#because i do indeed wax so very poetic about some of my favorite fics that heavily feature OCs

[gerrydelano]

time for me to get sappy about OCs in fanworks! woo! was just going to lovepost about this nice trend but i accidentally wrote another meta.

CONTENTS (i should do this for all my long posts tbh)

01. OCs are good actually 02. examples of some of my favorite works that do this! (LOVEPOST) 03. a little about how i did it in both of my current fics 04. why i think some of us are scared to do this 05. why we should stop being scared

01. something that makes me really happy is disengaging from the idea that including OCs in your fanworks is “cringe” or something, like. yeah i have my own lines in terms of what’s comfortable to read when something is a major focus, but the basic practice of coloring in blank spaces with OCs is definitely something i think should be encouraged more overall? they can make something so much more organic and so much fuller, like...

people know people? people go to school and live in communities where they cross paths with neighbors and staff at stores they frequent and there will be waitresses they recognize and desk clerks at the dentist and the married couple walking their dog on the road you drive down every day to get to work like SO many people exist and occupy spaces in our lives and they change things? they influence things? we talk to them. we know their names! we don’t know their names, but we know their faces! we hear about them. they matter!

so i think including that element in fic actually makes it easier to get invested? which is why i do it in mine, i just want my writing to be as Natural as possible. focusing just solely on a main character cast has the potential to get very closed off and isolated and rigid. and depending on what you’re trying to accomplish of course it has its merits, make no mistake, i’ve done the same thing with that very intention, but! i have fun getting invested in other people’s OCs!

----------------

02. some of my favorite works are full of this?

head in the lion’s mouth is literally a 16 chapter work in the POV of a character who only gets one mention in one statement in the background And Died. he’s been so thoroughly mapped out into a full presence and maybe might as well be an OC, even if all of those details are extrapolated from the very minor things we get from him in those mentions.

and part of what makes HLM so FULL and TANGIBLE is the presence and importance of the contortionist, of everyone danny knew in the troupe, because there are more people in the circus than just nikola! it gives depth to it and it’s SO EASY to care about it and want to know more!

tim and danny’s mother is also a really important feature here, like. building the characters’ families and backstories is SO useful and necessary so much of the time, don’t be afraid of getting invested! i would be one to talk if i said this wasn’t worth it. i want to KILL farah and the contortionist. make OCs people want to kill.

(small teaser plug: ren is planning an outsider POV companion to HLM after it’s finished. so literally, OCs talking about interacting with this pretty-much-an-OC. and the best part is that ALL OF YOU will want to read it because you got invested in the first guy! it’s!!!! there’s no reason NOT TO.)

road to damascus included PLENTY of OCs in the way of tim interacting with folks while performing Witness Duties and they gave depth to his experience there! hannah and juno in particular were such a big part of parascientific method, concessions and pendulum! not just for filler but to serve a narrative purpose that impacted tim’s whole journey! again, hannah was vaguely mentioned in canon but her personality and speech patterns and the way she interacted with tim was very original and very special! and i care her!

the OCs lent something important! to the work! i remember their names! and not JUST because ren lives with me, but because they’re memorable. mallory, ervina, mira, al (fucker), bella and her dads, william, lupita, they all DID something that mattered.

plague upon the house is from jane’s POV and maybe that’s easier to reconcile because she had one statement of her own but getting into the depth of her feelings and how she would handle different situations required a shitload of extrapolation, too, and a lot of original ideas to fill in her personality and thought process and how she solves problems and falls in love and! aaaah! SHE is CANON but in order to make certain things possible and engaging in another way you have to develop things in a Similar Way to an OC, so this is like, a facet of the general practice.

there is also a sequel, be bold, be bold (but not too bold), that features two AMAZING OCs. i’m DEEPLY invested in nora and cass and you will be, too, when you read! cuz you’re going to read this! this one has only just begun and is off to a STRONG start, specifically due to the involvement and influence of these OCs.

the long road down is an INCREDIBLE fic that would not be even REMOTELY as dynamic and transfixing were it not for the presence of ezra! that’s a whole OC! and they’re extremely fleshed out (haha flesh) and gives SO much depth to the story and also immense PLOT. there are a wealth of other PHENOMENAL OCs in this fic, too, beyond ezra that give it SO much extra, i love emerson SO much i literally cry. phyllis and richard are a Lot to cope with. everybody and their mother has their lukas and fairchild OCs, but morgan and leslie in particular are two of my favorites.

i’ve read some of the upcoming sequel already and it is FANTASTIC, much of it having to do with ezra! i’m invested in ezra! ezra is so fucking cool they’re all so cool read TLRD! (also the literal physical formatting used in this fic is one of the most engaging things i’ve ever seen it’s so worth the read please please please go look at this if you for whatever reason haven’t yet)

bailey school kids is in the POV of an OC who knows gerry and the outside view from THEM gives a lot of insight to how he’s perceived by other people as he is in canon! it’s a really interesting lens to view him from! of COURSE you care about kira and basil and mae and sweet clementine of COURSE you end up invested in them. i literally cried like a baby at this fucking fic! and a lot of it was because of kira’s narrative voice, the very unique and individual way they talk about gerry and the way it gave us a look at someone caring about him without condition! that’s something we always want for gerry, and we have to make up folks in order to get it.

a temporary fix is another Gerry Slice of Life piece that i literally am so invested in that i’m using the lore from it (with enthusiastic permission) to enrich my own work! i’ve mentioned portia in TSP, and she’s going to play an active role very soon! giving him a friend is important - we literally CAN’T write about things he does in between the events in canon without making people up to fill those gaps. without some invention there, he’s so alone! why would we want that! he HAD to KNOW PEOPLE at SOME POINT. he had to have crossed paths with people enough times to recognize who they were! this is one of those examples and it’s SO GOOD!

a better fate than wisdom doesn’t feature OCs as main characters or anything, but the few that are used are very memorable! emily carlisle colors in sasha’s childhood, which helped shape her life and growth! the kid in the bookstore who catches tim and sasha in the back room is HILARIOUS and memorable! tim’s family at his cousin’s wedding gives perspective into who he was surrounded by when he grew up, which tells us more about him and makes us feel more about him! all of it is worth it! all of it matters! 

the library of babel is a lovely agnes fic where she’s listening in on a conversation in a coffee shop, and that conversation between those OCs is the reason her thoughts go where they do, the connections she draws between herself and them, they have a presence and a purpose and even agnes has seen other people and listened to them talk and thinks about what they say not everything is so vacant and empty and limited, EVEN for her and how she was by all accounts completely alone all her life. much to think about! using OCs is the most effective way to give her a glimpse into the world outside of herself.

and on the flip side, there are so many other fics out there that use outside perspectives to look into canon characters/situations, like nor any more youth or age than there is now, and they’re so lovely to read! very endearing because you can achieve that sort of... distant fondness and curiosity and uncertainty about what’s really going on, that you might not always be able to achieve with a canon character who is already personally involved. it’s a really interesting perspective and tone to work with, i wish i could find more of that kind of story around.

----------------

03. and you all know how much i do this in my own work

breathing like i never did was a really short example of OCs having a bearing on the story; georgie wouldn’t have had the same experience coming into the butch identity without meeting another butch, so of course i had to expand on that and make it believable that it would impact her? and so forth.

and two ships passing wouldn’t be even half of what it is without miriam, even just from the perspective of how enjoyable it is for me to write. knowing people care about her and wanted to learn more about her is such a good feeling! like, yes, she exists in canon technically but she’s like danny in that she only gets a few sentences devoted to her, she actually has less backstory afforded to her than he does. i built a lot of crap from the ground up to make her as multidimensional as possible and it’s a fun exercise! and it’s paying off! because it also shapes JON, and shaped gerry, and has an impact on Where the ENTIRE story ends up.

i worked backwards from what jon said about her and gave a Reason for it, and her feelings on it, and how she had been perceiving the situation the entire time - and how that doesn’t mean it aligns with the impact it had. that was my initial motivation in writing her and the further back i went, the more life she took on.

there are literally so many OCs in TSP that really shape what happens? leo and alma give shape to jon’s college experience, mickey is a major part of what happens to him the summer he hurts his knee. gerry is incredibly alone save for the presence of portia as a fixed point he can come and go from.

miriam had a husband, a child, a family once upon a time. to talk about HER life i need to talk about them! ruth and simmy and desmond and ira and the vanishing soldier are all important! you have to care about them to care about her to care about what her presence did to shape jon, it ALL trickles back TO the main characters but every piece is important and comes from a place of love and attention to detail. at least, that’s how i’ve been trying to operate.

i won’t describe all of it here too much when i could just say scene 3 in chapter 13 is one of my easier examples of how i worked this technique into a larger story.

(one fun detail i just want to say i was really excited about, though, was introducing simmy as just “simmy,” giving him shape, and THEN confirming that it’s a nickname based on his surname, which makes you go OH! SIMS!

it was a REALLY fun way of saying “here’s jon’s grandfather” without actually saying This Is Jon’s Grandfather In His Teen Years. more like “ah yes see this guy you now care about? surprise! he was pivotal all along.”

it’s SUCH a fun writing tactic and i was so happy to get to use it, like. there’s LORE there that means something.)

pharos by right isn’t going to have as many new OCs that i’m aware of Yet, save one that actually is already alluded to in TSP (two, actually, one of whom will have an Extreme relevance), and other references to other GTCU recurring characters! leo, alma, portia, kira, miriam, MAYBE even mickey too! who knows! i like establishing things and reusing them, they definitely make it easier to get invested when you see them in more than one place over time. it’s a fun easter egg hunt.

----------------

04. i think a lot of people are scared to put their OCs in things! i know i sometimes get nervous about it, too, like “oh no, is this weird? am i bogging the story down with something that doesn’t need to be there? no one gives a shit about this, they’re here for something else.”

like! would you believe it! REN WAS SCARED TO PUT THE CONTORTIONIST IN HLM... just! imagine what kind of story it’d be without her! you can’t, because it’d be vastly different, and nowhere near as engaging or painful because her presence there makes danny’s struggle that much more tangible and readable as something that anyone who has gone through relationship abuse can relate to. she’s a useful tool for that, and she’s not inherently out of place just because she’s not in the podcast herself; she is drawn up from the source material to shape her, and that’s enough for her to fit in!

even i see something tagged as like “(main character), (OC)” and more often than not just go “eh, maybe not” because i have that same misconception about whether or not i’ll get invested enough to care? and i wish i didn’t, i wish i knew where that idea came from, because! dude! some of my favorite things are built off the backs of OCs. my own fucking work relies HEAVILY on their inclusion!

part of why i wanted to talk about this in general (and honestly a lot of my “metas” aren’t directed at people to Teach Anything or sway them into a belief, most of the time i am just talking to myself and trying to get my thoughts in order and puzzle out why something makes me feel a certain way - in this case happy!) is because i’ve noticed a little influx of people feeling more comfortable doing more work with their OCs in their stuff! ren and i have both been told that seeing our nonsense makes people a little less afraid to put their OCs in their fics, and wow, they turn out so beautifully! and i love seeing them!

i think we should try to train ourselves out of being afraid of sprinkling OCs into things because we don’t want to be judged or we think it’s “cringe” like g-d i HATE that. yeah i might not read a self insert ship fic because that feels kind of funky to me a lot of the time but hey, if OP had a fun time writing it? that’s what matters and there Are people who are out there who like stuff like that because we all tend to projection in a different way.

----------------

05. okay, getting to my point.

i mostly want to encourage people to spice up their stories with OCs and allow yourself to get attached to them and let them flourish and grow! the more depth your OCs have the more they’ll bring to your story, even if they’re only briefly in it; the more you know about them in your head, the better you’ll be able to render how they’d speak or behave, and therefore the more unique the interactions they’re involved in will be. and those interactions can change SO much! you can really surprise yourself mid-story and things can change and sometimes they end up in unexpected territory, and the finished product will just be that much more engaging!

TSP wasn’t intended to be this way! i always wanted to give nuance to miriam, but putting her first POV chapter in there was a complete whim. i was nervous! and then i realized she had a bigger part to play. and then i realized she’s just as much a main character in that story as jon and gerry are; to the point where i could have a four chapter stretch of just her interacting with gerry, no jon physically present, and STILL continue telling an important story. and apparently, people are invested in it! people have shed tears! the response has been SO overwhelmingly positive!

and she’s basically an OC.

so write OCs into your work! give other people’s OCs a chance!

let yourself create and have fun and see where it takes you! get invested and fall in love with them and let other people see the kind of things live in your heart and let them love it, too!

i think it’s worth trying to unlearn this fear and aversion. we owe it to ourselves to disengage from the things we may have picked up on from school experiences with bullying, being silenced by peers, being called annoying, being dismissed by our parents, having different interests from our siblings and maybe not being able to get them interested in your things, all of that.

all of those things do this to us and the result manifests in a lot of ways, and in THIS context, we have that on Top of whatever we’re seeing online about cringe culture and we just get embarrassed and retreat and assume and we shouldn’t.

who’s it hurting? no one. the most that’ll happen is someone chooses to scroll past, and that’s always going to happen to every piece of work put out there. everyone has their own taste and their own reasons for reading whatever they read, and that’s why i’ll reiterate also:

give other people’s OCs a chance, too! help other people to unlearn this fear, too. encourage other people and it’ll come back around. leave a comment and a compliment, pull inspiration from other creators, let them know!

there’s always gonna be stuff out there that isn’t quite for us, but you may be surprised! i will never NOT talk about my friends’ OCs and how much they’ve inspired and influenced me and my own work, too; it’s a big old feedback loop of creativity and that’s a really beautiful, communicative thing that makes me really, really happy.

don’t let a weird unconscious fear stop you from having fun and sharing things you care about! even if you think “fanfiction isn’t the place for OCs” or something, like no one will care, i promise: someone out there will.

[go-events]

GO Rom Com Spotlight: @apocryphalia

The most excellent @apocryphalia​ (also apocryphalia on Twitter and AO3) has claimed Casanova to adapt for Good Omens in the Good Omens Rom Com Event.

For reference, here’s a little background about the source material.

About Casanova: With a reputation for seducing members of the opposite sex, Casanova discovers a beauty who seems impervious to his charms. However, as he continues to pursue the indifferent lady, he finds himself falling in love.

We spent some time chatting about how the adaptation is coming so far, as well as future plans for it! Now, get to know @apocryphalia​ a little better!

* * *

goromcom: So, you know how if you open a Tumblr chat with someone you haven't chatted to before, Tumblr tells you two things they post about? I wanted to tell you that yours reports that you post "about #aziraphale/crowley and #ineffable husbands." Well, you're a true blue fan, and I support that!

apocryphalia: Considering this blog exists because I’m 100% pure Good Omens trash, that’s not shocking. I’m also slightly obsessive about my tags, which is probably why my mother and that one career test I took in college insist that I should have been a librarian.

goromcom: Oh, librarian is one of my dream jobs, but I never pursued it. I also feel similarly about tags! But before I start waxing poetic about the Dewey Decimal System, let’s segue to your rom com.

You chose to adapt Casanova as your rom com. Has this story been a favorite of yours, or is there some other reason you chose it? Were you thinking specifically of the David Tennant adaptation of the story, or just Casanova in general?

apocryphalia: Like a lot of us, I may have gone a little bit crazy watching Tennant and Sheen's previous roles after the show came out, so I had seen his Casanova fairly recently, and I was definitely thinking of that version when I looked at the list. Also, this is a bit silly, but I have no idea how dates work, and I originally thought that the event claims opened the day after they actually did. I had off work the day I thought claims started, and I was planning to watch a bunch of movies I hadn't seen and put some real thought into which one I might want to do, but I figured out about two hours beforehand that I was very wrong. So I kind of panicked and just started throwing titles that I had already seen into the list, and I liked Casanova and couldn't resist the Tennant connection, so… here we are. No regrets.

goromcom: Sometimes life throws us the very curveball we need.

What's your favorite moment of Casanova, and are you looking forward to presenting it in your adaptation? Any loose plans for that scene that you can share?

apocryphalia: I love Bellino, and I love the scene where she breaks off her engagement with Casanova and plays wingman for him with Henriette instead. My main goal in planning this so far is basically just maximum gender fuckery, so I’m still trying to work out exactly what to do with the character—I’m going to have to play fast and loose with the actual historical status of castrati, which gives my historian-brain some anxiety—but I think it’ll be fun to write, and hopefully fun to read! (Also, fun fact, the actual historical Casanova may have been bisexual, so why shouldn't Crowley!Casanova try to marry a castrato and also fem!Aziraphale?)

goromcom: Why not, indeed? I can absolutely see that for both the historical Casanova and for Crowley/Aziraphale as well.

Other than a healthy sprinkling of gender fuckery (of which I’m very much a fan) do you plan to stick very closely to the beats of the original story, or make bigger changes?

apocryphalia: I’m planning to stick pretty closely to the events of the Tennant adaptation for the first half or so, but I’m changing the ending because obviously our ineffable spouses need a happy ending! I’m also ditching certain children that appear in the story, for the purposes of gender fuckery.

I would like to keep to the flashback format, as in the movie older Casanova is actually telling these stories about his life and his relationship with Henriette to another servant in the household where he’s now a librarian. So parts of the fic will be in first person as excerpts from Crowley’s memoirs, and others will be in third person telling the events as they actually occurred. I haven’t completely nailed down which POVs I want to use yet, but Crowley is certainly not a reliable narrator, and I think the back-and-forth timeline showing both young and old Casanova is interesting, so I’m going to try to keep that vibe in the fic.

goromcom: What's an interesting decision you've made in your planning so far--a notable casting decision, a changing of venue, or some other plan you have to paint Good Omens all over your rom com?

apocryphalia: Ineffable wives! Again, I’m going to have to play fast and loose with history and it’s giving me some anxiety, but this is fiction, it’s fanfiction, and it’s going to be fun, dammit! Fem!Casanova!Crowley may be slightly channeling Gentleman Jack, because who doesn’t love lesbian Suranne Jones? Aziraphale gets to be the cautious, repressed one desperately trying to adhere to societal expectations while also being desperately in love with her as Henriette, and there will be plenty of slow-burn, mutual-pining, dancing-around-their-feelings-and-their-crappy-circumstances goodness!

goromcom: I think fiction and art help us imagine the world we want, so if we want a world where people aren’t so hung up on gender or orientation, what better place to start than in our storytelling? <3

But I don’t want you to reveal too much about your story before it’s time to post it, so let’s move on to the final question, cribbed from The Good Place: The Podcast. Tell me something "good". It can be something big or small. It can be a charity you think is doing good work, or you can talk about how great your pet is.

apocryphalia: Well, I can’t resist an opportunity for pet pics. My cats are both terrible at being cats, and they are my favorite things in the whole world. Look at these little idiots being king and queen of recycling mountain! [ed: photo below interview] 

Also, on a real note, there are other similar organizations all over that could use support, but here in my part of South Jersey, the SERV program at the Center for Family Services runs the domestic and sexual violence advocacy programs, and assists victims of human trafficking. I’m a former volunteer with them, and everyone involved in that work is so incredibly compassionate. They provide free counseling, support survivors through the medical exam and reporting process (or through the decision not to report), and they operate a 24-hour hotline and the domestic violence shelters for two counties. Their #1 goal is to believe and trust survivors, and to support whatever they decide is best for them, not to pressure them into any particular course of action (i.e., reporting an assault or filing for a restraining order) and I just think that’s incredibly powerful and helpful.

goromcom: SERV sounds like an important resource and I’m so glad the people of South Jersey have something like that to support them. (Though let’s hope as few people need it as possible.)

Make sure to watch for the GO adaptation of Casanova, coming soon. (And now here’s that pet photo I know everyone was waiting for.)

[atamascolily]

lily liveblogs “terminator: dark fate”, part four

In which Sarah Connor suffers for the cause in the most ironic way possible.

(one, two, three)

I've already waxed poetic elsewhere about the "My entire body is a weapon"/ "Save it for the ladies" exchange, but let's just say the Rev-9's claim of "Metal hip - two tours in Afghanistan" is a) a great manipulation, and b) might even be true - certainly the part about the metal hip is! And the "thank you for your service," / letting him pass through is just... the irony... I can't even...

(and also, this MAKES SENSE when you realize that Legion was designed to process people and manipulate/control them and THAT'S why he's so good at it).

Sarah Connor gets picked up by a smarmy dude named Officer Rigby. "You belong in your own private cage," he tells her. He's probably going to die soon, and we are not supposed to be sorry about it. (And meanwhile, some random dude yells in the background, "I want to go, too!" No, you don't. Trust me.)

Grace does not believe in bureaucratic bullshit. And she won't accept "detainees" instead of "prisoners". YASS. At least there's fresh meds for her.

Oh! I just realized why she steals the guy's clothes.. it's because nothing else would fit her. It's tough being so tall.

Grace pulls the fire alarm and Sarah recognizes an opening when she sees one and manages to kick Rigby in the groin and take him and both her guards down with both hands in cuffs behind her back. LEGEND. Kyle Reese would be so proud of her, especially since he pulled the same stunt back in T1 in the police station sequence. 

Grace starts opening doors and people rush to get out, oh please let this not be a slaughter.

The dude who was with them (Flacco?) slams the door into the Terminator's face and he gets punched into a wall for his trouble. I hope he survived...

The Rev-9 jumps UP into the rafters, holy shit, and is scrabbling over the metal fence like the Rev-7s in the future scene, and it's so a) predatory and b) so feral and inhuman... and that guard who sassed Dani looks terrified as hell as she faces him down.. and gets slashed for her troubles.

Slaughter ensues, but only people in official uniforms thus far... Every one of them is mobbing the Rev-9 and just getting stabbed.

Oh, good, they found a helicopter. Someone gets punched out the door after them, and you think it's the REv-9 who did it, but it's actually Sarah! YASS. Dani wants to wait for her and Grace wants to get away. Dani doesn't want to leave Sarah (hey, callbacks to earlier!) and jumps out of the helicopter with the gun as the REV-9 runs at her. Dani starts shooting the REV-9 which is very cathartic for her, but Sarah tackles her and pulls her into the helicopter. The REV-9 jumps for it, but misses, and falls the ground and just looks... annoyed despite having no expression whatsoever.

The REV-9's accent with the sheriffs is interesting. There's the same "good ol' boy" attitude as "That's a nice bike" in T2 and the same cut back to our heroes that speaks volumes.

Cut to a forest in Texas. I have no idea if this is botanically accurate or not because I have no experience with Texas flora. But there are pine trees and maple trees, I can tell you that much.

I like how Sarah and Grace are ready to draw when they knock on the door of this ordinary-looking house in the woods, and Dani just looks at them like they're crazy.

Hey, and it's the same music as in the prologue, as Sarah recognizes the Terminator! He says her name and she raises her gun to shoot him except that Grace intervenes and she hits the ceiling.

“My name is Sarah Connor, you killed my son, prepare to die...” No, okay, she doesn’t actually say that, but I’m gonna do it for her.

Sarah stalks off when they won't let her shoot the Terminator. Dani and Grace exchange a look, and Dani goes after Sarah while Grace deals with Carl (his nom de... paix, I guess). They have the ... "So you're a cyborg, too?" talk, which goes about as well as you can expect.

Poor Sarah looks so broken sitting outside alone. Dani uses her people skills to rally her. Sarah's admission that she never took photos of John is a) heartbreaking, and b) good tactics, especially given how previous Terminators used photos, and how the REV-9 uses facial recognition software.

Sarah's sarcasm as she contemplates Carl's family photos is biting and hilarious and poignant especially given what she just said to Dani (and how a photograph was what brought Kyle to her in the first place). MY HEART.

We are meant to parallel Carl's treatment of Alicia and Mateo with Sarah and John, and Sarah and Carl in "Without purpose, we are nothing". The irony that Carl understands Sarah in this way, and that Sarah has been getting her raison d’etre from a Terminator the whole time... way to lay on the pain, writers!

I've heard a lot of critique of this film claiming that Terminators just wouldn't act like Carl, and I think that's not accurate. What exactly do people think a Terminator WOULD do after they finished their mission instad? It's not like Skynet or Legion or whatever gave them any other programming, and we know from T2 they can't self-terminate. So what are they supposed to do, just stand there??

Even though Carl doesn't have his chip removed the way the T-800 in T2 did, Terminators are very accomplished at learning and mimicking humans. They are adaptable. And I think the filmmakers are right that the T-800 would try to find a new mission--paralleling the old one--to give his life purpose. I think this is a very plausible plot device, and also a great opportunity for irony and parallels, which this franchise thrives on and I personally love.

(There's great fic from Carl's POV on A03 by Tyellas that expands on this that I LOVE, so you should all go read it RIGHT NOW.)

I also LOVE the growing parallels not only between Sarah and Carl, but Carl and Grace that the film keeps emphasizing YASSS.

Sarah is NOT PLEASED to learn she's been manipulated the whole time by the robot who killed her son.Understatement of the year. I was wondering when she was going to shoot him!

"Do you believe in fate, Sarah?" OW, MY HEART.

Oh. Interesting. So when Sarah destroyed Skynet, she released Carl from his programming, thus allowing him to learn?? Okay, I'll buy it. Which means that Carl was released at the same time as the other Terminators in all three films (though we get into the simultaneity problem, but that's a headache for another time). It's plausible if I don't think too hard about it, so I'll buy it. I wish people would stop calling plot elements they don't like/agree with "plot holes". That's... not what it means.

[so who is sending the other terminators? Are they from Legion or Skynet? what is their purpose? Since Sarah is a wanted woman in America, it makes sense if she was killing Terminators in Mexico, which makes me wonder if she's been protecting Dani until now???) I have a feeling the film will not answer this question.]

There's a dog curled up at Carl's feet when they cut to the next scene. This is NOT a plot hole, as some people have claimed. This is actually a clue that Carl IS as human as he claims to be... i.e, he seems to have mastered whatever subtle cues that makes the dog recognize him as human, and not a foreign predator. Obviously, YMMV, but I don't see it as a plot hole.

The secret storage armory is de riguer for a Terminator film, but I also enjoy the deadpan social commentary about human barbarism coming from a reformed murderbot. "And also, this is Texas." He's definitely living in the right state for that.

Wow. The training lesson at the shooting range was everything I could have hoped for. I love Sarah's wry smile as the watermelons explode.

OF COURSE SARAH CONNOR "KNOWS A GUY" with an EMP, lol...

Kudos to Carl for getting his family out of the way and for preparing him for this day. But it's clear he won't be back.

... how about that leather jacket and sunglasses? because he's about to start being way less human and way more machine.

oHHHHH he leaves the sunglasses behind, I was NOT expecting that. NICE WORK.

hello rev-9 smashing the family photographs, that's not symbolic of anything at all.

Hey, did they take all the guns with them or is the REv-9 going to use them against their owner?? was leaving the photo of the van on the fridge intentional? Too early to tell! Either way, ironic given Sarah's caution with photos earlier!

Sarah's withering expression as Carl lectures about interior design is GOLDEN.

I now want a road trip movie about this dysfunctional found family. I cannot believe they are only together for less than 24 hours. Thank goodness for fic.

"I don't commit treason for just anybody," is such a great line and one of my favorites in this film.  

Of course the EMP is probably going to disable/take out Carl AND Grace AND the Rev-9 because that's just how this kind of movie works, but there you go.

Sarah telling Carl to shut the fuck up is GOLDEN, they work so well together. Mommy and Daddy, indeed.

AHHH, the major bringing them the EMP on the sly gets shot. It's tough being a minor character in these films. Dani pulls him into the van but I can't help but notice in that position he's a human shield.

Okay, so leaving photos on the fridge was NOT intentional... maybe Sarah should have had an op-sec chat with Carl about that??

Oh, hey, the flesh-like bit of the REV-9 jumped out of the copter while the chassis keeps flying. That's a neat trick. And the moment where the fleshy bit jumps in and they merge is always cool.

Okay, so they're going to the air base. I guess another fight is in order. Ah, this is where the planes are coming in. Apparently, Grace is piloting. That answers my question from the trailer.

They just run the van right up the ramp and the Major is there to take awkward questions. "District contractors" indeed. I hope he'll survive this movie, but I have my doubts. Oh, he's not going with them - I don't know if that increases his chances or not. WHAT THE HELL KIND OF RELATIONSHIP DO HE AND SARAH HAVE ANYWAY??

They didn't bother to close up the back before taking off??? Wow. Okay, I guess that works...

Carl uses himself as a shield for Sarah, which just makes her mad...

The Rev-9 flips out of the burning helicopter onto the ramp, and Carl just takes him down and shoots him. It doesn't take, but it's pretty glorious. SARAH AND DANI ROLL THE VAN OVER HIM OH MY GOD.

Needless to say, I'm pretty sure the Rev-9 will be back... in an EVEN BIGGER PLANE.

Oh, so the EMP is dead...? Maybe they can improvise something.

Flasback! Dani beats the punks that are harassing Grace and talks the last guy into not shooting her because "this is what Legion wants us to do". FUCK YEAH.

"FUCK FATE" is basically the motto of this series (and a slightly more concise, if vulgar, reframing of "no fate but what we make for ourselves" or "no fate" in T2).

OH MY GOD THAT LOOK ON FUTURE!DANI'S FACE WHEN SHE RECOGNIZES GRACE...

"You are the future" - okay, this is very moving and dramatic, but I feel like Grace should have mentioned this back on the TRAIN why the fuck did she wait this long.

"You're John..." Sarah gasps... and just adopted a kid. CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, Y'ALL. Carl was right, she needs a purpose or else she’s just going to self-destruct.

YESSSSS, I love it when movies answer my questions: apparently future!Dani told Grace not to mention it earlier, because younger!Dani wouldn't be able to handle it. Ah, the ouroboros of causality... I'll buy it, but I still think the film would have been stronger if they had had this conversation earlier on the train.

plane vs. plane hijinks ensue. Grace puts the ship on autopilot so she can actually do stuff. There's a lot of flailing as the ship starts to explode. The REv-9 climbs aboard and uses his oozy bits to rip all the flesh off Carl's hand. There's a humvee with a parachute, but the way the scene is laid out, it's kinda convolunted, but okay.. ... They bust the door open so the humvee can drop out. Carl pins the chassis to the plane but the oozy bits escape and go running free towards them. The plane explodes seconds after the humvee pulls free and parachutes to the ground.... okay.

Sarah Connor's "Aw, fuck," as they land on the hydroelectric dam is GOLDEN.

[thfrustration]

Crossing Knives, Chapter 9: Cake, canoodling, cocktails and confusion

TITLE OF STORY: Crossing Knives CHAPTER NUMBER/TITLE/ONE SHOT: Chapter 8 AUTHOR: missviolethunter / missviolethunterwrites WHICH TOM/CHARACTER: AU Tom / Chef Tom GENRE: Romance, Comedy FIC SUMMARY: Tom Hiddleston is the brilliant executive chef of Band of Brothers, a London restaurant with a Michelin star. He also has a reputation for being arrogant, cocky and difficult. Hallie Harrison is a former home cook who has just won Masterchef US. Luke Windsor is a restaurateur who is tired of constantly looking for new sous-chefs because Tom keeps making them quit. In a desperate move to save his restaurant, Luke offers Hallie a job as a sous-chef… and maybe also a chance to meet the man of her dreams in the least likely of places: the kitchen of Band of Brothers. RATING: Explicit WARNINGS/TRIGGERS/AUTHORS NOTES: None FEEDBACK/COMMENTS: Links to previous chapters: Ch 1 - Ch 2 - Ch 3 - Ch 4 - Ch 5 - Ch 6 - Ch 7 - Ch 8

Chapter 9: Cake, canoodling, cocktails and confusion

Every Sunday, exactly at 9pm, a traffic control helicopter flew over the City of London, checking that the peace of the night wasn’t disrupted by a sudden accident or –almost worse– an unexpected traffic jam.

Every Sunday, at 9:03 pm, it flew over the Barbican towers. Three perfectly grey, elegant, monolithic statues raising towards the sky. Of course, the people on board the helicopter didn’t stop to wax poetic about the brutalist buildings. Sometimes one of them looked down and noticed if the lights on the penthouses were lit or not; but, like good Londoners, they didn’t care much about other people’s lives, not even if those other people were rich sods who lived in super expensive luxury flats on top of an architectural wonder.

If they had bothered to look towards Shakespeare Tower (and carry a pair of binoculars) on that particular Sunday, they would have seen a man standing on the balcony of the 42nd floor. A tall blond man, holding a bottle of beer and looking supremely depressed.

Tom emptied the rest of the bottle in one long swig, while his confused brain tried to make some sense of what had happened after dinner. It all started so well, he thought. Second date with Hallie, a home cooked dinner, some jazz music… The modus operandi had been the same he’d used in countless other dates, only this time he was really interested in what his date had to say. At least until she had bolted out, of course. He stood up and staggered towards the sofa, replaying the dinner over and over in his head and wondering what the hell he’d done to make a carefully planned night go to shit.

In fact, the dinner part had been incredible. He made sure to cook his best for the occasion, and Chef Hiddleston’s best was always a culinary experience to remember. The oysters in the appetizer were poached to perfection in his favorite Riesling wine; the second course, a rack of lamb many restaurants would be proud to display on their menus, accompanied by a rainbow of the tiniest vegetables he could find. As for dessert, Hallie had brought a glorious raspberry and white chocolate cake decorated with many infinitesimal pieces of gold leaf. His mouth watered when he saw it; well, in fact his mouth had started watering just before, when he had opened the door and seen his guest arrive in a spectacular blue dress.

No, he was sure nothing wrong had happened during dinner… so it must had been after coffee, when he had taken Hallie to the balcony to admire the view.

“I think you can see my flat from here”, Hallie said, squinting in the direction of the Golden Lane Estate. “There! On the corner of that building, the one with the lights up. It’s so tiny from here!”

Tom nodded and got a bit closer to her, trying to identify the dot of light many floors below.

“Your mother must be up waiting for you.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I told her not to wait up in case I…” she stopped herself and blushed a bright shade of pink. “I mean, I’m a big girl, it’s not like she’s keeping tabs on me or anything.”

Tom bit his lip in silence, smiling. He had been looking for a subtle way to invite Hallie to spend the night, and now he knew she was at least considering it.

“Would you like to go back inside? It’s starting to get chilly.”

She nodded. The truth was, early October in London could indeed be quite cold, especially at four hundred feet above ground. She sat on the sofa and took a sip of her wine while Tom managed the music. Her personal tastes turned more towards Broadway than jazz, but nevertheless she closed her eyes and let the rhythm of the song transport her for a moment.

“Earth to Hallie.”

“Oh God, sorry! I always close my eyes when I’m enjoying good music, or good food. One of those silly things one does sometimes.”

Tom sat beside her on the sofa. “It’s alright. But right now I think I prefer to enjoy the moment with my eyes open. You look stunning tonight, Hallie.”

“But it’s just me”, she answered with a smile. “The same woman that looks a mess every day after eight hours in the kitchen.”

“If it wasn’t for the health and safety regulations, I’d ask you to wear that dress to work every day. You’d be the most attractive chef in any London kitchen.”

“What, this old thing? It’s really nothing special.”

Tom slid his hand over hers and looked Hallie right in the eye.

“Then maybe it’s the person inside of the dress who’s special.”

Not having a lot of dating experience, Hallie didn’t know what to say next, so she let her instinct take charge. And her instinct, that dormant and neglected part of herself, told her to do what every young woman sitting next to a very attractive man would do in her situation: she kissed him.

Forgetting her initial shyness, Hallie clasped her hands around Tom’s shoulders and allowed him to take command of the kiss. She reveled in the sensation, in the intensity of his mouth closing over hers, in the skilled way one of his hands slid over her neck and the other inched towards her thigh…

“Hallie.”

“Hmmm?”

“You’re doing it again, love… look at me, please.”

She opened her eyes. Tom was close, so close it was almost overwhelming, but she made a mental effort and told herself to keep her eyes on him no matter what.

“Sorry. I told you, when I’m feeling good I just don’t need to see.”

“Oh, but I do”, answered Tom, caressing her blond hair. “I need you to look at me, Hallie, because I fell for those eyes the moment you stepped into my kitchen. Don’t close them, stay with me.”

His lips began to inch their way down Hallie’s neck, sending a shiver down her spine. Slow but steady, with fleeting touches along her skin that made her moan and sigh aloud more than once. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the bedroom door in the distance, and she couldn’t help wondering what it would be like after so long. To be in bed with someone again, to let him explore her body, let him see her naked…

Tom could feel the exact moment when the girl froze in his arms. She stared at some unspecific point in space, and her lower lip quivered as if she was about to burst into tears.

“Hallie, darling, are you alright?”

No answer, but one of her hands flew to grab hem of her dress and move Tom’s hand away from her leg.

“Hallie, please, what’s wrong?” he tried again.

“I can’t do this.”

Tom frowned and moved away a couple of inches. “Fine. We don’t have to do anything, but I need you to tell me if I’ve done something wrong.”

“No! No, please, it’s been wonderful, it’s just… I can’t let you see me… I mean…I just can’t!”

She shot up from the sofa and grabbed her purse and coat from the chair she’d left them on. “Tom, please, I’m so sorry, I need to go home right now. This was all a mistake.”

Alarmed, Tom searched in his mind at top speed, looking for the precise words to keep the bewildered woman from running away. “Hallie, if you think this is going too fast, we can talk about it. We’ll wait until you’re ready, but please don’t leave like this.”

She stopped in her tracks for a second to look back at him, her breathing agitated and the hand that held her purse visibly shaking. “Oh, Tom, you shouldn’t have asked me out. I’m a mess, I will bring you nothing but bad luck, and…”

Tom approached the anxious girl slowly, stopping at a distance to avoid scaring her.

“Bad luck? Hallie, you’ve been the best thing that’s happened to me in months. Just ask Luke!” He raked his fingers through his hair, trying to make sense of the situation. “Listen, why don’t you go home and rest? I’ll wait for your call tomorrow, or we can talk on Tuesday when we go back to work. I’ll walk you to your place if you want–”

“No, please, there’s no need. It’s two minutes away.” She slung her coat over her arm, without pausing to put it on. “I have to get out of here, Tom… I’m sorry. I will… I mean, we’ll talk at work.”

And, just like that, she left.

Tom barely had time to walk her to the door and hold it open for her. He heard the sound of heels down the corridor, slowly at first and then picking up a running pace halfway to the lift. When he realized he was staring at the closed door of his flat like an idiot he returned to the living room balcony and looked down, waiting to see her small figure in the distance emerge from the tower and run towards Goswell Road, into the Golden Lane Estate… and away from him.

Confused, frustrated, and frankly angry at the Universe that would put such a woman in his life only to yank her away from him in the worst possible moment, Tom grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, took his shoes off and sat on the cold concrete of the terrace hoping that the cold air of the night would clear his mind.

Women were the bloody devil, and damned be the poor sod who tried to understand them.

Meanwhile, at Hallie’s flat, Lorraine had just put her grandson to sleep and turned on the telly. She had missed British TV a lot during her years in California, especially Coronation Street.

When she heard a key turning in the lock she looked at her watch, surprised.

“Hallie? Is that you, sweet pea?���

“Yes.”

The unusually short and deflated answer was a red flag, and she followed her daughter’s steps towards the bedroom, where Hallie had let herself fall face down on the bed, not even bothering with taking off her pumps.

“My powers of deduction tell me that your date wasn’t exactly as you expected”, she started in a sympathetic tone. “I’ll make you a cuppa and we can talk about it if you want.”

Hallie turned around to face her mother. “I don’t want tea. I… Oh, Mom, I feel like a complete idiot!”

Lorraine frowned. “Did he behave like a pig? Because if he did I can go over there and kick his arse, you know. He may be a chef and everything but I was captain of my lacrosse team for three years when I was in college.”

The joke failed to get a smile out of Hallie. She sat up on the bed and hid her face behind her hands.

“He was perfectly lovely all the time. No, Mom, I was the one who ruined it by panicking and running away.”

“Hmmm. Maybe things were going too fast? It’s not something mothers usually tell their daughters, but… sweetheart, you can’t go from zero to one hundred in two dates, especially when you’ve been living the life of a cloistered nun for years.”

Another attempt at humor, another nonplussed look from Hallie, and Lorraine decided to stop trying with the jokes.

“I wanted it to go fast this time”, said Hallie in a whisper. “At least until I realized that if I spent the night with Tom he… he would see my c-section scar and he would start asking questions.”

Lorraine’s face turned dead serious.”You haven’t told him about Max.”

“I didn’t know how to tell him. Or what he would think of me if I–”

“Stop”, interrupted her mother. “Now I’m ordering you to come to the kitchen, drink some tea and have a piece chocolate or two. I won’t allow my daughter to fall into a mental loop of self-deprecation.”

She motioned for Hallie to follow her into the kitchen.

“I can’t help thinking it’s my fault”, she said with a sigh. “I should have encouraged you to start dating much sooner.”

She adjusted her glasses over her nose and, seeing that Hallie was sulking in silence, continued:

“Baby girl, you shouldn’t be ashamed of what your body looks like. I have a scar myself… they had to cut me up twice, one for your brother and the other for you. You were incredibly cute babies, but God knows both of you had big heads.”

Third time is the charm, and Hallie finally laughed.

“I never lost the weight I gained when I had Max, either.”

“Bollocks. A few pounds won’t scare a good man; Tom asked you out knowing perfectly what you look like, right?”

Hallie nodded.

“You’re a beautiful girl, Hallie. A girl who’s had her life on pause for a few years… but you’re only twenty-seven! Go out, date men, have fun! You deserve all that, and I’m here to help you with Max as long as you need me.”

Hallie opened her mouth to answer, but several loud chimes coming from her phone at an alarming pace interrupted her. She read the messages out loud.

“It’s Harrington Craig… oh, and more messages from his sister Georgiana. Both of them reminding me that his birthday party has just began and that I’m invited if I feel like dropping by.”

“Maybe you should go and mingle a little bit. It’s barely nine and you need some cheering up. Where does this Harrington live, again?”

“Saint Katharine’s Docks.”

Lorraine let out a long whistle. “Wow, posh! You should go even if it’s just to see what his place looks like. You can make some new friends, maybe meet a man or two…”

“Mom, I’m with Tom! That is, if he still wants me back after today.”

“And that’s what I was talking about”, retorted her mother. “Two dates and you’re already building a wall around yourself. You must get it from your father’s side of the family… anyway, I think it will be good for you to have a little harmless fun. Tomorrow you can call Tom and explain everything, I’m sure he’ll understand. Now get your things, I’ll call you a cab.”

Hallie started looking for her coat, forgetting that she had left it on her bed. “Mom, are you sure you don’t want me to stay? We can watch a few episodes of Blackadder together, like we did last Sunday.”

“Absolutely not! I have to catch up on Corrie, I’m three episodes behind. Remember, don’t take a minicab after the party, I’ve never trusted those. Or an Uber, I’ve been reading some shitty things about them.”

“Don’t worry, Mum, I’ll make sure to take a black cab”, said Hallie, making her way to the door.

“And take a picture or two of the flat, I’ve always wanted to see how the rich pillocks in Saint Katharine’s Docks live!”

“Mom!”

“Joking, sweetheart. Now, off you trot!”

When Hallie arrived, the party was in full swing.

Although maybe swing wouldn’t be the right word to describe it. If a musical metaphor was absolutely necessary, it would be more like a session of cool, classic jazz.

Harrington had opened the door with a surprised smile and holding a Martini glass. Apparently the host was in charge of cocktails, and he enjoyed putting his little personal touches in them: an unusual mix of berries in a gin and tonic, or a surprising touch of chocolate in a mint mojito.

“Hallie! I didn’t think you would make it, thank you so much for coming”, he said, taking her coat and signaling around the room. “Welcome to what my sister Georgie calls my bachelor pad. I have to warn you that I haven’t done a lot of entertaining here, so my party skills are a bit rusty.”

Everything in the flat looked modern and sophisticated. The tall windows that looked over the river, the soft grays and beiges of the curtains and furniture… even the guests, wearing so much black that Hallie wondered for a second if it was a beatnik party and if she should have come wearing a costume.

She’d barely had time to tell Harry how lovely his flat looked, when the tall figure of Georgiana emerged from the kitchen. She had changed the tweed trousers for a deceitfully simple (and probably very expensive) charcoal dress with no jewelry, and there was an entourage of young men around her, ready to anticipate her every need.

“Oh, look who’s here! Hallie, darling, it’s so wonderful of you to come! You look absolutely adorable. Come, let me introduce you to everyone.”

After a quick round of introductions it became clear to Hallie that everyone, like Georgiana called them, were most definitely the cream of the London crop. There were a couple of City bankers, several young (and probably rich) entrepreneurs, a famous sculptor who followed Georgie like a lapdog, and even a woman who had won a BAFTA.

These were the kind of people who never talked about ordinary, mundane things. From what Hallie could hear, most of the conversations around her versed about art, travel, literature, fashion, and all the latest fads on every field. Nobody discussed politics, of course; that would have been an inexcusable faux pas. And nobody ever talked about money either, as if the idea of exchanging vulgar currency for immortal art was an abomination.

Fortunately for Hallie, among the latest fads in London (and probably in the whole world) there was one she dominated quite well, and that was food. The explosion of cooking shows and celebrity chefs had transformed every elegant person into a gourmet, and as soon as Georgiana had introduced her to a few of her friends, they were all fighting for a minute of conversation with her.

Of course, some of the topics deviated a little bit from the purely culinary.

“Tell me, is Gordon Ramsay as dreamy in real life as he looks on television?” asked a woman with platinum hair, called Brenda, who had just published two bestsellers in a row . “I’m asking just for research purposes, of course. My next novel will be about a chef, and I need someone to base my characters on. Georgie suggested that I use Harry as my inspiration, but my protagonists need to have a mean streak, and poor Harrington is too nice for his own good.”

“He’s a wonderful person. And a great chef, have you tried his–”

“I’ve just had a brilliant idea!” Interrupted the other woman. “You have to take me to your restaurant one day. I need to immerse myself in the ambience of a real kitchen, that will give so much truth to my story! I promise I won’t bother you, I’ll be the proverbial fly on the wall. Who knows, maybe Chef Hiddleston will be a good model for my villain, don’t you think?”

Hallie took a deep breath, not knowing exactly what to answer. She hadn’t predicted that someone would mention Tom, and when the other woman pronounced his name she felt a wave of anxiety rush through her mind. Only one person in the room noticed: Georgiana, whose eagle eyes surveyed anything that could disrupt the peace of her well organized party. She rushed beside Hallie in a second, thrusting herself into the conversation before Hallie’s embarrassment could be noticed by anybody else.

“Now, Brenda, how can you be so insensitive? Hallie’s here to relax from work, not to talk about it. Hallie, darling, come with me to the kitchen; I’ve just had a disagreement with Harry about the right amount of capers he should put on the smoked trout canapés, and I need the opinion of a real expert.”

The kitchen was occupied by a couple of attractive men, laughing and flirting with each other, but Georgiana shooed them out with a piercing gaze and the eloquent rising of an eyebrow.

“Now, sit here and have a little rest. I like Brenda, but her conversation is too overwhelming… she treats everybody as if we were characters in her books.” Observing that Hallie still looked distressed, she pushed the plate of canapés towards her friend. “Hallie, dear, are you having trouble at work? If you need a change of scenery, I’ll order Harry to hire you first thing tomorrow.”

Hallie looked at her, surprised to see that her friend was absolutely serious.

“No, I’m fine. I mean, work is fine… it’s really the job of my dreams.”

“Then, if you don’t mind my asking, why did you look so worried when Brenda mentioned Band of Brothers…? Oh, wait. Unless it’s not the restaurant… You were fine until she mentioned Tom.”

Hallie picked up a canapé and looked at it with an air of melancholy.

“I was hoping to not think about him for a couple of hours. As I said, work is fine, but other things related to work have become… complicated.”

Georgiana sighed. “Oh, Tommy. I’m not even going to ask what he’s done this time. I feel it’s my fault in part, because I was the one who introduced him to that wretched woman who ruined him and left him unable to have a normal relationship again. She walked all over him, and moved on to do the same with my brother… and I’m ranting again, sorry. You don’t even know who Charlotte is, right?”

“I’ve heard of her, but we’ve never met”, answered Hallie.

Georgiana fiddled with her phone and showed Hallie a picture of a beautiful woman, smiling on the red carpet of some fashion show.

“That piece of work in the super tight dress is supermodel Charlotte Rhodes, my ex-sister in law… and, before that, Tom’s fiancée. She left Tom for my brother, married Harry, gave him hell for about a year, and then divorced him when she realized she could do better than the simple son of a baronet who had no interest in yachts, private jets or parties at Monte Carlo. Of course, I don’t know all the details of her life” she said, with an air of sufficiency that indicated that she did know all the details and a few more, “but I hear she’s going after Viscount Dalby now, the heir of the Earl of Rochdale. I know Teddy Dalby from Uni, he’s a good man but not particularly brilliant. I hope he’s got a good team of solicitors, he’s going to need them if he ends up marrying her.”

Hallie stared at the beautiful woman on the screen, who happened to be quite the opposite of her: tall, thin, tanned, and with an air of confidence that she supposed was normal in a supermodel. That woman had the power of making everybody else feel ugly.

“So, she left Tom because…?”

“Because he wasn’t getting rich fast enough. I mean, he’s far from destitute, but chefs don’t become rich and famous easily, not unless they have a television show, and Tommy never liked that kind of fame.” She put the phone aside, facing down, as if she wanted to keep her ex-sister in law as far away as possible. “Of course we didn’t know that when she married my brother; I honestly thought she’d had a change of heart and fallen in love with Harry, and that’s not a crime… she didn’t just fool him, she fooled the whole family.”

“Even you?”

“Yes, even me.” Georgiana rested her face on one of her thin, aristocratic hands. “I wish I could tell you that I mistrusted her from the start, or that my infallible instinct made me realize what a bitch she was. But no, alas. I was every bit as blind as the others; especially Harry. Then the drama about the title exploded, and he saw Charlotte’s true colors, but it was too late for anything but an awfully expensive divorce. We avoided a scandal, but poor Harry was completely heartbroken.”

Hallie took a bite of her canapé. Every one of Georgiana’s answers seemed to leave her with more questions about Tom, Harry and the woman who had gotten between them.

“I’m not sure I understand… about the title drama.”

“Ah, yes. Sorry for being so cryptic, of course you don’t know about that, not being British. And that’s hardly your fault, anyway.” Georgiana picked two mojitos from the kitchen counter and offered one to her friend. “You’ll think I’ve gone crazy when I tell you this, but it’s all the House of Lords’ fault.”

Hallie opened her mouth, closed it again, and sipped her mojito in silence.

“See? You think I’m halfway to the madhouse, but I promise it all makes sense”, said Georgiana. “It started two years ago, when a group of Lords agreed that it was a complete shame that men always took precedence over women when it came to inheriting a title. Of course, many people had been thinking that for years, but those Lords took it to Parliament. There were some debates, some opposition by a couple of conservative MPs, but in the end the New Peerages Act was passed and it received royal assent… sorry, I’m talking in riddles again; that means the Queen signed it so it could become law. And how does all that boring stuff affect my brother’s wretched marriage, you ask? Well, you may not know that Harry is the fourth of five siblings, four of which are girls.”

“Oh… I’m starting to see it now.”

“Of course you are. Before the Act got approved it was a given that, when our father died, Harrington would became Baron Mountjoy; but now, under the new law, the title will go to our older sister Eleonora.”

Hallie’s American common sense kicked in. “But why did Charlotte care so much about a title?”

“Because with the barony comes the house in London, the great house in Dorset, a couple of cottages and a bit of land. The property cannot be divided, the Act didn’t change that. It’s a package that goes straight from one Baron to the next.”

“When you say a bit of land, how many acres are we talking about?”

“Well… I suppose that it’s slightly more than most people own. Not quite half of the county of Dorset.”

“Oh, wow.” Hallie made a mental note to look up the Mountjoy barony in Wikipedia as soon as she got home. “So, Harry was going to inherit all that, and now…”

“And now he’ll be just the Honorable Harrington Craig for the rest of his life. Which he doesn’t give a toss about, of course, because all he’s wanted to do all his life is cook. Unfortunately for him, Charlotte had her eyes set on being Lady Craig and wearing a tiara; when she saw that was impossible, things started going sour between them, until she finally left. I have my suspicions that she was having a thing on the side, too… but I have no proof, so I’m not going to tell Harry.” Georgiana looked at her friend and smiled. “Welcome to the strange and wonderful world of the British peerage! I promise it becomes easier to navigate after a while. And most people don’t care about titles, of course; we’re like a strange race of dinosaurs that maybe one day will become extinct.”

Hallie laughed. “Oh, don’t say that! And forgive my ignorance… we don’t get taught about titles and stuff in America.”

“Of course not, it would be an absolute waste of school hours. And now that I’ve bored you enough, let’s go back to the party. We’re going to tell Brenda a couple of naughty secrets about Gordon Ramsay so she can include them in her book.”

“But I don’t know any naughty secrets about him!”

“Use your imagination and make up something scandalous! Let’s see if we can give her enough of a shock and she shuts up for five or six minutes.”

They got back to the living room, but Hallie could barely concentrate on the conversation. If she closed her eyes she could still see the picture of Charlotte, like a perfect Greek statue shrouded in pale grey fabric, flashing her perfect red lips and flawless skin, with her lustrous dark hair tossed over one shoulder.

If that was Tom’s idea of the perfect woman, why had he asked her out? And what exactly had Charlotte done to make him so bitter?

She shook her head, trying to banish the worrying thoughts. From the other side of the room, Harrington smiled at her and raised his glass, and she did the same. She decided to stay and have some fun talking to all these new people… after all, it was a really good party.

Tom’s plan of getting supremely drunk after Hallie left had backfired on him halfway. The only thing he felt like drinking was beer, and he had just finished the last one. There wasn’t any left in the kitchen, nor in the pantry, and to make things worse he had also out of cigarettes.

He paced up and down the spacious flat like a caged lion. He had the sudden idea of texting Luke, to see if his best friend could be of some help.

‘Luke, mate, are you awake?’

‘Good evening, Thomas. Of course I’m awake, it’s not even midnight. I may not be a party animal, but I still don’t get in bed at nine like an old lady.’

‘That’s the spirit. Look, I’m not having a good night, can you come over?’

‘I’m spending a couple of days with my parents, remember?’

‘You’re in Oxford?’

‘I told you on Thursday, Tom.’

‘Damn.’

‘Sorry. I can come back early tomorrow and we’ll have lunch at the pub. Then you can criticize all the food and feel superior.’

‘No, you stay there, I can manage.’

‘By the way, my Mum says hello.’

‘What is she doing up at this hour?’

‘We just came back from a Sound of Music sing-along. Don’t laugh, it’s more fun than it sounds.’

‘Someday I’ll blackmail you with this information.’

‘Tosser.’

‘I love you too, mate.’

Tom threw his phone on top of the table and lit his very last cigarette. He wasn’t drunk enough to go to sleep, nor sober enough to work on a new recipe, or read, or do anything remotely constructive. Then he remembered that there was an off-licence two streets away: if he was condemned to be alone and bored, at least he could get properly drunk.

During the time it took for the elevator to go down the 42 floors he thought of Hallie again, and it left him confused. To make things worse, Charlotte appeared in his mind without warning, and that made him downright angry. Almost two years since she had left, and he still couldn’t think of her without a nasty feeling in his stomach.

The fresh air of the street did him some good, though. It was a cool, clear night, and the City of London seemed quiet and spooky, perfect for his moody state. He felt relieved to see that the off-licence was open; he bought some cigarettes and a pack of beer bottles, thanked the Pakistani boy behind the counter, and hit the street again.

He didn’t really feel like going back to his flat just yet, so he wandered along the edge between the Barbican estate and the Golden Lane (where Hallie lived, although he commanded himself not to think of her). He had never paid any attention to Golden Lane or his inhabitants before… but it was nice, he thought, with its low buildings and curved roofs. Like the Barbican’s shabbier sister, but still with a lot of charm. They even had one thing better than the Barbican: their own pub, called The Shakespeare for God knew what reason.

Tom’s newly developed attention to the architecture of the City got interrupted by the sound of a car driving close to the estate, and what he did next was really strange, even for him. He normally didn’t react to things hiding behind a pillar.

The reason why he did such a silly was that the car in question had stopped in front of Crescent House, and Hallie had come out of it.

He let out a bitter laugh at the irony of the situation. Of course his steps would take him right to Hallie’s doorstep (even though he’d had no idea that she lived in Crescent House), and of course she would choose that moment to get back home and remind him of his disaster of a night.

But back from where? asked a still lucid part of his slightly boozy brain.

The car started again and left in the direction of Goswell Road. Now Tom could see it clearly under the streetlights, and what he saw made him go livid. He waited until Hallie had gone inside and then he practically ran towards his place, not stopping until he was safe inside the flat.

Hallie had arrived home in a silver titanium Tesla, and he knew perfectly well who owned a silver titanium Tesla: the man who had been one step ahead of him all his life, the man who had destroyed his happiness once and now had every intention of doing it again.

Why else would Hallie arrive home at midnight… in a car belonging to Harrington Craig?