#nothing altered from louis | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cellythefloshie · 1 year

Text

;; Daddy Dunn

Summary: You, Dunn's fiance, travel with Vince to Lindsay, Ontario to celebrate the St Louis' 2019 Stanley Cup victory. It is in his hometown, after seeing Dunn's sweet interaction with children that - after years of thinking you would never have kids - you decide you want to have a baby. After telling Dunn, he assures that the two of you take a night to sleep on it, but not without a little practice.

Set in the summer of 2019.

Kinks & TW: Breeding/Desire to Become Pregnant, Oral Contraceptives, Unprotected Sex, Vince likes to Moan, Have to Stay Quiet, Hand Around Throat - Not Quite Choking, Hand Over Mouth, Woman on Top, Sundress Sex.

Notes: Apparently Vince had 4-5 surgeries during this off-season after sustaining a broken jaw in the series against SJS. This is touched on very briefly but nothing in detail.

Inspired By: This video and this anon.

Word Count: 2448

Taglist: @mp0625 @starshine-hockey-girl

For as long as you could remember you hadn’t wanted kids. Whether it be the responsibility that came with having a child or the pregnancy itself that scared you away from the idea of being a mother, it was something you have been comfortable with accepting. You would be the cool, wealthy, aunt that spoiled your nieces and nephews but that all changed in a single moment and it was all thanks to Vince.

It was summertime, which often meant a relaxing postseason, but this off-season was different since St Louis had won the cup. Since Sanford scored the 4th goal in game seven, your life had been a whirlwind of festivities but it was all meant to wind down after Vince’s day with the cup. You had travelled with him all the way to Lindsay, Ontario, his hometown, and quickly faded into the background of the festivities. You followed him in his parade in the quaint community.

With the population less than a tenth of St Louis, it almost left you feeling lost, but the crowds that flocked to Lindsay were far from underwhelming. Blues fans travelled from all across the Province - and even the country - for their opportunity to see Vince and Cup. You watched them all, the young and the old flock to him. Their hockey hero, the pride and joy of an entire community, had brought Lord Stanley home to them.

He was met with smiles, with fondness, and some were even brought to tears. They had known him since he was a boy, and now he was a man. A humble man who had not forgotten his roots, and who spent his time with every single one of them who had come to celebrate his success with him.

While it all had warmed your heart, there was one moment that left your heart fluttering and seemed to alter your brain chemistry in all of a single second. A woman that you hadn’t had the opportunity to meet yourself since you were watching the day unfold from the sidelines had brought her 8-month-old to meet with Vince and the cup. And while you would have admitted that the baby was cute, you didn’t fully appreciate the sight in front of you until Vince had taken the baby in his arms. He was kind, and sweet with zero hesitation or fear when it came to cradling such a young, sweet child. It was that moment that changed it all.

Seeing him with the child in his arms. Hearing the soft voice he used and the ease at which he handled the child as they grew finicky as they sat in the Stanley Cup had ignited something deep inside you. You wanted a baby.

It was something that weighed heavily over you the rest of the day. It left you fidgeting at the dinner table, your fingers twisting the delicate engagement ring on your finger. Vince had only proposed over the holiday season and you weren’t set to wed until the next summer, which should have been enough to have you biting your tongue - but the moment you had him alone in his childhood bedroom that had been given a bit of a facelift to be more suited for guests, you couldn’t hold yourself back from him.

The moment the bedroom door had been shut behind you, your hands had found Vince’s chest. He was still wearing the same polo shirt, black with a thin white detail along his collar and sleeves, and you wanted it off of him. Fingers dragged down the buttons of his polo drawing his gaze down, and soon you were subject to a slack-jawed breath and his bedroom eyes. Your name left his lips in a slow hum. A hum that was laced with the little restraint he could muster. Before your trip, the two of you had agreed to not have sex if there was a chance his parents could overhear. Yet, you were undressing him with the very risk of his parents hearing everything from the next room.

“I’ll be quiet, promise,” you whispered up at him, your lips curling into a faint smile that coaxed one up onto his own lips.

“But I don’t have anything-”

You almost laughed as you pulled his shirt up and over his head and tossed it aside. You watched as your gleeful expression perplexed him. You had always insisted on using a condom, until now. “I don’t want to use one,” you told him in a soft whisper, your hands finding your bare chest to push him back towards the bed.

Once you had him seated, the skirts of your sundress pulled up just enough for you to straddle his lap, you spoke again, “and, with your permission, I want to stop taking the pill.”

His face softened at your words, his full lips parting with a heavy breath. His hands quickly settled on your hips, caressing over your soft silhouette slowly as he spoke your name, “Are you sure? I mean, I’m not saying no - I just - you’ve - this is a big surprise.”

“I know, I know,” you sighed, your hands coming to rest on the strength of his shoulders, “but seeing you with all the kids today,” you looked away as you felt your heart begin to race in your chest, “and seeing how you were with the baby…”

Vince wore a cocky smile as he lay back against the bed, his arms reaching up to stretch out and flex the toned muscles of his body before they came to rest behind his head. “Oh, you liked that, huh?” he raised a brow, his words coy before he let his tongue run over his bottom lip slowly, “Daddy Dunn,” he said the words as if to taste how they would feel in his mouth, and they left him grinning ever wider when he saw the reaction it got out of you.

Your skin had flushed with color, your jaw slacking for a moment before you found your composure and gave him a playful shove. “Stunner, don’t,” You had tried to be firm, but your words were laced with a nervous laugh, “don’t tease me like that and make me regret telling you.”

“Hey, hey,” Vince hummed and reached out a single hand to stroke over your cheek slowly. He used the touch to draw you in. He greeted your lips with a soft and gentle kiss before he eased back just enough to mutter out to you; “no teasing,” his hand reached up to brush your hair back gently, “but I do want you to sleep on it. You took your pill this morning, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you breathed out gently before biting down on your lower lip.

“Good girl,” he hummed, his head shaking slightly as his thumb dragged down over your jaw to coax your lip from the bite of your teeth. He stroked it carefully with the pad of his thumb when he spoke again, “In the morning, if you feel the same way we’ll throw them away, but until then I don’t see there being anything wrong with a little practice.”

Your head cocked to the side, your lips speaking into the touch of his thumb, “Practice?”

Vince let out a hum of confirmation as he leaned in, cast his thumb aside and placed a lingering kiss against your lips. It was slow and careful, a little cautious even as both were mindful of the tenderness that still lingered after his jaw had been broken during the playoff run. If anything, it forced the two of you to slow things down. Desperate hungry fucks, became tender, deliberate touches - and that didn’t change with the proposition of starting a family.

His touch was gentle as a single hand brushed down the length of your body. It caressed over every curve as it sought out the bottom hem of your sundress. He pushed up the skirt of your dress slowly, his hand coasting over the flesh of your thigh as he let out a groan, “I’ve been wanting to fuck you in this dress all day.”

“Oh, have you?” you raised a brow at him, your breath heavy as you pressed back into his touch.

“All fucking day,” he reiterated with a groan as his hand found the waist of your panties and hooked onto them with a single finger before drawing them down the length of your legs. With every inch it travelled, you could feel your own arousal as it became a cool trail down the inside of your leg. When he pulled the panties from your legs, Vince balled them up in his hand, feeling the arousal that had pooled there, “you thinking about me too, Princess?”

You nodded slowly, your hands dragging down the length of his chest only to come to rest at the waist of his dark denim jeans. Fingers toyed with the thin hair of his treasure trail as you smiled down at Vince, who smiled in return, as he waited for you to indulge him in the fantasies in your mind.

“Thinking about you,” you spoke slowly, your hands pulling the button free before toying with the zipper of his fly, “your cock…” you trailed off slowly, hesitant on letting the next words fall from your lips, “and your cum.”

His eyes ignited as he lifted his hips for you to rid him of his pants and his boxers with ease before returning to your lace in his lap. “Tell me about it, Princess.”

You spoke slowly as you took his cock in your hand. You stroked him slowly as you spoke, your words soft and just above a whisper, “I was thinking about your cock,” you licked your lips slowly as he twitched his cock in the hold of your hands, “and how it would spread my desperate cunt, and fuck me. You always fuck me so good baby, but to feel you, to really feel you,” you let out an exasperated breath, “and how you would fill me up. Leave me dripping-”

“You want a baby, Princess. All you’ll be feeling inside you until your round with my baby is my cum,” Vince grinned up at you, his cock hard in your hand, “and we can start right now. You nice and wet for me, Princess?”

And you were. You had been all day.

Lifting up the skirt of your dress, you guided him to your slick core. You dragged the head of his cock along your entrance, your stomach jumping up into your throat as you felt him. You could feel every bit of him. From the head of his cock leading away to the thick vein along the underside of his cock. You quivered at the feeling, and at the realization that you were working him so deep inside you with nothing but the oral contraceptive you had taken that morning to keep him from getting you pregnant.

You weren’t the only one who relished in it as you began to ride him, the pleasure coaxing a satisfied hum from his lips, “Ah fuck.”

There was nothing more you liked than Vince getting vocal with you, but with his parents sleeping down the hall, it was the last thing you needed them overhearing.

“Vinny,” you sighed to him in a low whisper as your cunt flexed around his cock, “you’ve gotta be quiet-” Your cautions were lost on him as his head lulled back into the bed with his lips parted. He was on the verge of ecstasy, and there would be no holding him back from letting the entire household know how good you rode his cock - that was unless you intervened.

Your hands left the strength of his chest and slid up over his shoulders until one hand settled carefully around his throat. You gasped at it, anchoring yourself to him before your left hand came to rest over his mouth so that he could feel the warmth of your engagement ring against his flesh and every single attempt at a moan would be muffled by your palm.

It was enough to silence him, but his pleasure wasn’t lost on you. You could feel it in the throbbing of his cock inside your walls, and it could be seen in the emotion in his eyes. They had always betrayed him, even now as they threatened to roll back in ecstasy but instead, he held your gaze as you continued to ride him. With each role of your hips, you took him into your cunt, feeling all of him from the tip of his cock buried deep inside you to his balls as they smacked up against your flesh and you didn’t stop - not until Vince had let his hands slide free from where they rest behind his head to grip at your hips. With his heels pressed down firmly into the mattress and your hand still firm over his mouth Vince plowed into you in a series of forceful thrusts that left your cunt and legs weak.

Then, on the final thrust, you felt him. All of him. Every inch of his cock, and every drop of his cum as it consumed your core. It heated the blossomed through you, rendering your body still with the very exception of your walls that vice gripped him with your own pleasure. Your hands eased from his mouth and his neck, easing down onto a mattress as your lips parted in a ghost of a moan.

“You like that, Princess?” Vince whispered against the shell of your ear as your body collapsed down on top of the strength of his body. You could only manage a feeble nod in return, “Good, you’ll be feeling me well into the morning after that one.”

The thought painted a soft smile across your features, one that was met with the exhaustion of the day and the fall of your pleasure. It left your eyes heavy, and your body calm as Vince eased out of you and moved your carefully to rest against the pillows. It was there, still in your sundress and with his cum coating the inside of your thighs, that sleep took you quickly, quicker than it had ever before.

Come morning you moved straight for your bag and took your pills into your hand. You held them in against your palm for a moment, hearing their soft rattle in the packaging before you gripped them firmly in your hand. Taking a steady, confident breath, you walked across the room and straight to the trash bin. You showed no hesitation as you opened your hand and let them fall.

#vince dunn #nhl rpf #nhl imagine #hockey rpf #hockey smut #nhl smut #rpf #hockey imagines #vince dunn fanfic

770 notes · View notes

blouisparadise · 1 month

Text

Upon request, today we have a rec list of bottom Louis fics where either Louis or Harry has amnesia. If you enjoy our rec lists, please be sure to like and reblog this post to help spread the word. Happy reading!

1) Finding Thoughts | Teen & Up | 6,810 words

"Hi, my name is Louis Tomlinson and I suffer from short term memory loss."

2) Our Love Was Made For Movie Screens. | Not Rated | 8,106 words

Harry wakes up and doesn't know anything about anything and Louis is his omega.

3) Cause I’m Really Not Fine At All | Mature | 13,679 words

Louis Tomlinson, one of the famous members of One Direction, is involved in a car accident that caused him to have amnesia, wiping all the last five years of his life from the memory. The interesting part is he may not remember that he has a girlfriend now, yet his mind seems to think that he has been in a relationship with one of the members, Harry Styles. Harry is baffled and shocked at the situation that's thrown in his face. He finds himself learning how to be a good boyfriend for Louis. It has to be easy.. right?

4) Indestructible | Explicit | 24,243 words

“Hi,” Harry murmurs, and Louis hiccups out a sob. “Hi,” he manages, still clutching onto Harry’s shoulders. Harry’s fingers drift across Louis’ cheeks, and there’s something off about Harry’s expression, but Louis can’t figure out what it is. “I’m okay,” Harry says, and Louis is going to say something to that, even if he doesn’t know what, except Harry’s kissing him. Louis freezes.

5) The Way This River Runs | Explicit | 27,417 words

Louis is provided a chance to start over. He takes it.

6) Deleted Scenes | Explicit | 33,623 words

Agent Harry Styles was injured on the job a few months back, and gets roped in one last mission before he can retire prematurely: playing house with Louis, a widower who has amnesia. The assignment seems simple at the beginning, but soon enough Harry's twisted in a web of his own making, and can't get out anymore.

7) Just A Pretty Boy | Explicit | 35,614 words

The alpha in front of him wasn’t only tall, but used every inch of his body to look even more threatening. He looked as shocked as Joseph felt, in his eyes he could clearly see horror and anger mixed into an odd and painful mix. It was as if he just watched a ghost or a monster from a nightmare come to life. “Louis…” he said with a low voice. It wasn’t a question, he was calling Joseph by that name. The crease between Joseph’s brows deepened. “Who?” Louis and Harry were married until, one day, Louis passed away in a tragic accident. Years later, he is found alive and with a thousand questions plaguing his mind. The most important ones; was his husband involved in his disappearance? And, how long did it take Harry and his best friend to fall in love after his supposed dead?

8) The Things I’d Do To Wake Up Next To You | Mature | 36,109 words

AU. Harry wakes up to a pregnant Louis Tomlinson and a wedding band on his finger.

9) Strangers In Love | Explicit | 42,207 words

Louis wakes up to find himself in a marriage with the last man he thought he'd ever end up with.

10) Define Me Again | Mature | 54,385 words

He's never felt so frightened in his life before, so fucking terrified for himself. And Louis. He looked down at their hands, which seemed to have been connected throughout the incident. He looked at the ring on Louis' hand, for the nth time that day. His heart hurt so bad now, he was terrified. He wanted to do so many things, he wanted to check on louis, if he- if he- God he couldn't even think about it. "Louis," he tried to whisper, but nothing but air came out from his mouth. "I love you, Harry," whispered a voice. But it was nowhere near him. Visions attacked his mind, rapidly flickering through like one would do the pages of a book. He was terrified. His entire life literally flashed in his mind, vision growing more and more weak and he fought unconsciousness. Memories and the picture of Louis lying unconscious in front of him altered and flickered, so rapidly that he felt dizzy with how fast his mind was whirring. What happens when you die? God he was so, so, so, fucking terrified. All his senses gave out, last thing he felt was Louis' hand in his and then, everything went black.

11) Flash Back To Me | Explicit | 73,068 words | Prequel

Louis narrows his eyes, wanting more than anything to tell Liam to go fuck himself, but he can’t be sure, is the thing. As much as he knows for a fact that he would never date someone like Harry Styles, he has months missing from his memory. And it’s scary to think that, in that time, everything he’s come to know about himself could have changed so drastically.

12) Consequences | Explicit | 78,556 words

Two years ago Harry let his powerful family come between him and the love of his life, something he deeply regrets. Louis has tried to move on from their devastating break up. Sometimes, he even thinks he has. It only takes one moment to freeze them back in time.

13) Invisible String | Explicit | 84,726 words

Louis swears on his life that that man came out of literal nowhere and he thanks each lucky star for having good breaks in his car. This strange alpha also happens to be the most beautiful being Louis has laid his eyes on. For some unknown reason, the omega feels safe around the alpha. It might seem strange, but you can't always explain why or how things are the way they are. All you can really be sure of is that they happen for a reason. There's a higher power (call it what you want) that knows better and definitely knows more than you do.

14) The Dead Of July | Explicit | 117,446 words

Harry is Captain America, and Louis’ been dead for 70 years.

Check out our other fic rec lists by category here and by title here.

#bottom louis #top harry #larry #fic recs #blp fic recs #amnesia

112 notes · View notes

dwreader · 3 months

Text

Actual incidents in the book that are in dispute btwn Louis and Lestat since you fuckers can't seem to read:

-Lestat wanted Louis for his plantation vs. he is in fact already rich: not really relevant to the show since show Lestat is flaunting the fact that he's extremely wealthy from the start. Louis is not under any illusion that this guy is after his wealth, HE moves into Lestat's house in fact and accepts Lestat's money/gifts/etc. Lestat is a captial p PROVIDER. He said do NOT take that away from me and it's one thing he's 100% right about.

-A cold loveless relationship depicted in IWTV vs. a more loving though still troubled "marriage" according to TVL: again, more or less moot for the show since season 1 depicts Lestat's version of their relationship more so than Louis's. They are clearly in a romantic relationship, had some good times (that were maybe glossed over quickly by Louis but are still clearly depicted through Claudia's diaries) and yet even in TVL, Lestat agrees that Louis's account was an accurate representation of the atomsphere of their decades together and that he deserved all the punishment he got.

-Lestat torturing + killing people for fun according to Louis vs. Lestat's claim that he only killed people who were "bad" and deserved it: kind of already played out on the show when Louis suggests the idea in 1x03, but ultimately it doesn't significantly alter our perception of Lestat cause does anyone actually care that prostitutes stole money from their clients and think that's a valid reason to torture and kill them? Hope not! It's just a good insight into Lestat's mind and how he justifies killing.

-The events after Lestat's murder and Paris: these parts we have to take from Lestat's POV simply because Louis is unaware of things happening when he's not present. Obviously will be a major part of Season 2.

-The scene at the end of IWTV happening or not: the most direct contradiction between the two accounts but this has not happened yet on the show so it has no bearing on anything in season 1.

As you can see, most of these contradictions involve Louis's omissions in IWTV rather than "made up" events. Save for the final scene in NOLA that doesn't actually mean anything to season 1, absolutely nothing about Louis's depiction of events in IWTV is really disputed by Lestat. Louis's turning, Claudia's turning, the "atomsphere" under which they lived leading up to Lestat's murder and Lestat's murder itself are all indisputable. Lestat is revealing more of his motivations and giving us further vampire context/knowledge that Louis didn't have (because Lestat kept it from him btw and he forgives Louis his errors because he knew it was out of enforced ignorance), but that only slightly changes our perception of his actions. It does not throw them into the trash.

It's also very clear that Season 1 is already an amalgamation of the two versions. If they were taking IWTV literally, the show wouldn't even be a romance and it clearly is. It uses Claudia's diaries (a device revealed only much later in the books) to fill in some scenes that Louis may not have been present for like the kidanpping on the train but the two perspectives make the story kind of bulletproof? The reliability or lack thereof of Louis as a narrator is made possible by Claudia's diary being there as a secondary source and when he's at his most unreliable, it's the diary that provides the contradictions. WE see something's off when the diary's pages are excised. BUT you really don't have any basis in the books for a major lifechanging event like episode 5 to be retconned, let alone an event with two people as sources and involved a prolonged recovery period that's also described in painstaking detail by said two people. Like this woman was a lazy writer most of the time but even SHE wouldn't do that cause its like a basic writing tenant not to feed your reader horseshit??

#iwtv #interview with the vampire #lestat being more self-aware than his fans.. wild #anyways fuck off now

121 notes · View notes

licncourt · 2 years

Note

Is there a specific way to read the vampire chronicles or some books you should skip (I’ve just heard that some aren’t that good but like I’m up for anything)? And what books are focused on Louis and Lestat?

Okay I hope you weren't looking for a short answer to this because there isn't one 😭 Rather than just give my uncontextualized opinion, I'm going to try to explain what makes some (most) of VC so unbelievably terrible in so many people's eyes. There are going to be spoilers for pretty much all the books, but most of it is either incredibly stupid or information that you might want relating to content warnings. I'll list what applies to each book as I go.

I'm assuming you're here from my VC primer post, but if not, I'll link it right here! It gives a bit more detail on my short answer to your main question which is: if you value your sanity, only read the first three. Also a note to read the post I linked at the bottom of it about Anne Rice for context. It will help with understanding the tone this post takes re: the author.

To quickly answer your second question, I am sad to report that Interview with the Vampire is the only book focused on Loustat because after that Anne Rice decided that she hated Louis. Their relationship is on and off in the (very, VERY distant) background until they finally get together permanently towards the end of the series, but it's never the focal point again. She just kept us all on the hook by having one absolutely brain chemistry altering ship moment in a majority of the books (my compilation of those moments here).

Okay, on to specifics:

Interview with the Vampire: a literary classic with incredible character building. I'm assuming we can all agree that IWTV is fantastic and anyone who is reading this because of the show is probably already sold on it. If that's where you're coming from, you might be a bit disappointed by how unsympathetic Lestat can be, but that'll be remedied(ish) later. Lestat is the main character in the series going forward. Enjoy this Louis content because this is pretty much the end of it.

CW: keep in mind that the beginning of the book takes place on a plantation with all that entails; there are some occasional pedophilic and incestuous undertones, but nothing out of place with Gothic horror (it gets so much worse); domestic violence

The Vampire Lestat: this is widely considered to be excellent popular fiction rather than something as elevated as IWTV, but it's a 5-star read according to most fans. Lestat is such a vibrant, exciting character and so much more than the charismatic villain he was in IWTV (the AMC show incorporates a lot of his characterization from this book, as IWTV was originally a stand-alone novel without any real idea of what Lestat would become).

Aside from a (delightful) cameo at the end of the book, Louis is now in Anne Rice Jail and will not be allowed to do anything for the next nine books except be tortured once like a bug for no reason.

CW: a non-consensual turning that is directly analogous to sexual assault; descriptions of child abuse; Lestat, unfortunately, tongue kisses his mom

Queen of the Damned: this is the last book that most fans like. I personally consider it a step down from the first two, but I strongly prefer intimate, character driven stories and QotD is very plotty. It's a fun book, but some cracks start to show in AR's writing that will become a big problem later. Still, it's enjoyable and the ending is very satisfying for the story arc and for the characters. It also contains a fan favorite chapter that follows Daniel, the interviewer, and his insane romance with the vampire Armand.

If you want to be a happy person, turn back now.

CW: non-con blood drinking/vampiric SA; casual racism and pro-imperialism

***CATEGORY 5 EVENT: ANNE RICE FIRES HER EDITOR PERMANENTLY***

The Tale of the Body Thief: this is considered by most fans (obligatory not ALL) to be the worst book in the series simply for how the subject matter is handled. This is the beginning of AR transforming Lestat into something very existentially disturbing without even meaning to. The sympathetic, charming, evil-but-not-really theater kid Lestat is gone without a trace in a way that could be a very insightful look at the aftermath of trauma but is instead deeply insensitive and really upsetting.

Lestat from here on out becomes a hypermasculine caricature that can do no wrong according to the narrative and this has some pretty awful results. There are a few funny moments (like Lestat describing the sensation of peeing for two full pages) and a very cute arc where he adopts a dog, but he also commits two explicit rapes and emotionally abuses/threatens Louis on several occasions with the authorial justification that "men can't help themselves", abuse victims have it coming for setting boundaries, and people who have suffered abuse become abusers. This will be a recurring theme going forward.

Not related to Lestat, but also an Indian man is killed and has his body stolen and inhabited by a white British man in what would be a great metaphor for colonialism if the author thought that was a bad thing.

I am on the last chapter of a 140,000 word fic that I wrote just because I hate TotBT so much and wanted to create a world where it doesn't have to exist. It's one of the most popular VC fics on ao3, and that's not a testament to my writing ability, but rather to how much people hate this book.

CW: graphic SA; domestic violence; insensitivity to the point of racism; the author thinking these things are okay

Memnoch the Devil: not much to say about this. It's AR's ripoff of Dante's Inferno. Lestat meets the devil, goes to hell, drinks the blood of Jesus Christ, loses an eye, vacuum sucks period blood out of a woman's uterus and pad, and then falls into a five year semi-coma on a church floor. Somehow it's still boring. Best I can say is that the Lestat characterization is a bit less heinous than it is in the previous book.

CW: not much here unless you have an issue with period blood guzzling

The Vampire Armand: truly a notorious book in the series, beloved by some, hated by many. There's some good backstory for the character Armand (he first appears in IWTV, likely in season two of the show) and some fun historical fiction, however. Armand begins his story as a twelve year old human child who is rescued from sex slavery by an ancient vampire, Marius (he was namedropped in AMC ep 2).

Over the course of the book, he's physically, mentally, sexually abused by Marius, his teacher and father figure who is, like David, presented as a wise and moral authorit figure. In addition, Armand carries on a sexual relationship with an adult man as a minor. The sex is graphic (it's erotica) and it's really the peak of the pedophilia in VC. Keep in mind that this is coming from an author who publicly defended a child predator and thought that 14 year old kids could consent and should be allowed to have sex with adults.

Of all the later books, this one is the most widely enjoyed because Marius/Armand is a fairly popular ship.

CW: CSA/grooming; statutory rape; explicit adult/minor content; child abuse; cult abuse

Merrick: evil, evil book. AR's giant fuck you to Louis and anyone who likes his character. Lestat is in his devil coma for most of this book, so it's narrated by his newest fledgling and rape victim, David (who I and most others despise. This is the white guy who has an Indian body now). By this point, AR had openly admitted that she didn't like Louis, and she kind of spends this book tormenting and mocking him for no reason.

The titular Merrick (a mixed-race witch drowned in awful racial connotations) mind controls Louis with magic, then forces him to turn her (again, AR has confirmed that this is vampire rape) and be in a relationship. After this, she conjures a "ghost" that may or may not be Louis and Lestat’s dead daughter who tells Louis she always hated him and blamed him for her death. Completely overcome by grief, without Lestat (coma), and having been raped, Louis attempts suicide.

This event and all his mental health issues up to this point are framed by David as being stupid and weak, the sign of a lesser person who should just go and die because they deserve it. It is worth mentioning yet again that David is framed as being in the right and AR had expressed these opinions herself in the past (ie that mental illness is just weakness and you should be able to get over it).

Another fun thing is that Merrick was groomed by David as a child and he spends most of the book wanting her back and also admitting to other acts of pedophilia. So that's fun and great for a character who's supposed to be a voice of reason and moral center.

0/10, despise this book.

CW: sexual assault; grooming; attempted suicide

Blood & Gold: this is Marius' backstory. It is a completely pointless book because we've already heard it twice by this point in the series (and if you read the companion book Pandora, you'll hear it again). The whole thing reads like a Wikipedia page about ancient Rome. Read it if you want I guess.

CW: Marius

Blackwood Farm: this book had...potential? None of that was ever achieved, but I'll at least say that the concept could be worse. Lestat acquires his FIFTH brunette sadboi love interest of the series in this book, so that's kind of funny. Overall though, any positive qualities are overshadowed by weird prose, a really transphobic caricature, and the fact that the main character has shower sex with the ghost of his dead twin brother

CW: transphobia; sibling incest

Blood Canticle: Miss Rice decided to. Get creative with this book. It is a fandom joke. It is the worst prose in existence. It is a literary manic episode. It is truly indescribable. I'm just going to leave this excerpt from ch 1 here and let you imagine an entire book of this

Yes, chapter one is Anne Rice using Lestat as a proxy to berate her readers for not liking Memnoch the Devil. It's also important to me that you know Lestat calls himself "omnisensual" in this book, tries to become a saint, and tells a woman to put some clothes on because men can't control themselves. The word "chuckle" is also written out in the prose in italics like this is ff.net in 2010. The best thing that came of this book is the famous AR Amazon reviews rant (now a beloved VC fandom copypasta). Please read it. It's transcendent.

CW: psychologically devastating prose

Prince Lestat: this is AR's comeback book, published 12 years after Blood Canticle. It's an improvement, but it's still terrible and very, VERY dumb. Lestat has completed his transformation into a macho man male power fantasy for AR and we end with the establishment of a vampire monarchy with Lestat in charge because he slurped and then puked up the brains of the vampire who had the Special Vampire Essence.

Mostly this was an excuse for AR to kill off a bunch of her weird NPCs that she didn't know what to do with. The good news is we get a very cute, official Loustat love confession and for the first time since the first book in the entire series, we get a chapter that's Louis' POV!! It's like 7 pages long but it's the best we're ever going to get.

Other fun thing that happens: Lestat is hooked up to a hormone IV that allows him to fuck (book vampires can't) and the resident scientist vampire steals his cum and creates a petri dish clone of Lestat that is raised in secret for 18 years before being given to Lestat as his son. No, I'm not joking.

CW: uh, brain eating? Insanely unethical human experimentation?

Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis: batshit crazy book. Truly bonkers. There are aliens, Atlantis is real, Lestat has a sentient brain parasite that controls all vampires and talks to him in his mind like the PS5, vampire brain surgery occurs, a choir of child vampires is there, an alien named Derek breastfeeds a disembodied hand until it grows into his clone named Derek Two, and so much more.

The one positive is that after decades of harassment, AR finally lets Louis be a main character again. By this point he has been completely stripped of his personality (I call it the Louis Lobotomy) and exists solely as Lestat's sexy lamp, but whatever. He's there and they're cute together. How they managed to become a healthy, functional couple overnight after two hundred years of drama is never explained.

Lestat makes out with his rapist and talks about how he was asking for it in a particularly nauseating scene, but otherwise it's pretty tame trigger-wise

CW: rape apologia/victim blaming

Blood Communion: we are finally being put out of our misery. The end of the series. This is such a boring book and Lestat’s characterization is completely nonsensical by now. Several main characters are presumed dead for a while and by this point you don't even care. Not even the other characters in the book seem to care. Its only use is to get that sweet sweet Loustat happy ending.

CW: temporary character death

Alright, that was a lot of shit-talking a book series I literally run a fandom blog and write hundreds of thousands of words of fic for, but the truth is, fans are here for the characters as they were originally created. The first three books are wonderful, the first two completely masterful and case studies in how character building should be done. There's a reason they've been read and analyzed and fawned over for forty years. What happened to the series is heartbreaking, but it doesn't negate the impact of how it started.

AR may have started spelling her own characters' names wrong and writing a baffling combination of disgusting hot takes and total absurdity, but she created something special in the beginning and I'll always love it and be grateful for what it once was.

I hope that was helpful!

#i'm sorry i didn't proofread this it's 4am #answered #vc #the vampire chronicles #iwtv #loustat #louis de pointe du lac #lestat de lioncourt #interview with the vampire

1K notes · View notes

larryfanfiction · 2 months

Text

Historical Girl Direction

🎀 The Sweet Yoke by little_obelia @littleobelia (1k, T)

Harry prays to Mother Mary, Undoer of Knots, to send a healer to attend to the Order's ailing hens. Mother Superior consults the blessed yellow pages and finds Tomlinson, L., a local veterinarian.

🎀 Oh Valley Girl by LadyLondonderry @londonfoginacup (3k, G)

Out past the rolling hills and the churning sea sits a little fishing village, nestled in a valley where its residents are protected from the elements, as well as from the outside world as a whole. Harry lives in this little fishing village, and she loves nothing more than feeling the earth beneath her and seeing the sky above her and sometimes dreaming of adventure. Then one day a ship arrives.

🎀 Too Great a Temptation by QuickedWeen @becomeawendybird (5k, G)

Harry and Louis attend a fancy dress ball.

🎀 In a Little Bit of Trouble by QuickedWeen @becomeawendybird (5k, T)

Agent Louis Tomlinson is in hot water and finds help in the most unlikely of places: the sweet waitress at her local automat.

🎀 Hoist the Colours High by Kerasines @justlarried (5k, M)

They’re facing each other, closer now, so close, cut off from the world completely, or at least it feels that way. The blanket cages them in, blocks out the moonlight, dulls the sound of the wind, the sea, and the birds coming from outside. The air is hot and musky, but she thinks she could stay under this blanket forever. It’s their own little universe, in here, shared breath and shared heat and shared time. Or: A Girl Direction Pirates of the Caribbean AU featuring Harry as Will Turner, Louis as Elizabeth Swann, swords, and my obsession with girls in men's period clothing.

🎀 Only You (Blue Always Stays True) by BeautifulWisdom @justanotherghostblr (11k, M)

Regency AU. Lady Harriet falls for her sister's best friend the elusive Alpha Lady Louise who couldn't possibly return her tender feelings. Or could she?

🎀 Withdrawal Was the Weeping by QuickedWeen @becomeawendybird (11k, E)

Confined by life and society, Harry spends her Sunday afternoons walking aimlessly about the countryside as it's her only source of freedom. One Sunday she is aided by the most beautiful woman she has ever met, but not everything is as it seems. Was it a trick of the light? Was it Harry's own active imagination? There is nothing to do but try to find her again.

🎀 Harriet and Louise by Blaaake @newleafover (29k, E)

There’s nothing Harriet can do to alter the world, but she can make Louise laugh. A regency-era girl direction AU

🎀 The Changer and the Changed by homosociallyyours @homosociallyyours (59k, M)

It’s the spring of 1977 and Harry Styles has just moved to New York City after graduating college. She knows she’s a lesbian. She just needs to figure out how to meet other lesbians. Louis Tomlinson works at a popular women’s bookstore in the Lower East Side, Womon’s Direction, where she spends her days reading feminist literature, writing poetry, exchanging friendly barbs with her boss Niall, and dreaming of finding someone to love. When Harry and Louis meet, their connection is instantaneous. Slowly but surely, Louis welcomes Harry into her community of women. Stonewall veteran and old school butch Niall; Liam, a land dyke who’s moved to the city for love; and Zayn, a lesbian musician who’s been ostracized by a vocal part of women’s community for being trans, welcome Harry with open arms, ready to help her find her place in New York City’s bustling lesbian scene. It’s a time of growth for everyone involved.

🎀 into the great wide open by mixedfandomfics @ficshl (69k, T)

It only took a week or so for Harry to truly get into the routine of life on the road. They woke before dawn each morning, ate a small meal, packed up the tent and rounded up the livestock, all before setting out. On a good day, they could make it twenty miles. There hadn’t been many bad ones, but Louis confessed that on a previous trip there had been a solid week where they hadn’t made it more than five miles a day. Soon, Louis promised, animals would start going lame, and wheels would start breaking, and people would start going hungry. The beginning was the easiest, and the end was doable only because the hope of finishing the trek fueled everyone. It was the middle bit, with the tedious marching hundreds of miles from any settlement, that people succumbed to the journey.

🎀 Among Lavender Fields by homosociallyyours @homosociallyyours (70k, E)

At twenty-one, Louis Tomlinson is more than ready to shed the girl next door image that's been with her since her entry into film in her childhood, but with a mother and father steeped in Hollywood tradition it's felt impossible. Meanwhile, Harry Styles is a young, struggling musician new to London, friendless yet eager for the next phase of her life to begin. When French director Marie Coutard casts the two of them in her film, it's a chance for both to break away from the people they've been. Together, they struggle through an acting process that's new and unfamiliar for both of them, learning more than they could've imagined about themselves along the way. As they spend long days picking lavender and long nights sharing the things they've never been able to tell anyone else, their love blooms. Will the flower fade, or will the love they make among lavender fields be one they carry with them to the end?

#larry fanfiction #historical #girl direction #genderswapao3 #ma

64 notes · View notes

vintageshanny · 5 months

Text

Play Something For Me - Part 7 - Over the Rainbow

Content: Ruby and Elvis enjoy a sweet and smutty Thanksgiving in 1973 that involves a leather suit with rainbow fringe. 18+

Thank you to @peaceloveelvis for inspiring me with this pic of leather rainbow fringe pants that I didn’t know existed. And eternal gratitude to my lovely friends who’ve cheered me on in writing this series! 😘 @whositmcwhatsit @ellie-24 @be-my-ally @thatbanditqueen @lookingforrainbows @from-memphis-with-love @missmaywemeetagain @powerofelvis @arrolyn1114

If you need to catch up, here’s the series page:

Play Something For Me

Wednesday, November 21st, 1973

“But mom, I wanna go with you! It’s not fair!” Ella’s chocolate-brown eyes glazed over with tears as she pleaded her case. “Oh, honey, I know. There’s nothing I can do, it’s your father’s turn for Thanksgiving this year. But Elvis was very insistent that we both come for Christmas, so you’ll get to see Graceland then.” Ruby rubbed Ella’s back as she embraced her, soothing away the tears while she tried to hold her own nerves at bay.

After the week Elvis had spent in St. Louis at Halloween, he’d had to go back to Memphis to “take care of some business,” as he put it. The times they’d spent together so far had been in a sort of cocoon of love. Now she’d be entering his home and his normal daily life, whatever that entailed. After his comment about wanting her to move in, she felt a little terrified at how the visit would go.

A car horn honked outside, and Ruby gave Ella one last reassuring squeeze. “I love you, Ella-bella,” she murmured. “I’ll tell you all about Graceland when you come home on Sunday.” “You better,” Ella said with a small smile, trying to will herself into a better mood. “And I love you too.”

With Ella safely picked up, Ruby turned her attention back to her closet so she could finish packing for the long weekend. “What exactly does one wear for Thanksgiving at Graceland?” she muttered under her breath as she surveyed what looked to her like a bunch of frumpy “mom” dresses. “I wonder if I have time to alter anything…” she continued her one-way conversation when the phone interrupted her thoughts with its shrill tone.

“Hey, sweet red Ruby,” the unmistakable timbre sent butterflies swarming through her belly. “Elvis! It’s you!” Ruby squeaked out nervously. “Course it’s me baby, ya got another man callin’ ya?” he asked with a hint of suspicion in his voice. “No, no, sorry, I’m just…nervous about tomorrow,” Ruby admitted. Elvis’ tone softened instantly. “W-w-why ya nervous honey? It’s jus’ me. You ain’t never gotta be nervous or scared ‘round me.” Ruby cleared her throat a little bit. “Yeah, I know, I just hope I fit in there with you, in your home,” she said with an anxious sigh. “Ruby honey, ya ain’t gotta worry ‘bout that. Ya already know we fit together perfectly. In every way,” he added, and Ruby could almost see his cheeky grin right through the phone line as a flush rose on her face and a strained little whimper escaped her lips. Elvis laughed and teased, “Red Ruby, wait til ya get here so I can see the look on your face when ya make those noises.” Then he added more seriously, “I can’t wait ta see ya, honey. I miss ya so much.” Ruby’s heart melted right down and warmed her entire body. “Me too, baby.”

**************************************************************************************************

Ruby landed at the airport in Memphis at 11:18 Thursday morning with all the other last-minute Thanksgiving travelers. She bit down on her lip nervously as she looked around for Charlie, who she knew Elvis was sending to pick her up. She’d met Charlie in Las Vegas and he was sweet enough, although maybe a little desperate for Elvis’ approval. She inwardly chuckled, thinking how Elvis’ entourage probably thought the same about her. Charlie was polite but quiet on the drive to Graceland, as if he sensed her nerves and didn’t want to say anything that might escalate them.

Ruby gasped a little bit as they pulled up to the famed music note gate. She’d seen pictures of the house in magazines, but it was even more beautiful in person. She somehow felt Elvis’ aura and energy the moment they started up the driveway, and the nerves and excitement intensified as they parked and headed for the door. “We’ll go in the back ‘cuz he’s probably in the den waitin’ for ya,” Charlie explained. Ruby nodded anxiously and followed.

As she walked through the door and into a room filled with interesting furniture and an actual waterfall along the wall, she only had eyes for her beautiful man, who was sitting in a high-backed chair, holding court with his loyal subjects. He was talking and laughing, and his warm energy called to her. As soon as he laid eyes on her, he jumped to his feet and swooped her up in a big hug. “Ever’one, this is my sweet red Ruby,” he declared proudly, showing her off like a shiny new car. Most of the guys she recognized from Las Vegas, but she was introduced to some girlfriends and wives, plus a couple other employees. “Imma take Ruby on a tour,” Elvis said with a little wink as he grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the basement steps. As they walked away, she could swear she heard someone remark, “It’s nice to see someone closer to his age.” Elvis must have heard it too because his grip tightened slightly, but he chose to ignore it for now.

“Will I get to meet Lisa?” Ruby asked as they walked down the stairs and turned right. She could see Elvis’ jaw tighten and his eyes turn stormy. “Naw, baby, Cilla is bein’ a –” Elvis caught himself and blinked slowly, trying to calm down. “Cilla won’t let her come home til Christmas,” he said, his eyes dropping sadly. Ruby wrapped her arms around him in a comforting embrace. “I’m sorry, Elvis,” she said softly. “I know how hard it is to be without your baby at the holidays. I guess the silver lining for us is that we have some time alone right now.” Elvis glanced up at her face quickly, his sad expression turning playful. “And what did ya have in mind for the alone time, Miss Ruby? Hmm?” he questioned teasingly.

“Well,” Ruby murmured with a deep blush, “I did notice the first stop on the tour is this big couch.” She nodded toward the long couch right behind Elvis. “And you’re here looking so sexy like this,” she added as she fully took in his outfit for the first time. Along with his usual assortment of rings and necklaces, he was wearing a brown leather jacket with long rainbow-colored fringe over a green button-down shirt. His leather pants matched the jacket, rainbow fringe and all. “Ya like it? I thought it felt like a Thanksgiving thing,” he said, his crooked grin lighting up his face. Ruby had to hold back a giggle at how cute he was to try to dress on theme for the holiday. “I love it, Elvis, there’s no one quite like you,” Ruby said, letting her hands drop and her fingers run ever so lightly over the soft bulge in his leather pants, causing a shiver to run though him. “I should hope not,” he said, smiling, resting one large hand on her shoulder, his warm fingers gently brushing the bare skin of her neck.

“You look very beautiful yourself, sweet Ruby,” Elvis said as he took her in, his eyelids seeming to grow heavy with lust. Ruby beamed, happy that she had chosen the right thing to wear - a burgundy sweater dress with a short flared skirt and a scoop neckline with a drawstring bow. Elvis’ fingers’ moved a little lower down her neck until they were tracing the neckline of her dress, running gently over her cleavage. The mixture of the warmth of his hand and the cool metal of his rings raised goosebumps on her skin. “This little dress is giving me some thoughts,” he whispered lowly as he gave the drawstring a little tug, the bow coming undone and the fabric gaping open a little bit. Elvis bent down and started pressing wet kisses to the exposed area of her chest, little moans coming from both of them. “Oh, baby, you’re makin’ me weak in the knees,” Elvis chuckled. “Let’s sit down for a minute.”

Sitting was the last thing on either of their minds though as Elvis pulled Ruby onto his lap on the couch and explored her mouth, her ear, her neck, and her chest with his tongue. He pulled the front of her dress and the cup of her lacy bra down a little more until one of her breasts was exposed. As he grazed his teeth lightly over her nipple and then sucked it into his warm mouth, flicking it with his tongue, Ruby couldn’t help but instinctually grind down onto his package that had grown so hard she wasn’t sure how it hadn’t burst right through the leather. She hoped the breathy moans from the two of them weren’t wafting up the stairs, but Elvis didn’t seem worried. “Goddamn, baby, I’ve missed ya,” he moaned out as Ruby leaned in and bit softly on his lower lip, then ran her tongue over it. She reached down between them and rubbed her hand back and forth over his bulge, the friction becoming too much for him to bear. “Oh, damn, Ruby, I-I-I love ya baby,” he said with a shudder as she suddenly felt a damp warmth beneath her hand. “I love you too, Elvis,” Ruby whispered as she laid her hand over his chest, feeling his racing heartbeat trying to return to its normal rhythm.

“EP, it’s almost turkey time!” a voice shouted down from upstairs. “Shoot, what am I gonna do ‘bout my pants?” Elvis muttered, looking down at where a sticky wet spot had soaked right through the leather. “I’ll have ta sneak up and change. Baby, can you go up and tell ever’one to wait for me in the dining room?” “Of course,” Ruby smiled as she stood up and straightened out her dress, re-tying the neckline and leaning over to give him a kiss on the cheek before going back upstairs.

Twenty minutes later, everyone had gathered in the dining room for a Thanksgiving feast and Elvis appeared wearing the same jacket but with some black pants. Nancy, one of the cooks who Ruby had been briefly introduced to earlier, brought in a platter of food and looked at Elvis in surprise. “Mr. Elvis, you were so excited about your outfit! Why’d ya change your pants?” Elvis’ face turned red as he stumbled for an answer. Joe started snickering. “I think Elvis needs to know how to get something sticky out of leather. Any tips, Nancy?” Elvis gave Joe a glare that could freeze hell over, but all the guys seemed to have trouble holding back their laughter. Especially when Nancy chimed in with, “You didn’t get syrup on your pants again, did ya?”

Sitting at Elvis’ side, Ruby could feel her face burning red as she realized everyone probably could hear them in the basement. Elvis looked a bit embarrassed too, but Ruby’s presence had a way of lightening his mood. He just leaned in and whispered loudly, “Ignore these assholes Ruby.” Then he dropped his voice so only she could hear. “We’ll go up to my soundproof bedroom later and do whatever you want.” Ruby blushed again and smiled broadly at him as he winked at her. He always made her feel comfortable and protected.

After a delicious dinner, some of the guys went to the basement to play pool, but Elvis sat down and started playing gospel songs on the piano. A few others joined in singing, and Ruby leaned at the edge of the piano, watching Elvis’ passionate face as memories from long ago washed over her. As he started playing “If I Loved You,” he looked up and caught her eye with a big grin, causing her to blush and look away. She knew they were both picturing her kneeling between his legs at the piano bench fifteen years ago. Ruby could feel her pulse quicken at the thought. If only no one else was around, she’d do it all again. She thought about how soft and smooth he felt when she rolled his foreskin up and down, the inviting way his head peeked out when he was fully hard, how sensitive it was when she touched her tongue to it…her chest was starting to heave with all these fantasies racing through her mind, all while staring at this most perfect of faces. As if sensing her desire, Elvis announced they were going to turn in for the night and thanked everyone for celebrating with him. He grabbed Ruby’s hand and showed her the way to the master bedroom.

“I know what you were thinkin’ ‘bout red Ruby,” Elvis teased once they were alone. “You were thinking the same thing!” Ruby protested, swatting at his arm. Elvis smiled so big that his cute dimple flashed at her. “Maybe,” he said. “I was thinkin’ of somethin’ else though, too.” “What’s that?” Ruby asked. “I was thinkin,” Elvis said as he ran his hands down her sides and gently squeezed her waist, “that I wanna lick your pretty little kitty again. I like knowin’ I’m the first man that ever did that to ya.” “You’re the only man,” Ruby corrected as she reached up and stroked his cheek softly. “I have a few firsts with you, but I don’t think you have any with me,” she said, her voice sounding a little bit sad. Elvis looked at her in surprise. He gave her forehead a tender kiss before he spoke.

“Baby, you’re the first woman I’ve been with where I feel like ya want to spend time with me just as much as I do with you. Not spend money or get your name in the papers or any of that, but just spend time with me and and enjoy me and love me for who I am. You’re interested when I talk to ya, you’re affectionate with me all the time, ya never say ya need a break from me, you accept me completely. That’s a first for me, and probably the most important first there is.” Ruby looked up at him, her eyes misty with emotion. “Well, any woman who doesn’t see what a special person you are, even without the money and fame, must be crazy. But that’s okay, because now I get to be the lucky one.”

“You sure do, baby, and let me show ya just how lucky.” Ruby squealed with delight as Elvis tossed her on the bed so he could get to work worshipping her with his tongue.

#elvis #big daddy elvis #elvis fan fic #elvis fan fiction #elvis x oc #Elvis x Ruby #play something for me #I love this man

84 notes · View notes

hourglassfish · 8 months

Text

A (long) Aside on 1:7 and 2:10

There are two responses to 1:7 and 2:10 that always quietly horrify me.

The first, and you know, I'm writing a multi part series on it, so it's no mystery - is that Sydney was arrogant/a brat/ couldn't hack it/ wrong to walk out, and that the situation as a whole was her fault. Nah. She was right to walk out, the biggest failure of that episode is not fucking pulling the breaks when Richie gets stabbed. The workplace has gone from dysfunctional to dangerous, she has been responsible for that danger, the perpetrator of it, and she is right to leave.

little bit of an asshole but i love you so i don't care

Carmy sees Syd saying she's going to stab Richie (as she holds her knife to his chest!) while they're up in each other's faces (with Richie goading her) and he does... nothing. He tells them to shut the fuck up and make giardiniera. At this point they needed to be separated! One or both of them needed to cool off. We've seen Syd bodily put herself between a fighting Carmy and Richie. A little reciprocity would have gone a long way here.

It's wild to me that people think that Carmy was justified in his anger and aggression towards Marcus and Syd and ignore that he is aggressive to Richie also! Richie, typically one of the more confrontational characters in the show asks him to calm down, to cool it. That so many viewers so quickly and uncritically accept Carmy's narrative point of view, even while the show actively challenges it confirms something that has been in the culture a long time: that we are much more used to excusing and aligning ourselves with abusive behaviour, than we are at challenging and refusing it. That people - many of whom have received this kind of behaviour themselves - want to defend it, makes me so, so sad.

It always hurts me a little that in 1:8 Tina tells Carmy that if he 'tries that shit with her, she'll fuck him up'. It's a fun line! But I'm sorry, no she won't. He screams at her too, while chucking bowls around and Sydney's words in 1:7 clearly hurt her. Tina categorically did nothing wrong. She doesn't deserve that shit. But at the end of the day, she is a middle aged Latinx woman and a mother, and so her tolerance level has to be higher. She needs that job! Shedoes not, as far as we know, have a father she can live with rent free, she does not have youth and the promise of exploitable potential to offer to employers in an ageist job market, she does not have CIA qualifications or a CV full of ‘serious heat’.

Carmy. holds. a. position. of. power. over. these. people. He is their boss, not their manager, and he owns the place, mob loan or no. He has the power to sack them all, to cut their hours, to cut their wages; thus the impact of that power extends not just to them, but also to their children and families. Louis being present in Review is not just to add an obstacle, it's also a reminder of those stakes.

Carmy has influence in the fine dining industry, regardless of whether that social and cultural capital is respected at The Beef or not. The very same oppourtunities that he provides them with in season 2 are things he could also lock them out of if he so chose. Any analysis of 1:7 that ignores this power is flawed from its root. When you are a boss, this power is ever present. One of the few things you can do to alter your boss's behaviour is to withdraw your labour. It's not the only option you have, but everything else is at their discretion, or mediated by lengthy, expensive legal processes.

yeh, i hate this

Carmy knows this, even if you don't! It's why the apology he gives Marcus - which Marcus does not ask for - is so heartfelt. Carmy has been on the receiving end of what that power, wielded cruelly, can do. He does not want to do this to others. We see him talk to staff with respect even while he endures horrid abuse in a flashback. We see him teach and explain himself, we see him listen and invite feedback - ‘say more’. His commitment to being a good boss is sincere, that kindness is in his bones.

The second thing people say that makes me want to die a little inside is that Carmy bought getting locked in the fridge on himself, that he deserved it in some way, and that getting locked in the fridge was him abandoning Sydney.

Oh my god!

He does not have a diagnosis yet - so anything we see is an interpretation. But it feels explicit that Carmy has panic disorder, and perhaps generalised anxiety disorder and CPTSD from both his workplace experiences and his childhood. A couple of things that he says and does suggest ADHD, or some other neurodiversity. He is not very careful with himself, and does not recognise these things as treatable problems (Richie says he experiences anxiety and dread, Carmy's response is 'who doesn't' - wince, cruel to Richie, cruel to himself - vomiting everyday and crying out of nowhere are presented as something 'loads of people do' to Sugar. Tumblr loves to send people to therapy, but I just want to send this man to do a basic google search of more than fun tbh). But they are debilitating for him, especially at work.

What happens to how we read Carmy's behaviour when he is presented as someone with an untreated disability, and absolutely no support plan in place? Does he still get his just desserts at the end of the season?

The fridge thing is a bit clumsy, I think. It's silly that over the space of three months, no one at any point just takes that job off him as a priority, or at least makes it something where Tony will call the restaurant, not Carmy specifically. It is unrealistic that there would not be some kind of back up safety lock inside the fridge. But you know, they're characters in a TV show, it also does not take two people swivelling around on the floor to tighten the coat hooks on a table (LOOOOOOL) - it's realistic until its not.

But, you know, it's doing a thing, several things - it's Chekov's gun, isn't it, it's the tangible impact of the lapse of focus that Uncle Jimmy is constantly trying to warn them about.

He wanted to cry here so bad!!! It makes me laugh every time

But umm... guys? What happens to him on that night is so, so horrible. They're a chef down, they're running out of forks, Richie's giving him shit (and Carmy is so susceptible to Richie giving him shit), Marcus and Syd are being all weird. He thinks one of his abusers (Donna) might come, or that she might not come and there will be emotional fallout from that. He thinks he sees his other abuser (Evil Joel Mc Hale) - and he's triggered. He goes in the kitchen and yells, but Syd pulls him back in. Then he goes into the fridge, partly to do chef stuff, I'm sure, but also partly to fucking get his shit together aaaaaand he gets locked in there! He has a panic attack! In a fridge! That he is locked in! And the people he loves most in the world, are the other side of that door, and for five minutes, an eternity in panic attack time, they ignore him! He has no clue what's going on! Last time shit hit the fan, two of his staff walked out (he's still not over Syd walking out cus they never talk about it properly), another one got stabbed and all these new ones are 'emerald green'. And he still thinks evil Joel Mc Hale is out there!

My loves, that shit is the stuff of nightmares! I know he tells himself that he bought this on himself but can we please! stop! uncritically! accepting! his narrative! point! of view!

I don't think anybody on screen recognises that a panic attack is what he's having. That's not their fault. None of them have seen him have a panic attack! They don’t get to see inside his head like we do (which saves them from a lot of R.E.M.) He is locked in the fridge, they just hear the bear banging on the door of his cage! It's not even in the language of the show at this point (though i am curious about how and when Richie came to get his Xanax). But that's what's happening. The team are fine. They do great. He has a terrible, terrible time.

My support worker found 2:10 deeply triggering - and her reason for this, she said, was that a lot of her job was supporting people with panic disorders who are leading teams, and seeing that moment coming, the moment where the panic crashes headlong into their role as leader. Part of her role is anticipating it, and trying to turn it around before they reach the point of no return. And as soon as Carmy thinks he sees Old Boss, he's gone. His body is in flight or fight, and he is alone with that. He can’t show up for Syd at that point, he is in his equivalent of the trenches.

This is also what is happening in 1:7. Somehow his response is often framed as a) rational or b) just an asshole - but it is so outsize to the situation, and to who we know him to be most of the time (quiet, kind, thoughtful, sensitive, BITCHY), that we know it has to be more than that.

None of this is helped by the fact that Carmy's panic attacks are... well they're kind of ugly! His meltdowns are aggressive and shouty, on the edge of physical violence, in an industry where people behave like that because they can. It is hard, parsing through that to the triggers, and fears, and panic beneath. It's scary! It asks so much of people to see that and want to help, not run away. But that is where he's at.

I do not have language for how much I hate how physical he gets with Marcus here, it is deeply upsetting

I have an access rider, to help me work well with people, and to help them work well with me. My mental health turns up in every job I do. All the time. Has done for years. It can make me unreliable, uncommunicative and absent. It can mean that people have to step up sometimes in ways they weren't anticipating. And one of the things the rider asks for is 'Good Faith' - a belief that I have not shut down because I'm an asshole, but rather because I have some unhelpful coping mechanisms that I am trying to work my way out of, that my triggers are real, not excuses for laziness or an expression of lack of care, that i will give as much as I can when I can.

Syd and Carmy are beginning to work towards this - Carmy says over and over again that he doesn't want to be shitty. Claire fucking muddies things, because I will not meet you skiving off to see your girlfriend with good faith fam. That shit he needs to be held accountable for. Dropping that envelope was a perfect Richie job, I'm still pissed about that. But being locked in the fridge... there's way more going on there.

The idea that Carmy should, and will, leave the culinary world keeps coming up in various metas. But... the problem isn't cooking? I think Carmy loves cooking, still. I think he likes being part of a team, and wants to be good at it. I think he likes teaching, and he is good at that. I think he likes picking the right silent plates and having his CDC in Thom Browne. I also think he likes being there a lot and being absorbed by his job.

The problem is that the workplace he is in is not one that is set up to his needs right now - it's not set up so that he can rest enough, so that he can eat well, so that he can exercise, or whatever he needs to do to help him manage his brain and nervous system. It's not set up so that if he is triggered, he and his team knows how to keep going with the service *and* not abandon him to the worst of his brain.

Ohhhh it's bad

Carmy ignoring Claire's call and not calling Tony feels bizarre stripped of the context of his panic attack that morning. But we know that anxiety and panic and executive dysfunction take simple things and make them insurmountable. It's not about Sydney in that moment, or even really about Claire*, and self sabotage feels so weighted with judgement when I think about what those frozen moments feel like from the inside. And I've had my diagnoses for 12 years! I've been doing that work, the long slog of trying to make sure my employees know enough context that my MH doesn't fuck up their day, whilst also maintaining my own dignity and right to privacy.

The disentangling of symptoms from personality traits is so hard - fuck ups from trauma responses, what was preventable, and what might have happened even if you did everything right. I never want to lose sight of compassion for Carmy, and the reality of how long it takes to break those cycles.

I also never want to stop seeing the power that he has over the people that he works with, and how, unfortunately, one of the responsibilities of leadership is that you have to be trying to get your shit together, you have to know yourself, and know how your baggage, combined with your power could be creating harm. It’s hard, but there’s not way around it. It is essential that he gets the support he needs, and puts the measures in place that means that he can also be vulnerable, not just for him, but for the team as whole. The power and the lack of framework together are so very harmful for everyone.

makes for delicious tv though 😉

I think a lot about the ticket machines in The Bear. I'm not thinking about them as a former line chef, cus I'm not that, I'm an artist and writer, that waitressed for a while (while a lot of chefs did a lot of coke out back!) and The Bear is fiction, not a documentary. Those little tickets are used for so many things. They're the sound of pressure. They're where a bunch of intrusive thoughts get flashed up on the screen. They are the presence of tech and of speed and alienation. They are the gap where two human beings, one asking for food, and one cooking that food, become consumer and producer. They are a presence of the machine in the workplace, and they stand in for Marcus's machines in McDonald's and for Evil Joel McHale and for financial failure.

One of the things that capitalism demands is that we always listen to that machine. That when we are making a choice, between the people stood around us, who we work with daily, who we live massive chunks of our life with, and the demand for production for go go go - that we choose the latter, even if it harms the former. That we open for service, even though one of our oldest friends just got stabbed. That we prioritise getting the service turned around on Friends and Family night (the easiest night of the year to go out, pour more wine, and say service is a little delayed, but we've got this), rather than maybe asking Fak or even Claire, to come and talk to Carmy through the door, as well, make sure that he's OK. That we just keep going.

And there are so many really important reasons to do that! Keeping going is how we learn and grow, it's how we make sure that we can pay the bills, how we provide beautiful experiences for customers and guests who are more than consumers to us.

But at some point, we have to ask at what cost. When do we stop and make different? When do we try something else, make new systems, that work for us?

A moment - a small, tiny moment - of triumph for me, is when Richie and Syd turn the table around. So rather than one person, facing the tickets alone, with their back to the kitchen as they yell out orders, the person on Expo faces in. yes they can see the tickets, but they can also see the people they are working with. They can see stress, and worry and joy. They can see how hard they are working. They can see that they are not alone, not just in a promise before service, but during service, when you need that connection most.

My hope is that Season 3 will have more of them making these decisions - ones that lean into seeing each other, where their relationships keep growing, and they build a system where the love and care they have for each other is truthfully at the heart of it.

Richie is not my bag, that's just for me, personally, but I get how much he means to others, and he's beautiful here.

*Man, I do think the romance subplot was a bit of a misstep. Pop always feels like such a waste of the audience's time, time not spent with Ebra and Tina, time spent on a presentation of romance that has been done to death and is never especially satisfying. Truncates a lot of empathy for Carmy. Boo. Hiss.

#the bear #carmy berzatto #sydney adamu

141 notes · View notes

bottomlouisficfest · 5 months

Text

Define me again

Author: Hazzascul_07 / @hazzascul Pairing: Louis/Harry Rating: Mature Word Count: 54k Summary: He's never felt so frightened in his life before, so fucking terrified for himself. And Louis. He looked down at their hands, which seemed to have been connected throughout the incident. He looked at the ring on Louis' hand, for the nth time that day.

His heart hurt so bad now, he was terrified. He wanted to do so many things, he wanted to check on Louis, if he- if he-

God he couldn't even think about it.

"Louis," he tried to whisper, but nothing but air came out from his mouth.

"I love you, Harry," whispered a voice. But it was nowhere near him.

Visions attacked his mind, rapidly flickering through like one would do the pages of a book.

He was terrified.

His entire life literally flashed in his mind, vision growing more and more weak and he fought unconsciousness. Memories and the picture of Louis lying unconscious in front of him altered and flickered, so rapidly that he felt dizzy with how fast his mind was whirring.

What happens when you die? God he was so, so, so, fucking terrified.

All his senses gave out, last thing he felt was Louis' hand in his and then, everything went black.

Written for the @bottomlouisficfest ✨

#the last fic of the week has been revealed!#check it out and enjoy :)#blff 2023

73 notes · View notes

cold-blooded-jelly-doughnut · 3 months

Text

Big thanks to @thisbuildinghasfeelings @three-drink-amy @sznofthesticks @im-overstimulated-and-im-sad @paperstorm @heartstringsduet @lemonlyman-dotcom @whatsintheboxmh @carlos-in-glasses @jesuisici33 @bonheur-cafe @herefortarlos @fitzherbertssmolder @theghostofashton for the tags. As I work my way slowly through the edit of First Time After, here’s a small snippet that’s been ever so slightly altered!

Nothing makes sense anymore. It’s like opening his phone and having forgotten, overnight, how to read. It’s like peering out of the windows of his home and suddenly having no idea how to get to work from here, how to navigate the kind of daylight in which people might see him, interact with him. He doesn’t even think he could handle ordering coffee right now. His mother drank raspberry tea in his and Carlos’s favourite coffeeshop, and asked them if they thought the barista, middle aged and greying with grace, was handsome. TK had scoffed, but Carlos had smiled, quietly delighted, and glanced over his shoulder to appraise the man in response. It felt light, like it mattered, like it didn’t. He remembers the booth in which they sat together, wonders if he’ll ever be able to sit there again. He curls the fingers of his dominant hand too tightly around the other. Two knuckles on his right hand crack from the force of it, and he catches the way Carlos frowns, ducks his head in search of TK’s gaze. TK glances up quickly, and then looks back down at his fingers.

He edges slowly into the outermost dip of a spiral while he sits here, waiting to be pulled deeper, waiting to drown even after having called out for help. Carlos takes smaller bites than he ever has before, as though his own stomach were as sick as TK’s, protesting in simple empathy. And he watches him. He watches over TK at their dining table as though it were his purpose in life, a thing to which he is devoted with a singularity that narrows the spotlight of his entire world, and leaves TK staggered in the warm glow of its focus.

“Are you okay?” Carlos asks. They’ve talked about this question. Carlos started out blushing badly when he asked it. It’s not unlike his earlier inquiry of what’s wrong. The answer seems distressingly plain, as though any attempt at response were simply redundant. He’d clamoured the first time he’d asked it, swooned through apologies. He’d reached out to stroke TK’s cheek, and his fingers had trembled against his skin. TK had taken his hand, kissed the delicate pads of his fingers, and they’d talked about it. When Carlos asks if he’s okay, he’s not talking about the long run, doesn’t mean to ask if TK is okay in general. They both know the answer to that. They can taste it on the fractured air. When he asks, he’s referring only to the specific moment in which he utters the words. He’s asking if things are worse than usual right now, if this particular instant seems harder than all the others. He’s asking if TK can still breathe.

No pressure tags below! 💛

@carlos-tk @catanisspicy @chicgeekgirl89 @birdclowns @detective-giggles @goodways @lightningboltreader @louis-ii-reyes-strand @liminalmemories21 @ladytessa74 @redshirt2 @tailoredshirt @welcometololaland @alrightbuckaroo @orchidscript @reasonandfaithinharmony @mooshkat @inflarescent @thebumblecee @sanjuwrites @wtfuckevenknows @wandering-night19 @tarlosmalec

#tarlos #tk strand #carlos reyes #911 lone star #tarlos fic #wip wednesday

41 notes · View notes

multifandumbmeg · 4 months

Text

Nature is truly healing with this new Percy Jackson show. Can you imagine my dismay, as a native Missourian, in the theaters watching the old movie when they just SKIPPED the St. Louis arch stop and went to the parthenon in Memphis for no reason, completely altering the plot for nothing?? Now can you imagine the positive effect on my psyche finally seeing my boy PJ thrown from the arch as an adult?? Can you?!

#percy jackson #percy jackon and the olympians

27 notes · View notes

around1302 · 1 year

Text

IV. SAY MY NAME

SPARE PARTS: a series (4/20)

WEMBLEY’S AFTER PARTY, LOUIS’ FLAT

(W) strong language, drug/alcohol use, oral (female receiving), fingering

a/n before we start: in case u didn’t read the series’ brief and are like ‘whoa hold on we’re only on part four and this is happening?!’ this is enemies with benefits! their relationship? a slow burn for sure. the fucking? yeah if u came for slow burn smut ur in the wrong place. ANYWAY.

CHARLIE’S POV

If someone shot my in the head right now, I’d die a happy woman doped up on adrenaline and post-anxiety jitters.

"My favourite sign had to be that one about cutting Harry's hair," Liam laughs, making us all chuckle as we recall the giant scissors someone had actually spent the time and effort making. Impressive, really.

“Alright, leave it out,” Harry snaps, but even he’s grinning ear to ear. We all are, I have no doubt in my mind we’ll all be suffering with split cheeks tomorrow.

Oh, and a heavy head.

“I was already pumped for this party, but it’s going to be so much better now,” Niall reminds me of our destination – Louis’ second London flat, just by Wembley – but after playing to 90,000 a few shots don’t sound so bad now.

“Is everyone already there?” I ask, swiping my sweaty hair out of my face. I didn’t account for partying in the same gear I’ve been dancing about on stage for an hour and a half.

“Yeah, look,” Louis shows us a video his friend sent half an hour ago, at least thirty people already littering his apartment. The light a dim blue and something bass-y booming behind them, “gave Stan a key when we arrived so he could set up.”

I squint, just being able to make out Amelia and Zayn in the background tipping back a shot. I can already tell this party’s going to be her highlight – until her designs get processed, her job is just adding alterations to designs our old stylist already set up for us so she doesn’t sue us.

We all rush into the building when our driver drops us to avoid anyone seeing us, and (still pretty high on adrenaline) decided to run a few flights before giving up on floor three and taking the lift.

The five of us cram in, hyperventilating and sweaty and still giggling over nothing. We spill into the flat as we reach Louis’ floor, forgetting the penthouse is one floor to itself, and get thrown right into the party.

People cheer when they realise it’s us, coming over to congratulate us and throw alcohol at us. It’s so instantly overwhelming I forget how to see for a moment, the smell of liquor and weed and the bass thrumming through my chest blinding anything else.

“You were a-mazing! We were watchin’ from t’side for half n’hour and s’the best half hour of my liiiiife!” Amelia throws her arms around me, already clearly a little tipsy, engulfing me in Chanel perfume and expensive vodka. I laugh, wrapping my arms around her waist as someone I don’t recognise passes me a shot and I (not so gratefully) thank them with a nod.

“Thank you, and thank you for this,” I glance down at my outfit, “way better than what it was before.”

“True,” she sways, her arm still around me, “M’a genius. Niall!” She spots her boyfriend behind me and let’s me go, rushing over to do the same thing to him. Zayn’s next, seemingly waiting his turn to grab and spin me around. I scream, trying not to spill my shot as I whack him to put me down.

“You were sick, Char.”

“Thank you,” I gush, “do you want this shot?” I hold it up, knowing full well it’s vodka and knowing full well I despise vodka. With a passion.

“Absolutely not,” he shakes his head, pushing it my direction with a sly grin, “all for you, baby. Liam! You were amazing,” he passes me to hug my bandmates and I’m left alone with my ugly little stupid shot.

“Bottoms up,” Harry’s whisper suddenly echoes in my right ear, but by the time I look up all I see is the back of his head as he hugs someone by the counter.

I take a deep breath, maybe a few more, followed by a few more, say a silent Hail Mary, and tip it back. I wince and try not to gag at the hot taste of bad mistakes burning a strip down my throat.

“Is Charlie actually being fun tonight?” Louis sneaks up behind me, throwing an arm around my shoulder, his own shot between his tattooed fingers.

I turn my head, narrowing my eyes at him.

“I’m always fun, bitch,” I steal his shot and down it before he can say anything – and unlike the yell I thought I was about to receive, he whoops and kisses the side of my head.

I hide how badly I want to vomit till he leaves.

“M’kay, kiss, marry, fuck–”

“It’s kill, marry, fuck,” he adds behind a chuckle, “idiot.”

“You.”

“What?”

“You. Kill you.”

“Fine,” Harry sighs, eyes reddened by liquor and whatever he smoked outside with Zayn, “Connor and Paula.”

“Marry Connor,” I say without hesitation. Connor’s our photographer, and damn sweet. Plus, Paula’s terrifying – which is why she’d be a good, “fuck Paula, all day every day.”

Harry snorts, tipping his head back. I lazily watch the action, the shots and the drinks and the weed stopping my body retracting from the touch that lingers so close to my neck on the back of Louis’ crimson sofa.

“Right,” I turn my body, tucking my legs under me and scanning the room. Everyone’s become a little blurrier, a little less recognisable, so I land on what we know, “Niall, Liam, me.”

Harry pushes his tongue into his cheek, clearing his throat before sitting up and facing me, too.

“Marry Liam. He’d know how to do my taxes,” true, “kill Niall–”

“Kill Niall?”

“Yes,” he sighs, hazy sea foam dropping to my lips for a brief, brisk second, “couldn’t kill you, princess.”

I roll my eyes, repulsion seemingly finding a way to wiggle between the intoxication.

“So you’d fuck me?”

“So good,” he grins, dimple popping.

“I’m getting another drink,” I stand, over the game and rapidly sobering. There’s often a ten minute time limit as to which I can stand Harry, we only landed together by default: a game of cards that eventually left him and I. So I leave the sofa we resided on to find people I actually like.

Zayn seems to be first in eye-line.

“Z!” I throw my arms around his neck, leaning in to him so he stumbles and has to stabilise us both by wrapping his arms around my waist.

He laughs, holding me tight and returning with a, “knew that shot would do you good,” into my hair.

Zayn and I are complicated, yet entirely simple at the same time. Our history is well in the past, and barely a history. He was comfort when I needed it, and he was gone when I didn’t know how much I’d miss him. But he’s back, in my arms, dangerously close to my lips. So close, in fact, I can’t help but lean forward.

He kisses me back for a second, as chastely as he can before squeezing my hip and pulling back. He lifts his hand, thumbing at my lip with a sad look in his eyes I hate, and I move to go back in but he pushes me back with gentle grip.

“Come on,” I know the alcohol’s running my mouth right now, and I know I’ll live to regret it, but I continue regardless, “I was good enough for you three years ago, wasn’t I?”

His pique deepens and he lets go of me completely now, looking at me like I’m a different person to the one I was a few minutes ago.

“Are you okay, Char?”

I swallow, feeling embarrassment and guilt and whatever I’d drank and smoked coming back up in a painful lump.

“S’good,” I lie, stepping back from him, “bathroom,” I point in the general direction, ignoring whatever he’s trying to say to me as I haste toward Louis’ bathroom.

Despite the couples outside it, it’s thankfully vacant, so I rip the door open and slam it right back shut. I perch on the edge of the bath, cold porcelain digging into me but I don’t care. The emotions of today’s gig and me kissing Zayn for some fucking reason and too many shots of vodka come hurtling back to me till I’m crying.

I’m crying at my own after party.

I sob until my eyes sting with mascara, so I wipe it away and cry some more. Something in me needs Amelia, and misses Poppy, and all I want to do now is call her and tell her how we performed at Wembley and it was incredible and everything she dreamed for me… but I can’t – so I cry again.

“This is why I don’t do vodka,” I mumble into my palms, wet with tears and remnants of thick eyeliner. I hear one song change, two, three, before I realise this is stupid. I’m Charlie fucking Greene, I’m at an after party for my band because we just played fucking Wembley. I need to pull myself together, I need to open this door and–

“Oh, shit, sorry, I didn’t… Charlie?”

I mutter something along the lines of, “fuck off,” and decide if I want to stop crying I just need to barge past Harry before he decides to say anything that’ll set me off again. However, Harry’s arm and Harry’s stupidly tight grip pulls me back in front of him, to which he then shuts and locks the door.

“What?” I snap.

“What’s wrong?” His brows are creased, and despise the alcohol that still rims his eyes, he looks soberer beneath the bright bathroom bulb.

“Don’t pretend like you care. I had a cry, like every other drunk person at a party does, and now I’m fine. Leave me be,” I make a move to push past him again, but he grips my bicep and yanks me back.

“Charlie, is this over what I said? It was a joke in a game, I didn’t think–”

“God, not everything is about you!” Whatever tether that was holding me to calm was bound by rotting rope, and Harry’s the blunt knife, “I was crying because I threw myself at my ex and was rejected, and the one person I wanted to talk to it about isn’t here!”

He says nothing. Of course, he says nothing.

“And you…” I’m on a roll, now, “you’re always flirting with me, and I hate it, because you’re a dick and it’s confusing and… why do you do it, huh?”

Harry sighs, closing his eyes, “Charlie–”

“What is it? You have a crush on me or something?”

His eyes darken and I fall silent.

What I do following needs to be scientifically studied, because nothing can explain my brain activity in this moment. Not until I remember alcohol, and weed, and feeing sad and lonely. So sad and lonely that I kiss him.

He gasps into my mouth, and I become aware for a moment, ready to run, until he grabs my face and kisses me back so hard I forget everything.

I grip the open hang of his shirt, tugging on silk fill he’s impossibly closer to me and–

No. What the fuck? What the fuck am I doing?

I pull away as quickly as I went in, opening my mouth to say something, anything – but I can’t. I have to leave – I need to leave. I make for the door a third time, managing to reach the knob and unlock it this time.

“No,” I hear him mumble, but I’m already out the door and the thrumming music silences anything else he says to me. I wipe my lips as I push past the people loitering outside the bathroom, trying to remember where Louis’ bedroom is so I can just lock myself and sleep this whole night away.

“You can’t just kiss me and walk away,” I feel his hand wrap around my wrist, twisting me, but I yank him away.

“Why not?” I have to yell over the music, the solitude of the hallway serving us well – probably helped by how there isn’t a sober, aware person in this flat, too.

“Why not?” He scoffs, his expression unreadable. In the last six years, I’ve seen angry, annoyed, hungover, and happy. But I’ve never seen this, “why the fuck do you think, Charlie?”

I pause, unsure of what to say. So I turn, I find Louis’ bedroom, and I shut myself into the darkness.

Well, Harry shuts us into the darkness.

“What the Hell do you wa–”

“Kiss me again,” he asks. My brows dip, and I can just about see his expression beneath the moonlight leaking in through the open curtains and the orange side lamp switched on in the corner. He’s serious, and it’s terrifying, “please.”

I nearly laugh. “Please?”

He quickly licks his lips, eyes flickering toward mine before he quietly affirms with another, “please.

I don’t know what to say, what to do. I stand stationary as he steps forward, closer and closer till I can practically hear his heartbeat as well as my own.

“You’re drunk,” I whisper, noticing his freckles.

I swallow dryly, my every nerve starting and ending at where his ring-clad hands now hold my waist, his middle finger just taunting the small sliver of skin between my top and trousers.

My eyes dart between his pink lips and his green eyes and the curls that rest on the sheer black of his shirt until I’m looking at our shoes and refusing to look back up.

He lifts a finger, tilting my chin and bringing me closer to his lips. We share the same breath, the same sharp inhale. It’s just the vodka. It’s the vodka and the fact I haven’t had sex in a hot minute. It’s the vodka and the weed and the–

“What’s happening?” I finally ask, the words barely leaving me as a whisper but travelling like an amp anyway.

“I don’t know,” he responds, his hand slipping to grip my face. His thumb touches where Zayn had been, and replaces the feeling of embarrassment with something new, something uncharted. Harry’s all over me and my stomach isn’t churning. It’s definitely the vodka.

“Is this something you’re going to use against me later? Did Niall tell you to do this or something?”

“You kissed me first,” he answers quickly, certainly. His thumb trails my lower lip, making me exhale as sharply as the first inhale. I open my mouth a little wider for him, unaware I’m even doing it until he dips his finger into my mouth and I suck.

He dips his finger into my mouth… and I suck.

“Fuck, Charlie,” he whispers, and without a second to blink his finger’s out of my mouth and his lips are on mine.

I don’t take a second to freeze, that would mean thinking about it. About him. About his lips on my lips. Instead, I just focus on the feeling of someone’s lips on mine and I rake my hands into his hair, tugging, tightly. He groans deliciously into my mouth, wrapping his arms around my back until we’re entirely tangled with other and there’s nothing between us but material and laboured breaths.

He pushes me back till my legs hit the bed, making me collapse back into the untouched duvet., With barely a moment to separate, he cascades stop of me and grinds his hips into mine. His hands go everywhere, my ass, my waist, my back, my thighs, my neck, my face. We’re moaning like horny teenagers into each other’s mouths, desperately moving for friction whilst grappling for more taste of him.

As the need for oxygen becomes incessant, we break apart, which only leaves him room to attack my neck. I tilt my head back, scratching his scalp with my nails as he bites and sucks at my throat, probably leaving marks I’ll have to cover with concrete but it feels too damn good to care right now.

I turn my head to the side, moving my hips up to meet his and it’s then, as I catch our reflection in the mirror beside Louis’ door, that I realise.

Harry’s making his way down my body. Harry’s undoing my trousers. Harry’s removing my shoes and ripping my knickers off and tucking them in his back pocket and–

“Wait, maybe we shouldn’t–”

Harry stops everything and looks up at me, hair knotted, panting and rosy-lipped.

“Is this you backing out?”

A beat passes between us before he softens.

“Because that’s fine, you know.”

I stop everything and just look at him, staring at sea foam until I realise I really must hate myself, because the words that tumble from my mouth next are,

“No,” fuck me, I guess, “I want this.”

“Then shut the fuck up and spread your legs for me.”

I roll my eyes, “God, you’re even annoying when– oh,” whatever insult I was about to hurtle catches in my throat as Harry latches his tongue onto me. He’s thrown one of my legs over his shoulder, his lion ring digging sharply into my skin but fuck.

I look down, gasping as I see Harry watching me watch him. The hand wrapped around my leg digs in, keeping me where he wants me as his other hand grips my waist to help keep me down. He sucks on my clit for a second before flicking his tongue over me, and I can’t help but throw my head back and hope no one outside can hear.

I close my eyes, and it’s not Harry. It’s just someone giving me ridiculously good head right as I need it. I focus on the expert of his tongue and the grip of his hands and the sound of his own pants every time I pull particularly hard on his hair.

“Mm, fuck,” I roll my head into the pillow, arching my back and pushing myself further into him, “God, just like that,” his hand pushes me back down to the bed, and slowly trails down till his thumb is rubbing my clit and he’s tongue fucking me.

“Yeah, shit,” I breathe out, suddenly desperate to have this damn corset off. I pant as I glance down, seeing his eyes completely on me, and somehow it’s not turning me off. I decide I’m high on the moment, and start to pull on the clamps of the corset. I can barely breathe as is, and it’s starting to ruin the head.

“Here,” he quickly surfaces, pushing my hands out the way to unclip the rest of the clamps and spreads the corset apart. He rips it from under me, throwing it on the floor with my other discarded clothes, and starts his attack on my breasts.

My fingers knot in his hair as he sucks on each nipple, flicking his tongue over the sensitive buds and biting down on the surrounding flesh. I watch as he takes one of my nipples between his teeth, making eye contact with me as he pulls it out slightly, making me writhe before letting go and sucking the pain away. I bite my lip to stop myself from moaning so much, not wanting to give him the satisfaction, but when his hand returns to my throbbing clit I can’t help it.

He dips his head down my chest, kissing the edges of my ANGEL tattoo that adorns my stomach. I feel him smile into my skin as he murmurs, “knew you were making me work for it.”

I pant out an unconvincing, “shut up,” while he rubs my clit in a way that has my chest heaving. He holds himself over me, kissing my neck as he dips a his index in me and starts curling. I wrap my legs around his, grinding into his hand as he adds another finger.

“Tell me how good it feels, princess,” he bites my ear lobe, then my jawline, then my bottom lip, “come on, give it to me,” he kisses me, letting my moans tumble into his throat as he curls and pumps his fingers till in me till my pride completely slips away.

“Oh my God,” I pant out, the feeling of his cold rings pressing against me with every thrust tipping me over the edge, “that feels so good,”

“Who does?”

“You do,” my hands fly to the pillow beside me, gripping it till my knuckles blanch, “fuck, you feel so good.”

“My name, Charlie,” he nips at my jaw and slows his fingers, making me grind for it, “need to hear you say my name.”

“Do you ever take a break?” My tone doesn’t back up my insult, it only makes him grin as he removes his fingers. I can’t help the whine that escapes me at the sudden loss of contact, “Harry–”

“There we go, princess,” his middle finger suddenly returns to my clit in slow, hard circles, “wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Christ, you’re an asshole–”

“Again,” he rubs faster, adding another finger. I feel my legs start to run hot, my stomach start to ache, my head start to spin. With every circle I’m getting closer and closer to the edge, but whatever (teeny, tiny) sliver of pride is actually left in me stops me from saying his name. All I can do is throw my head back and incessantly moan till my throat hurts.

“Are you close?” He asks, taking my bottom lip between his teeth again. I kiss him back for a second, but it’s physically impossible to do anything but whine with my mouth at the minute.

“S’close. Please don’t stop.”

“Please?” Harry teases.

“Please,” I affirm, not caring at this point, “God, right there,” I bite down on my lip till I taste iron. His fingers are working so fast and so hard and so good that I–

That I… nothing. Because right as I’m about to tip over that peak, the fucker stops everything. His fingers stay on my clit, applying pressure but not nearly enough. I try and grind against his hand, but he firmly pins me down to stop me.

“Harry–”

“Ah,” he interrupts, pressing a chaste kiss against my lips before removing his hand completely, “too late.”

I lay in utter disbelief as he stands, picking up my clothes from the floor and setting them on the bed beside me. I sit up on my elbows and watch him adjust his hair in the mirror, sort out his collar, re-do a few buttons.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

He catches my eye in the mirror, poking his tongue into his cheek before shrugging. He opens the door a sliver, just enough to let blue light and foggy bass thrum into the once silent room.

“Should’ve said my name, princess,” he sucks his used fingers and thumb like he’d just finished a meal, winking at me like the douchebag he is before slamming the door behind him; leaving me there on the bed, naked, aching, and incredibly fucking pissed off.

taglist: @lilfreakjez @be-with-me-so-happily @sirtommyholland @tpwksm

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles x reader #harry styles x you #harry styles angst #harry styles smut #harry styles x oc #1d smut #1d series #1d ot5 #harry styles enemies to lovers #harry styles series #spare parts series #one direction series #one direction ot5 #one direction #one direction smut

335 notes · View notes

saintqueer · 2 years

Note

This is why I follow you Jordy. So tired of fandom dividing into the ‘crazy Larries’ and the ‘calm and cool Larries’. Like the entire premise of Larry is considered crazy— there’s literally no point in ignoring potential signs from them in favour of being liked by some anti. At this point we’re not gonna be different from the hets in a few years. So what if it was a reach and we were wrong? At least we’re receptive. Harry and Louis need people who are open to their messaging ffs. 1/2

hiiii anon, if you don't mind i'm gonna use your messages to make my thoughts on the crazy shit going on with promo and the leak a little clearer.

i said i'd make a longer post on exactly why i think harry is a loose cannon right now, why he is reminding me of aug-nov 2014 harry a bit.

i wanted to use your messages as a jumping off point because i think you are right when you say an album leaking more than a month before release date is strange as fuck. this fandom is not unfamiliar with leaks, even purposeful leaks, leaks for promo, etc. but an album leaking exactly one whole month before release breaks pattern and is a huge risk for sales and streaming numbers. a week before release wouldn't have too much impact and might just drum up excitement but a whole month before risks diminished numbers from hardcore fans once actual release comes around.

i'm gonna simply offer a few strange things i've noticed in the past few weeks and allow you to draw your own conclusions:

i've heard from multiple sources that sony was NOT behind the leak and they were scrambling to figure out the source.

the album was leaked on 4.20, the wednesday before coachella weekend 2. the exact same day that lizzo was contacted by harry to perform I Will Survive with him. incredibly last minute and unusual for a festival so big.

louis was in an excellent mood on his 4.20 concert and We Are the Champions was the post-show song.

a bunch of unreleased songs, most of us had accepted we might never hear, were piled on with the leak of hs3 which is a bit unusual.

harry's mood and demeanor at coachella weekend 2 was chaotic, to put it simply kdjfghkdj. he was a bit wild, strangely aggressive and intense.

he added medicine to his set only after the studio recording leaked. and he was fascinatingly explicit in his performance of it.

on saturday, harry is seen with the entire stunt crew and he looks entirely stoic and uncomfortable except when conversing with corden. the videos are legit painful to watch. he looks incredibly anxious and is constantly looking around. we've seen harry have fun at concerts and this was not that.

harry's magazine cover debuts along with an interview that is at the same time more revealing than usual and also filled with repeat quotes that are slighted altered. i couldn't help but get the feeling that harry offered an in-depth interview that was cut and spliced with chunks taken out and replaced with old quotes altered in the final revision and okay from his team. part of it felt like it didn't match with the rest. so i believe the sections where he talks about his cleanliness clause and celeb documentaries were representative of the whole interview he actually gave but big chunks were taken out after the fact by his team to be replaced with the bits we recognized from so many previous print interviews.

olivia was served on stage on the 4.27 and the next day, on the 28th, harry is papped driving in LA.

later that night, harry posts directly to his IG story (nothing on HSHQ) an extremely low quality pic that, according to an app, was only taken 10 minutes previously of the back of the album laid out on the grass.... (grass...the album was leaked on 4.20...weed....maryjane...dots connecting)

a whole hour later, a proper high quality picture of the tracklist is posted by hshq. almost as if harry went rogue, announced it early and hshq had to scramble to catch up.

on 4.30, we get 60+ pap pics and videos from backgrid of harry and jeff on a hike in LA. these are likely quite a bit older than the 30th. as it seems like harry might have been in london yesterday. however, things look tense. even worse than they have looked and harry has looked pissy pretty much every time he is papped or spotted with jeff since after the grammys in early 2021.

any and all articles that have been coming out this week about harry with either these pap pics with jeff or the ones in his car have revolved entirely around olivia without mention of his new upcoming album.

everything around this promo is odd and off. plus them not getting harry out of this messy legal situation with his beard is ugly. it seems they are doing the opposite, rather than using any pap pics for promoting his upcoming album they are using them to publicize her messy shitty legal situation for abandoning her own children.

i realize i just kind of messily threw out a bunch of random facts but all these feel like really important things that have taken place over the last few weeks. that if they were put together with the billion other strange things that have been going on around harry over the last two years might help to start make sense of what's happening behind the scenes.

all that to say: the low quality picture of the back of the cd on a patch of grass being posted on harry's ig only made me far more sure in my theory that harry leaking his own album is somehow related to harry's, what appears to me, ongoing beef with his own management team.

this is not by any means comprehensive but my groupchat buds are composing a huge masterpost of all the shady shit thats been going on surrounding harry over the past two years so that should be coming soon. it's a really long list kjfhgkj.

#thanks so much anon for letting me use your kind message to go over on a long ramble that hopefully at least partly sensical #love yall for entertaining all these theories #and remember keep throwing crazy shit out there #you are right that the only way these things become powerful is if we notice them #so keep noticing shit even if you turn out wrong #anon

630 notes · View notes

licncourt · 7 months

Note

begin again COOKED as a post-qotd fix-it (fave fic! <3) but i need to know your thoughts on prince lestat/how you would re-do it in the correct way. to this day i still think LESTAT becoming prince monarch of all the vampires is one of the craziest decisions made during the novels. to me lestat is a prince in the same way that jack skellington was king of halloween (that includes the running away to cause delusional hijinks that ultimately jeapordize everyone)

Aaahhh thank you!! That fic is my child that I birthed so I appreciate it more than you know! It's actually BA's one year finished-iversary next week, my baby's all grown up.

I've talked about that before actually in this post about how I would rewrite the whole series, but I can expand a little here!

Firstly, this could've been two books instead of three. There was nothing going on in there that required three entire novels

Things that have to go entirely: aliens, test tube clone baby Viktor, Atlantis. Sorry, not salvageable

I think rather than the Amel thing, it would have been cool if the sacred core had started corrupting Lestat and altering his behavior as host, maybe changing him gradually into a animalistic, violent folklore-like vampire, making him slowly lose his mind like Mekare, or erasing his sense of self to become a blank host. Then it's a race against the clock and vampire magical biology to save him. This could be the first PL book

Ideally, I think this book should be narrated by Louis and focus a lot on his growth as a character as he finishes his personal. It would bring some happy ending closure to the IWTV version of him without being a jarring change. I also think having his POV for the best of his and Lestat's relationship would be a nice full circle moment from seeing him describe their worst. The idea of Lestat losing himself to the core and them potentially coming together too late would add good drama as well. Maybe this is Louis' follow-up memoir describing how they fixed things

The Rhoshamandes conflict can stay for the second PL and final VC book, but I think it could've been less boring if the drama between him and Lestat had been better fleshed out. They have a lot of similarities that weren't used to their full advantage. It would really highlight Lestat's growth to have him defeat what he could've become

When Lestat reunites with Louis, they would actually have some long, hard conversations about their past, ones that continue throughout the PL trilogy

Hopefully an explanation for why Lestat has made this 180 is included, even if it's just the crushing realization of his own loneliness and longing reaching critical mass after twenty years of who the fuck knows what

The cast is pared down to the strongest written and most interesting characters so the story isn't spread so thin, probably Lestat, Louis, Armand, Gabrielle, Marius, Pandora, and maybe a small handful of new characters with significance in the story. I think Seth, Fareed, Sevraine had the most potential to be good additions to the primary roster if she wanted to add on

Cool characters from the original like trilogy like Maharet and Khayman are expanded on rather than killed offscreen to make room for more Anne Rice NPCs. If we're going to kill someone from the trilogy, please God let it be David Talbot

This goes without saying I think, especially from me, but Louis would be restored to his former glory as a true main character alongside Lestat instead of relegated to lobotomized housewife. There was so much potential for him in an active consort role. We also don't get to see how he got to such a peaceful place at the end of PL, so I would like to see him work through some stuff on the page

I would either cut the Rhoshamandes/Benedict storyline because of how redundant it is with how it mirrors the Marius/Armand dynamic or do something to differentiate it as its own relationship. At the very least, maybe the similarity could be highlighted to become a character beat for Armand

As far as Armand in general, I would make him a much more prominent player. I think he's a great fit for a court setting and could create a lot of intrigue as well as adding coolness factor. I'm always torn about whether I like the reveal of his romantic feelings for Lestat, but in the interest of keeping SOME things intact, I would just play it differently. Primarily, I think he becomes way too agreeable (similar to Louis) in how he submits to and idolizes Lestat, so I would love to see him come into more conflict with Lestat in spite of those feelings. Maybe we can see him make some peace with their history and let go of that intense emotion for something healthier

If we're going to keep the sex injections (IVs, whatever), I think we should do more with it than have Lestat prematurely ejaculate into a random woman. I think there's potential for a very interesting new dynamic with Louis and Lestat. It would be cathartic and maybe an interesting part of their healing process and of becoming a real couple for the first time

That's what I can think of for now, but I might update later!

#btw the lestat jack skellington comparison made me laugh you're so right #louis is so sally coded #answered #vc #the vampire chronicles #interview with the vampire #meta

32 notes · View notes

thepastisalreadywritten · 1 month

Text

When the Prince of Wales unexpectedly pulled out of attending a memorial service for his godfather King Constantine of Greece last month, there was widespread speculation it was connected to the death of Thomas Kingston, the husband of Lady Gabriella Windsor.

It has now emerged that the unspecified “personal reason” given for his absence from St George’s Chapel in Windsor on Feb 27 was that his wife, the Princess of Wales, had recently received a cancer diagnosis.

Having undergone major abdominal surgery at the London Clinic in January, which was deemed a success, post-operative tests discovered that cancer had been present, contrary to all pre-operative tests – and a statement from Kensington Palace – that had suggested her condition was not cancer.

As the Princess herself said, in a video message updating the nation on her condition, it came as “a huge shock” and she is now in the early stages of preventative chemotherapy treatment.

The news of the Princess’s cancer – which comes on top of the King’s cancer diagnosis in January – comes at a difficult time for the Royal family but also explains much of the mystery that has prompted wild speculation about the Princess’s health in recent weeks, including, perhaps, the now infamous doctored Mothering Sunday picture of her.

The fury in royal circles over the controversy the picture generated is more understandable in the light of what we now know.

The Prince of Wales was trying to protect his wife at a time when she was at her most vulnerable, and together, they were trying to find a way of telling their children about their mother’s medical diagnosis.

The Princess said in her video statement:

“It has taken us time to explain everything to George, Charlotte and Louis in a way that is appropriate for them, and to reassure them that I am going to be OK.”

Whether or not the photograph was altered by the Princess to hide any tell-tale signs of her treatment we may never find out, but what was driving the anger at the international response to the touched-up image of the Princess and her three children now becomes clear.

While internet trolls were speculating that the Princess had faked the picture because she was not well enough to pose for one, or even that she was dead, the couple and their staff were having to bite their tongues, primarily for the sake of Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis.

The fact that the Princess has only released details of her cancer diagnosis on the day her children have broken up from school for Easter is no coincidence.

Royal aides said the couple wanted to be able to tell their children at a time that was right for them and to “understand and process” the news before it became public.

Only after the children had finished school for Easter did they feel that it was “the right time to share this update.”

Aides have made it clear that the decision to go public about the cancer diagnosis and the timing of it had nothing to do with the ongoing speculation about Catherine’s health.

We still do not know what the Princess’s surgery involved.

On January 17, Kensington Palace announced that she had undergone “planned” abdominal surgery the previous day and that it was expected she would remain in hospital for 10-14 days before returning home to continue her recovery.

The statement released at the time said:

“Based on the current medical advice, she is unlikely to return to public duties until after Easter.”

Prince William visited his wife in hospital and postponed his public engagements to be by her side.

The Princess was discharged from the London Clinic on January 29, the same day that the King was discharged after treatment for a benign enlarged prostate.

He too later discovered he had cancer, in his case, unconnected to the prostate issue for which he had been treated.

The Prince of Wales returned to public duties on February 7, attending a dinner in aid of London Air Ambulance, where he thanked the public for their messages of support for his wife.

At that stage, neither he nor the Princess had any idea that cancer had been present at the time of her surgery.

They would only find that out at the end of February, royal aides have said.

It was shortly after the cancer was discovered in post-operative tests that the Princess began her course of chemotherapy.

When Prince William missed King Constantine’s memorial service, just hours before the announcement of the death of Mr Kingston, Kensington Palace said that the Princess “continues to be doing well.”

Two days later, on February 29, the Palace felt the need to make a further statement in response to the online speculation about her health, saying that it would only provide “significant updates” and not a running commentary.

On March 4, she was spotted in the passenger seat of a car driven by Carole Middleton, her mother, near the Princess’s home in Windsor.

It now seems likely that the Princess was making visits to see her cancer specialist during this period.

She was also seen in the back of a car with her husband on the day of the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey, which he attended but she did not, on March 11.

On March 5, there was what seemed at the time to be a curious incident involving plans for Trooping the Colour in June.

The Army released details on its website of ticketing arrangements, accompanied by a photograph of the Princess who, it said, would be reviewing troops from the Irish Guards on June 8, a week before Trooping itself.

After objections from Kensington Palace, which had not confirmed her appearance at the event, all references to the Princess were removed from the website.

The reason for the Palace’s nervousness over any promises about her public engagements even as far away as June is now clear.

Then came the release on March 10 of the Mothering Sunday photograph, which was withdrawn by picture agencies because of signs it had been digitally manipulated.

As it made headlines around the world, the Princess issued a personal apology for any “confusion” the picture had caused, saying that she would sometimes “experiment with editing” like many amateur photographers.

The photograph itself had been taken by Prince William.

The Princess’s statement did nothing to quell the speculation about her health, and on March 20, the London Clinic announced that it had informed the Information Commissioner of an unauthorised attempt to access Catherine’s medical records.

No date was given for when the alleged security breach happened, but it now seems likely that some staff at the clinic would have been aware that the Princess’s treatment and recovery had not been as straightforward as first thought.

By last weekend, the Princess felt well enough to accompany her husband on a trip to their local farm shop in Windsor, where they were filmed by a member of the public, who passed the footage on to The Sun newspaper.

The Princess was smiling and appeared relaxed, though she appeared to have lost weight.

There were cruel jibes online suggesting she should be back at work if she was well enough to be out shopping.

The video emerged after Kensington Palace had declined to comment on whether the Princess would join the Royal family at the traditional Easter Sunday church service in Windsor, saying a decision had not yet been made.

That guidance has now changed. The Palace now says there are no plans for the Waleses to attend the Easter Matins service in Windsor.

On Wednesday, rumours swept media circles that the BBC had been told to prepare for a big announcement of some sort.

It now turns out that Wednesday was the day a crew from BBC Studios, sworn to total secrecy, was summoned to Windsor to film the Princess making her video message.

Her plea for “time, space and privacy” to recover was the first time she had spoken to the public, albeit indirectly, since attending church at Sandringham on Christmas Day last year.

The Prince will return to work after the couple’s children have returned to school following the Easter holidays.

He will balance supporting his wife and his children and his public duties in the same way that he has been since the start of the year.

#Prince William #Prince of Wales #Princess of Wales #Catherine Princess of Wales #Catherine Middleton #Kate Middleton #British Royal Family #Kensington Palace #London Air Ambulance #London Clinic #Information Commissioner

12 notes · View notes