And if Molly can win him over, she’ll get her first kiss and she’ll get her twin back. There’s only one problem: Molly’s coworker Reid. He’s an awkward Tolkien superfan with a season pass to the Ren Faire, and there’s absolutely no way Molly could fall for him. Right?

Even though personally, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the book because I just didn’t find it engaging enough, I do know that a lot of you out there might love. Not only does it have wonderful LGBTQ+ representation, but there aren’t a lot of book written about introverted young girls who love romance but have zero first-hand experience with it. I liked that it was fairly realistic and the characters were fleshed out. I’d say give it a try, you never know, may find yourself in Molly.

You can get your copy on Amazon.

[lesamisandlesmiserables]

On seeing the 2018 Les Mis North American tour - Mod Fantine

First off, I am going to be talking about everything about the experience. So if you plan on seeing it or have never seen Les Mis in any form SKIP THIS POST! I do not want to spoil anything for you. But if you cannot see it or already know the plot, this is the post for you!

Before I go on I must say that I went to an Accessibility performance. I don’t know what they are called where you are but that’s what my theater called it. This show was for the deaf, HOH and blind. This means there was a small screen that had subtitles and there were ASL interpreters. Hats off to those interpreters, they were subtle but they also gave a performance all their own. They seemed deeply passionate about A) their work and B) the story. While I did not need those accommodations I am so happy to see theater being opened up to everyone. 

Now on with my review!

The set and general stage design: The show was a bit dark lighting-wise. Les Mis is a darker show, yes, but everything looked like it was happening either evening or midnight. When Valjean is released from prison, it looks like they are doing it in the middle of the night and when Marius runs into Cosette for the first time it looks as if Valjean and Cosette are giving alms at night. 

I know they got rid of the revolving stage but the barricade seemed much sparser and thin. Not a gripe just an observation. I thought they made great use of the space and the set design of the alleys was marvelous. The sewers were excellently staged. The projection made Valjean seem so small and really demonstrated how hard that task was.

I have no idea if this is in all productions but they got rid of the time cards. You know the ones that say ‘Toulon’ or ‘Paris’? I think those time cards explain the story. Imagine if you have never seen the show; it must be confusing to understand the time jumps and location changes. Granted, these time cards were in the program but who is going to remember to look in the program for this info?

Lastly, I love the return to our boi Victor Hugo! They used some of his original art for backdrops and the title is in his original handwriting. I love how this is reconnecting the musical to its origins. It is in less of the big 80s style and more subtle and nuanced. 

Nick Cartell as Valjean: 

10/10!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He played Valjean a bit more angry and human. It is so easy to write Valjean off as a saint or a Jesus figure but Cartell’s Valjean was a flawed human. Valjean is always known as super strong and invincible but Cartell gave Valjean a limp after he leaves Toulon. But going along with not being perfect physically this Valjean is also flawed internally.  He doesn’t magically forgive Javert. He still holds a lot of resentment but knows that lashing out is not the solution. When he lets Javert go at the barricade, he doesn’t look like he wants to, but he knows that it isn’t his job to decide who dies.

BUT BUT BUT.........the connection between his Valjean and Cosette was so sweet! He did this cute thing when he first saves Cosette where he touches his nose and then boops Cosette’s nose. This happens several key times in the show: when they first meet, when Javert almost catches them giving alms and when Valjean dies. My heart just melted!!!!! This really cements that this is a father and daughter.  

Continuing on the idea of this Valjean feeling like a real human... when he gets the letter from Marius meant for Cosette he is like WTF my daughter isn’t a little girl anymore. He pauses throughout the song as if he is processing what Marius is saying. He also regarded Marius as if, “I don’t like you but my daughter does and that is the only thing that matters!” Also during his confession to Marius, he looks at him like: “If Cosette is ever unhappy with you, you better bet I will come running back from wherever I am. NO ONE HURTS MY LITTLE GIRL!”

Vocal-wise this man is now my favorite Valjean. His rendition of Bring Him Home was hauntingly beautiful. Bring Him Home is either one of the most beautiful songs or the worst sounding. It is so easy to miss those high notes but Cartell executes this song perfectly. His voice, in general, leans more towards tenor than the traditional baritone. He never screeched his words and his singing sounded effortless and clean. But seriously, if you ever have the chance to hear him sing Bring Him Home you will not have wasted your time in doing so. 

Josh Davis as Javert:

I loved this harsher toned Javert. As the story goes on, his voice ages and he actually sounds tired when he catches Valjean for the last time. We forget that while we see Valjean’s plight, Javert is also being worn down by the cat-and-mouse chase. I heard criticism from the lady in front of me that this Javert was too robotic. Yes, I agree Davis had a slight William Shatner effect to his words, but I do not think this was a mistake. Javert is very much a man who thinks in order to survive in this world one must do X, Y and Z, never deviate from that and be stoic. His baritone vocals were everything to me, it was a clear contrast between and Valjean’s lighter almost tenor voice.

Javert’s suicide was done beautifully. I dare not spoil how that bit was done but it was well executed!

Joshua Grosso as Marius: 

YES YES YES! You know that part in Les Mis where Hugo writes that Valjean sees Marius as a noddle?

Well, Grosso totally hit that nail on the head. I love how he feels like a real guy in his twenties when he is at the meeting with the other members of Les Amis. He also throws rocks at Cosette’s window... which is so cute. When Cosette leaves her balcony to go down and see him, poor Marius think it means she rejected him and my heart just broke! Marius can be played real foppish and as if he owns the world but this Marius was simply a young man caught up in love.

But, his chemistry with Eponine is to die for! Every Marius I have seen brushes off Eponine and treats her like she isn’t even really a friend. But this Marius and Eponine felt like they had been friends for ages. MUCH LOVE!

Jillian Butler as Cosette: 

I adored this Cosette. If there is one gripe I have about Les Mis the musical as a whole is how little we see of adult Cosette. She is a trauma victim who still sees light and love in the word. Butler as Cosette made the character feel again like a real person. She is scared of Marius when he is throwing rocks at her window. She held on tightly to Valjean when they were giving food to the poor. During the reprise of Heart Full of Love, I have no words to properly explain but she looked and touched Marius in a knowing sort of way. She seemed to be expressing that she had darkness in her past as well and that the grief will pass. I don’t know, this felt like a real character growth moment.

Mary Kate Moore as Fantine: As Mod Fantine, y'all must be wondering what I thought of this Fantine. While this was not my favorite Fantine, I must commend her for playing her much more raw and angry than usual. When the other factory women are accusing her and tormenting her, she fights back. Her I Dreamed a Dream was so raw and angry, it made Fantine less of a tragic waif but more of a tragic fighter. She really tried to survive but in the end, the word is not fair.

Various other thoughts in no particular order:

The caller. You know that bit where the offstage caller goes YOU HAVE NO CHANCE, NO CHANCE AT ALL? This guy really emphasized the part YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS and I was like ‘same bro’.

Bishop Myriel’s overly long note in ‘I have bought your soul for God’. God was more like Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood

Gavroche flipping Javert off after Javert says “EVERYONE ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS, CLEAR THIS GARBAGE OFF THE STREETS!” 

Marius accidentally getting caught in the gate when he tries to see Cosette for the first time. Like he is up there singing and then he has to get down and his coat gets caught. Eponine comes over and saves him and Marius looks a little embarrassed but then goes on singing. A+ on that improv!

Valjean singing with Cosette after he helps her with her bucket. I know a lot of productions do this but this Valjean was sort of hesitant like he’s never sung before but then gets used to it and is enjoying it.

Valjean holding Cosette in the air and spinning. Snow falling in the background really made this once cold environment much warmer ironically.

Any and all slapstick from the Thenardiers. 

Valjean pushing Eponine away from his door when she is delivering Marius’s letter. Like, we know that it is Eponine but to him, it is just some rando at the door.

My dad leaning over and asking who the person in the chair dying was. Because Cartell sang the ending song much higher than is traditional and my dad low-key thinking Cosette was dying and panicking.

Marius accidentally coughing in the sewers. The poor guy is pretending to be dead and there is a crap-ton of fog everywhere. Not to mention that this is Denver, Mile High, notoriously high altitude, Colorado. The poor guy had a coughing fit but Thenardier was moving so much you couldn’t really see it. But heart goes out to you! My asthmatic lungs couldn’t do it.

Sidenote: Thenardier playing with Marius’s ‘dead’ body.

The guy who harasses Fantine in lovely ladies and then acts innocent around Javert.... well his actor was also playing a lawyer in the court when Valjean bursts in with his confession. Not a criticism but I just remember thinking Ah so this is your day job, eh?

Valjean hobbling to the table to light his candlesticks before sitting in his chair to die. This was perfect. It made it clear that Valjean was dying because of loss of hope and love, not from disease. Valjean is strong but what changes him throughout the show is kindness and love and when he has lost that, he withers. BUT MY EYES WERE FULL OF TEARS, I JUST WANTED TO HELP HIM!

Enjolras’s body being shown in a cart that pulls into the scene and Javert having Gavroche’s body thrown into the cart as well.

DID I MENTION THE ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GRANTAIRE AND GAVROCHE? MUST PROTECT BOTH AT ALL COSTS!!!!!!

Marius standing farther away from Cosette and Valjean at the end. He knows that this is not really his moment but is there supporting Cosette.

Random old guy who stops Fantine from being harassed at the factory. YES YES YES it shows that while times are rough, there is always kindness somewhere. It really elevates the hope in the show. Like dude, you deserve everything good.  You are the ally everyone needs. It shows that anyone can be a saint and Valjean isn’t the exception.

That bit in the book where Valjean steals the coin from Petit Gervais. I did not know that they added that into the show and I loved it.

Due to the lighting being so dark, one of the main methods of lighting the scene was torches. Now sometimes this felt nice like when the whole town seemingly finds Valjean and returns him to the bishop. It really set the tone of the whole world being against Valjean. But sometimes it set this weird tone of all this happening at midnight.

Top marks to the person waving the big red flag! You go! I aspire to that level of energy in everything I do.

This Grantaire was SUPER nihilistic and I am here for it! Like when he teases Marius for his new love, it almost seemed like ‘enjoy it now because in the end we are all doomed to the abyss from whence we came!’ and then would go back to make sexual jokes and stealing everyone’s drinks. (Some people will disagree but I saw an u/s so his interpretation was perhaps VERY different than what you saw)

This Enjolras was super obsessed with this revolution. People always ship Grantaire and him and here there were 0 shippable moments. When Enjolras says “Grantaire put that bottle down!” he sounded kinda angry. “BRO CUT IT OUT! MY ONLY LOVE IS FREEDOM, QUIT USING THAT BOTTLE AS A PHALLIC SYMBOL OR I WILL PERSONALLY COME OVER THERE AND TAKE IT FROM YOU!” (again I saw an u/s which may account for the difference in performance).

EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY FRICKIN TABLES!!!!!!!!!!!!! That scene got me so hard! When the women are singing Turning, they leave candles on the ground and Marius hobbles in. Then the ghosts of his friends pick the candles up and carrying them off. Enjolras is the last to leave and he shares a long look with Marius as if to say it’s all on you, buddy. Marius grabs his candles and holds it like a glass and raises it to the Heavens, then the spotlight goes out and all we see is the candle before he blows it out. POWERFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All in all, I would describe this tour and version to be the most realistic and human. If you read closely I used words like human and flawed. This version made it clear while there may not be any saints, there are saint-like people and we should all try out best to be our best selves. This has become my favorite production. This version felt fresh and as if this could be anyone’s story. This isn't just some 19th-century French story but a story for the modern person. It speaks to the idea that times can be hard but in the end, if we show kindness, we can all get through this life a little easier.  I first saw this show in 4th grade and now a uni student I can see why this show made such an impression upon my 9-year-old self. This is truly a story that transcends time and I am so honored to have seen it again. 

If you saw it what did you think? Do you agree or disagree with anything I said and if so why? 

[dianhq]

hello, i’m eleanor, i’m from england and my pronouns are she/her !! this is my precious little child dian edelstein; she deserves the world but keeps getting screwed over by everyone. i’d love to plot with you all !! also, if you haven’t roleplayed with me before, this is constance zimmer, constance is precious and needs to be appreciated more !! please love her !!

[ constance zimmer, forty six, cisfemale, she/her ] ━ hey, I just saw [ dian arenson ] walking down the streets of crownsville. they’ve lived in town for [ two months ], and you can catch them around town working as an [ actress ]. I hear they’re known to be [ compassionate & genuine ] and [ impulsive & sensitive ]. if asked, they would say their aesthetic would be [ oversized jackets, cold cups of coffee & high heels]. ━ [ ooc: eleanor, 20, gmt, she/her] ▬▬

SUICIDE ATTEMPT TW, DEPRESSION TW, CHILD ABUSE TW.

dian was actually born in germany to a working class household barely holding themselves above the poverty line. she was named after her grandmother whose name was ‘diane’ but her mother wanted something different for her daughter so they both decided to drop the e.

everything that they worked for was for dian. when she was growing up, her parents started saving to make their daughter have the best start in life. they bought a television and were able to get their hands on some american tv shows on video for their daughter to learn. she was too young for her school to be teaching any english but they were determined to get her learning as quickly as possible. it was gruelling as she didn’t have much time for fun; her parents were more interested in her future than what she was feeling at that moment.

she had always been a charismatic child that loved to entertain and bring joy with her performances and that was when the penny dropped for her parents. her mother quickly started looking at agencies. this time was particularly tough because her parents were pressuring her and she didn’t see having another choice in the matter whilst her father put in so many extra hours so that they could all jet off to los angeles for an audition.

as she was only young, it didn’t take long for dian to be picked up by a tv show called “the generation house” that would run for eight seasons and it would be shot in new york city. dian was given the part of philippa ‘pippa’ williams, a main character. the money quickly came in and her parents were so proud of her. after their finances had sky-rocketed because of the girls’ success, they decided to settle in los angeles, buying a big house with some of their daughters earnings; they had worked hard and she would have been nowhere without them so it was all fair.

their was pressure on dian to keep providing for the family, they had another child and she couldn’t let her down. however, as they grew older, the responsibility was shifted on to her sister; she had it all, she was the intelligent one, she was able to attend school and she was the one that could be trusted. it was sad to thing that her first director was more of a father than her own.

it became clear to the girl throughout her teenage years that her mother and father loved her because they wanted the money and in rebellion, she tried to quit. however, her father and mother were very emotionally manipulative and decided that putting her down would be the best way forward as she always rose to the challenge. their daughter worked hard and was intelligent but there was always a lack of love from her parents as the need to impress them consumed her.

when she became eighteen, she finally got access to her money and cut her parents off completely. they have tried to contact her at various points in her life but she was never going to allow them to use her like that.

for around a year, she tried the whole rebellious child star thing but decided that it wasn’t for her; she loved her craft despite being forced into it and she wasn’t going to take that away from herself.

dian was eighteen and she was looking for something more substantial. however, the transition from child star to actress was very hard; no one could get past her previous roles, that were light-hearted and comedic. her only option was to go in to the independent film industry, to get down to the nitty-gritty, the meaningful and artistic films and some got recognition while some didn’t even make a final cut. it was deflating to be pushed in to the background after so much work in her early years. it worried her because she hadn’t had to time to get a proper education, she hadn’t gone to school and appeared to have made no actual friends; most of the cast members that she had worked with had gone their separate ways; most of the child actors were either in rehab or had quit as they decided that it wasn’t for them.

it took dian years to break back in to the blockbuster hits.

however, people did seem to walk all over her. because of her relationship with her parents, it encouraged dian to constantly overcompensate in relationships, both romantic and friendship and this never works out for her. she feels like she’s in the wrong constantly and needs to make up for everything.

dian is a serial monogamist; she’s been in relationships constantly since she was nineteen. think taylor swift but with a soul.

she is best known for her role in 2008′s ‘vices’ wherein she played harrison ford’s mistress; dian was nominated for an academy award but was beaten by kate winslet for the award. it wasn’t a secret that dian loved the limelight at times, it made her feel loved and the public seemed to adore her.  she deserved the recognition she got, some even said that winslet robbed dian that year.

the woman has three children and they all have different fathers.

she has won an acamdey award and been nominated three times; a talented queen !!

she has been married four times and they’ve always ended in disaster. dian doesn’t feel like she can ever be alone and as the media began to trash her and pick apart her decisions to keep on marrying these men, she felt like she needed it more.

dian tried to be around as much as she could for her children's’ childhood but her hectic schedule seemed to get in the way. she did spoil them slightly because she overcompensates in many ways. she’s also a doormat when it comes to her kids because every time she looks at them, she feels guilty that she missed so much in their lives.

when her fourth engagement came about to a screenwriter after just four months, tensions in her family rose instantly. her children were strongly advising against it but she didn’t want to listen and went along with it anyway. after she had chosen the guy over her children, the eldest two disowned her as they weren’t going to be there to help her pick up the pieces of another broken relationship. they were done counselling her over such matters and felt no obligation to make sure things were fine for her. although she was miserable from this situation and their attitude, dian pressured herself into the marriage as she saw it as her very last shot at true love. she had been impulsive and her own desperation had pushed her into a marriage with her eyes closed, something that she’d soon discover.

nine months into the marriage, dian caught her new husband cheating with one of her younger costars on set. she was absolutely devastated when he left her to be with the younger model; as she overcompensates a lot, she was even prepared to look past it and for them to start again but he rejected her and served her with divorce papers.

then she started engaging in reckless behaviour and even more of the public were taking a dislike to her; she was once america’s sweetheart and now she had been deduced to this desperate old woman that couldn’t keep a man in her life. her youngest child became worried for her but was easily influenced by the older two that told them to ignore it.

the media continued to slam her life choices and she didn’t feel like she had support from anyone. the day that her divorce was finalised, she tried to take her own life. it was an impulsive decision but everything seemed to be destroyed and it seemed like the only way out. her manager, assistant and children are the only ones who currently know; dian has just sort of vanished...

after that, she decided that she needed to take a break so all of her projects are either on hold or she’s been replaced by another actress. she bought a home in crownsville

 and has been living there with her youngest child who has assumed responsibility for her. dian feels incredibly guilty that they have to take care of her as well as the aftermath of her children feeling like they weren’t a good enough reason for her to stay.

dian is settling into crownsville but is being honest with herself and doesn’t know how long it’ll last. it creates a lot of distance between her and hollywood so it is her breathing space but knows that it can’t fix everything. she does need more professional help but is reluctant to take it as she sees herself as an inconvenience. she loves acting, or loved it but it leaked into her personal life and created this mess so she doesn’t know if she’ll ever go back into it again. it’s so soon after her ordeal that she hasn’t made much progress.

personality wise, she’s such a sweetheart and is kind to everyone but can also be extremely sensitive; if someone’s mean to her, chances are that her eyes are going to be welling up with tears. she wants to help everyone all the time but neglects herself quite a bit which isn’t what she should be doing at this difficult time in her life.

WANTED CONNECTIONS:

FRIENDS: she needs people to talk to.

LISTENERS: those people who she’s friends with but end up acting like a therapist.

FANS: it would be cool if someone constantly fangirled over her.

HOOK UPS: sometimes the loneliness gets to her once more and she’s taken to sleeping with people too often now that she knows she can’t handle relationships. (she’s bisexual so come at me!)

ENEMIES: someone who thinks she’s just a self-entitled narcissistic has been actress would be interesting.

DRINKING BUDDIES: even though she’s supposed to stay away from the stuff, she does find herself in situations where she ends up going for a drink and can’t control herself.

LIFELINE: a really close friend that she can call in the middle of the night if she’s having any difficulty.

MENTEE: she would act as a motherly figure towards them and take them under her wing as she feels like a failure to her own children and just wants to get rid of that feeling of inadequacy.

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Prince William “split his household from Prince Harry after Meghan bullying claims”

June 19, 2021

Allegations against the Duchess of Sussex led to a bitter row between brothers who were once inseparable, says the author Robert Lacey in this extract in The Times from his book Battle of Brothers.

“So, are you saying,” asked Oprah Winfrey, talking to Meghan and Harry in their famous interview of March 2021, “that there were hints of jealousy?”

She was inquiring about the Sussexes’s wildly successful tour of Australia and the South Pacific of late October 2018, and the couple shifted uncomfortably in their plush wicker chairs.

“Look,” replied Harry, “I just wish that we would all learn from the past.”

By bringing up “the past”, the prince was venturing into an area that was almost taboo. He was making a sensational comparison between his mother and his wife. Harry was suggesting that Meghan had demonstrated in Australia the same massive star quality as Diana and was now having to face the family envy that went along with that.

“It really changed,” he said, “after the Australia tour, after our South Pacific tour . . . it was . . . the first time that the family got to see how incredible she is at the job. And that brought back memories.”

Memories of what? Again Harry shied away from putting words to the almost unmentionable. But Oprah had prepared and polished this moment, like so many others in the interview, and she had a reference ready to prompt her prince’s revelation. The latest, fourth season of TV’s The Crown had depicted Charles and Diana’s 1983 tour of Australia, showing how Diana had been “bedazzling” in her ability “to connect with people”. Episode six had depicted how the crowds would groan when they realised that Charles, not Diana, was walking down their side of the street — hence the beginnings of the “jealousy” on the family’s part.

“So is that what you’re talking about?” asked Oprah. “It brought back memories of that?”

Harry and Meghan spoke to Oprah Winfrey in an interview broadcast in March this year.

“Yeah,” Harry finally replied in a fashion that was both dismal and unmistakably aggressive.

What on earth had happened, viewers had to wonder, to the old and once-familiar happy side of Prince Harry?

When trying to define the moment that marked the decisive rift with his brother William — the break-up and actual separation of the joint household they had established together in 2009 — Harry would fix upon his triumphant return with Meghan from their Australian tour at the end of October 2018. But if asked the same question, William would have fixed on a more specific event: the explosive argument he had had with his brother earlier that month.

Both brothers agreed how bitterly they had clashed back in the early days over William’s attempt to slow Harry’s courtship of Meghan — “Don’t feel like you need to rush this . . . ” But both of them had subsequently moved on. Harry’s transparent contentment with Meghan had relaxed the tensions, give or take the odd row over bridesmaids’ dresses. The “no speaks” had eased just a little by the time “best man” William escorted his brother down the aisle in May 2018.

Then five months later came the conclusive and determining rupture — the division that has lasted to the present day — though here the brothers’ retelling of history diverged. As Harry explained it to Oprah, Meghan’s Australian tour success sowed the jealousies that caused feelings to “change”. According to this scenario, William and Kate resented the Diana-like popularity that was generated by Harry’s wife. William had a different recollection.

We now know that Princes William and Harry were no longer on speaking terms before the Sussexes set off for Australia. Feelings had already “changed”, as Harry put it, and drastically so. The brothers had parted on extremely poor terms, with the trouble centring on Meghan’s stringent treatment and alleged bullying of her staff.

Most Kensington Palace courtiers were noted for the comparatively long tenures of their comfortable and prestigious jobs. But it came to look as if employees could not wait to escape service with Harry and Meghan. Those who left formed themselves into an informal fraternity that they titled the “Sussex Survivors’ Club”. They had finally hit back, and their organising agent had been PR man Jason Knauf.

The joint communications secretary for Kensington Palace — who was still, at that date, working on behalf of both of the brothers and their wives — had become concerned by the numerous stories of mistreatment being brought to him by colleagues whom he knew well and trusted.

Texas-born and New Zealand-educated, Knauf, 34, was a popular character in Kensington Palace, widely noted for his friendliness and loyalty towards his colleagues. He had been considered a real “catch” when the brothers snared him from the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2015, and one of his concerns was that professional management practices should be more effectively enforced inside the traditional British palace.

Knauf’s American sensibilities caused him to see the Meghan situation as raising principles of human resources management in the palace system that needed to be formally addressed.

Knauf’s first priority was to set down the facts, as he saw them, for the record: “I’m very concerned,” he emailed to William’s private secretary Simon Case, in a document he drafted in October 2018, “that the duchess was able to bully two PAs out of the household in the past year.”

Knauf described Meghan’s treatment of one aide as “totally unacceptable . . . the duchess seems intent”, he wrote, “on always having someone in her sights”. Specifying another staff member, Knauf alleged Meghan had been bullying her as well, “seeking to undermine her confidence”. His office had received “report after report”, he wrote, from people who had witnessed “unacceptable behaviour” by Meghan towards this member of staff.

“Meghan governed by fear,” claimed one courtier. “So many people said it. Nothing was ever good enough for her. [She] humiliated staff in meetings, [would] shout at them, [would] cut them off email chains — and then demand to know why they hadn’t done anything.”

As early as 2017, around the time of the couple’s engagement, according to a subsequent report in The Times, a senior aide had spoken to the couple about the difficulties caused by their treatment of staff. “It’s not my job to coddle people,” Meghan was said to have replied.

“Americans can be much more direct,” wrote the authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand in defence of the duchess, “and that often doesn’t sit well in the much more refined institution of the monarchy.”

A Brit might have raised an eyebrow at Meghan’s alleged behaviour, then looked the other way. The Yank decided to act. Knauf was actually one of Meghan’s most senior advisers — her chief adviser, in fact, when it came to public relations. Earlier that year she had gone to Knauf for help when drafting the disputed letter of severance that she sent to her father. She valued his PR expertise.

Before that, Knauf had helped Harry to word the fierce anti-media statements that he had framed to try to protect Meghan from press harassment, both as his girlfriend and then as his fiancée. The PR man had taken considerable stick from some of his non-royal contacts who criticised him as being overprotective in fighting the newcomer’s corner. Like so many people in all the palaces, Knauf had started off on Meghan’s side.

But as the months went by the American’s feelings became more ambiguous, as numerous colleagues — women whom he greatly respected — continued to bring him stories of what they said they had suffered at Meghan’s hands.

“I can’t stop shaking,” one aide had told a colleague in anticipation of an encounter with Meghan. Another reported that the prospect of confrontation with the duchess had made her “feel sick”. “Emotional cruelty and manipulation”, were the words of a third, “which I guess could also be called bullying.”

The b-word featured prominently in the accounts of several, along with an even more sinister set of initials: PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder was a deeply serious condition to allege — flashbacks, nightmares and feelings of deep anxiety — but that was how one complainant said that they had felt.

Several people maintained they had been “humiliated” by the duchess, and that criticism extended to Harry as well.

“I overheard a conversation between Harry and one of his top aides,” recalled one Kensington Palace courtier. “Harry was screaming and screaming down the phone. Team Sussex was a really toxic environment. People shouting and screaming in each other’s faces.”

Shouting and screaming? PTSD? Making people feel sick? Prince William went ballistic when he heard the “dossier of distress” that Knauf had gathered. We do not know whether the communications secretary brought his allegations directly to his boss or submitted them via Simon Case. What we do know is that the prince was astonished and horrified. He was instantly furious at what he heard.

“I remember Christian Jones [William’s press secretary and later private secretary] explaining to me how the Cams [the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge] are paternalistic with their staff,” recalls one royal correspondent. “They copy the Queen in that respect with all her Christmas parties and Christmas presents to her people. They’re proud to treat their staff like family. They recognise that they don’t get paid loads of money, so they are just really nice to them. So this was a very deep clash of philosophies, with Meghan being used to a Hollywood service culture — getting exactly what she wanted whenever she wanted in that famous way that Harry said.”

William personally knew and liked all the individuals whom Knauf had named in his dossier. The prince regarded them as assets to his household — colleagues to be cherished and for whom he was responsible. Human beings. Like Knauf, the prince was appalled that his respected staff may have been put in this position.

For William, Knauf’s allegations also clarified something that the prince had long believed — that Meghan was fundamentally hostile towards the royal system, which she failed to understand as an outsider. William wondered if she had not wanted to leave from the very start — even dreaming, perhaps, that she could whisk Harry back with her to North America.

But Meghan’s lawyers and PR representatives said this was quite the wrong interpretation of their client’s thinking and behaviour in a statement that they issued to The Times early in March 2021. They denied all allegations of bullying as inaccurate and the product of what they described as a “smear campaign”. The duchess wished to fit in and be accepted, they insisted. She had left her life in North America to commit herself to her new role.

I have never met Jason Knauf. What you have just read is based upon the published accusations that Knauf set down on paper — refuted as “defamatory”, it must be stressed again, and “based on misleading and harmful information” in the view of the Duchess of Sussex’s lawyers. It also relies upon William’s personal account of these events to one of his friends who then spoke to this author.

The moment the prince heard the bullying allegations, he related to this friend, he got straight on the phone to talk to Harry — and when Harry flared up in furious defence of his wife, the elder brother persisted. Harry shut off his phone angrily, so William went to speak to him personally. The prince was horrified by what he had just been told about Meghan’s alleged behaviour, and he wanted to hear what Harry had to say.

The showdown between the two siblings was fierce and bitter. William’s pre-engagement questioning of Meghan’s suitability had been quite reasonable, in William’s opinion. His fraternal doubts had been provisional, based upon how the new recruit appeared to be. The elder brother did not really know Meghan in those early days.

But now William had seen enough of his sister-in-law to feel sure that, sadly, he did know her and that many of his reservations linked unhappily with what Knauf’s colleagues had alleged. William believed Meghan was following a plan — “agenda” was the word he used to his friend — and the accusations he had just heard were alarming. Kate, he said, had been wary of her from the start.

Meghan was undermining some precious principles of the monarchy, if she really was treating her staff in this way, and William was upset that she seemed to be stealing his beloved brother away from him. Later courtiers would coin a hashtag — #freeHarry. It was only half a joke.

“Meghan portrayed herself as the victim,” recalled one Kensington Palace staffer, “but she was the bully. People felt run over by her. They didn’t know how to handle this woman. They thought she was a complete narcissist and sociopath — basically unhinged. Which was why the pair of them were drawn to each other in the first place — both damaged goods.”

William felt deeply wounded. “Hurt” and “betrayed” were the two feelings that he described to his friend. The elder brother had always felt so protective. He had seen it as his job to look out for Harry but this was the moment the protection had to stop. At the end of the day the British crown and all it stood for with its ancient traditions, styles and values — the mission of the monarchy — had to matter more to William than his brother did.

Harry, for his part, was equally furious that William should give credence to the accusations against Meghan, and he was fiercely combative in his wife’s defence. Some sources maintain that in the heat of the argument Harry actually accused someone in the family of concepts that were “racist”. But it must be stressed that neither brother has ever confirmed that the hateful r-word was used face to face.

Only William and Harry can know what they said to each other and they have respectfully maintained their silence on that. But Harry made clear to the world in his interview with Oprah that he considered his family’s response to Meghan to have been essentially racist — using the heavily freighted code words “unconscious bias” to provide an intellectual framework for his analysis.

Where could the two brothers go after such painful and damning notions had been thrown into their debate?

Harry and Meghan appeared to be the ones who visibly departed after the row.

William, for his part, felt just as strongly about Meghan and the need for her subversive “agenda” to be removed from the operations of the British monarchy, which she did not appear to understand or respect. He certainly wanted Meghan removed, for a start, from the hitherto harmonious joint household that he and his brother had operated together for the best part of a decade. William simply did not want her or Harry around any more.

When accounts of the rift started seeping out through the winter months that followed, it was generally assumed that the volatile Harry must have set the pace in the splitting up of the joint Kensington Palace household. He was the brother who visibly departed, stalking off to set up a new home in Windsor, with offices for himself and Meghan in Buckingham Palace.

But the reverse was the case. It was William who made the decisive move. Following his furious confrontation with his younger brother in the autumn of 2018, the prince instructed Simon Case to start the process of dividing their two households immediately. William wished to be separated from Meghan on a day-to-day basis — and that meant being separated from his brother as well.

“William,” says a friend, “threw Harry out.”

©Robert Lacey 2021 Extracted from Battle of Brothers: William, Harry and the Inside Story of a Family in Tumult by Robert Lacey, to be published by William Collins on June 24 at £9.99.

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