#having their loved ones suddenly there would be interesting actually! charlotte and parker........

[kittykittycatnip]

Same anon so I'm just going to put a little 🪨 here bc I am in fact Stone hfjone /j

I absolutely adore your ideas and concepts for the au!! Mind if I might ask how the people on the Plane would feel? What about Texty, or how Airy and Liam's relationship would grow during the months? (Mostly because I want to know how Airy would feel about finally having someone else to talk to after years)

OK I HAVENT CONSIDERED SUPER DEEP BUT here are some thoughts!!

i think bryce would feel absolutely crushed and betrayed (having been closer to liam than the others), amelia would be detached and indifferent- she can barely remember her past at this point. as for texty i think it'd be interesting to see them warped back onto the plane with the others, being able to explain everything that's happened, only for everyone's motivation to just dissolve

when i say other contestants i mean. i want EVERYONE back. maximum chaos. liam would force airy to apologize for batch one, of course they're probably just as broken as julien (who is having a breakdown from all of this, actually most of them are).

as for airy and liam i think airy would be excited (in his own way) at having a 'friend' whereas liam goes from resenting him to being distant and apathetic too (not AS apathetic, but yknow lol).

tl;dr this whole au is basically just angst and pain fodder HDKSHLDJGLSF

[werezmastarbucks]

Whitmore Guy - party animals

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five

Part Six Part Seven

Kai Parker x fem!Reader slowburn

word count: 1600

warnings: Y/N’s bitching about people misinterpreting skate punk culture

music: neck deep - serpents (mark hoppus remix), good charlotte - i don’t wanna be in love, metro station - wish we were older, sum 41 - in too deep

The party was a success. The people did remember early Fall Out Boy, and they did still love them. Gerard Way’s name was still ringing bells in people’s hearts – the only thing Y/N was unhappy about was the fact that they completely mistook the idea.

“I mean… this is not an emo party”, she repeated for the thousandth time. Damon was at her side, just as he’d promised. He was at the very best disinterested in her youth’s culture. In fact, she remembered him mention once, Damon started feeling really tired exactly in 2006, and this outburst of depression made him migrate to north for some time, before returning to Mystic Falls. His silver-green eyes were snapping from one shape of human to another, he wasn’t really listening to her.

“They’re all misdressed…” she gasped. “Except… ah! That’s Mal. He always looks like he’s about to break his nose on the asphalt”.

“Why?” Damon asked absent-mindedly.

“Because he’s about to go skating”.

“That’s the guy?” Damon nodded at Mal, eyes focusing on him.

“Yeah”.

Music was blasting, and people were dancing. They were shaking, thrashing their heads. A couple of immortal hits already made the whole place sweat a little, their cervical vertebrae did not feel good about that.

Mal was chatting with a girl. The system Y/N was remembering people was, she remembered the kind of troubles they were in. This one, Cindy, or Sandy, she once failed to submit not five, not six, but ten papers in a row, and a group of teachers was very unhappy with her. Y/N could not really help her, except to say that she should probably stop partying and go study. Not a lot of time actually has passed since she was a student at a college herself; but she was never a party animal. She had problems with her studies because she had a cluster of minor disorders, from eating to insomnia.

From the looks of it, he was all over the girl. Wide smirk, and the way he bent to her slightly; his eyes were watching her expression closely, and the thin silver chain he always wore under shirt gleamed faintly in the blue lightning.

“I thought you said he was stunning”, Damon sneered.

“I never said stunning. I said adorable”.

“He’s very, very usual, Y/N”.

“Well, compared to you, maybe. Not all people tend to look like fucking Renaissance statuary, Damon”.

Damon sniffed, ruffling his invisible feathers.

“So, what don’t you like about him?”

“He looks like a man with a plan. I don’t really know what’s going on in his head”.

Damon turned to her and eyed her with the usual oily look of a hungry lizard.

“Man. I thought your intuition is kicking in. And you just wanna hit it up with a guy”.

Y/N rolled her eyes.

“Please, please, just for once, just do what I ask you to. Just check him out. Did you find anything about Martha Hopps, by the way?”

“I did, stalker. She is a real human person and she lives in Mystic Falls. She moved in recently with her parents and two sisters. Which is, whatever, considering she’s almost twenty four, and they all live in one house”.

“They’re millenials. It’s normal for us”.

“You don’t live with your mum”.

“Yeah, because I don’t talk with my mum. So, is her family crazy?”

“They sure look lame. Hopps papa seems to have complete control over his daughters. Obsessive type”.

“Oh, god. What if he really is the bad guy?”

“They’re a bunch of boring Christians. Martha is not even that pretty”, Damon clicked his tongue and started looking for the table with the punch. “I think her sister, Laura, is way more interesting”.

“Who cares”, Y/N said tiredly. She felt awful for spying on Mal’s girlfriend, second-handedly. “What you think. Let’s go find something to drink”.

“What do you mean, find?” the vampire went indignant in a moment, “didn’t you organize the whole thing?”

“I did, but Caroline moved all the tables in the morning. I didn’t manage to monitor everything”.

Together, they moved through the crowd, floating like two ships in the sea of shaking heads. Damon led Y/N by the elbow to keep her on her feet, because In Too Deep came on, and the crowd went wild. Mal was still flirting with Cindy/Sandy as they left. Minutes later, Damon abandoned Y/N at the table, to observe and have fun, and set off to look for the guy.

His face was showing in the crowd here and there, shooting Y/N glances of confusion. Mal seemed to have vanished, and the vampire couldn’t find him anywhere. He shook his head in amazement; the music was irritating him. He listened to different stuff; Salvatore’s heart belonged specifically to indie rock of the latter decade. For some unknown reason. In a way, Damon was an essence of the Mystic Falls town.

Soon, Damon disappeared, too, leaving her behind. She didn’t mind much; they kind of fell out in these last months. Y/N knew that Damon always had her back regardless, but they just didn’t talk much these days.

A song came in, the kind of it, that usually makes you see yourself from aside, standing alone, at the table with beer and punch, while everybody grabs their dancing partners by the waists. The sick lamp went from orange to pink even, and then an interesting turquoise shade flooded the hall; people all looked like sparkling fish, in their hats and pins and bright ribbons.

Something pushed her in the back, and moved the table, and Y/N jumped off just in time not to be stepped on.

Mal came round the table. He looked troubled, and his hair was ruffled. There was an even blush on his cheeks, making him look like he was no more than nineteen.

“Is that sex hair, Mal?” Y/N snorted, refusing to empathize with his wild gaze.

“She’s here”, Mal uttered, “dance with me”.

They took each other by the hands. Y/N downed her cup and threw it back on the table. Mal combed his hair with one hand, looking above her shoulder, and pulled her closer to himself.

“Who’s here?”

“Martha”, he said without expression. The eyes on his face were incredible, pulsating, like he was extremely horny, or very distressed; Y/N saw eyes like that on vampires after they’ve just eaten. His hands and face, on the opposite, were sturdy, mechanical.

I gave her my heart, she didn’t want it,

Took it anyway, put a dark spell on it,

Since then I haven’t been the same…                              

He looked down at Y/N like he’s just realized he was holding her.

“Go talk to her. Or nah?”

“Nah. I have nothing to say to her”.

“Really?” she went on with distrust.

“She doesn’t know I’m here”.

“You mentioned. You think she’ll scream or something?”

He snorted. His eyes warmed up just a little.

“Nobody’ll hear her. It’s a loud party”.

Mal put his hand on Y/N shoulder and let it rest.

“You’re a good friend”.

“Been training for years. Still not sure though”.

“I think I saw Demi here”.

“Who?”

“Your ex-crush whom I disapprove”.

“Dude”, she grinned, “he left”.

“Very impressive individual. Masculinity and bulllshit oozing out of him. God, his balls must be huge. Looked like he wanted to chat, but I Houdinied the fuck away”.

Y/N shifted uncomfortably, unable to stop herself from picturing everything he said. Mal was not completely wrong, and yet, the way he spoke about the older Salvatore was so poisonous you could die from listening too closely.

“Don’t like him, huh”.

“Don’t know him”, he nodded, “don’t really care. Just don’t let him hurt you. Why would he leave you alone? even I understand it’s not nice”.

“He didn’t come here to dance”.

“Why then?”

“Masculine stuff. Wanted to talk to somebody. Or check up on me. I don’t know”.

“Uhh, Y/N”, Mal sighed, sincerely enough. She got a desire to give him a hug, like a human, as a friend. Just because she hasn’t hugged anybody for a while. Because it’s been a month, and they got pretty close, attracted to each other like two wandering bog lights. So, she just did it. Wrapping her arms around him, Y/N pulled him close, and laid her head on his shoulder. Mal didn’t push her away, but the song ended, so they just stood. Mal smelled like candy again, and his skin, clean and white, had a trace of female perfume. Y/N didn’t know what to make of him. She wasn’t really jealous. She wasn’t really anxious. Their embrace existed outside their world. Mal still smelled of trouble. Y/N never for a second supposed that there wasn’t something utterly and vividly wrong with this guy. She just didn’t care enough.

“All that heart trouble”, Mal said suddenly, “just makes me wanna dance. Let’s get smashed. It’s Good Charlotte, isn’t it?”

“Back it up now, you’ve got a reason to live. Say, I don’t wanna be in love”.

“I like me a gal who knows all the lyrics to all the shitty songs”, Mal grinned wide, and they separated a little, but did not leave each other’s sight.

“This song is not shitty”.

“Nah”, Mal yelled, as the dynamic, loud part of the verse started, “some music is crap, and it’s good. Remember the motto of your favorite dudes”.

Y/N laughed. A little bit more of music, less light, and they were dancing like monkeys, waving their hands and thrashing their heads, a couple of happy, careless children. They managed to trick the whole college into listening Metro Station for fifteen minutes straight.

[fortunatelylori]

1/2 Hi! I really liked your review of Sanditon ep. 7! I wanted to ask for your thoughts about the Heraclitus comment but the conversation around it. I agree Sidney absolutely did not intend to insult Charlotte, but Eliza turned it into an insult and the rest of the party (except Lady Susan) all laughed at Charlotte's expense. And it cut to Charlotte's insecurity about not fitting in with the London crowd, which we also saw at the ball in ep. 6.

2/2 But while at the ball Sidney told her “not to doubt” herself and “you’re more than equal to any woman here,” in ep. 7, he doesn’t laugh, but he doesn’t say anything reassuring either when he catches up with her. He only says he hopes she wasn’t she wasn’t offended by Mrs. Campion, and that it was all “in jest.” He clearly meant well, but that’s the worst thing to say to someone who is clearly hurt and upset by said “jest.” And he didn’t reassure her, which hurt as well. What do you think?

Hi! Sorry this turned into a 3/3. I would have really liked to see more of Sidney and Eliza, especially after her behavior toward Charlotte. Because we know Sidney doesn’t agree with her assessment of Charlotte, but not if he said anything about it to Eliza. I wish we had seen their last conversation! We know so little about their story. Did he realize how mean she actually is and how her behavior was inappropriate?

Hey, nonnie!

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed my review.

 I wanted to ask for your thoughts about the Heraclitus comment but the conversation around it.

Oh, good! We get to talk about my current favorite subject: Sidney Parker. You have unleashed the cracken, nonnie! Get your tea, biscuits, sausages or whatever and strap in. This is going to be a loooooong one!

I actually thought it would be interesting to try and analyze Sidney throughout this episode because, as I said, the narrative choice of making Eliza’s reappearance all about Charlotte’s unrequited love drama has robbed us of some insight into Sidney. For all intents and purposes Eliza was his plot, not Charlotte’s and it’s a shame Davies didn’t explore it. 

That being said, I do think that enough was given in order to create a pretty clear picture of what Sidney was going through if you are willing to look more in depth. And let’s face it, we’re all willing since we’re spending inordinate amounts of time watching these scenes.

Btw, I’m at my 87th rewatch of the dance scene. Anyone else keeping score? And speaking of that glorious tv moment to be treasured for all time, that’s where our clue hunt must start. In this particular moment to be precise:

This is the genesis, the big bang if you will of Sidney’s crisis and the word that can describe him from this moment on is: CONFUSION! Sidney spends the entirety of episode 7 in a state of confusion.

You can see it in this moment above. He goes from complete calm decisiveness in regards to what he feels for Charlotte and what he wants from her to completely losing the plot in a matter of seconds when faced with the return of Eliza Campion.

Look at him! I don’t think we’ve ever seen Sidney this flustered. And the way he walks towards her, like a moth to the flame? In an instant it’s very clear just how much he must have loved this woman and that, for the time being, he’s forgotten all about Charlotte.

There is a brief moment where he remembers her that will be echoed in episode 7, when he brings Eliza to Tom’s house:

Episode 6: 

Episode 7: 

Theo James is really bringing his A game to these micro expressions because you can see very clearly that Sidney hesitates and also feels a bit uncomfortable having Charlotte see him with Eliza. He is, however, spellbound by Eliza in the London scene:

Incidentally we will never see Sidney this happy in her presence again. On the subject of micro expressions, I would like to draw your attention to this smile Theo James does over and over again. It’s almost a tic at this point:

Once you see it, you can’t really unsee it. This is the face Sidney does every time he doesn’t actually want to say what’s on his mind and it’s his way of keeping people at arm’s length. The reason why this is important is that he has this expression in every single scene he shares with Eliza:

Beach scene: 

Boatus interruptus: 

Tent of doom: 

The don’t make me do this scene: 

He’s also pretty much retired this expression when talking to Charlotte, instead hitting her with the irresistible combination of:

and …

My guess is Eliza didn’t see those pearly whites once during her whole stay in Sanditon.

So, given all of this distant body language, why is Sidney confused to begin with? Clearly Charlotte makes him happy while Eliza makes him indifferent at best and unpleasantly surprised at worst (we’ll get to that).

In order to answer that, we need to pay a little attention to this line Sidney says, during his scene with his brothers:

Sidney: It is a strange feeling. You’ve wanted something impossible for so long and suddenly it’s within your grasp.

If we were to do an exercise of imagination, we could go back in time to a young Sidney Parker. What would he have been like? I would argue he wouldn’t be all that dissimilar to Charlotte. Basically a happy, go lucky kind of guy who grew up in a loving family. Or as Eleanor Tilney in Northanger Abbey would put it, a person with a dangerous upbringing. 

Sidney grew up thinking that the world was a basically wonderful place and everyone was “as pure of heart”as he. With the romantic notions of a young man, he fell in love with the pretty and witty Eliza and perhaps turned a blind eye to her more disagreeable traits. That was until those traits hit him right in the emotions organ and she left him to marry an older, richer man.

I don’t think it can be understated just how cruelly Eliza behaved. This isn’t Anne Elliot refusing Fredrick Wentworth’s proposal because she’s a young girl who’s a little too trusting when it comes to the adults in her life. This is a girl who knowingly strung Sidney along, through an engagement, only to leave him in the dust the moment a more “appealing” option came along.

Despite all of this, Sidney isn’t angry at her (supposedly at least). Moreover, he admits to having dreamed about their reunion for years. Usually when you dream about getting back with someone who showed so little care for you it’s because you’ve idealized them in your head and you probably remember that relationship through rose colored glasses.

That’s why Arthur is truly the genius of the Parker family. Just look at this smooth motherfucker smashing those glasses of delusion:

Arthur: Do you know that for years all I knew about my brother Sidney was that he was driven to the West Indies with a broken heart?

He instinctively understands that if he were to outright tell Sidney that getting back with the woman who used his heart for minced meat, that would make his brother dismiss him immediately. Instead he gently reminds him of  the pain she caused. Which still elicits a defensive answer from Sidney:

Sidney: And what is your point, Arthur?

So in his very jovial, kind way, Arthur kicks Sidney right in the feeling nuts:

Arthur: I admire your spirit of forgivness. That is all. If it were me, I do not think I could bring myself to trust her again.

Still, Arthur’s intervention can only go so far. Sidney’s wanted to be with Eliza for so long … How could he help himself from being in her company when given the opportunity?

Well actually he can help himself quite easily …

Coming back to the whole topic that you were talking about, we need to separate Sidney’s actions from Sidney’s words because his failure to understand himself is displayed in this marked difference. 

Let me give you an example: Sidney says he’s wanted Eliza for a long time. But how does Eliza Campion get to Sanditon? Does Sidney bring her, eager to have her near him?

No … Sidney doesn’t bring her because Sidney left London after the ball and is now spending his time waiting for Charlotte in Mrs. Griffith’s drawing room. Eliza gets to Sanditon on her own, surrounded by her minions. And this creates a trend throughout the episode, where Sidney might be talking about Eliza but seeks Charlotte out every chance he gets and it’s actually Eliza that is pursuing him.

Sidney’s true confusion doesn’t even really come from having to choose between Charlotte and Eliza but rather because he can’t get his mind around the fact that he is no longer in love with the woman that has occupied his thoughts for years. He’s carried her around with him for so long that now that she’s here and available, he can’t really grasp why he’s no longer interested.

It must be because:

Sidney: I haven’t picked up an oar in years.

Or because

Sidney: I had convinced myself that I was destined to remain alone. That I was ill suited for matrimony.

These series of excuses go on and on throughout his interactions with Eliza because what Sidney really loved was the way he had loved her and not Eliza herself. And that idyllic image of what might have been is shuttered by reality because:

Sidney: A man cannot step into the same river twice.

Charlotte: For he is not the same man and it is not the same river.

How fitting it is that it’s Charlotte who finishes this quote for him. Because in Eliza and Charlotte, Sidney has the opportunity to either go back and relive the what might have been or go forward and live the what can be. To go back means to try and be the same man on the same river. To go forward means to leap into the unknown with someone new.

What does Sidney do?

Might I just point out that if he wanted to balance the boat he could have invited Eliza? But he doesn’t … He might not be ready to admit it, even to himself, but only Charlotte can truly balance his boat.

However things don’t end up coming to a head until the tent scene. That’s because the last stage after releasing yourself from someone you used to be attached to is to see them for what they truly are. To discover the chink in their armor to quote Lady Susan. And boy, does Eliza wreck her freaking armor!

Did he realize how mean she actually is and how her behavior was inappropriate?

Of course he did. He actually realizes it much sonner than you’d think.

Eliza: There must be a boy in your village that’s caught your eye.

That’s not a happy face.

Also it’s very important to note that when Sidney says Charlotte would be happier reading a book, he doesn’t actually say that even though that’s what she understands. What he says is exactly this:

Sidney: I have no doubt Charlotte would rather be sat somewhere, quietly reading Heraclitus.

If he had said anything else, then it might be debatable whether or not he was making a joke at her expense but because he mentions Heraclitus in particular, this becomes his attempt at bonding with her, one outlier to another.

He doesn’t say anything reassuring either when he catches up with her. He only says he hopes she wasn’t she wasn’t offended by Mrs. Campion, and that it was all “in jest.” He clearly meant well, but that’s the worst thing to say to someone who is clearly hurt and upset by said “jest.” And he didn’t reassure her, which hurt as well. What do you think? 

I get how from Charlotte’s point of view she feels hurt by his lack of reassurance and by feeling like she’s a “source of amusement” for him. But you know …. Charlotte’s in the whole “I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy …”phase. She’s not thinking all that clearly.

Sidney runs after her because he realizes she’s upset and tries to comfort her. But I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect him to understand why she’s upset. I’d argue most people have the source of her sadness wrong.

Eliza isn’t the first person to make jokes regarding Charlotte’s marriage prospects. Lady Denham did the same thing to her in episode 1 and 2. Only Lady Denham was far harsher and rudder about it. And Charlotte wasn’t the least bit upset. She responded in kind and, in Lady Denham’s own words, “couldn’t help but stand up for herself”.

She doesn’t do it with Eliza because what’s causing her pain isn’t the lame ass attempt at making jokes about her not finding a husband. What’s truly hurting her is that Sidney is revealing something personal to the two of them to this woman that, in Charlotte’s mind, has made it impossible for her to ever be with him. She feels exposed, vulnerable and insecure.

When Sidney runs after her, trying to comfort her, there’s truly only one thing Charlotte wants to hear:

Charlote: What is it you want from me?

That’s something Sidney can’t answer at that time. He can’t really formulate what he wants from her because he’s just coming out of the whole Eliza spell and is himself uncertain about what Charlotte may or may not be feeling for him.

However, as I said, at this point his words are less important than his actions and given the sequence of events, it’s pretty obvious that the tent scene is the last time he is actually in Eliza’s company until she seeks him out at the end of the episode. So he might not have found the words to reassure Charlotte but he made certain he taxed Eliza for hurting her.

And when Eliza finally does track him down, what’s the first thing he tells her?

Sidney: You know, you didn’t have to wait for me.

Well … color me swooning. What girl doesn’t dream of hearing that?

I truly wish they had given us this complete scene because I really wanted to see how he would resolve this chapter of his life but given that she says this:

Eliza: The truth is now that I have found you again, I can scarcely bring myself to let you out of my sight. (beat) You know I never lost hope that we would stand besides each other once more and here we are! Fate has gifted us a second chance.

And he looks like this:

I’m willing to bet Eliza’s minions wasted all of their handkerchiefs on her on the coach ride back to London.

Which leaves us with:

Sidney:  [Mrs. Campion] has already left. I decided against joining her. On reflection, I realized I would rather be here. I am a great deal less than perfect. You’ve made me all too aware of that. But, for whatever it’s worth, I believe I am my best self, my truest self, when I’m with you.

Sidney’s words finally match his actions. He chooses to go forward as the man he is now, wanting the woman that’s in front of him and not as the boy he used to be, chasing the dream of the girl that never was. Because …

A man cannot step into the same river twice. For he is not the same man and it is not the same river.

Thanks for the ask!

[wmhalliwell]

a stroll back to town - missing 1x08 scene

A missing scene immediately following the wondrous 1x08 clifftop kiss and Sidney and Charlotte's return to town. 

A/N: I was thinking about this the other night and then all of a sudden everyone on tumblr and on ao3 was like "what do you think happened?!" so here's my take!

(read on ao3)

They stood in the tugging clifftop wind, heads tilted toward each other, hands resting atop each other’s jackets. Sidney’s, rough and stiff under Charlotte’s small hands. Charlotte’s much softer and gentler under his own.

“Sidney,” Charlotte said, her breath nearly completely taken away from her, eyes lingering shut, desperately wanting more.

He smiled, ever so slightly, at hearing his name on her lips. “Yes?”

She opened her eyes slowly, the tip of her tongue momentarily seen between her lips before she took the tiniest of steps back, nearly drawing him with her. He would have gladly followed, wanting nothing more than to keep her here with him, digging his hands into her wild hair and kissing her until the sun set. But all fanciful desires aside, he was equally contented to have this moment with her. 

Charlotte did not typically indulge in selfish behavior. It wasn’t in her nature, but even as her good sense was telling her they should now part and head back to town, keeping a respectable distance from each other, she found herself doing the opposite.

She surprised him by tugging at the lapels of his jacket and kissing him, soft and nervous at first, but accepting of his more experienced guidance. His hands hugged her waist and one of her arms slipped between his jacket and vest, pulling their bodies closer. 

Her body flushed with heat from her toes to her cheeks.

Before long, the kiss ended gently, lingering far longer than the first. Hands slowly moved to more respectable places even as their lips continued to pull toward each others like an inexplicable force. Sidney’s breath shuddered out of his body as Charlotte’s hands rested for a moment on his abdomen.

Charlotte’s heart and stomach seemed to flip and twist on their own accord, though the feeling was not unpleasant. She stepped back once again, this time with more conviction. “I think, perhaps, we should continue our walk to town,” she said, breathing harder now than when they’d arrived at the clifftop.

Sidney took a few measured breaths. “Yes, perhaps we should.” And then he smiled because, God willing, he found himself happy for the first time in a very long time. He was finally capable of accepting that, and he was henceforth taken by Charlotte completely, like falling.

She smiled in return, clasping her hands together before her, as if worried what else they may decide to do if she didn’t control them. The air seemed to hum all around them as they walked, having worn out all subject of smalltalk on their way up here. So they walked in companionable silence, one occasionally glancing at the other while they weren’t looking, smiles playing on their faces all their way back to town. Halfway back, Charlotte dropped her hands, planning on busying herself with the childish activity of pinching the fabric of her skirt in between her fingers to give herself something to do.

She had not anticipated the closeness of Sidney, nor the way her heart leaped when their hands brushed against each other. Sidney glanced down as if shocked, and she just so happened to look up at that moment. They flashed nervous smiles at each other before Charlotte cast her eyes toward the rolling green before them.

“Do you suppose,” she started, breaking their silence, “that I may look forward to another dance with you tonight at the Midsummer ball?”

“With certainty,” he said, perhaps a little too quickly. His mind was whirling with emotions and thoughts he hadn’t had all that much time to process just yet. Feelings that swelled in his breast and made him realize how much he had been missing before circumstance brought Charlotte to Sanditon.

Charlotte, likewise was trying to keep her feet moving and head level as new bursts of feelings and thoughts she’d never previously felt came rushing to the surface. “Do you suppose Georgiana will feel well enough to attend?” She was desperately trying to steer the conversation to something more neutral, but she had the chance to let slip her fledgling emotions before she had a moment to formulate them into something more equivalent to Sidney’s words spoken the night before.

“I think so, yes.”

The town came into view. They really had just bypassed the shops, going straight through to the cliffs without even noticing. Charlotte was not rushing to leave his company, but she also wasn’t certain what would happen if they continued walking through down in the other direction. Her head swirled around their kisses atop the cliff and her cheeks flushed once again. It did not help matters when Sidney quite deliberately slid his hand into hers, their palms flat against each other for the briefest of moments before they came into the eyes of too many passersby.

Her breath caught in her throat and Sidney gave her an assured smile as they reached the shops.

“I would wait for you but I have some matters to attend,” he said, as they came to a halt in front of the dress shop.

Charlotte swallowed and glanced from the window and the clothes inside to Sidney, standing tall before her. “Actually, I’m feeling quite winded from our walk. I may return to Trafalgar Place to rest before returning to get my dress.” It was not a lie, as she did in fact feel winded, though not entirely from the walk itself.

He paused before he seemed to come to his senses. “Of course. I was going to stop in and see Georgiana…”

There was an awkward moment where Sidney frowned a little and Charlotte gathered up her senses and started walking. He fell into place beside her and they continued the little ways to the Parker residence, surrounded by the people of the once-village.

“Thank you, Mister Parker,” she said, as they neared the end of their journey. Mrs. Griffiths’ was just before Trafalgar Place and they paused in the road.

He looked at her in slight preoccupied confusion.

“For the cliffside walk,” she continued, head tilting to the side. “It was...inordinately enlightening.” 

He found her eyes then, and his were soft and kind and made her stomach flutter. His smile was appropriately affectionate, if such a gesture could hold that kind of emotion. “I look forward to seeing you tonight, Miss Heywood,” he said, to which she smiled brightly and nodded. “As do I,” she replied.

They lingered another moment or two before turning their backs on each other to complete their walk to their respective destinations. Sidney paused and looked back as Charlotte got to the front steps, allowing himself one private moment of thought and feeling and intent before she disappeared into the house.

Mary had not been waiting for Charlotte specifically, but she did show a special interest in the younger woman’s return.

“Did you make it to your dress fitting?” she asked, standing from her place at the table in the drawing room.

Charlotte felt mildly dazed and blinked herself back to the reality around her at Mary’s words. “I...no.”

Mary moved toward her with a motherly advance. “Did something happen?”

Charlotte suddenly felt flustered anew. “Yes.”

Mary waited expectantly, though she did herd the poor girl to the sofa as it looked like Charlotte could very well faint, despite her naturally hardy nature. “Is there anything I can do?”

Charlotte was thankful for the seat as her heart beat wildly beneath her ribs like a bird in a cage. “I think there is nothing to do but wait for tonight.”

“For the ball?”

“Yes.”

Mary was a smart woman, and it took little else for her to be able to form her own speculations of what had occurred between Sidney and Charlotte. “Well then,” she said, taking Charlotte’s hand in her own. “We shall make you look as elegant as a princess.”

“I’m no princess,” Charlotte laughed, shaken from her mild shock at her emotions.

Mary smiled. “In any case...why don’t you eat something to regain your strength. I shall go with you to your dress fitting. And, if you wish, you can tell me about your...walk.”

She stood and helped Charlotte to her feet. With her own mother and sisters so far away, Mary was Charlotte’s lone confidant. She had already tried expressing her confusion and emotions to Georgiana but that had no gone over so well.

“Yes, all right,” Charlotte said before she made her way to the kitchens, having no qualms about gathering food for herself. It would do for a distraction, something to ground her whilst her heart wished to carry her off into the sky.

A/N: I love how everyone in the fandom has agreed that Charlotte is a thirsty binch even if she doesn't understand why. I am living with this characterization!

PS. you're welcome for Charlotte saying Sidney's name, I know y'all have been complaining we never got her calling him by his name in the show (at least not to his face).

[mirkwoodshewolf]

Love for a Princess; Tom Holland x reader

*Author’s note*

Okay now for the real reason for all these updates, here is a request that came from an anon who wanted a Tom Holland fic. Thankfully I have written for Tom Holland before (hopefully soon I can transfer what I got on wattpad onto here cause let’s face it I love the boy and idk why I haven’t posted anything beyond the one fic I’ve got of his version of Peter when I know I’ve got like 4 other stories on my wattpad, I am sorry everyone)

So to the anon who requested the fic I hope you find it and I made some slight changes, NOT big but just very small changes but I still hope I did you proud on what you wanted and I also apologize for having you wait so long. Hope you and everyone else who sees this enjoys this loveable fic :)

Taglist:

@psychosupernatural

@plethora-of-things

@ixchel-9275

@platawnic

@waddles03

__________________________________________________________

I was up in my suite watching Spiderman Homecoming for what was probably the millionth time.  I can easily quote it word for word but the main reason why I’ve watched it so many times is because of the newest face taking the mantle of Spiderman, actor Tom Holland.

Sure while I did grow up watching the Toby Maguire version and enjoyed what he brought, and watch the Andrew Garfield saga however his story got a little too dark and I hate to say it boring for me, a bit boring to me.  So when they announced that for the MCU they had brought in this upcoming young actor named Tom Holland, one look at him and it was like I was actually looking at the real life Peter Parker.

What he did for Civil War, he had me at ‘Hey I’m—I’m—I’m Peter.’ Plus you’d have to be blind to say that he’s not cute.  God I just wish that one day I could get the chance to actually meet him, however there’s one slight problem.

“My lady, your mother has rescheduled your badminton practice to 11 o’clock instead of noon, shall I help prepare you?”

“No thank you Niles, I can do it myself. Thanks for the update.”

“Of course your majesty.” That’s why.  See I’m not like other girls, hell I’m not like other people. I’m a princess. No really I mean I’m an actual princess, the Princess of England to be precise. My name is (Y/n) Diana Elizabeth Charlotte (l/n), daughter of Prince Brian and Princess Anita.  I am their eldest child so that would make me next in line for the throne should anything happen to my mother.

I sadly had to stop the movie because it was now half an hour till 11 so I had to get ready.  My maids twin sisters Brigitte and Brigitta came in and they helped gather up my bat-mitting outfit, shoes and hat.

“Here we are Princess, your badminton outfit.” Said the blonde Brigitte.

“Shall we help you change your majesty?” asked the brunette Brigitta.

“No thanks girls I can help myself, you girls take the rest of the afternoon off for lunch.” They curtsied to me but I told them, “Ah-ah what did we talk about?”

“No more curtseys.” Brigitte whispered to her twin.

“Very well (y/n). Just call us if you need anything else” Brigitta answered and the two of them smiled and winked at me and I thanked them before dismissing them. I went into my grand closet and stripped out of my normal clothes and into my badminton outfit.  Once I got on the shoes, placed my hat on and quickly raced down towards the badminton court.  

As I ran through the palace, I was dodged servants and butlers but nearly may or may not have caused some of them to drop some stuff like plates, or accidentally bumped into pillars holding priceless vahzes to which of course were caught by the servants and I apologized profusely before taking ff running again.

“Here I am right on time as promised and I—” I suddenly tripped over my feet and I saw dozens of people coming towards me but I said as I stood up, “I’m good. I’m all good it’s all good.”

“I swear (y/n) you are probably the clumsiest girl I’ve ever seen. Even as a child you were.” I heard my mum tease.

“Mum please!” I whined out.

“Alright my Princess, let’s see what I’ve told you to practice.” My instructor Javier said.

“Bring it on Javey.” I challenged.  He served first and I quickly went after it.

Practice went on for the next hour and a half and by then I was beat and winded.

“Not bad your highness, although your stance is still a little off balance on some of your swings, you’ve got to make sure to pivot your dominant foot before striking the birdie.”

“Yes Javier.” I said as I took a sip of water.

“But other than that well done, your strike is excellent and you’ve got good distance on you. Keep that up and you could go pro if you want to.”

“Thank you again Javier, same time next week?” my mum said and he nodded before taking his leave.  “Oh hey (y/n) guess what?”

“What is it mum?” I asked her.

“Well I’ve heard some news that for the next Marvel movie, they will be filming it here in London.”

“Really? Which movie is it?”

“The next Spiderman movie.” It was then I spat out my water.

“The…the new Spiderman movie…shut…up!”

“I do not lie love.”

“So that means….”

“Yep the entire cast will be filming some scenes here in London.” I then offered a crazy idea, I mean really crazy and I didn’t know if she would allow it but I just had to try.

“Can we invite them over for tea and brunch when they come?”

“Well…..”

“Please mum, please! I’d never wanted anything more than this, you know that!” She looked at me and she said.

“When your father gets done with his meeting I’ll talk to him about it. If he’s in, I’m in.” I squealed and hugged her thanking her repeatedly.

Later that day as I was doing some homework, (mostly political stuff because hell even royalty needs to go to school) when I heard a knock at my door.

“Come in.” It was then both my parents came in.  My dad had his usual stoic face while my mum looked like she just wanted to burst out a secret.

“Your mother tells me you wish to invite some of the cast of the new Spiderman movie over for tea and brunch.” His tone was low and authorative, and I knew whenever he spoke like that, there was no chance of horsing around.

“Yes father.” I spoke softly as I gave my full attention to him.

“Your mother and I talked about it, and she suggests that it would be a good idea for you to hang around people your own age so we’ll send out an invitation for the entire young cast members of the film.” I think at that moment my heart just stopped.

“Are—are you serious?” I as bewildered.  He nodded and that’s when I squealed in pure joy as I hugged him and thanked him repeatedly.  He hugged me back and stroked down my hair and I felt him place a kiss at the top of my head.

“But there are conditions.”

“I better sit down for this.” I sighed as I went back over to my bed.

“First, I will be there with you to meet them.” I nodded and he said, “Second, if I see that you and Tom aren’t with the rest of the group and see the door less than 3 inches open, then they are all out. And number……”

“And number three your father promises not to be an overbearing daddy bear.” Said my mum as she wrapped her arms around his waist leaning against his shoulder.

“We’ll send out the invitation once the cast arrives here for their London location shooting.” With that my parents left my room and once they left I squealed and jumped backwards into my bed literally fangirling out at the fact that I was going to meet Tom Holland.

*Tom’s POV*

Once we had gotten done with the Atlanta shoots, we flew out to my hometown of London. After a day of filming here in London it was then I was told by my manager that I personally had been given a special letter.  Thinking it was from either a loving fan or even my nana (since she still sends in letters, not really tech-savvy) but it wasn’t until I had seen the Royal cross and the special wax-sealing that I began to panic.

“Oh shit, Harry come look at this!” Harry came running into the room and he said.

“Wha What is it?” I then showed him the letter which bared the Royal cross and he said.

“Wow is—is that……”

“Yeah.” I answered breathlessly.

“Well what the hell are you waiting for open it!” I broke the seal and it almost felt like I was waiting my letter to Hogwarts and I unfolded the letter inside and it read.

To Mr. Tom Holland,

My daughter Princess (Y/n) Diana Elizabeth Charlotte (l/n) has expressed pure interest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, specifically the Spiderman movies.  Having been told that the cast would be here, you all are cordially invited to Buckingham Palace to spend one full day with the Princess herself.

You are allowed to bring as many of your younger cast members along to join her for tea and brunch.  Please RSVP us back immediately once you have come to a decision.

Thank you and have a good day and filming process.

Sincerely,

King Brian Harold Harrison Adams (L/n).

Holy shit. The Princess of London is a fan of the Marvel movies.  I thought politicians and rulers couldn’t focus on anything but politics but now knowing that the Princess herself is a fan, it was—mind boggling!

“Well what’s it say?”

“We’ve been invited to Buckingham Palace for tea and brunch with the Princess.”

“Wait, you mean Princess (y/n)? The Princess (y/n)?!”

“Yeah. And she’s even wanting to invite the rest of the cast to come along.”

“Whose invited us to where?” Peeking in was Zendaya and Jacob.

“Guys, we’ve been invited to be amongst London’s royalty.” Answered Harry.

“No freakin way are you serious!?” exclaimed Jacob as he raced over and took the letter from Harry’s hand.

“I shit you not guys.” Said Harry.

“Okay wow this is…..are we supposed to wear anything fancy to the palace? I mean I only had to do a meeting royalty for the Greatest Showman but this—this is the real deal now.”

“It’ll be okay Zendaya, it doesn’t say anything about a dress code so I guess just casual will do, but if you want I guess we could do semi-casual.” I said as I placed my hand on her shoulder trying to calm her down.

“When are we supposed to go?” asked Jacob.

“It say this Thursday.” I answered.

“That’s two days from now.” Harry stated.

“So are we gonna go?” asked Jacob.

“I’ll talk with Jon when we get ready on set and we’ll see what he says.” Man I still can’t believe it, the Princess (y/n) is a fan of the Marvel movies and she’d like to hang out with us.  Somebody pinch me because I must be dreaming.

After talking with Jon about this visitation, he allowed us to have a late afternoon/evening shoot once we got done with our meeting with the royal family.

Finally the day had arrived.

Instead of getting one of our cars ready, a car sent by Queen Anita herself to pick up me and my friends.  As we drove down towards Buckingham Palace, I said to them.

“Okay guys remember we’re gonna be before royalty. So that means no funny business, no insulting or offending stances, and try not to embarrass yourselves.”

“Uhh Tom, I think you should look in the mirror and say that.” Zendaya teased.  I glared at her and soon we felt the car stop. We all looked out and even though I’ve driven past it most of my life, here I was standing right before the actual gates of Buckingham Palace.

“Spiderman Far from home party?” one of the security guards came up to us.  We nodded and he said, “We’ve been expecting you, right this way.” We were escorted throughout the large corridors, all the while I heard Jacob say.

“Wow. Never did I think I would get the chance to walk through an actual castle.”

“I mean I had to but that was just a set. No this is the real deal.” Said Zendaya. We walked for what felt like eternity until finally we reached the grand throne room.

There sitting on the throne were King Brian and Queen Anita.  Our escort then stood before them and said.

“I present to you, King Brian and his fair Queen Anita.”

“Your majesties.” I said as I bowed along with all my friends.

“Oh please rise Tom, you and your friends are no strangers to us. Richard, go fetch our daughter.” Said Queen Anita.

“Yes my Queen.” He bowed and went off to go get the Princess.

“Your palace is amazing your majesties…..uhh your highnesses….I mean….” Jacob started stammering before Zendaya kicked him in the shin making him cry out.

“Thank you Jacob.” Said King Brian gratefully.

“Presenting, her royal highness, Princess (y/n) Diana Elizabeth Charlotte (l/n).” Richard’s voice soon proclaimed.  It was then coming out from the side door was the most gorgeous girl I had ever seen.

She was in a beautiful lavender A-line wickstead dress.  Her hair was done in gentle waves and she wore one of those large sunhats of the same color.  It kinda reminded me of one of those old school movies from like the 30’s or 40’s when the actress would walk in wearing those big hats before revealing the beautiful face underneath.  She walked up towards us and smiled widely.

*My POV*

God I can’t believe they’re really here! Zendaya, Jacob, Harry (Tom’s assistant) and of course the leading man himself, Tom Holland.  They were all dressed up in semi-formal outfits.

“Hi. I’m so glad you all accepted the invitation. I’m a huge fan of the MCU but if I had to pick, then Homecoming if defiantly my #1”

“Wow that’s awesome!” said Jacob.

“Thanks Princess.” Said Zendaya.

“Oh please no formalities I hate that. Call me (y/n). And by the way Zendaya, amazing job in the Greatest showman, I literally can’t stop watching that film.”

“Thanks, you know I did all my own stunts in that right?”

“Shut up!” she exclaimed.

“For real I did, as did Zac.”

“Okay that’s it, you’re officially the coolest person ever!” She grinned and the two of us shook hands with each other.  Guess I already found my best friend of the cast.  I then turned to Tom and said to him. “You’ve been a bit quiet Tom, is everything alright?” He stammered but managed to say.

“Y-yeah. Yeah everything’s…..everything’s fine.” His voice even did that cute little boyish crack.  I smiled and said.

“I hope you weren’t expecting anything grand or different.”

“No!” he suddenly blurted out which echoed throughout the throne room.  He cleared his throat embarrassed and said, “I mean no, not at all. I mean I wasn’t expecting much I mean—” I giggled softly. Oh go he was cuter in person.

“Well, since you all are already dressed, I’ll escort you to the garden where Martin will serve us our tea and brunch. If you all will please follow me.” I then escorted them out of the throne room and out to the garden.

*Tom’s POV*

As we were walking I couldn’t help but think how much of an idiot she must think I am.

“Mate what’s going on with you?” whispered Harry.  I shrugged and that’s when I felt my phone vibrate.  I opened it up to see that Zendaya had texted me saying.

Smooth lover boy

I glared at her and she just grinned smugly at me.

*My POV*

We soon arrived at the garden where Martin and Chessie were serving us brunch and tea. The garden was decored with the finest silk streamers and the tea set we were using today was imported to us from Japan. The finest Japanese tea set we’ve ever had the privilege of owning.

“I hope all of this isn’t too much for all of you. I don’t wish to overwhelm you all.” I said.

“No, no this is great. Never did I think we’d get to go into a real royal palace.” Jacob said.

“And these teacups are so beautifully decorated.” Said Zendaya as she admired her teacup.

“Yeah. It was hand painted by one of the best Japanese painters and sculptures.”

“Wait so this was also sculpted too?” I nodded.  It was then Chessie came in and said.

“So what shall it be today your majesty.”

“Ohh Chessie you know the rules, guest always go first.”

“Right, right forgive me Princess.” Zendaya went and ordered some blueberry French toast, Jacob got the order of deviled eggs, Harry ordered some Egg and cheese hash brown waffles, and surprising Tom asked for my favorite brunch meal the Vanilla crumpets with cinnamon cream.

“So you like vanilla crumpets too?” I asked.

“Yeah uhh….my mum always made them for brunch when I was a kid and I just can’t stop eating them.”

“Yeah, my mum got me into these when we went on a business trip to Madrid. Ever since then I had it immediately put on the brunch menu.” Soon enough the food arrived and I asked, “So how long are you all here shooting in London for?”

“Three months?” questioned Zendaya.

“Yeah about three months. Just to get some of the vacation shots before we have to go back to Atlanta.” Answered Harry.

“So Jacob, Zendaya have you two seen more of the city yet?”

“Not yet, film schedules keep us on our toes that we rarely have any time to go see the sights. And this is my first time visiting London.” Answered Jacob.

“Well if you’re willing as well as with the permission of your director. I’d be more than willing to give you all a royal escort throughout the town. I can even show you my favorite sights.”

“Really you’d do that? Oh thank you your majesty. Uhh I mean (y/n), sorry.”

“It’s okay Jacob.”

“So (y/n), if you had to pick your favorite marvel superhero who would it be?” asked Zendaya.  I blushed and quickly looked to Tom and said.

“Well I mean…..not to be biased since the actor playing my favorite character is here but Spiderman was my first superhero movie I ever saw. Saw it during Toby Maguire’s movies, then I watched the Andrew Garfield ones, wasn’t as into them as Toby but…..when Civil War came out I—guess I found my new favorite Spiderman.”

“Re—really?” Tom asked. I bashfully nodded and I said.

“Yeah, ever since then I’ve been diving into the Spiderman rabbit hole. Reading everything I could. I even have some of the original comic books up in my room.”

“You’re serious? The Original copies!? Like first print editions?” exclaimed Harry.

“Mm-hmm. Got the as birthday presents. Didn’t ask for them but dad has always spoiled me like that. I—only just wish I could’ve met the creator of my favorite franchise. I’m so sorry to hear about him.”

“We never even saw it coming. I mean yeah he was old but every time we saw him he was—just so full of love and life. And now he’s gone.” Tom said solemnly.  I then reached out for his hand, hoping that I wasn’t crossing anything but I said to him.

“Yeah, and I have no doubt in my mind he finally got to see the Spiderman he imagined through you Tom. And—at least he’s now reunited with his wife. It couldn’t have been easy living without her with as long as they’ve been together.” He looked at me and softly smiled before gently squeezing my hand back.  God his hands were so warm.

“He even kept a picture of her in his pocket and he’d look at it every time he was on set with us after she died. He really did love her.” Zendaya said.

“I’d probably do the same.”

“He was a great man, and he’ll be forever missed. To Stan “the Man” Lee.” Harry said as he raised his teacup.

“To Stan “the Man” Lee.” We all joined in the cheers.

After we all had brunch I showed the guys more of the palace grounds.  From the garden, to the meeting rooms, the training facility (cause hey even a royal Princess needs to know how to defend herself) and the shooting range.

“Oh hey guys I haven’t shown you the best part, c’mon follow me!” we all raced along the corridors till we reached my dance room.  In here I’ve got practically every dance game known to mankind from the old school Dance, Dance revolutions, to the current Just Dance. The Michael Jackson experience, Black-eyed Peas experience, and everything else in-between. You name it, I’ve got it.

“Whoa!” the all choired out in awe.

“Welcome to my personal ballroom.”

“(Y/n) this is—this is dope. This is…..you’ve got practically very dance game that’s ever been released. Even the old machine ones that you jump up and down on to match the arrows with.” Said Zendaya.  I entered into the changing room to put on some more casual clothes that are appropriate for dancing and said.

“Yep. So you guys think you can take on the champ?” I bragged.

“Please Princess, I’ve got the high score on Just Dance 3 by beating these three losers.” Zendaya bragged as she tossed her hair aside.

“Well then, care to see who the champion of champion really is?”

“Oh girl you are on.” We slapped hands with each other and I got the game set up. I told the guys where to find some clothes in case they didn’t want to ruin their formal attire and let it get all sweaty. Zendaya came out wearing a black tank top with a pink heart on it as well as yoga pants.  Jacob wore a plain white t-shirt and khaki colored pants, Harry kept his jeans but changed into a grey short sleeved shirt and Tom was wearing a black basket-ball like t-shirt as well as pants.  I adverted my eyes so that I wouldn’t be caught staring at those toned arms of his.

I turned on the X-box 360 and went through the process of getting through the menu and both Zendaya and I signed in as a duel battle.

“Alright you pick the song Z-Daya.”

“Gladly your majesty. And don’t worry I’ll make sure to make it an easy song.” At that point the guys exclaimed as she had burned me.

“Ohh that’s how it is huh?”

“That’s exactly how it is Princess.” She teased.  She scrolled through the menu until she reached ‘Pump it’ by the Black-eyed Peas. “You ready?”

“Are you?” I mocked as I stretched out my arms and gave my legs a good shake off. Zendaya jumped up and down shaking out her nerves and I slide the screen to play.

I’ll admit, Zendaya definitely kept me up on my toes.  It was literally a back and forth of us either nailing the move or one of us missing a step or two.  Our scores were practically neck and neck but in the end she did end up beating me by 100. The boys were all cheering and Zendaya and I clasped hands with each other and hugged it out.

“You weren’t kidding, you truly are the master.”

“Yeah but gotta admit, you’ve worked me harder than those three chuckleheads over there combined.”

“Okay so whose next?” For the next couple hours it was nothing but dance battles. Tom vs. Harry, Harry vs. Jacob, Jacob vs. Tom, Tom vs. Zendaya, and every other combination you can think of. That was until it came to Tom vs. me. I was scrolling through the playlist until Rihanna’s Umbrella came on and at that point everyone but Tom exclaimed.

“DO THAT! THAT’S THE ONE! DO THAT!”

“Ohh god guys no!” Tom groaned.

“Ohh c’mon Tommy honey that’s your song!” Jacob exclaimed.

“Are you guys talking about the time you two were on Lip Sync Battle?” I asked.

“Oh my god you—you saw that?” squeaked Tom.

“Yeah, I didn’t see it live but a friend of mine showed me the Youtube link and I was….amazed. You’re a pretty good dancer Tom, and you definitely pulled off the Rihanna look quite well.” He blushed and cleared his throat and said.

“Okay we’ll—we’ll do it. If you’re game for it.”

“Ohh I’m game. But in the light of us doing this song, if we’re gonna do it….” I quickly raced over to my prop box and pulled out two umbrellas. “We’ll do it right!” I tossed him one of the umbrellas and everyone cheered.  I went back to the controls and scrolled through the list explaining to them, “Let me just find the one with the alternate duel battle of this song. That doesn’t have the umbrella in it.” After about 7 songs, I found it.  “You ready?”

“Let’s do it.” He said.  I pressed the start key and I got into position one.

I gotta say even with a whole different choreography than he learned the first time, Tom still knows how to work an umbrella and how to sensualize himself when the dance called for it.  I was just thankful this wasn’t a Lip sync battle cause otherwise I would’ve definitely lost.

*Tom’s POV*

Wow she was good.  She was…..she knew exactly how to keep in time with each dance move and it….wow she was sensational.  I swore I almost got distracted and almost stopped dancing because I just couldn’t take my eyes off of her.  If I didn’t know any better I’d say that like me she had dancing experiences when she was a child.

By the end of it all she ended up winning but I wasn’t a sore loser about it, I congratulated her on the win.

“Not bad, you still got it.” She said.

“Thanks, hey did uhh—did you ever take dance lessons before?”

“A little bit, mostly ballet but I hated it so I quit within a year. No most of my dancing comes from playing these games.”

“Well you danced like a pro.” I said.

“Care to go for another round?”

“Uhh hate to break it up guys but that was Jake. Says Jon wants us back on set within an hour.” Harry said as he held up his phone.

“Aww man but I was about to break my high score on Crazy little thing called love. And I was gonna have (y/n) be my leading lady!” Zendaya whined out.

“Sorry guys but we gotta go.”

“No problem, go ahead and change and I’ll have a car for you guys outside to escort you back to the set.” She explained but I could sense the sadness in her tone. Call it my own ‘spider sense’ but I could tell she was a bit disappointed in the visit being cut so short. And believe me she wasn’t the only one.

After getting changed back into the clothes we came in with and walking through the hallways to the same path we came in on, Harry pulled me aside and said.

“Alright when you gonna tell her?”

“Tell who what?”

“Don’t play games her Thomas, all day you’ve been making goo-goo eyes at the Princess. When you gonna tell her you love her?” Zendaya pressured.

“Whoa what? Love!? Who—who said anything about love? I mean yeah she’s cute but I—she….” Of course all three of them weren’t buying this and I sighed heavily and said, “So what if I did? Huh? She a Princess. I’m just an actor. I’d never fit in with her class.”

“Bullshit, don’t you know she’s been making the same lovey-dovey look to you. She does love you. And not just because you’re Spiderman dude, you’re a total catch. Now let her reel you in!” Zen lectured me.

Soon we reached the main entrance and walked out of the palace and there standing by the same driver that brought us here was (y/n).  We all walked towards her and she said.

“Thank you all again for accepting my invitation this…was the most fun I’ve had in years.”

“Thank you (y/n) for inviting us. I really hope we can hang out again sometime.” Jacob said as they shook hands with each other and he got into the car first.  Zen walked up to her and said.

“See yah later Princess.”

“See you Zendaya, and I promise next time we meet on the dance battlefield, I will show you why I am the champion.”

“I’ll be counting on that.” They clasped hands with each other before hugging each other and she went into the car.  Harry walked up to her and bowed his head.

“Thank you your royal highness for this lovely day.” He spoke with such a posh tone it was laughable, and (y/n) seemed to agree with it.

“You are most welcome kind Harrison.” He took her hand and kissed the back of it just to irk me before getting into the car.  Finally it was my turn.  The two of us stood face to face with each other and we both spoke up at the same time.

“I just wanted—” we both laughed nervously and I told her to go first.

“I….especially want to thank you for coming. I—didn’t think you’d come personally.”

“I maybe an actor but I’m not like all those spoiled kid actors that throw tantrums if they don’t get their way.” She smiled and continued,

“Still it—made me happy that you all accepted the invitation.”

“Thank you for inviting us. And hey if—if you have time to come by the set, I’ll personally see to it that you are given all access to everything. Just as long as you don’t spoil it.”

“Don’t worry I won’t. I’m not like you when it comes to spoilers.” I gawked at her which made her laugh some more but I didn’t retaliate cause it was true. “Well, goodbye Tom.” She held her hand out to me and I took it and we shook on it.

“Goodbye, (y/n).” she smiled before finally letting go of my hand and she started heading back up the stairs towards the palace.  Graaahhh! You bloody idiot go after her! This could be the last time you see her! Go. After. Her. C’mon Spiderman! “(Y/n) wait!” I raced up towards her and I quickly said as I gripped her shoulders, “I pray I don’t get shot for this.” Then I went for it.

I kissed her, right on the lips.

I felt her tense up but she didn’t push me away.  I felt her wrap her arms around me as the kiss deepened a bit before we finally separated.  The two of us softly panting and I said.

“God I—I’m sorry I-I-I-I just….it’s just that I….” she interrupted me by kissing me again before whispering.

“You have no idea how long I’ve dreamed for this to happen.”

“R-really?”

“Yeah. Sorry if that sounds creepy.”

“No! No not at all. I—it’s just when you first walked out it….it looked like I was looking at an angel, oh god that sounds so cringy doesn’t it?”

“A little. But also sweet. Most boys that I meet either just want to get to the crown or just treat me as a Princess. They don’t see me for what’s underneath, and I’m glad you got to see that.”

“Anytime. So…..are we….” I drawled out as I gestured between the two of us.  She giggled and said.

“Only if you’re okay with it.”

“I’m okay if you’re okay.”

“Okay then we’re okay.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Alright this is getting old.” She joked which made us both laugh.

“Can I….get your number?” She nodded and we exchanged phone numbers with each other and I sent her a test text and once she got it, she simply replied with a heart emoji.  “I’ll give you a call whenever we get done filming.”

“Sounds good, have fun filming. Spiderman.” I smiled at her and gave her one last kiss before she turned and walked back up towards the palace.

From the car I could see the guys all giving me emphasized winks and thumbs up. I rolled my eyes at them but I couldn’t help but thank those guys in the end.  If they hadn’t gotten me to admit that I had fallen in love with (y/n), I wouldn’t have gotten the guts to kiss her and show her how I felt about her.

As I got into the car, I couldn’t help but stare down at her message and so I sent her a kissy face emoji along with a little message. That typical three word phrase “I Love you” MY Princess.

[ladykateofledfordpark]

Not Mary Jane (Charlotte’s Diary)

This entry is inspired by Day 6 of the Choices August Challenge hosted by @cora-nova!

Dedicated to @mariaoz and @itsbrindleybinch , my wonderful Jaime-loving friends! =D

Tagging also the amazing @jlpplays1 @desiree-0816 @lady-kato @a-i-n-a-a-s-h and @flyawayboo ! Thank you for all your support! =D

Day 6 Prompt: Hippie

Pairing: Jaime x MC (Charlotte)

Summary: The Halloween party fails spectacularly for Charlotte.

Note: This takes place after Fiona’s party, an important moment in the story. I’ll hopefully upload that entry soon, but as you read this just know that Jason is a nice guy Charlotte met there.

Unedited.

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10.31..2011

Dear Diary,

Only a few hours ago, Halloween was here. Dawn and I already bought everything we needed for the party, and Shane and Jaime agreed to meet us at my house. The party was bound to be somewhat interesting, considering that only a month ago I went on my first date with Jason. So far everything was going smoothly, and I really hoped tonight wouldn’t be the night everything gets ruined.

“Look at me!” Dawn smirked. She turned around, her blue dress shining more than anything else in the whole room. It was too much. 

I winced and shifted my gaze, wondering how Shane would be able to bear this walking glowstick as his friend-date. “You’re too sparkly. Change the dress.”

Dawn turned back to the mirror, gazing thoughtfully at her reflection. “Well, I like it. It does scream popstar, doesn’t it?”

I shook my head. “You’re cruel.”

Dawn turned to me. She raised a brow at my ginger wig and simple clothes. “You’re really going to wear this?”

I hesitantly touched my red hair. “I guess. Jason is a Spiderman fan, and we wanted to share a costume. There wasn’t much else to choose from, so I guess it’s this.”

She frowned. “Are you sure? You don’t even like superheros.”

“It’s okay,” I shrugged. “We watched this movie on our first date. The idea behind the costume is romantic.”

She sighed. “If you’re sure.”

Once we were sure everything was ready, we headed downstairs. After many minutes of boredom, there was a sudden knock on the door. Both Dawn and I hurried to the door, finding both of the boys standing at the entrance.

Dawn jumped on Shane, who hugged her back, chuckling. “You look great, Shane!”

He sighed and smiled sheepishly. “Thanks.”

I smiled at Shane’s simple costume. He wasn’t wearing much: jeans, a white t-shirt, a necklace of the ‘peace’ sign. It didn’t make him look like a model, but that’s how last-minute costumes worked.

I turned to Jaime, and blushed when I saw his outfit. He was almost the embodiment of Aladdin in his baggy pants and purple vest. Jaime’s mom always went all out every year, which was what gave us the option to dress up every year. Ever since we were kids we dressed up together, a different movie each year. When I was younger she worked on both costumes, but once I was older I worked on mine alone, and sometimes side by side with her. It may have been strange to other people, but Jaime’s mother was almost family, so it wasn’t all that embarrassing.

This was the first year Jaime and I didn’t match, and something about it broke my heart. It was basically tradition, and seeing the sudden change right in front of my eyes… well, it was disorienting. I guess this is another downside to puberty.

“Jaime… you look…”

“It’s fine, Char. You don’t need to say it.” He smiled weakly as he studied my outfit. Something shone behind his eyes, but it didn’t seem like glee. It was almost… sad.

“What’s wrong?” I found myself asking.

Jaime met my eyes. Once again I was struck by the wisdom in his eyes, one of the things I loved the most about him. “Are you sure you should go like this, Char? We could always wear last year’s costumes.”

I lowered my head. “I can’t. I promised Jason I’ll meet him like this.”

“Wearing a wig for a costume of something you don’t even like? Really, Char?”

I backed away. A strange fire lit inside me, and I didn’t try to hold it back. “What do you care, Jaime? You already showed how much you liked my hair.”

Don’t look at me like that, with your annoying empty pages. He did just raise his voice at me, okay?

Jaime swallowed. He clenched his fists and opened his mouth, but then turned away. “I’ll be in the car,” he declared before walking off. I watched, the same feeling still simmering inside of me, when Dawn turned to me. “Char, you took it too far.”

“Why? It’s the truth.”

“Can’t you see? Jaime just-” Dawn shook her head before taking hold of my arm. “Whatever, let’s go.”

I hated the way she took such a strong grip on me, but I reluctantly went with her and Shane to the car. Ever since Fiona’s party, Dawn and Jaime acted strange around each other. It was almost as if they now shared a secret about me, and I didn’t even know it.

Actually, that probably is the situation.

There was even more silence on the way there. Jaime talked a bit with Dawn and Shane, but the second Shane parked, he left the car. He did wait for the other two, but he wouldn’t even look at me.

It hurt. It really did, but I don’t need him. He’s just a boy.

I smiled when I saw Jason. He was dressed as the other half of me, a young and handsome Peter Parker. His outfit was just like in the movie I hardly remembered: just a normal attendant with a secret no-one knew.

In this case, the secret was his costume. Seriously, no one could tell what we dressed up as.

Not that he cared. And I didn’t either.

“Charlotte!” he called as he saw me. I ran to him, away from brooding Jaime and judgemental Dawn. Into his arms, into safety. He held me close as he gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “Let me show you off to a few of my friends.”

I forced a smile. “Okay.”

Jason wrapped his arm around my waist as he gently led me to a group of older guys. They were fairly friendly, which was more than good, considering none of my friends were. Maybe I could’ve exchanged this group for Jaime and the others. They’re not bad.

“Anyway, this is Mary Jane,” Jason said after a few short sentences. I nodded in confirmation, when I realized he didn’t use my name. Mary Jane?

“Nice to meet you, Mary Jane.” One of the guys smirked. He scanned me curiously before his smile grew. “Yup, you’re fairly similar to Spiderman’s Mary Jane. What a coincidence.”

My cheeks heated up. A strange mix of embarrassment and anger filled me. Why did I think this was a good idea?

“I’m not Mary Jane,” I denied, but the guys didn’t hear me. They were too busy laughing at the hilarious joke.

I forcefully tugged on Jason’s arm. At first he didn’t budge, but I wasn’t just going to stand here and wait for him. So finally, after a few more minutes of humiliation, we were gone.

I could finally breathed in relief. Well, those guys were jerks.

“Char, what’s wrong? You acted weird over there,” Jason uttered. 

I turned so I was facing him, trying to hold the powerful forces inside. “I am not Mary Jane. This is a costume, Jason. A costume.”

He grinned. “Hey, relax, Char. I was only kidding.”

I huffed. “Fine, but please… don’t do it again.”

“If you care so much, Char, I won’t. Ok?”

I clenched my teeth. “Of course, thank you.”

The next half hour was fine. Jason continued with his jokes, but now they weren’t targeted at me. Yes, I was still upset from earlier, but slowly I was starting to forget it ever happened. He meant it as a joke, after all.

At some point Jason left me to talk to another one of his friends, leaving me alone. I sighed and searched the room for any other familiar faces, and stopped when my gaze fell on Jaime.

By now my anger wasn’t completely gone, but I was still able to apologize. So I forced myself in his direction, trying to ignore the rapid beating of my heart. It would be okay. It would be okay.

Jaime stood on the side, talking to a girl I didn’t even know. She seemed cute and likable, but something about her rubbed me the wrong way.

I tried to catch Jaime’s attention, but he was too engrossed in the talk he had with the girl. I stood there, debating whether to persist, when a warm hand touched my back.

“Hey, I’m back.” Jason smiled. He moved so he was blocking my field of vision, so now I couldn’t see Jaime. I frowned as I tried to pass Jason, but he held onto me with persistence.

Reluctantly, I gave in. “What?”

Jason smiled. “Well, I was wondering if-”

Before he could finish the sentence, someone pushed me from behind. I fell sideways, and just as I was about to hit the floor Jason caught me.

The group of jerks from before started cheering, and soon enough people were applauding “the hero”. I was so stunned I just took it all in, but then one of his friends called out.

“And Peter Parker saves Mary Jane again!”

I fumed. Seriously? They push me when I’m right next to Jason, and suddenly I’m a damsel in distress?

I had enough. “Jason.”

He still smiled when he saw how angry I was. “Yes, Mary Jane?”

I tried not to explode, but I was burning inside. “Was this your plan?”

“It was just a joke, Char. Relax.” 

Jason moved to cup my face, but I moved his hand away. His smile wasn’t nearly as charming as it was the first time we met. “Pushing me is not a joke, Jason! You may want to seem like a hero, but I don’t need some superhero to save me! I can very well stand up for myself, and my feet can hold me perfectly fine when people aren’t pushing me to prove a point! So leave me alone!”

I turned my back to him as I walked away. I ignored all the stares on me and my strange costume as I rushed outside. I didn’t want to stay here one second longer than I had to. If that meant I would walk home, then so be it.

Hurried footsteps chased me. I turned toward the chaser, when I saw Jaime’s dark eyes. They weren’t cold, like before, but rather sweet and worried. “Hey, Char. Where are you going?”

“Home.”

Jaime bit his lip. He turned around, and I saw the girl from before waiting for him patiently. He was busy, even if he wanted to accompany me.

I watched him. His gaze shifted between the two of us, and when his eyes fell on me for the last time, I knew he decided.

“I’m coming with you.” He declared.

I gaped at him. “Are you sure?”

Jaime nodded. “Positive.”

And then we started walking. Jaime’s warmth was so comforting, almost like the warm blankets of my bed. It felt so good to just bask in him and forget about everything, as if this beautiful world included just us.

I’ll dream about that tonight. Tomorrow I’ll write the rest.

Sincerely,

Charlotte (NOT Mary Jane)

[cookiedoughmeagain]

Haven Syfy DVD Commentary for 4.05 - The New Girl

In which Brian Millikin (writer for the episode) talks with great enthusiasm and at a million miles an hour throughout almost the whole thing, with the exception only of interludes from Nick Parker, another of the writers. Seriously; I think every other commentary I’ve listened to has a least one moment where the talk dries up either because they struggle to think of interesting information to impart or because they simply get distracted by actually watching the episode. But these guys have so much stuff to say, it’s totally awesome. IIRC both acted as script co-ordinators before becoming writers, which leads me to think that script co-ordinators should do episode commentaries more often. I have tried to summarise/paraphrase but keep the spirit of what they’re saying :)

It was decided from pretty early on that this would be the episode that Audrey would come back to Haven, except she wouldn’t be Audrey, and that at the end of the episode Duke (and only Duke) would know that in fact she really is Audrey. And that in the next episode Nathan would find out it’s her too.

As a writer you always hope that you’ll get to work on certain episodes but you never really know because the order is decided independently of the content of the episodes, so Brian was glad/lucky to get assigned episode 5 as this was one he wanted to work on. Because he was excited about this idea of everything in the whole episode acting to convince the other characters and the audience that Audrey is not Audrey - until the last few minutes. And so it acts almost like another pilot episode with a new character in Lexie, and as another introduction for the viewers to the Haven mythology. And so it was fun to subvert that expectation at the end. They were very clear that the episode be done so that it could work without that revelation at the end; that everything up to that point is 100% as if it could be Lexie’s first episode in Haven.

Wanting Lexie to be as un-Audrey-like as possible but still have the same ‘underlying decency’ that all of her incarnations have always had.

This scene [Lexie and Nathan in the Herald at the beginning] was designed as a way to kick off the story of these two characters and Nathan’s story for the episode which in a way is all about him; Nathan as the emotional heart of the episode and the audience surrogate. Nathan wanted Audrey back on both a personal/emotional level and because it gives him a way to make up for shooting Howard and stopping the Troubles from ending. The idea for the episode being that he doesn’t want Lexie there but at some point during it he sees something in her and warms to her a bit.

The restaurant they shoot at is actually “The Rope Loft” - they didn’t change the sign for filming. Brian; “It’s a great place, we go there all the time.”

We needed this episode in some way to put Nathan and Lexie in some uncomfortable situation together. The actor playing Josh did a great job; he was actually locked in to the kitchen, with no air conditioning and no ventilation. Brian; “He goes so all-out here and we did this take after take after take. We all thought he was acting when he collapses on the floor - but he didn’t get back up again. He’d actually passed out.” The paramedics checked him out and he was fine, but he had actually fainted. He really committed to it even though it was only one scene so it was great.

The Trouble was picked for this episode very specifically. You always want the Trouble for the episode to help you tell the story about the characters, or for it to have some kind of thematic parallel. For this one, it’s an episode where the characters are dealing with someone else in Audrey’s body, so a Trouble where someone can jump into someone else’s body was a good fit. We all knew immediately that Emily Rose would enjoy being able to play someone other than Audrey and this seemed like a great opportunity to throw the same thing at Eric Balfour. And he did a great job with that too. And that allowed us to set up a scene towards the end of the episode where it’s just Lexie and Duke there so that he alone gets the chance to figure out that she’s really Audrey.

So this was a Trouble they had talked about before. Nick; “It’s been in the Trouble Bank for quite a while.” And the brought it out here because it made the most sense for this episode. Nick; “This is a good example of figuring out what would be thematically resonant and going through our Trouble Bank and finding something that fits. We have about 40 pages of Trouble ideas; some quite good, some not so good.”

Brian appreciating the skills of the director for the episode, who was a director of photography previously and how everything for this whole episode looks great and he got terrific performances out of the cast, and really understood where Brian was going with the episode. The idea that there are three episodes for every one you make; the one you write, the one you shoot, and the one you edit. And they are usually all a bit different from each other, they can be very different from each other, but for this one, there was not much shift from one to the other. The final version was pretty close to the original concept; it felt like everyone involved bought into the idea behind it and so it worked out really well.

[As we see Lexie at the second crime scene with the police radio] At this point we needed Lexie to activate herself a little bit. Up to this point she’s been going along with things, but now she’s a little bit more invested (because she met Charlotte before she died) and interested in finding out what’s going on. So it’s that underlying decency again that even though she’s a bartender with no training in this stuff, she still cares, and here she is taking ownership of it and showing that she wants to be involved.

[As Jennifer brings Lexie some of Audrey’s clothes] This was a different scene originally; there was a scene with Wade and Jennifer and Duke where Jennifer was getting Audrey’s clothes, but that got cut due to production challenges so they had to have Jennifer bring the clothes to a crime scene instead. Brian; “And we hoped no one would ask why Jennifer just showed up at this crime scene. But that kind of thing works because the actors are great at selling it. And Emma Lahana was terrific. She joined the cast this year and I think really elevated the level of the show.” Nick: “It’s some of the best and luckiest casting we’ve ever done.”

Brian; “I was really lucky with this episode that I got to push the Duke/Jennifer storyline along in a really big way.” Audrey coming back being a big deal for Jennifer because the reason she’s been in Haven up to this point (looking for Audrey) is suddenly gone. What’s Jennifer supposed to do now that she’s suddenly “the fourth wheel”. In a sense she has served her purpose and she’s afraid that Duke is going to see it that way.

Nick; “What I like about this episode is that even though Duke isn’t in control of his body for most of it, it still gets Jennifer to a point where she decides to stay in Haven.” Brian: “That’s really what sold me on the idea of the episode” that thing you often see of having the characters affected by a love potion that allows their story to be pushed forward in a way those characters might not have done otherwise, and in this situation possessed Duke was able to push some of the character story lines forward in an interesting way.

Lexie struggling to pronounce Nathan’s surname as one of Brian’s favourite lines in the episode and how they had to cut Lucas Bryant’s ad lib there where he tells her that Wuornos is Polish. They liked it but they had to cut it for time. Brian; “This was a great opportunity to have a character in here who would react to the others like a normal person would: Your name is ridiculous; this town is crazy.”

[As they find the orderly dead in Tyler’s bed] Nick: “This is the spookiest thing ever because he looks exactly like you.” Brian; “A bunch of people I know who watched this episode when it aired emailed me like; That was a crazy cameo! I’m not in the episode, but they all thought this was me. We only stuck glasses on him to make sure he definitely looked different from Tyler. But he also needed to look like Tyler from behind so that they could walk up to the body.”

Discussion of the specific things they had to work into the story to make the plot work; the get well cards that are not only there but that Lexie draws our attention to by noticing; the business card that Nathan handed to Tyler and the drinks ticket that Duke handed him. Those things were in the episode not so much because Nathan is being professional and Duke is being a nice guy but because they needed to have them both give Tyler something which could then act as this kind of talisman giving Tyler the option of possessing both of them. Brian; “These are the kind of things that you just have to squeeze in and hope that no one notices that you’re squeezing them in.” Nick; “I think they worked well. Duke did end up looking like a nice guy.” Brian; “I think it worked pretty well. And luckily the case of the week isn’t really the big story in this episode. The big story here is Nathan and Lexie.”

[As Lexie and Nathan look at the security footage in Tyler’s room] Nick; “What I like about this scene is that this is Audrey pretending to be Lexie, so she’s doing her detective work but she has to also cover up the fact that she’s actually Audrey. So she’s posing her theories as questions to Nathan and trying to lead him down the path that he’s going down. It works well.”

[As Nathan and Lexie find Duke upstairs] All of this set was built of the sound stage as they needed there to be a place in the hospital where no one else would be to hear Nathan and Lexie banging on the door once puppet Duke has locked them in. So they “invented this abandoned morgue wing” as an extra space in the hospital that no one goes to. The corridor stretching away behind Duke when we first see him there on the phone to Nathan is not really there; it’s a backdrop - a painting effectively, hung in the doorway.

[As puppet Duke locks Nathan and Lexie in the storage room] Brian comments this is where the episode really took off for him, everything up until here is set up. There were times when he was writing the script when he almost moved this scene to the end of act 2 (rather than the end of act 3 where it actually is).

Both of them agreeing that Eric Balfour’s performance as Tyler is fantastic; “it feels like a completely different person.” Brian; “Eric got applause from the crew” on finishing this scene [where he’s locking them in the storage room] and after Tyler’s death scene “and I’ve been on set for six or seven episodes now and I don’t think that’s happened before.”

Talk of how the cast [Eric, Emily and Lucas] really made the script work so well, and it being a great decision by the director to cut back to Tyler’s body having seizure’s in the basement while Tyler is using Duke’s body to point a gun at Nathan and Lexie; working really well as a really spooky indicator of the fact that it’s this guy who is in control of Duke’s body. They had scripted in to cut back to Tyler’s body once or twice but the director had the great idea to film Tyler saying the whole thing so they could cut back to him as they wanted.

[As Dwight is showing Jordan all the research in the bunker] How they were so pleased with this set and had planned to and wanted to use it much more than they ended up doing. It was tough to shoot in because it’s a small space and so they ended up having characters referring to it rather than actually being in there. But it looked great and they needed to give Dwight and Vince and Dave a place where they had been researching options for how to end the Troubles once the cycle got disrupted. And they didn’t find anything, showing that “this hairbrained scheme” of getting Lexie to fall for Nathan is still the best bad idea they’ve got.

Jordan’s idea of having Duke kill Lexie so that the Crocker Curse ends the Troubles as a good idea of hers but Dwight also being completely right that Duke would never ever do that. And so they knew that this would be the episode where Jordan would find herself a different Crocker.

Liking the actor who played Wade and wishing they could have used him more. There was only one bad thing about him and that was that “we didn’t have enough of him.” Brian; “And it wasn’t our fault, it wasn’t his fault but it just worked out scheduling wise that we were going to lose him but the end of episode seven all of a sudden and we thought we’d have him for at least one more episode so we had to accelerate his story a little bit.

Duke has been keeping the Troubles secret from Wade to protect him but “like all good secrets, especially on TV shows, while Duke had the best of intentions, it’s going to work out for the worst. Because what Wade doesn’t know is going to get him into a lot of Trouble.”

Nathan and Lexie locked in the storage room as another of Brian’s favourite scenes for the episode. Lucas actually broke the set door as Nathan is trying to bust them out of the room. Acknowledging it’s a bit of a trope to have two people stuck in some place like this but they had to do it with Nathan and Lexie so that Nathan “is forced to deal with her.” Brian’s enthusiasm for the scene and the direction and the actors making it work so well, and Nathan testing one more time to see if Audrey’s in there by asking her about pancakes. And loving Lexie’s reaction to the pancakes. How when Brian wrote that he didn’t think it would make it to the final cut (same for her inability to pronounce Wuronos) and so being glad they both made it; “Emily really liked it, and she sold it.”

[As Jennifer comes to tell Duke she’s leaving] How this is the point where Tyler starts to get an idea and to realise that maybe being Duke Crocker isn’t so bad. He came to the Gull to take some money but now he realises maybe he can take something else. Nick; “Yeah because Duke’s got a great life; he’s good looking, he’s got money, he’s got a hot girlfriend.” Nick; “The tragedy of that moment I really enjoy.  The first time they kiss, after growing closer for all this time, Duke isn’t even in control of his body.” Brian agrees that only in a supernatural TV show can your first kiss not be your first kiss at all.

[As Lexie is trying to pick the lock] Brian; “We cut a line here and it kills me. That Nathan can’t pick locks not because he doesn’t know how to (because it seems like everyone on every TV show does) but because he can’t feel it. And it’s the sort of thing that you have to feel in order to do it.” But they had to cut it (and other lines from this scene) for time. And saying again what a great job the actors do here.

Talking about the moment when Nathan admits to Lexie that he wants her to be someone else. And how that would be difficult for Lexie to hear, “but from Audrey’s perspective, she’s actually quite touched to hear that.” And how Audrey in this episode is probably “learning more about Nathan’s devotion to her” that she has until now.

[Duke and Jennifer in the landrover as she realises it’s not really him] How they needed Jennifer to give something to Duke so that Tyler can take it inside to his actual body and thereby have the option to possess Jennifer too. This as another thing that Brian wrote not thinking it would stay, so being glad that it worked out.

[As Jennifer meets up with Nathan and Lexie outside the hospital] Brian; “This scene was an important one and it was there from the get-go before we even had an outline. Because what we needed was to manufacture this situation for the climax of the episode where only Lexie can go inside.” This moment where Lexie suggests it and surprises Nathan with that and kind of proves herself to him with that. And this being another turning point in the Nathan-Lexie story. And how this is Audrey trying to convince Nathan to let her go inside whilst also having to still pretend be Lexie. And how their thinking was that for Audrey, if Nathan had refused to accept the idea of Lexie going inside, then Audrey would have to have revealed herself to him as Audrey here. But luckily Nathan has come around to Lexie enough that he gives her his gun and lets her go inside.

Brian saying that he wrote this neglected basement storage room and being really pleased with how the set was put together. The ‘Free Drinks, Duke’ note was the director’s and Brian’s handwriting.

In this basement scene there was originally a moment where silver-eyed Duke picks up Lexie by the neck and holds her up against the wall. Brian; “We spent a lot of time shooting this sequence and then it got cut out for time, but I actually think it works better without it.” Nick; “Yeah, I think it’s stronger for not having it.”

[As Tyler slams the axe into his chest] Brian; “This moment I was concerned it wouldn’t come across clear enough, but I think it did. I mean look, how scary, how great that looks. This was all the actors freaking out here as Duke and Tyler die, which turned out to be exhausting … Eric did a bunch of takes of him convulsing on the wall and floor and he was exhausted.

Brian, commenting on the way the Trouble ended; “Tyler actually had a really great plan. He just picked the one wrong body to possess.” It might have seemed like a good idea because “Duke is a good-looking guy, he gets all the women, he owns a boat, he owns a restaurant/bar, he’s a pirate …” Nick; “He’s a wanted criminal in eight different countries.” Brian; “... what more could you want? Except for the fact that you should not use him to kill your own Troubled body because he’s going to eradicate your Trouble” and the whole thing will backfire.

[As Lexie is stood by Audrey’s desk looking at her stuff and Nathan comes in to talk to her]; This was a quirk of production that this was the last thing they shot on the first day of filming and they were running out of time. So they didn’t have time to set up for the two different angles they would otherwise have done, so they had to do the whole thing with both actors facing the same way. Both Brian and Nick agree it worked out really well for the scene, because they get to stand close together “which is really important for their characters” but also Nathan doesn’t really look at her, which is also important because he’s struggling with the idea that on some level he’s beginning to warm to her and to see a future for Lexie in Haven. Whether it involves anything romantic for him or not, he’s starting to think that maybe he can do this. Nick; “Emily Rose did such a great job of playing Lexie, particularly in this scene. She really sells the idea that she is a different person.” Brian; “Oh absolutely. And what you also get is the idea that Audrey is there too looking out at Nathan, hating the fact that she’s doing this to Nathan but this is what she has to do.” Because she doesn’t want to be forced to kill him, she’s pretending to be Lexie to protect him. “There’s very few moments where Emily could show that on Lexie’s face, and that was one of them.”

[As Duke talks to Wade] Brian; “We knew all along that we wanted Duke to remember what happened with his body while he was possessed. It made for the best drama because we wanted Duke to sort of feel bad, but not feel bad” about what he did to Wade and Jennifer. “And it ended up being a useful concept that will come back as we progress into season five.” As Duke is apologising to Jennifer, Nick says this is an interesting scene because Duke is apologising for something that happened while he wasn’t in control of his body but that he himself did want to do. And how the whole thing works well because it gets them to this place where they both now have an idea how the other feels. Brian talks about how this scene was initially written with a joke where Duke is being a bit sarcastic telling Jennifer she has to move out of the apartment before asking her to move into the boat, but on the day the actors played it more heart-felt and that was the way it worked for those characters and that scene and describing it as another example of where the actors made the scene better.

Nick comments how bad ass Jordan looks in her sleeveless with her arms on show because of her Trouble; “She’s just putting it out there that she’s dangerous.” Brian; “It might have been weird on anyone else, but Kate Kelton really sells it.” Nick: “Yeah. She’s just so scary.” Brian; “Yeah. And she’s not afraid. When you can see her skin like that it tells you something about her head space.”

Nick; “I love that we’ve shot so many episode codas on the Grey Gull deck because it’s really beautiful there and it just seems like the kind of place I would go to say something important to someone I cared about.”

Brian; “So this final scene is the one where we could have ended the episode 30 seconds ago and no one would have been any the wiser” about Lexie really being Audrey. “But we wanted to pull the rug out from everybody.” Brian also talks about how it was the director’s idea to focus on Lexie/Audrey’s face as she realisesDuke know who she is and how Brian thinks that worked out really well because we can see both her and Duke at the same time for this key moment. “And we’re on her face the whole time and it’s so much better because of it.” Nick comments that you can see the moment Audrey drops the facade of being Lexie. Brian; “An example of how things can get better in editing is we cut the last line of this episode. In the script, after Audrey admits it’s her, she pulls out of the hug to look at Duke and tell him ‘But you can’t tell anyone’. But we cut that final line and it was better because of it.” Brian says he’s pretty happy with it as an episode and full credit to the cast and crew and director for making it work out so well.

[myspideysensesrtingling]

In My Way (1)

IN MY WAY: THE COUPLE FROM NEW YORK

Pairing: (eventual) Peter Parker x Female!OC

Words: 2504

Warnings: none!

Notes: first fic alert! I hope you enjoy it!

Summary: Charlotte spends her days devoted to learning both in and out of class. She’s grown accustomed to this lifestyle and even accepted that she’ll grow up at the orphanage. So when an unnamed couple calls and wants to adopt her, she’s nothing short of intrigued.

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Sunlight crawled along the old wood floor, slowly reaching and creeping up her bed and onto her face. Closing her eyelids a little tighter, Charlotte rolled over in her twin cot for just one more breath before the day began. She inhaled deeply as she sat up and reached for the ceiling, a monstrous yawn escaping from her lips despite her long night of sleep. Slowly twisting around to stretch her back next, she stole a glance at the clock - 6:28 am. Two minutes before her alarm would go off - right on time.

It was another summer Monday like any other: quiet in the house for at least a little longer. The other children would wake up sometime in the next half hour and the volume level would quickly escalate. Charlotte loved to enjoy these moments of silence at the start of each day. Turning her alarm off, she rotated to face away from the window, sliding her legs out from under the blankets. Her toes just touched the ground; she pressed into them as she shifted her weight to stand up. Rolling her neck around on her head to alleviate some typical stiffness, she crept around the other cots with kids still snoozing to get to her dresser. She reached into the top drawer labeled "GIRLS 13&UP" and fished around for a moment before pulling out a light long sleeve shirt and some running shorts. She slipped them on gingerly, followed by a pair of well-worn white socks, and laced up her scuffed running shoes. The traction on the bottom was nonexistent, worn completely flat from covering many more miles than the shoes were meant for. As she left the girls' dormitory, she grabbed a hair tie and slipped her chest-length strawberry-blonde hair into a high ponytail.

This was a normal routine for Charlotte; each day, she would wake before anyone else in the house and slip downstairs without notice of the majority of the residents. Before sneaking out the back door, she caught a glimpse of light glowing out of the office of the headmaster, a slightly heavy-set brunette in her late fifties who dressed the same every day. Charlotte knocked softly and, upon hearing confirmation, pushed on the handle to swing the heavy door open, revealing Miss Johnson already scanning over paperwork on top of her desk.

"Good morning, Charlotte," Miss Johnson uttered, already focused on her work, "are you planning to go on your usual run?"

"Yes, ma'am," Charlotte replied, eager as these morning jogs were a privilege she was not prepared to lose. "And--good morning to you, too, of course."

"Here's your tracker. Stay within the property line and be back within an hour." Miss Johnson quickly returned her attention back to the papers in front of her as Charlotte took the location-tracking watch and fastened it to her wrist. Charlotte was by far the oldest at the orphanage at the age of 15 (almost 16, as Charlotte counted down the days), which granted her some freedoms. These rules only allowed kids above the age of 13 to use these tracking devices so they could pass the tree line and venture into the forest that lay beyond the courtyard behind the orphanage. This was where the other kids - all under the age of ten - played in a recess-like setting under supervision by the teachers on the grounds. Though filled with outdoor toys and games, this didn't afford them much room to play as the tree line sat quite close to the building. It was the forest that extended far beyond and opened up to multiple trails. These were used primarily in science classes to test the environment or for hikes that substituted for P.E. classes, but Charlotte loved the serenity of being outside in the trees in the morning when the world felt quiet and belonged completely to her. When she turned 13, she quickly took advantage of the freedoms granted by the rule. She never pushed the boundaries, though - breaking rules was not something Charlotte had experience in.

Charlotte crept out the back door and into the sun as it slowly climbed higher above the horizon and inched its way up the sky. After stretching her legs briefly and rolling her shoulders each way, she strolled toward the forest edge at the back of the yard. She walked in a little way to keep loosening her muscles and, upon reaching the tree with the bird's nest perched on a low branch she could almost see into when standing on her toes, jogged off.

This time had become an adventure despite knowing her usual route and the landmarks in the forest as well as she knew her own name. That said, she didn't know a third of her name. Over 15 and a half years ago on a late December night, Miss Johnson hustled to a knock at the door only to find Charlotte as an infant on the doorstep in a small basket with a typed note reading "Charlotte Maeve XXX---9/26/2001." Drops of rain from the overhang on the porch had fallen onto her small face and the note, causing the ink of the last name to run and rendering it illegible. Despite hours of research on where the mysterious child came from, child services was unsuccessful in determining Charlotte last name or in even finding any record of her. They then somewhat randomly picked the last name Anderson for her and Charlotte Maeve Anderson then existed in the system under the care Miss Johnson and the other teachers at the Children's Home of Seattle. That was the extent of Charlotte's knowledge about her past. It was 2017 now and she had other things to think about; she rarely concerned herself with it as all the memorable parts of her life were at the orphanage.

Continuing her jog along the path, she reached the bottom of a hill and trotted up to the top where the trees cleared and the entire Seattle cityscape was within sight. It was a beautiful August day without a cloud in the sky and most of the city was already bustling. Behind her she could see across Puget Sound and over to the Olympic Peninsula where the Olympic Mountain Range launched into the sky. In front of her she could see the Rocky Mountains stretching up even farther away. Looking to her left was downtown, with the Space Needle standing out near the sports stadiums and the many high-rise towers. Any run up a hill was worth it to earn this view!

After looking lovingly over the surrounding landscape, Charlotte jogged back down into the forest along the second half of the trail. She admired the evergreen trees as she went while listening closely for the squirrels scrambling up trees and birds chirping back and forth. Beads of sweat formed at her hairline deep in the forest, driving her to push just barely harder for this last stretch on her way back to the home. The forest ground lightened as daylight crept in and Charlotte suddenly reached the opening of the trees back into the courtyard. Taking a deep breath and slowing to a walk, she paced in some circles to slow her breathing before opening the back door and returning the tracker to Miss Johnson in her back-corner office.

"Oh, Charlotte, hold up a second," Miss Johnson said as Charlotte turned away. Charlotte slammed on the breaks and whipped back around as uncomfortable thoughts consumed her. Am I in trouble? Did I go over my time limit? Charlotte was no rebel and the thought of possibly having done something wrong set her on edge. The teachers at the home weren’t particularly strict and Charlotte had never gotten in trouble, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t afraid of the thought of it.

"I…I actually had someone call about you. They will be arriving at nine this morning," Miss Johnson stated, hope underlying her tone, "so please come back to my office a few minutes after that so I can meet them before you come in."

The whites of Charlotte eyes stretched as she stared at Miss Johnson. This had happened to her just twice before, and both times were a bust as she went to the homes of the people looking to adopt her for only a week or two before returning to the orphanage. Charlotte never lost hope, however. Sure, her life so far had consisted of her time with Miss Johnson at the home. But there was no way her future would be there, too. Every day she woke up and went on her jog, then studied all morning as all the other kids went to their classes. She initially took classes with the other kids, but begged the professors to privately teach her so she could progress ahead of the younger kids. She initially didn't get her wish, but as she continued to surpass the other kids, the teachers eventually decided it would be in her best interest. The system worked out well for Charlotte as she took the morning to herself to study and research topics she found interesting on a spare computer in the computer lab. Oddly enough, this time alone spent researching was when Charlotte learned the most. The afternoon consisted of her private lessons, which were also much more efficient since she was the only student. Her standardized test scores were off the charts, but Charlotte didn't know that. She knew she had passed and that they were good, but she didn't know they were that good. She had no idea how smart she really was and instead figured that she scored poorly on tests, which was why no one came to adopt her. Plus, who would want a 15- (almost 16) year-old when they could adopt a much younger kid?

Doubts about how adoptable she was set aside, Charlotte instantly had an endless list of questions she wanted to ask Miss Johnson about these potential parents. Who were they? How did they know about her? What were they like? Before receiving the chance to ask any of these pertinent questions, Miss Johnson cut her off.

"It is a couple from New York. The man called and refused to give a name over the phone but sent numerous recommendations from high-ranking officials and clearly is a reliable person. I know nothing about them, which is why I need a little time to speak to them before you come in," she stated, trying to be optimistic without getting her or Charlotte's hopes up. "Just wait outside my office a little after nine and I will bring you in when we are ready to see you. Ok?"

Clearing her throat - and her head - Charlotte nodded coolly and ducked out of the office. Mind running faster than a race horse, she headed back upstairs. Her preoccupation made her oblivious to the small kids running around and past her. There were so many things that could happen and so little time until they did. Her imagination weaved intricate stories of who this couple could be as she grabbed her bathroom caddy and hopped in the shower once all the kids were gone. She didn't stop thinking about it - not while she brushed her teeth, not while she put clean clothes on, not while she brushed her hair - she was on autopilot while considering all the possibilities the day could bring.

Back in the bedroom, Charlotte's clock never moved as slowly as it did now. She was ten the last time someone came to meet her; nerves were quickly resurfacing. Soon enough, though, the clock ticked to nine and she laced her trusted shoes back up to go downstairs. She immediately analyzed everything about herself and everything she ever did. Was she smart? Was she nice enough? Was she cute enough? Was she enough? She didn't have much social experience other than with adults and with kids way younger than her…what if they thought she was weird?

Next thing she knew, Charlotte stood outside Miss Johnson's office for the third time that day. Leaning up against the wall facing the office, she returned to her breathing. It was a method she learned online as with a lot of things she knew. Counting slowly to three on the inhale…and to five on the exhale. But her mind still ran. And ran, and ran, and ran…

In the brief moment the headmistress stepped outside, the woman was checking over her nervous fiancée. They had both talked about this decision for months but were not immune to the jitters. Their relationship had been rocky and adding a kid to the picture would smooth anything over.

“Come here,” the woman whispered to the man, who stared straight ahead as his knee bounced relentlessly. She leaned over and adjusted his lapel, smoothing it out. “You do want to impress her, right?”

“Yes,” he bit back without looking at her, swiftly covering up his own nerves as he had learned to do so well growing up. “But I don’t want to look like father business, honey!” In their silent connection the woman knew exactly what he was referring to. He despised his father and the fact that he grew up, for the most part, without one. Without his knowledge, his thoughts mirrored those of the girl outside; he feared the worst. He feared he wouldn’t be enough.

“Hey,” the woman asserted, setting aside her own anxiety to try to quell that of the man next to her. She leaned over once again and gingerly placed a hand on the cheek facing away from her, pulling his face toward her. “She’s not going to think you’re like your dad,” she assured. She kissed him on the cheek closest to her and let him go as the door creaked back open behind them.

"Charlotte?" Charlotte's head shot up as Miss Johnson stuck her head only out of the office door and into the hallway as if she was going to ask a password before allowing entry. "Please come in."

Nodding slowly, Charlotte stepped forward and paused with your eyes softly closed for just a half second to regain her composure before the moment of truth. Miss Johnson closed the door behind her, and there was the couple from New York sitting at the desk. The woman sat, stretched up tall with perfect posture, styled in a white suit perfectly pressed and contoured to her shape. Her skin glowed as much as her light hair. The man next to her wore a dark suit with light stripes, a pale blue dress shirt, and a navy tie. His hair was dark and slightly unkempt yet still fitting the rest of his look. Large sunglasses covered his face. She knew her. She knew him. It couldn’t be. No way. But it was.

"Hi, Charlotte," the man said as they both stood. He slipped off his glasses and stuck out his hand, finally introducing himself. "I'm Tony Stark."

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[austenmarriage]

New Post has been published on Austen Marriage

New Post has been published on http://austenmarriage.com/jane-eyre-the-other-woman/

Jane Eyre: The Other Woman

Charlotte Brontë featured a Jane Austen-style heroine in her novel Jane Eyre. Despite her inferior social and financial position, Jane would not back down against Mr. Rochester any more than Elizabeth Bennet would back down against Mr. Darcy. Jane Eyre’s difficult situation as a governess is exactly what Austen’s Jane Fairfax sought to avoid—and finally did—in Emma.

Jane Eyre provides striking psychological insight into a woman’s mind. It also has the strange and forbidding mood and just-in-time plot twists of the Gothic thrillers and sentimental novels that Austen parodied in her early novel, Northanger Abbey. Most readers forgive Brontë’s melodrama for the intimate portrait it gives of this plucky young woman.

Most readers also forget the other woman. Or actually, the wife. It is Jane, it turns out, who is the other woman.

Jean Rhys, however, remembered. In the novel Wide Sargasso Sea, she tells the story of Jane Eyre from the point of view of the madwoman in the attic. This is the woman Jane initially fears is a ghost and who, until the fatal fire, prevents Jane from marrying Mr. Rochester. Herself a Creole from Domenica, Rhys had wanted to tell this story for years.

Wide Sargasso Sea was published in 1966, almost 120 years after Brontë’s novel, and has been made into a film several times. The movies focus on the steamy sensuality of the Caribbean. (Images above and in the text are from the 1992 movie by John Duigan.)

The book, however, is more into the overall life of heroine and her bare existence. The novel marked a reemergence of Rhys, who was originally part of the 1920s Paris crowd that included Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ford Maddox Ford, and others. Her earlier novels were about the Paris nightlife—and wild life.

Wide Sargasso Sea features a terrific first half, which tells the story of Antoinette Cosway’s early life in the West Indies. This is when the small white or Creole landowners in the West Indies lost their free labor. Such families would not have been the wealthy absentee owners but middle-class farmers who suddenly had no way to make a living.

It’s implied but never stated that her family is Creole. It’s several times described as white, but this may mean only whiter than the black neighbors. At one point a black girl tells the heroine that she’s a “white” (n-word) and “everybody know” that the “black” (n-word) is better than the white.

Mixed-race offspring were often freed and were allowed to set up their own shops and farms. They were allowed to possess their own slaves, who gained their freedom along with all the others in the 1830s. Now the small farmers, rather than their enslaved workers, are close to starvation. Away from the towns, they lack protection from their former “possessions.”

The story of life in the Indies is harrowing, but the novel becomes predictable in checking (“ticking” to my British friends) the boxes as to the evils of colonialism, sexism, and patriarchy as we get caught up in the Rochester story. Still, the descent of a strong, intelligent woman into insanity is terrifying. Readers will like Rochester a lot less after reading this novel than after Jane Eyre.

Sargasso is stylistically tight like Rhys’s 1930s novels and stories. One problem is that it switches the narrator from the female lead, Antoinette Cosway, in the first section to Rochester in the second section and back to Antoinette in the third section. Rochester is not nearly as interesting as she is, so the book sags when it should surge.

Movies of “Wide Sargasso Sea” emphasize the steamy sex, as shown in the Romance-cover-like image from the 1992 movie. Karina Lombard is Antoinette, and Nathaniel Parker is Rochester.

However, Wide Sargasso Sea became Rhys’s most popular book and brought back her earlier novels, which are riveting explorations of Parisian life after World War I. Rhys is too important a writer for these other books to be lost.

Rhys lived in obscurity during the thirty-year gap between her early novels and Sargasso. She and her husband were desperately poor. He was involved in a financial crime and went to jail. Then his health failed. The situation drove her to desperation and depression. She described the passage of many years as being “two days drunk, one day hung over.” Her books went out of print and no one could find her to get permission to republish them. Finally, someone tracked her down in a remote English village. She died in 1979.

The person who collected her works, Diana Athill, said Rhys most identified with her heroine in Sargasso because she knew what it was like to be driven to the brink of madness. Most of her stories were biographical, including the one about a young woman’s ménage a trois.

I came upon her early novels in 1986 (I looked up my list of annual reads!) because I’d found a passing mention to a writer named Jean Rhys who might have been a model for Ernest Hemingway’s tight prose. I’d never heard of her, and I was studying Hemingway at the time. Her early stories and novels have a similar feel to his. However, they were writing more or less contemporaneously in Paris, among the same literary set. I’ve seen no references that they knew each other personally, but Hemingway knew and detested (as a writer) Ford Maddox Ford, who was her patron and lover.

Hemingway’s first novel was published in 1926, hers not until 1928. It’s not clear who might have influenced whom. But it is a strange parallel, indeed, between the most macho writer of the early 20th century and a woman who wrote no-holds-barred novels about the lives of women. Rhys’s early books are about those days in Paris, too, from a woman’s underdog point of view rather than Ernie’s two-fisted-drinking man’s point of view (though drink features prominently in hers too).

A collected set, The Complete Novels of Jean Rhys, is worth exploring for anyone interested in a unique voice telling unique stories about women. Not just Antoinette’s life but the lives of women of our era.

—

The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen, which traces love from a charming courtship through the richness and complexity of marriage and concludes with a test of the heroine’s courage and moral convictions, is now complete and available from Amazon and Jane Austen Books.

[willreadforbooze]

Hello!

BIG NEWS PEOPLE! Our Will Read For Booze twitter account (formerly Sam’s personal account) is going to be dedicated to the whole blog! So go check us out kthxxxx. While that’s amazing, Sam has to start from scratch on a new account, let’s show her some love huh? Check out her new account TheBooktender_  She’ll love you forever and ever.

Linz’s Updates

Ugh chronic pain is useless and work gave me a new grey hair, but I got promoted and finally had anniversary dinner, so balance?

What Linz read:

The Wife by Meg Wolitzer: Contemporary novel about a woman’s life as a a famous author’s wife. It’s not breaking any ground and the “twist” is telegraphed pretty hard early on, but it’s well-written and I enjoyed it

Sisters of Shadow and Light by Sara B. Larson: The publisher has kindly asked us to not post reviews until 2 weeks before sale date, so I don’t want to say anything just yet about this fantasy story involving 2 sisters who are stuck in a Paladin citadel, but I’ll post my review on Goodreads Oct. 22.

What Linz is currently reading:

The Good Luck Girls by Charlotte Nicole Davis: OK so I’m an idiot and thought this book was about girls who were forced into magical servitude via cursed tattoos, but, like, as child soldiers, not prostitutes-in-training. Whoops. So given that I thought this was a very different book, I’m not into it yet, but I’m gonna try to hit 20% and re-evaluate if I finish it.

My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing: JUST got this from the library and I’m a little excited to start reading it today. From Goodreads: “We all have secrets to keeping a marriage alive. Ours just happens to be getting away with murder.”

Sam’s Updates

It’s starting to get cold, so, like Linz, my chronic pain is flaring up. But who can think about that when thE NATS ARE IN THE WORLD SERIES?! We also have Dewey’s 24h Readathon this Saturday so my TBR is here too.

What I read this week:

Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern: So this is where I would normally tell you what this book is about, but IM NOT GONNA. It’s so much better to go into Erin’s books blind and I’m not going to ruin that. What I WILL say is it’s got a giant (as in world size) library. I have no words. This book was perfect and I already want to reread it. Drunk review comin sooon.

The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin: This is the second book in the Inheritance series. Parker wrote a hilarious review. Listening on audio. I enjoyed this a lot more than the first one. Maybe it’s because I understand it more? Idk. I already downloaded book 3 from the library so that’s good news.

What I’m currently reading:

  Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore: So this is a story of a family that always has 5 girls, 5 cousins. The men that spawn these women disappear, so it’s always the women. 5 ladies, 5 mothers, 5 Grandmas (abuelas), when suddenly a boy appears. He has no memories. Guys I know I’m slow going at this but some stuff happened in the book and now I’m v v sad.

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: This is our book club book for the month. Basically it’s the 1920s-ish in Mexico, and our main character Casiopea accidentally lets the god of death out of prison and he gotta put himself back together before he turns mortal and for a variety of reasons (including potential death herself) Casiopea goes with him. I am getting some SERIOUS Hades and Persephone vibes from this and I love it.

Aurora Rising by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman: This is the first in a new sci-fi series by our fave Illuminae duo. Tyler has it made, he’s gonna get the #bestsquadever. But then when he’s out practicing space stuff, he finds a ship that has a buncha dead people in cryopods, except one isn’t dead, she’s Aurora. Anyway he ends up with the last of the last crews and may have accidentally witnessed the start of an intergalactic war. So.. that. I’m really really liking the dynamic of the squad, everyone is a little odd and a little broken but they’re starting to get to know each other. We’ll see if my love for them overcomes the pace of the story (slowwww).

Dewey’s 24h Readathon TBR

…And Other Disasters by Malka Older: I got this ARC in the mail a few weeks ago and I want to knock it out before it comes out. It’s a collection of poetry and short stories and I can’t wait

A River of Royal Blood by Amanda Joy: I picked this up at ALA and the cover has me hooked. Cannot wait to read it.

Girls of Storm and Shadow by Natasha Ngan: This is the sequel to Girls of Paper and Fire which Linz reviewed. I wasn’t super impressed with book 1, I’m giving the series another chance with book 2.

Minda’s Updates

What Minda finished:

These Divided Shores (Stream Raiders #2) by Sara Raasch – So really loved the second installment and double love that it was a duology. I think two books was the perfect amount to explore the intricacies of the island melting pot of Grace Loray and the threat its people face from the mainland. With plant magic! Stay tuned for review. 4/5 shots.

What Minda is reading now:

HEIST by Kezzy Sparks – A debut magic-based paranormal suspense novel that I will 100% finish this week. Look for the review around when the book drops Oct 31

Ginny’s Updates:

Well, I finished my first full week as an aunt and it was delightful! I got about 8 hours of baby time today (which equals approximately two hours of reading while mom, dad, other aunt, and nana all takes naps). Also, there were some other surprises this week (no worries – no books were harmed… actually some comic books were harmed, but for a good cause).

Currently Reading:

Queen of the Unwanted  by Jenna Glass: This is the sequel to Women’s War which came out last year. Because I got the arc of that, Netgalley asked if I was interested in reading this and the answer was YES. I’m not super far in but I’m excited!

Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi: I read a book by John Scalzi a while back called Fuzzy, where the main character discovers the cutest animal ever and it turns out to be sentient and he has to prove it. This is the kind of the opposite, aliens exist but they look like the thing of nightmares but are actually super cool. Tom, the main characters, is a Hollywood agent who has been tasked with figuring out how to introduce the aliens to the public. It’s pretty delightful, the idea and the characters are fun. You can tell it’s one of Scalzi’s earlier novels as there’s some undertones of (as the news has told us) industry-standard misogyny. The main character, luckily isn’t a dick, but there’s still some statements that were a little bit cringey. Doesn’t change the fact that I trust Scalzi and I’m enjoying this book.

Finished:

Laughter at the Academy by Seanan McGuire: I’m lucky enough to have gotten this as an ARC from Netgalley. This is a collection of short stories from throughout McGuire’s career. It’s delightful to see some of the earlier stories next to things that have a more modern feel. I’m planning on writing a review for this one!

Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire: Yes, okay, I read two of these books in the same week. This is the 4th book in the InCryptid series and continues to delight. Alex has to go to Australia to try to help end a werewolf infestation. Yet again, planning on writing a review of this so I’m not going to say too much.

How Long ’til Black Future Month by N.K. Jemisin: This is another book of short stories and like all collections, some are stronger than others. That doesn’t change the fact that there’s some absolutely amazing pieces among this collection, the kind of pieces that make you never want to write a single word ever again because you aren’t going to be able to write something so good. My particular favorites ended up being a story set in a reality bubble where people are only connected via blogs and one set during Hurricane Katrina that included a set of lizards that could talk. Both of those stories (and many of the ones I didn’t mention) had this beautiful flow to it, and had these really subtle feelings of hope or dread. 5/5

Until next time, we main forever drunkenly yours,

Sam, Ginny, Linz, and Minda

Weekly Wrap Up: Oct 6- 13, 2019 Hello! BIG NEWS PEOPLE! Our Will Read For Booze twitter account (formerly Sam's personal account) is going to be dedicated to the whole blog!

[buddyrabrahams]

10 best 2019 NBA free agents

Just two months ago, NBA fans were talking about which stars could change teams this summer. Now that those chips have been sorted, with stars like LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, and DeMarcus Cousins joining new squads, the league’s power dynamics have shifted.

The Lakers are suddenly a contender. The Raptors have new life. The Warriors somehow look even more unbeatable.

It’s early, and a lot could change this season, but we’re already thinking about which big names could be on the move a year from now. Here are the 10 best 2019 free agents as it stands today.

10. DeMarcus Cousins

This is a trial year for Cousins. He signed with Golden State for a few reasons: (1) he won’t have to rush back, as the Warriors are far from desperate to get him on the court; (2) he could win a ring; and (3) Golden State’s revered locker-room culture should present him with an opportunity to rebuild his reputation, much like JaVale McGee and Nick Young have previously. But he didn’t sign with the Warriors for the money — he’ll only receive $5.3 million this season. Cousins is looking to next summer as his opportunity to cash out and land a longer-term deal.

9. Kemba Walker

The Hornets have insisted they won’t give Walker away for pennies on the dollar, but it’s not wrong to suggest they should get something for him while they can. Charlotte fans love Walker, and he seems comfortable as a key piece in the organization, but it seems clear that if he wants to win a title in his career, he’ll have to leave. The Hornets have a new coach, former Spurs assistant James Borrego, and they added veteran Tony Parker as a backup. Charlotte is also high on second-round draft pick Devonté Graham, who has already commanded the respect of his peers. We know LeBron likes Walker; reports indicated the Cavs attempted to acquire him before this year’s trade deadline. Don’t be surprised if he spends part of this season in a Lakers uniform — or, at least, playing for a team other than Charlotte.

8. Al Horford

Horford is one of the most respected players in the league with good reason, but he’s this low on the list because of his age. He’ll be 33 next summer, and it’s hard to imagine he’ll decline his player option ($30 million). Horford is in the perfect situation to make use of his talents, and if the Celtics don’t win a title this year, you can bet the veteran — who’s never won a ring — will want to run it back. We don’t expect Horford to actually hit the market, though he could pull a Kevin-Durant-in-2017 move and opt out to re-sign with Boston for less money, as Danny Ainge and company may want to sign Jaylen Brown to a longer deal and bring back Terry Rozier, who will be an unrestricted free agent.

7. Kristaps Porzingis (restricted)

Porzingis is the Knicks’ present and future – so much so that it’s hard to imagine that team winning more than 30 games this season. Who’s the No. 1 option, Tim Hardaway Jr.? Trey Burke? Rookie Kevin Knox? The only reason for concern, of course, is Porzingis’ injury history. The Unicorn tore his left ACL in February and will miss part of this season — perhaps even much or all of it. But New York needs Porzingis, who was averaging career-best averages of 22.7 points, 2.4 blocks, and .395 three-point shooting before his injury. We’d be stunned if Steve Mills and company even let him flirt with other offers. The Knicks should get a max offer sheet in the Latvian’s world ASAP. They’re eyeing other stars next summer, but they should put first things first and lock Porzingis up.

6. Karl-Anthony Towns (restricted)

Much like Porzingis’ situation, Towns should not hit the market. He will likely sign a max contract with the Timberwolves. But this predicament is a little bit more complicated. Unlike the Knicks, the Wolves have other notable pieces on the roster to play with. Jimmy Butler (next on this list) has a player option in 2019, and Andrew Wiggins is already on the books with a massive deal for the next four years. Furthermore, the Wolves struggled in the playoffs, and despite all his talent, Towns hasn’t fully figured out his role in Tom Thibodeau’s offense. We’re not saying Towns is going anywhere — it’d be a big surprise if he did — but don’t be stunned if the Wolves make some type of move involving Butler or Wiggins so they feel comfortable giving Towns a max contract.

5. Jimmy Butler

Butler is playing on a value deal at the moment, earning only $18.7 million this season – about half of what some other stars, like Steph Curry and LeBron, are making. Thus, it’s widely expected that Butler will decline his player option for next season. He fit in well with the Wolves last season, but injured his meniscus in the first game after the All-Star break and missed over a month of action. The T-Wolves lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Rockets in five games. The 28-year-old, the No. 30 pick in the 2011 draft, will command major dollars on the market because of his impressive two-way play. He should have no shortage of suitors. If nothing changes in Minnesota, we expect him to sign elsewhere.

4. Klay Thompson

This is where things get interesting. We thought long and hard about whether Butler or Thompson belong in the No. 4 spot, but the Splash Brother gets the edge for a few reasons: (1) his slight age advantage (he’s about half a year younger than Butler); (2) his durability; and (3) he’s never had any problems in the locker room, unlike Butler. The Warriors are in a real bind now with their payroll, having dished out a massive – but justified – deal to Steph Curry. But Thompson has said he “probably” would take a pay cut, and his father, Mychal, recently predicted Klay will retire with Golden State. We believe that’s a real possibility because we don’t expect Durant to be on the payroll — but more on that in a bit.

3. Kyrie Irving

Kyrie, 26, was having a beautiful first season with the Celtics before undergoing a procedure in late March to remove a tension wire in his left knee. That procedure led to another, which ended up marking the end of Irving’s season. During his 60 games with Boston, he proved he could be a team’s No. 1 offensive weapon. He averaged 22.0 points, 5.5 assists, and 3.4 rebounds per game while shooting 38.8 percent from outside. Irving hails from New York, and rumors have indicated he and his good buddy Butler want to team up — we think there’s legitimate reason to believe they both could sign with the Knicks or Nets.

2. Kawhi Leonard

Kawhi wanted to land with a Los Angeles team before his trade from the Spurs, and all signs indicate he still wants to land with a team in L.A. Sure, he’ll probably suit up for the Raptors — it’d be self-sabotage not to — and Masai Ujiri will probably make a good case for Kawhi to come back. But we don’t see this one in the cards. The fit just isn’t there. Kawhi is from California, and it’s not a secret that he hates cold climates. The real question is: would Kawhi still sign with the Lakers, his initially preferred destination, now that LeBron has joined the Lake Show? We don’t think so. Expect Doc Rivers and the Clippers to luck out and land arguably the league’s best two-way player on a max contract after he declines his 2019-20 player option. Of course, he still has to prove he’s healthy this season.

1. Kevin Durant

During his time with the Warriors, Durant has consistently restructured his deals to ease the team’s cap burden. This summer, he finally got paid, commanding $30 million with a player option for 2019-20. He’ll turn 30 this season. If the Warriors run it back and win yet another title –- which everyone under the sun expects they will — our money is on Durant joining a new squad. He’s never going to garner the respect he thinks he deserves for winning a title in Golden State. Point blank, period, no matter how many he wins. People will always see it as a cop-out, a soft move. Now, if he led a struggling team – like, say, the Knicks – to glory? Now that would win over even his harshest critics. Durant already has two rings and two Finals MVP trophies on his resume, which should get longer this year. Given the everlasting chip on his shoulder, we’d be surprised if he were content to just ride it out and keep accumulating accolades with Golden State. The opportunity to enrich his legacy, and to reverse his reputation, will be too enticing.

Honorable Mention/Notable Names: Khris Middleton, DeAndre Jordan, Tobias Harris, J.J. Redick, Ricky Rubio, Bojan Bogdanovic, Eric Bledsoe, Paul Millsap (team option), Goran Dragic, Harrison Barnes, Hassan Whiteside, Isaiah Thomas

Aaron Mansfield is a freelance sports writer whose work has appeared in Complex, USA Today, and the New York Times. You can reach him via email at aaroncmansfield@gmail.com.

from Larry Brown Sports https://ift.tt/2LWo5ne

[fortunatelylori]

Thoughts on Otis Molyneux

I hesitated somewhat before making this post because the fandom seems to have settled on Otis being “a good man who made one terrible mistake” and who am I to rain on anyone’s parade?

Inner goddess: A very opinionated woman … that’s who … No one keeps baby down!

Well … since you put it that way …

My very first meta on Sanditon revolved around the idea that this show is Andrew Davies’ homage to Austen’s entire body of work. And since I discovered a very interesting link between Otis and one of the more misinterpreted Austen characters, I couldn’t resist. Particularly since every time I read a remark on Otis, I end up going:

He is a most fortunate man! Everything turns out for his own good! He meets a young woman at a watering place, gains her affections, she consents to an engagement! He treats her abominably, she bares it like a saint! His aunt is in the way, his aunt dies! He has used everybody ill and they are all delighted to forgive him! He is a most fortunate man indeed!

Emma is perhaps Jane Austen’s most transgressive novel and, while it is not my favorite (that’s Persuasion in case anyone was wandering), I think it’s the clearest indication of her genius. In Emma, Austen not only spoofs herself, as the old maid Miss Bates, but also pulls off a master stroke in concealing her villain, Frank Churchill, not only from the characters but also from the audience.

Austen villains are usually charming, fun and attractive, most of the time far more so than the hero that will eventually win the heroine’s heart. What Austen does with the likes of Wickham and Willoughby is show that superficial charm and a pretty face are poor substitutes for substance, integrity and a value system.

In order to drive that point home, her villains usually suffer a fall from grace: Wickham gets exiled to Newcastle (the degradation!) and is stuck with Lydia for the rest of his life; Willoughby gets ousted by his aunt, told off by Eleanor and publically canceled by Mrs. Jenkins.

Whatever it may be, all of her villains suffer some consequences (even if it’s just not getting the girl as is the case for William Elliot in Persuasion). All except one: Frank Churchill. As Mr. Knightley’s frustrated speech above shows, Frank is so fortunate that by the end of Emma, he gets everything he’s ever wanted and everyone continues to love and cherish him as if nothing had happened (with the exception of Emma and Knightley).

And because the characters move on from his betrayal so quickly you can barely get a glimpse into their POVs, so does the audience. By the end of the book, most of the readers are as pleased with Frank as the people of Highbury.

I can just imagine Jane Austen cackling with joy at our silliness.

Just because there are no consequences for Frank and because all ends well despite his efforts to the contrary, it doesn’t follow that he should be absolved of responsibility. For all his professed love for Jane, Frank involves her in an imaginary extramarital affair, flirts with Emma in front of her and ultimately humiliates her at the picnic. For all his friendliness and affability, he is less than generous to his father, uses Emma for his own motives and is secretly chopping at the bit to see his aunt, the woman who raised him, dead so he can inherit her fortune. Despite what his endgame would suggest, Frank Churchill is an immature, selfish man who is used to getting his own way with little thought or care about how that might hurt other people.

Which brings us to Otis “I fell in love with your soul” Molyneux.

But, but … I hear you say … Fortunatelylori, he did suffer consequences. He lost Georgiana!

To which I say don’t bring out the pity parade just yet. Because in losing Georgiana, Otis’ actions are reduced to an unfortunate youthful indiscretion by the characters (Georgiana and Charlotte) as well as by the people watching. Because he shed some resigned tears and spoke prettily about how much he loved Georgiana’s soul, everyone is “delighted to forgive him”.

But just as with Frank, is his love for Georgiana enough to absolve him of his wrongdoings? Should we cheer for their potential reunion or think she deserves better, the way Mr. Knightley thinks about Jane? And while we’re on the subject, what are Otis’ crimes? He clearly never meant to cause Georgiana’s kidnapping so what’s the big deal?

What gets lost in Charlotte’s “you are insensible of feeling” rebuke of Sidney is that Otis isn’t a victim of circumstances nor is him honestly being in love with Georgiana a get out of jail free card. Otis is a gambling addict who has amassed debts so vast that the man who is trying to collect them resorts to kidnapping a teenager to get his money back. And that’s just one guy he owes money to.

Does he love Georgiana? Yes, in his own way he loves her just about as much as he loves losing money at cards. What do you think would have happened if they married? Because me thinks Otis would run through that 100.000 real quick while simultaneously loving the hell out of Georgiana’s soul.

Which brings me to Otis’s less than agreeable character traits: lying and manipulation. He lies to Georgiana from the first moment he meets her. Worst yet, he takes advantage of her vulnerability and he encourages her to rely solely on him for emotional support:

Georgiana: I was uprooted. Lost. In despair. Otis restored me to life. Those 3 months were the happiest I’ve known.

That sounds great and all but what happens after he’s gone from her life is that Georgiana feels like she suddenly has no one and nothing. Because her entire sense of self was tied to Otis.

He also allows Georgiana to believe that her guardian is a racist monster who is keeping them apart because of the color of his skin when he knows full well that’s not the case and also that Georgiana needs to have a good relationship with Sidney for the foreseeable future at least.

In order to keep up the charade, he takes active part in poisoning Charlotte against Sidney and very much enjoys playing the wronged party in this whole scenario:

Otis: But then your friend, Mr. Parker, took it upon himself to rip us apart.

Charlotte: However painful that might have been, Mr. Parker must surely have had Georgiana’s best interest at heart.

Otis: Then you clearly don’t know Mr. Parker as well as you think.

 Lying is so ingrained in Otis’ modus operandi that he can’t help himself from doing it even when there’s not even the slightest chance that he can get away with it:

Beecroft: Oh, yes! The famous Miss Lambe! Mr. Molyneux speaks of little else. Miss Lambe this, Miss Lambe that.

Otis: That is a lie! If I mentioned her it was only in passing …

Beecroft: I’m not the liar here. You told me a wedding was imminent. That her fortune was as good as yours. I never would have let him run such a debt otherwise.

Otis: All I wanted was to buy a little time … If I had known even for one moment …

What was that about Sidney not having good reason to keep you away from Georgiana, Otis?!?

Also look at him running the eluding responsibility obstacle course like a pro:

Otis: He’s sold her! The villain has sold her!

Charlotte: What?

Sidney: In return for a promise to buy his debt, she’s been handed to some dissolute named Howard. Even now he’ll be dragging her to an altar.

Charlotte: An altar? But that cannot be allowed without your permission.

Sidney:  No. They have no such laws across the border. There they will marry you with impunity.

Otis: Had you only allowed us to marry!

Otis has gambled himself silly, bragged about Georgiana’s money to the worst possible people, disappeared from public view (he hasn’t picked up his mail in weeks because he’s in hiding from the debt collectors) and his reaction is to put all the blame on Sidney. That is not the behavior of a well-balanced adult. This is the behavior of a gambler who thinks he can talk his way out of anything because he has “game”.

This brings us to his last scene with Georgiana when everything comes into focus. If you really think about it, there is not a single moment during their relationship where Otis isn’t lying to her, including the romantic separation that hit everyone in the feels:

Otis: I’ve gambled. That is true. But whatever they tell you, I never gambled with your name.

Notice how the first thing out of his mouth is manipulative. “Whatever they tell you” i.e. turst no one but me. I’m the only one who is telling the truth so listen to me as I lie my ass off right now.

Otis: I never boasted of your wealth. I boasted of you.

Two lines in and he’s already lied twice. You can actually do a play by play of what he says here and what he says in the Beecroft scene.

And then comes the coup de grace!

Otis: It was pride. That is all! And Lord knows, I have paid for it!

As consequence of his gambling, hiding from his creditors and running his mouth about Georgiana’s fortune, the woman he loves was kidnapped, Charlotte almost got raped and Sidney is however many thousands of pounds lighter for paying off his debts. So bring out the waterworks for Otis, guys! Let’s not forget who the real victim in all of this is!  

Alexa, play Despacito.

Otis lies so much he has ended up internalizing his lies to such an extent that he has turned himself into a victim. His narrative is ultimately rejected by Georgiana, leaving him pained but that shouldn’t fool you into thinking he’s a good guy. Neither he nor Frank are moustache twirling villains but their flaws and the way they allow those flaws to affect the people they supposedly love speaks volumes about their character.

Maybe, eventually, they both grow up. Maybe Frank becomes more selfless and starts treating others with respect. Maybe Otis never gambles again and becomes the responsible civil rights leader he wants others to see him as.

But as things stand at the end of their story line, I, for one, am not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. It’s sadly too late for Jane to pick herself another husband. But I haven’t given up hope that Georgiana will shake Otis off like a spot of English rain.