#more brooding tortured darcy

[greengableslover]

This, madame, is a faithful narrative of all my dealings with Mr Wickham.

#pride and prejudice 1995 #perioddramaedit #papedit #austenedit #colinfirthedit #userbennet #userkristen #catalinabaylors #fitzwilliam darcy #colin firth #*p&p1995 #* #more brooding tortured darcy #in my drafts

[rockislandadultreads]

Romantic Fiction: Titles You Should Read

A Complicated Love Story Set in Space by Shaun David Hutchinson

When Noa closes his eyes on Earth and wakes up on a spaceship called Qriosity just as it’s about to explode, he’s pretty sure things can’t get much weirder. Boy is he wrong. Trapped aboard Qriosity are also DJ and Jenny, neither of whom remember how they got onboard the ship. Together, the three face all the dangers of space, along with murder, aliens, a school dance, and one really, really bad day. But none of this can prepare Noa for the biggest challenge—falling in love. And as Noa’s feelings for DJ deepen, he has to contend not just with the challenges of the present, but also with his memories of the past. However, nothing is what it seems on Qriosity, and the truth will upend all of their lives forever. Love is complicated enough without also trying to stay alive.

Happily Ever Afters by Elise Bryant

Sixteen-year-old Tessa Johnson has never felt like the protagonist in her own life. She’s rarely seen herself reflected in the pages of the romance novels she loves. The only place she’s a true leading lady is in her own writing—in the swoony love stories she shares only with Caroline, her best friend and #1 devoted reader. When Tessa is accepted into the creative writing program of a prestigious art school, she’s excited to finally let her stories shine. But when she goes to her first workshop, the words are just...gone. Fortunately, Caroline has a solution: Tessa just needs to find some inspiration in a real-life love story of her own. And she’s ready with a list of romance novel-inspired steps to a happily ever after. Nico, the brooding artist who looks like he walked out of one of Tessa’s stories, is cast as the perfect Prince Charming. But as Tessa checks off each item off Caroline’s list, she gets further and further away from herself. She risks losing everything she cares about—including the surprising bond she develops with sweet Sam, who lives across the street. She’s well on her way to having her own real-life love story, but is it the one she wants, after all?

Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto

1 (accidental) murder 2 thousand wedding guests 3 (maybe) cursed generations 4 meddling Asian aunties to the rescue! When Meddelin Chan ends up accidentally killing her blind date, her meddlesome mother calls for her even more meddlesome aunties to help get rid of the body. Unfortunately, a dead body proves to be a lot more challenging to dispose of than one might anticipate, especially when it is accidentally shipped in a cake cooler to the over-the-top billionaire wedding Meddy, her Ma, and aunties are working, at an island resort on the California coastline. It’s the biggest job yet for their family wedding business—“Don’t leave your big day to chance, leave it to the Chans!”—and nothing, not even an unsavory corpse, will get in the way of her auntie’s perfect buttercream cake flowers. But things go from inconvenient to downright torturous when Meddy’s great college love—and biggest heartbreak—makes a surprise appearance amid the wedding chaos. Is it possible to escape murder charges, charm her ex back into her life, and pull off a stunning wedding all in one weekend?

The Heiress: The Revelations of Anne de Bourgh by Molly Greeley

As a fussy baby, Anne de Bourgh’s doctor prescribed laudanum to quiet her, and now the young woman must take the opium-heavy tincture every day. Growing up sheltered and confined, removed from sunshine and fresh air, the pale and overly slender Anne grew up with few companions except her cousins, including Fitzwilliam Darcy. Throughout their childhoods, it was understood that Darcy and Anne would marry and combine their vast estates of Pemberley and Rosings. But Darcy does not love Anne or want her. After her father dies unexpectedly, leaving her his vast fortune, Anne has a moment of clarity: what if her life of fragility and illness isn’t truly real? What if she could free herself from the medicine that clouds her sharp mind and leaves her body weak and lethargic? Might there be a better life without the medicine she has been told she cannot live without? In a frenzy of desperation, Anne discards her laudanum and flees to the London home of her cousin, Colonel John Fitzwilliam, who helps her through her painful recovery. Yet once she returns to health, new challenges await. Shy and utterly inexperienced, the wealthy heiress must forge a new identity for herself, learning to navigate a “season” in society and the complexities of love and passion. The once wan, passive Anne gives way to a braver woman with a keen edge—leading to a powerful reckoning with the domineering mother determined to control Anne’s fortune . . . and her life. An extraordinary tale of one woman’s liberation, The Heiress reveals both the darkness and light in Austen’s world, with wit, sensuality, and a deeply compassionate understanding of the human heart.

#romance #fiction #adult fiction #historical romance #contemporary #Book Recommendations #reading recommendations #to read #tbr #booklr #library #public library #summer reading #reading list #book list

[incorrectmulti]

Katherine: I'm actually glad I'm going with Darcy instead of Jack. The futher we get away from the break-up, the more self-involved I see he was. Always so brooding, so tortured. Ugh. A girl wants Romeo, not Hamlet.

Race: Romeo died.

Katherine: Yeah, but he died for something exciting! And I want my Debutante Ball to be something to die for.

#Newsies #source: gossip girl #katherine pulitzer #katherine plumber #racetrack higgins #Jack Kelly

[meggiebrick]

I was tagged by @swishandflickwit, yay! But this is hard to read because the questions won't bold. And now I have to go make lunch for my gremlins, so I can't tag anyone. So if you're reading this, consider yourself tagged, cause I want to know ALL OF YOU

1. Have you ever been in love? Yes :) I've been letting this one guy hang around for the past 15 years and we're married and stuff, and I still like him almost all of the time, so I THINK I'll keep letting him hang around. :)

2. Who is your favorite artist? My uncle Mike. He truly is a wonderful artist, but I think I like his work the most because he paints things and people and places I know and love.

3. What is your favorite music genre? That's impossible to choose! I truly like everything depending on my mood. Except for screaming death metal.

4. Have you ever had a penpal? You know, I think I did! In like 2nd grade or something.

5. Are you single or in a relationship? I'm extremely married.

6. What is your favorite word? Serendipity

7. What color are your eyes? Blue

8. Do you play any instruments? No but I SO wish I did. But I have spatial issues due to dyscalculia and I have pretty much zero rhythm.

9. What is your favorite color? Purple.

10. Do you have any nicknames? Nothing exciting. Megs, Meggie, etc.

11. what is your favorite flower? Lilacs

12. what qualities do you find attractive in a person? Ugh, I hate it sometimes but I'm a sucker for the quiet brooding type. It honestly makes my life difficult but it is what it is. I blame early exposure to Mr. Darcy.

13. Do you have any pets? A dog, a bearded dragon, and 4 guinea pigs.

14. Have you ever traveled outside of your home country? Just to Canada

15. What language(s) do you speak? Just English. American and British ;)

16. Who was your first crush? I think a boy named John in kindergarten

17. What is your favorite pastry? Anything gluten free :(

18. Do you wear glasses? Contacts

19. Do you prefer swimming in a pool or in the ocean? Lakes, but of those two I guess I'd pick the ocean. I hate pools.

20. What is your favorite social media app? Ooooh probably Twitter? But maybe that's because I don't have one right now and I miss it. I had to delete it because of a creeper and it was this whole THING and now I'm locked out for a week or so. Dumb.

21. What is your sexuality? Jason Beghe's voice

22. Bright, dark, or pastel colors? It really depends! I guess, gun to my head, I would pick bright?

23. Do you have any siblings? One older brother

24. What is your favorite scent? Lilac. But I love mint too, especially mixed with rosemary. Or, ooh, the smell of my husband in a white t-shirt just out of the laundry.

25. Where do you want to travel to? Everywhere. Anywhere!

26. What is your favorite film? So, so many. But if I have to pick, Manchester by the Sea. I don't know why.

27. Who do people say you look like? Most often Pauley Perrette.

28. Who is your best friend? She doesn't have Tumblr, but we've been BFF since we were eight. She lives a thousand miles away now and sometimes we still cry because we miss each other, even though it's been over five years since she moved.

29. What is your dream job? To be an author. That's always been the dream. Maybe someday! For the first time in about a decade, I feel like I can do it again.

30. Do you know how to drive? I honestly don't! So embarrassing, since where I live most people my age have been driving for twenty years. It's those pesky spatial issues again :/ I'm hoping with visual therapy to strengthen those skills I'll be able to someday.

31. Who is/was your favorite teacher? Two of my English teachers in high school. Oddly, they were both named James. One liked me a lot, and I liked him a lot. One really didn't like me at all, and it was mutual. However I respected them both a great deal, and the one who didn't like me once told me I was the most talented writer he'd ever had. It meant so, so much to me because I could tell he didn't even want to say it.

32. Are you a feminist? Who isn't?!

32. What is your zodiac sign? Taurus. And I'm SUCH a Taurus tbh.

33. Do you enjoy reading? I am so in love with it.

34. Do you have any hidden talents? I am strangely good at trivia. In person I come off as very flakey and bubbly and ditzy, so it's funny when random knowledge comes into play. It really surprises people. One of my friends calls it my "sneak attack, motherfuckers, I'm a genius" move. LOL! I'm not, though, I just remember large amounts of BS. It's not useful in any way.

35. Have you ever dyed your hair? Too many times to count.

36. what is your favorite thing in your bedroom? The silence! And all my pillows.

37. Can you whistle? Not like, a tune. But I can get someone's attention or call a dog.

38. What is your biggest fear? Burning to death. Or, of course, bad things happening to the people I love.

39. Do you make your bed every day? No. It's about 50/50.

40. Do you have any tattoos and/or piercings? Ears, but I haven't worn earrings in years. I want so many tattoos but I'm a big baby.

41. Have you ever been on a roller coaster? Yes, a surprising amount considering I don't like them much!

42. surfing or skateboarding? I can't do either but I'd love to be able to surf.

43. Are you a dog or a cat person? Dogs! Love em. Cats are okay too, but I don't like them as much.

44. what is your favorite animal? Giraffes, seahorses, dogs, guinea pigs...

45. Do you have a skincare routine? No but I should

46. What time do you typically go to bed at and what time do you wake up at? Ugh, I am TERRIBLE. I'm naturally a night owl, like it is TORTUROUS to me to be woken early. Ideally I'd go to sleep around 6 in the morning and wake up at 2 p.m. As is I usually go to sleep anywhere from 1 to 4 a.m. and wake up anywhere from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. depending on everyone's schedule for the day. It's SO bad and I really need to get better, but it's so unnatural for me to sleep at night. My body actively fights it and always has. I'm trying to retrain myself to just go to sleep when it's still p.m. at night, but it's not going well.

47. what is your favorite memory? I have so many. Of course the important ones involving my husband and kids, but I love when my best friends and I are just sitting around and we'll say "remember that time..." and then a few minutes later we're laughing hysterically.

48. What is the best gift you’ve ever received? When my family and I were really struggling, I didn't want to talk about it much. But somehow a group of women I've never met (but have talked to for years on Facebook) realized what was going on and sent us $300. It paid some bills and the rest went on groceries but knowing that they cared... I'll never, ever forget that.

49. How tall are you? 5'7"

50. Do you have a garden? In the American sense, like a bed of flowers or vegetables, no. In the English sense, like a yard, yes. A big one.

51. Do you like bugs? Some! I HATE mosquitoes and wasps though.

52. What is your natural hair color? Dark (ish) brown.

53. What is your favorite food and drink? Any form of potatoes and... Hmm... Diet Coke or cranberry juice. Or really really cold water with crushed ice.

54. Do you want kids? no, how do you think I should tell the three I already have?! LOL. Yes. I've always wanted them, impossible though they are. I think I'd like two more, but we'll see.

55. What is/was your favorite class? English. I loved Native American studies in college, too.

56. what color shirt are you wearing? Green.

57. If you could time travel, what year would you go to and why? I don't know. I used to always want to go back to James Herriot era England but the war would have been so sad and hard. I think we romanticize it now, but it wouldn't have been good. Still, though, I think I'd like it. Or I'd relive the 90s again. We didn't know how good we had it.

58. What is your skin color? Peach, I guess. I'm pretty pale in the winter and tan up in the summer even though I try to remember sun block.

59. Hugs or kisses? Both

60. Have you ever drank alcohol? AbsoLUTELY

61. netflix or youtube? Ooh that's tough! Um....i can't choose!

62. Have you ever done drugs? Just pot

63. Ice cream or frozen yogurt? Ice cream. I wish I had some now.

64. Succulents or flowers? Flowers!

#Personal #Answer these #You know you wannnnnaaaaa

[ahbonjour]

five times fox told lark he loved her and one time she said it back

@creative-skull, @museumlad, @dothewhatnots

this is shmoopy. enjoy.

1.

The first time Fox said it, he didn’t mean to. It was late, one-thirty AM, and he graded papers in the office, trying blearily to push his eyes open for one more stapled sheaf of error-riddled argumentative essay. Lark doggedly kept pace beside him, despite not being paid to be here, like he was. She had offered to help him grade, but his professionalism forced him to deny her, so instead she leafed through her worn copy of Pride and Prejudice.

An old clock ticked loudly from the top of a wood cabinet. “You don’t have to be here,” he said quietly.

“I know.”

“I’m perfectly capable of keepin’ myself company.”

“I know. The quiet is nice, though.” She looked up at him, the spark of intelligence that he’d come to admire more than her beauty shimmering through her eyes. “I like reading in peace.”

“There are places you could be alone.”

“I like reading with company and in peace.”

“Hm.” He looked back at his papers and stifled a yawn, pressed his hand against his temple to ease the headache pulsing there. He saw Lark stand and exit, and he felt a small press in his chest, like someone had pushed gently against his throat. Had she genuinely decided to leave without saying anything? He glanced over at his phone, essays receding in importance as he debated texting her. How would that look? Too needy, he decided. Too needy.

He was trying to decide what to say the next day when he saw her (current lead: “Couldn’t stand the conversation anymore, huh?”) when her brown hand reentered his field of vision, depositing a mug of black coffee next to his left hand. He looked up at her in surprise and saw she was holding her own mug of tea.

The fluorescent light behind Lark’s loose hair made her look like she wore a halo, and his angel said, “You looked tired. I know you take it black.”

He smiled, relieved and grateful, and said, “I love you.”

As soon as the words left his mouth he cringed. His spine tightened, his cheek twitched. Lark’s eyebrows jumped, and she jerked back; a tiny movement, but an unmistakable one. An invisible barrier had been crossed between them, one that they didn’t know how to deal with.

After a second of agonizing silence, Lark nodded and went back to her seat. “Well,” she said, blowing out a breath she’d been holding for fourteen months, “I should hope so, after all I’ve done for you.”

2.

“He’s in love with her,” Donnie said, leaning over the counter to stare at Fox but talking to his current boyfriend, David Peterson.

David glanced at Donnie, then at Fox, then back to the espresso machine. He could still taste his heart in the back of his throat when he thought about how in love with Lark Fox was, had been for a while. They’d competed for a bit, privately and silently but obviously, and yet Lark’s relationship with horrid Brandon had persisted, so they’d dropped it. David buried his spurned affections in Lark’s brother, but Fox had continued to nurse the love in his heart like the coals of an ancient fire, and anyone who looked close enough could see the flame still smoldering there.

Both David and Donnie knew this, from the competition to the lost love to the fact that Donnie was absolutely David’s rebound, but neither of them seemed to mind. The days remaining of their relationship were numbered on two hands, but the days of their friendship were limitless, so David swatted Donnie on the shoulder and said, “Stop staring. It’s rude.”

“If he doesn’t want people staring he needs to not come in here looking so lovelorn all the time,” Donnie countered. “Look at him. Lookin’ like fuckin’ Mr. Darcy over there. Brooding.”

“How do you know about Mr. Darcy?”

“Please. Lark watched that movie so much the DVD wore out.”

David snorted. “Maybe that’s why she’s got such a big crush on him, too. Brooding Englishman. All they need is a moor to run across.”

Donnie leaned back and looked at him inquisitively. “You think she likes him?”

“It’s not going to be me,” David said, waving his hand dismissively. “That’s fine. But if it’s not going to be me, it better be him.”

“Why?”

“Because it cannot be fucking Brandon,” David spat. “It just can’t.”

Fox looked over his glasses at them, the word ‘Brandon’ snagging his attention like a fishing hook baited with poison. “What’re you two talkin’ abou’?”

Donnie spread his arms wide with a big, cheesy grin and said, “How in love you are with my sister.”

“Oh yeah,” Fox snorted, looking back at his work, blush spreading over his neck and ears like wildfire. “Yeah, I’m so in love with Lark. Completely.”

3.

Word of Fox’s joking love confession had quickly circled around their friend group and back to Lark. To his immense relief, she’d realized it was a joke and had laughed, and to his horror she’d thought it was a little too funny.

Mags would usually see her first from his perch on the couch, and would try to warn Fox as best as he could. “A lady’s imagination is very rapid;” he’d say, pointing at Lark as she came for her afternoon latte, “it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”

But the knowledge of oncoming embarrassment was rarely enough to save him. Fox would look, panicked, from his mug to the woman walking in to Mags, hoping someone could help him, but no one ever could. He would simply have to sit there, powerless, as she came in and spotted him.

A slow grin would curl around her cheeks and she would tease, “My darling Fox, my heart upon earth—”

“Please,” Fox would beg, “please stop.”

“—my shining star, my darling prince—”

“I’m beggin’ you, lass.”

“—my garden, my rose. Hello. How are you?”

Fox would have inevitably covered his face at this point, and all his answers would be muffled. “Fine.”

“And your students?”

“Fine.”

“And your love for me?”

“No.”

“Come on, Fox,” she would entreat, laughter bubbling below the surface but face deceptively earnest. “We don’t have to hide our affections. We can shout them out—”

“Lark, please—”

Donnie would normally try to save him by shouting, “Lark, I got your drink!”

But even then, she would collect her coffee and then come back to his table to say, “I’m not leaving until you say it. You have to say it. Come on. You have to.”

And every time, every time, he would. “I love you, Lark.”

She would giggle, and tip her drink to him, and leave Fox to contemplate why he was deserving of this torture.

4.

Lark broke up with Brandon in December of her junior year, New Year’s Eve, over a drunken voicemail shortly before midnight. She’d been egged into it by every single one of their friends, all of whom knew, to some degree, the terror he had been putting her through, and all of whom knew she could not be alone that night, regardless of her relief.

David had swung Fox over to a corner while she made the call. “Look,” he’d said, the word so precise it might as well have been bullet-pointed, the surest sign he was drunk. “She’s going to need support, and Donnie is otherwise occupied. It has to be you.”

Fox was also tremendously drunk, red as a stoplight and just as cautious. “Me? Why me?”

“Mags and Toby have disappeared somewhere, good for them, and Donnie isn’t going to want to leave Alexa’s side, not now that he’s close to getting somewhere.”

“An’ you?”

“It’s not going to be me,” David said, looking at Fox intensely over his slipped-down glasses. “That’s fine. But if it’s not going to be me….”

Fox looked over at Lark, who was hanging up the phone with tears streaking down her cheeks, wearing a smile bright enough to power solar panels. He nodded, and David clapped him on the shoulder, and Fox stumbled over to her. The clock began counting down to midnight and David watched as she said something to him, and he said something back, and when everyone shouted ‘one’ she pulled him in and kissed him. The jealousy in David’s stomach, he was pleased to note, didn’t squirm like acid reflux as it normally did. He took that as a good sign.

He even managed to raise his drink in a toast when Fox looked back at him, the Irishman’s face bewildered as Lark took his hand and pulled him out the door.

Lark and Fox would, in the future, be able to only remember flashes of the night from that point on: a conversation with a trio of drag queens, petty theft at a convenience store, a serenade from a fire escape, a decision to go to the beach. They lost their shoes along the way, and their sense of embarrassment shortly after, and they huddled together under Fox’s jacket against a concrete post on the edge of the sand, watching the moon slowly sink.

“In vain I have struggled,” Fox laughed, murmuring against her hair.

Lark laughed as well, looked up at him with eyes that sparkled beneath their haze of alcohol. “What are you talking about?”

Fox sighed and said, hopelessly, drunkenly, “I love you. I really do.”

For a moment, Lark was silent, but then she let out a pitifully small, “Oh.” The sound broke Fox’s heart and swelled it all at once, and for a second he was conscious enough to be grateful that they wouldn’t remember this in the morning. Lark looked out at the water and continued, “I think I knew that, not for reals, but somewhere. I’m sorry I teased you.”

“’S alright.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“’S fine, really.”

“I…want to, I think. But I don’t know right now. With Brandon—”

“Lark,” he said gently. He put his arm around her, giving over his coat totally to her. “I get it. I honestly do. I just think I wanted yeh to know. You know?”

Lark nodded and tucked herself in deeper, deeper into his coat, into his side, into his heart. “Okay. Coolio.”

5.

Lark laid in Fox’s bed, which he’d given to her for the night, for the week, for as long as she would need. She was still so quiet. She’d come in, put her bag on the floor, and gone to bed without a word. She was still wearing her clothes. Her eye was bruised from where Brandon had hit her, and she had marks on her arms from where he’d held her down.

She’d come several hours ago, Fox’s home having been chosen for its anonymity. ‘We’ll move to a new dorm,’ Toby signed when the decision was being made, her hands trembling with rage. ‘But until then the police said you shouldn’t stay there.’

“I’m fine,” Lark spat. “I’m not running away.”

“It’s not running away, no va a su bola!” Alexa argued back. “You can’t stay there!”

“It’s my home!”

“He knows where you are!”

“He won’t come back, he’s not that much of an idiot—”

“He’d better not,” Alexa snarled, “or I will kill him myself.”

“Not helpful,” Ethan snapped, and Alexa fell silent. “You can’t go back there, though. David?”

David shook his head. “He knows my place, too.”

“I can’t—you can’t stay with us, it’s a boy’s dorm, it—they won’t let you, even with the police report they won’t let you,” Donnie stammered. He’d been wringing his hands the whole meeting, distraught and devastated that he’d been unable to help her. “He, it—I don’t know, maybe a hotel?”

Mags nodded. “A hotel’s not a bad idea.”

“No,” Lark said firmly. “I’m not staying in a fucking hotel, he—I’m not letting him take my home, too. He took so much of my life, he can’t take my home.”

“What about my flat?” Fox asked. The words had slipped out before he could stop them, and everyone swiveled to look at him. “He doesn’t know where it is.”

Ethan’s brows knit together and he said, “I don’t think any of uth know where it ith.”

Fox leaned back and crossed his arms. “Yeah, that’s on purpose.”

The address was distributed to the seven of them, with promises that they’d each come by for a few hours at a time to help keep company, and then Lark was released to pack a bag. The whole thing was arranged without really asking for her input, and she had at least one set of eyes on her at all times, watching while she packed, while she headed over, while she got into bed. She felt like a prisoner, like Brandon had taken not only her dignity and sense of safety, but her freedom as well.

To his credit, Fox didn’t bother her with asking if she wanted to talk or filling the air with meaningless chatter as her friends, whom she loved dearly, would have. He let her lay in silence, still for an hour or more while he clattered around the small apartment. After a while he came back into the bedroom and deposited a sandwich and a glass of juice on the nightstand. She was on her side so he couldn’t see her face, but she could hear as he dithered at her bedside.

Finally, he asked, “You awake?”

She said nothing. She didn’t want to talk to him; while he was a kind jailor, he was a jailor nonetheless, and she resented him.

“Are you asleep?” he ventured, lowering himself to sit beside her and lowering his voice so as not to wake her. She was careful not to move and break the illusion, instead content to sit in silence as he blew out an exhausted breath. “I’m sorry abou’ all this,” he continued, so soft she could barely hear him. “If it was up to me you’d be in your room, but ‘s not. They just—we just—want you to be safe.” She felt his hands clench the blanket next to her. “I shoulda stayed,” he said, voice still soft but ferocious in its anger and regret. “I shoulda—if I’d just stayed with you for another couple of hours, it would’ve, I could’ve—something. I could’ve done something.” He unfurled his hands. “I love you. I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you.” He was silent for a few seconds, then he stood and left the room, leaving the door open a crack. Lark waited until she was sure he was gone, then curled up tighter in his bed, hoping that maybe if she was determined enough she could just disappear.

One.

Fox had never asked if he could take Lark out; he didn’t have to. They both knew it was a gentle inevitability. She needed time to heal, to be alone and learn who she was, and when she came to him and asked if he wanted to take her somewhere, you know, like a date, he’d practically leapt out of his skin. It was the last day of class before her final summer vacation, and she’d be back in Cape Cod the next day.

“I didn’t want to leave it like we have it,” Lark explained on his fire escape that evening. They’d gone to dinner, and to karaoke, and finally to ice cream, which they ate while leaning on the metal railing protecting his fourth floor apartment. “You know?”

“I do,” Fox replied thoughtfully. He crunched down the last of his cone and ran his thumb under his lip. “I didnae want to pressure you.”

“You didn’t.”

“I know you need time.”

“I need a before and after,” Lark said thoughtfully, scraping the chocolate off the bottom of her plastic dish. “I needed a separation of my life. I can’t go back to before, so I need to look at the after, and I need something good to kick off the after.”

“Who told you that?”

“Dr. Heidelberg. She thought asking you out was a good idea.” Lark grinned. “I cleared it with her first.”

The mention of her therapist brought a soft smile to Fox’s scarred face. Lark had changed so much over the past five months, had become more thoughtful and gentle than she was before; he could still see the girl he’d fallen in love with, passionate and bright, but she’d been tempered. He knew the feeling of the need for before and after. He wished he’d had someone to tell him he needed something good for the after.

But he didn’t say any of that. Instead he nudged her and said, “So I’m something good, eh?”

“Don’t get a big head.”

“Can’t stop it now, my girl. You’ve swelled it up good.”

Lark laughed, tossed her head back and made her dreadlocks shake. Fox couldn’t help but laugh with her, which caught him all the more off-guard when she looked at him, that same spark in her eyes, and said, “You can say it now. For real.”

He flinched and felt sweat spring to his palms. “Say what?” he asked, but she didn’t prompt him further, only stared at him with a shy, helpless smile. He recognized that smile, though it felt weird to be seeing it on her face and not feeling it on his own, and he swallowed. Hesitantly, he pushed the words out. “I love—I love—” he tried, looking at the iron they stood on, the banister they leaned on, anything but her face, for fear he wouldn’t be able to get it out. “I love you.”

There was silence between them for a moment, undercut by the sound of traffic below them and the distant melody of someone’s record player, then she sighed and he felt his heart flutter below his breast pocket. She put the dish down and reached over, threading her fingers into his curly hair and bringing him down to kiss her.

“Thank you,” she murmured, and this time he knew they would remember every breath.

#movie house #original

[phoenixwrites]

1/2 I’m all for BatB stories, but not if the Beast triesto kill all Beauty’s friends because Beauty won’t join him in eating the villagers. I’m not a fan of Mr. Darcy, but he was a just a snob, he hadn’t overthrown the King and set fire to Longbourn. The Phantom lets Christine go with her lover and dies shortly thereafter, if he’d actually killed Raoul and forced Christine to marry him, it’d be a straight up horror story. But I keep seeing people defend Kylo as being like the Beast, or Mr.

2/2 Darcy, or Erik, or even Vader. Except Darcy and the Beast aren’t murderers, and Vader and Erik die. Fanfic where they live (or hell, where Gaston lives) can take the time to redeem even murdering creeps without their dying. But if Kylo and Rey end up a happy couple, it’s gonna be one hell of an asspull. One movie isn’t enough time, and a shirtless scene, “you’re nothing, but not to me,” and a Force-bond are no fit foundation for redemption via romance.

“…but not if the Beast tries to kill all Beauty’s friends because Beauty won’t join him in eating the villagers.”  This line made me laugh SO HARD.  

I mean, I love Mr. Darcy, but you’re right, the comparison is…off…because Darcy did not torture Elizabeth and his whole deal is learning how wrong he was about Elizabeth and Jane and making up for his screwups.  That…hasn’t happened with Kylo.  It might, but honestly, his death is the only thing that WOULD make up for everything…which.  Y’know.  Vader.  Vader had to die, he blew up a planet.

I’m not the best person to talk to about the Phantom, cuz I have hated that character since high school.  #TeamRaoul.  You could probably make an apt Phantom parallel though, but you’ll have a hard time convincing me that Phantom x Christine is a healthy wonderful romantic relationship–which you seem pretty aware of already!   

I try to be careful about this because this trope (dark brooding villain/anti-hero with sunny bright girl) is something I like.  I am a Rumbelle fan after all, Rumple has murdered people in cold blood.  (He has not tortured Belle though, I’m just saying…)  I love Klaroline from TVD/TO and very much hope it becomes canon, despite the fact that Klaus has murdered just as many people as Kylo, but TVD/TO is a CW vampire drama that has never had a happy/healthy relationship in the course of its run, not something as iconic as Star Wars.  

There is more depending on Rey’s storyline for this new series of Star Wars than possibly anything else in these movies.  Rey is the female lead and her arc MUST be worthy of the little girls who are watching her with stars in their eyes.  It completely sucks in a way, because women should be able to have bad storylines and arcs without it completely setting us back three decades, but unfortunately, we’re in a critical time where it has to be stellar or it won’t happen.  

The sad thing of it is…in “The Force Awakens”, I actually kinda liked R*ylo.  I liked it as a dark twisted ship, I like fucked up stuff like that.  I wanted FinnRey to happen in canon, but I liked having R*ylo as something I could enjoy in the world of fanfic and fanon, where problematic things are our playthings.  Unfortunately, “The Last Jedi” completely turned me off of ALL OF IT with that bullshit “You are nothing, but not to me” line and the very forced “ooooh look at their telepathic bond with no buildup or explanation as to why Rey suddenly wants to save this asshat”.  It was bad writing.  (To clarify, there were a lot of things I liked about TLJ, but the forced Rey and Kylo nonsense was not one of them.)

#anti-Reylo

[beyondthedreamline]

what she says: I'm fine

what she means: So it’s interesting how the fact Loki probably had to have sex with Jeff Goldblum to keep himself alive and safe was both never made textual AND used as the butt of a joke (lol pun intended), because it doesn’t matter if Loki was sort of willing and it doesn’t matter if he’s sort of evil either - how can you give consent when you fall headfirst on a planet dominated by a psychotic pervert and why is sexual violence such a fun thing when it’s about men and this is James Bond all over again and how they inserted that ‘Maybe I got fucked before, you don’t know’ line during a high tension moment leading up to torture and possibly rape because that’s what’s fashionable now, gay subtext, amirite, which I’ve got nothing against but funnily enough it never seems to lead anywhere and hey, coming back to 'Thor: Ragnarok', isn’t it neat how the sexually ambiguous, feminine-coded brother ended up as a courtesan-slash-sex slave and the painfully straight übermensch brother got sent to the arena to fight and die and yay for novel and groundbreaking storytelling, right, because this is new, how women are sold into sex and/or need to pretend to be willing sexual partners to madmen so they have a shot at escaping violence and death while men are made to fight and somehow their kind of enslavement is recognized as terrible and tragic and something they're no part of, but women, eh, who can be sure about them, and my God, Loki couldn’t have been more stereotypically gay if they’d tried, I mean, Fashion-Conscious Drama Queen Initiates A Reign of Self-Obsessed Musical Theatre and how is that okay on top of Valkyrie, a canon bisexual woman, being coded as Thor’s love interest and also - #thor ragnarok #marvel #loki laufeyson #abuse for ts #rape for ts #negativity #imo this is the other problem with representation #we get one non white director #and we want to like him #we want to think he can do no wrong #but this movie #my god #it read like fanfiction #and not in a good way #also it was probably #the most misogynistic thor movie to date #just compare it with the first thor #where women were allowed to be women #also themselves #bc one thing i don't need #is women to get drunk and belch on screen #i mean sure #sometimes women do that #but this sudden idea #that feminist movies #need to have women act like (fictional) men do #well i hate it #sorry for ranting #but i do #i'd take a thousand jane forsters @awed-frog Okay, I reblogged the original post by @awed-frog but the text came out so strangely that it’s irritating the hell out of me, so I’m making a new post in the hope Tumblr doesn’t glitch it up too. This perspective on ‘Ragnarok’ is so interesting I have to respond to it, because I had completely the opposite reaction to everything! I loved the structure and pacing and the endless supply of in-jokes (the Douglas Adams reference most of all). This is a story with distinctly Antipodean humour, which you may or may not get – I sometimes struggle with the American humour in Marvel movies, different cultures tell their jokes different ways. The emotional beats were quiet and strong, trusting in the audience to understand their significance without overstatement: Thor going through funeral rites as best he can while imprisoned, Loki’s visible distress at the idea of Thor leaving him behind. There was also finally some solid textual support for Loki being more than a villain – which, given all the things he’s done to Earth, Asgard and Thor specifically, is no mean feat. I mean, at the point when you have a character who has faked his own death TWICE while trying to commit genocide BOTH TIMES, you have to lean hard into the inherent morbid comedy of the thing to keep it all from spiralling into cartoonish ridiculousness. I like Loki, largely because Tom Hiddleston has great facial expressions that can sell inconsistent characterisation, but seriously, it takes the actual apocalypse for him to step up and be useful. ‘Ragnarok’ reminds us that while Loki loves to play the victim and the martyr, he rarely is one. Usually, he’s the opposite. Trickery and charm are his great skills and as Thor pointed out, Sakaar was the perfect environment for him to thrive. We see him chat up girls, watch fights with the Grandmaster and act as a kind of pet bounty hunter, all of which he would hardly need much coercion to do. You can definitely read sexual subtext into their interactions, but I saw no implication of Loki being any more sexually threatened by the Grandmaster than Valkyrie was – that is to say, not at all. This is the guy who was willing to shove his brother straight back into the arena if it meant getting a step up in his new life, why would he feel uncomfortable sleeping his way to the top? I love the detail of him turning his 'death' into a play because he's literally the actor, the liar, the manipulator of events. In the end, Loki is a conman, and a very talented one. I’m sad that Jane won’t be returning to the Thor franchise, because I loved her character from the start and I truly enjoyed her dynamic with Thor. Also, DARCY. I will sorely miss Darcy Lewis. The truth is, I can’t think of a really satisfactory way for their departures to be handled on-screen, because I did not want them to depart at all. I feel like it should be pointed out, though, that ‘Thor: the Dark World’ was essentially Jane and Thor’s second date, and Jane was already running low on patience with his trans-Bifrost lifestyle. He’s kind and adorable and undeniably high-maintenance. If Jane had to have an exit, I’d prefer it like this, a low-key and everyday break-up rather than some big melodramatic event for Thor to brood over and Jane to be eventually talked out of. Also, just because I love Jane doesn’t mean I can’t love Valkyrie, and vice versa. It’s not a competition, however much Marvel tried to make it one. I’m a bit uncomfortable with your tag comment about the first Thor movie, describing it as the one ‘where women were allowed to be women’, because women are all kinds of things. I think I understand what you mean, there is rather an excess of traditionally masculine misbehaviour in mainstream media, but sometimes women are angry and disillusioned and drink way too much in order to cope, and that’s a story worth telling too. Honestly, I was on board with Valkyrie’s character from the minute she fell off her spaceship. She’s not a ‘better than the boys’ stereotype, she’s an embittered alcoholic warrior who gets dragged into friendship with Thor against her better judgement, and while that friendship might eventually shift into something romantic, it wasn’t shoehorned into her arc, for which I am intensely grateful. Ragnarok is, in so many ways, a movie with its foundations in the anger of the dispossessed. There are plenty of articles written on the subject by people better qualified than me. All I can say is that, as an Australian, I live in the messy aftermath of colonialism, with the awareness that my nation as I know it was founded on a violent invasion and that its impact is still being felt today. The line ‘where do you think all of this gold came from?’ was so flawless it kind of knocked my breath away. Hela tore apart Odin’s legacy and the narrative backed her right to do so the whole time. The only way to defeat her was to acknowledge that her claim was rightful and her story was true. That’s unbelievably powerful. Emotional resonance is a weird thing. So much of what we love in a story is entirely in the eye of the beholder, and perhaps it also depends on what other narratives are around us at the time – I, for instance, am personally tired of grimdark superheroism that’s all about how we can’t trust each other. What I need right now is Thor’s relentless optimism in the face of disaster, the man who makes friends wherever he goes, the god-prince who loses everything but rescues what really matters out of the ashes. Ragnarok isn’t a perfect movie, but it’s the best I’ve seen in a very long time and talking about it has made me want to watch it all over again.

#thor ragnarok spoilers #meta #the weird bolding and font stuff going on in my reblog was just too annoying to endure #thor #loki #hela #the Odinson family are such a godawful mess #jane foster #valkyrie #women of marvel #superheroes