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xthelastknownsurvivorx · 2 months

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an incomplete list: things alex (and us readers) love about hrh prince henry of wales

something that I love dearly and find super cool about the list that alex makes for henry about what he loves about him is that we've actually experienced most of these things about henry with alex throughout the narrative of the book so it feels super organic and touching because yes we've come to love these things about henry too

so in honor of henry's birthday and because i was feeling sappy, here's all the moments throughout the book described in the list under the cut

1. The sound of your laugh when I piss you off.

Chapter 2, end of alex's london trip

“No booty calls,” Alex tells him, and Henry chokes on a laugh.

Chapter 4, great turkey calamity

“…you’re not a totally boring asshole.” “Wow,” Henry says with a laugh. “I’m honored.”

Chapter 10, morning after alex storms kensington

“Hi,” Alex says carefully, squinting over his coffee. “You seem … less pissy.” Henry huffs a laugh. “You’re one to talk. …’”

2. The way you smell underneath your fancy cologne, like clean linens but somehow also fresh grass (what kind of magic is this?).

Chapter 7, post-karaoke

Henry smells like expensive cologne and champagne and a distinctly Henry smell that never goes away, clean and grassy…

Chapter 9, lake house

…then Alex has him, inhaling the clean smell of him, laughing into the crook of his neck.

Chapter 15, election night

The second he steps backstage, there’s a hand on his back, the achingly familiar gravity of someone else’s body reentering his space before it even touches his, a clean, familiar scent light in the air between.

3. That thing you do where you stick out your chin to try to look tough.

Chapter 6, post-red room

“Hang on,” Henry says, and Alex is already groaning in protest, but Henry pulls back and rests his fingertips on Alex’s lips to shush him. “I want—” His voice starts and stops, and he’s looking like he’s resolving not to cringe at himself again. He gathers himself, stroking a finger up to Alex’s cheek before jutting his chin out defiantly. “I want you on the bed.”

Chapter 7, phone conversation

“It’s fine,” Henry says, steadiness rising in his voice as if he’s stuck out his chin in that stubborn way he does sometimes. Alex wishes he could see it.

Chapter 13, confrontation with mary

And [Henry] does the thing Alex loves so much: He sticks his chin out, steeling himself up. “I’m not a coward,” he says. “And I don’t want to fix it.”

4. How your hands look when you play piano.

Chapter 6, post-red room

Alex tries not to be in awe of the simple agility of his hands, tries not to think about classical piano or how swift and smooth years of polo have trained Henry to be.

Chapter 8, in Henry's apartments following wimbledon

His hands are fast, almost effortless, even as he goes off into a tangent about the War of the Romantics and how Liszt’s daughter left her husband for Wagner, quel scandale.

5. All the things I understand about myself now because of you.

Chapter 6

He’s starting to understand what swelled in his chest the first time he read about Stonewall, why he ached over the SCOTUS decision in 2015. … It’s weird that the thing with Henry could make him understand this huge part of himself, but it does. When he sinks into thoughts of Henry’s hands, square knuckles and elegant fingers, he wonders how he never realized it before. When he sees Henry next at a gala in Berlin, and he feels that gravitational pull, chases it down in the back of a limo, and binds Henry’s wrists to a hotel bedpost with his own necktie, he knows himself better.

6. How you think Return of the Jedi is the best Star Wars (wrong) because deep down you’re a gigantic, sappy, embarrassing romantic who just wants the happily ever after.

Chapter 2, in the medical supply closet

Then, unprompted, Henry says into the stretching stillness, “Return of the Jedi.” A beat. “What?” “To answer your question,” Henry says. “Yes, I do like Star Wars, and my favorite is Return of the Jedi.” “Oh,” Alex says. “Wow, you’re wrong.” “…isn’t there something to be valued in a happy ending as well?” “Spoken like a true Prince Charming.” “I’m only saying, I like the resolution of Jedi. It ties everything up nicely. And the overall theme you’re intended to take away from the films is hope and love and … er, you know, all that. Which is what Jedi leaves you with a sense of most of all.”

Henry's passion and ability to recite things he's interested in 7. Your ability to recite Keats. 8. Your ability to recite Bernadette’s “Don’t let it drag you down” monologue from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Chapter 7

It’s another thing Henry does—whipping out these analyses of what he reads or watches or listens to…

Chapter 10, in the v&a

“James was completely besotted [with George Villiers]. Everyone knew. This French poet, de Viau, wrote a poem about it.” [Henry] clears his throat and starts to recite: “‘One man fucks Monsieur le Grand, another fucks the Comte de Tonnerre, and it is well known that the King of England, fucks the Duke of Buckingham.’”

Henry, who has tried, does try, and keeps trying 9. How hard you try. 10. How hard you’ve always tried. 11. How determined you are to keep trying.

Chapter 6, red room

Alex has been learning for a while Henry isn’t what he thought, but it’s something else to feel it this close up, the quiet burn in him, the pent-up person under the perfect veneer who tries and pushes and wants.

Chapter 7, conversation with June and the J-14 magazine

“It pisses me off sometimes, thinking about everything he’s been through. He’s a good person. He really cares, and he tries. He never deserved any of it.”

Chapter 10, when alex storms kensington

Alex swallows hard. “You’re not even gonna try to be happy?” “For Christ’s sake,” Henry says, “I’ve been trying to be happy my entire idiot life. My birthright is a country, not happiness.”

Chapter 10, morning after alex storms kensington

“I’m saying,” Henry begins, and the knit of his brow is nervous but his mouth keeps speaking, “I’m terrified, and my whole life is completely mad, but trying to give you up this week nearly killed me. And when I woke up this morning and looked at you … there’s no trying to get by for me anymore. I don’t know if I’ll ever be allowed to tell the world, but I … I want to. One day. If there’s any legacy for me on this bloody earth, I want it to be true. So I can offer you all of me, in whatever way you’ll have me, and I can offer you the chance of a life. If you can wait, I want you to help me try.”

Chapter 13, in london following the email leak

Henry who has been through the worst thing and now the next worst thing and is still alive. [Alex] reaches out a hand and touches the ridge of Henry’s shoulder blade, the skin where the sheet has slid off him, where his lungs stubbornly refuse to stop pulling air.

Honorable mention: When Alex used to think Henry didn't try Chapter 1, the lead up to cakegate

“I’m just saying,” Alex says, resting an overly friendly elbow on Henry’s shoulder… “You could try to act like you’re having fun. Occasionally.”

12. That when your shoulders cover mine, nothing else in the entire stupid world matters.

Chapter 5, in Alex's room after the state dinner

Henry’s hands are huge on his back, his jaw sharp and rough with a long day’s stubble, his shoulders broad enough to eclipse Alex when he rolls them over and pins Alex to the mattress. None of it feels anything like anything he’s felt before, but it’s just as good, maybe better.

Chapter 7, post-karaoke

Henry rolls Alex onto his side and burrows behind him until he’s covering him completely, his shoulders a brace for Alex’s shoulders, one of his thighs pressed on top of Alex’s thighs, his arms over Alex’s arms and his hands over Alex’s hands, nowhere left untouched. It’s the best Alex has slept in years.

13. The goddamn issue of Le Monde you brought back to London with you and kept and have on your nightstand (yes, I saw it).

Chapter 7, paris

In the morning, room service brings up crusty baguettes and sticky tarts filled with fat apricots and a copy of Le Monde that Alex makes Henry translate out loud.

Chapter 10, morning after alex storms kensington

And beside him, there’s a copy of Le Monde on the nightstand… He recognizes the date: Paris. The first time they woke up next to each other.

14. The way you look when you first wake up.

Surprisingly, no direct descriptions of this but we can extrapolate from Chapter 15, presidential election victory celebration

And for a fraction of a second, a whole crystallized life flashes into view, a next term and no elections left to win, a schedule packed with classes and Henry smiling from the pillow next to him in the gray light of a Brooklyn morning.

15. Your shoulder-to-waist ratio.

Chapter 5, alex sexuality crisis musings while on a run with june

He thinks about Henry’s voice low in his ear over the phone at three in the morning, and suddenly he has a name for what ignites in the pit of his stomach. Henry’s hands on him, …Henry’s mouth, … Henry’s broad shoulders and long legs and narrow waist…

16. Your huge, generous, ridiculous, indestructible heart.

Chapter 9, last night at the lake house

What if [Alex] got so wrapped up in everything Henry is—the words he writes, the earnest heartsickness of him—he forgot to take into account that it’s just how he is, all the time, with everyone?

Chapter 11, hometown stuff email

You love so much bigger than yourself, bigger than everything. I can’t believe how lucky I am to even witness it—to be the one who gets to have it, and so much of it, is beyond luck and feels like fate.

Chapter 12, bad metaphors about maps email

…the truth of you. the weird, perfect shape of your heart. the one on the outside of your chest. give yourself away sometimes, sweetheart. there’s so much of you.

Chapter 12, in london following the email leak

Six feet of boy curled around kicked-in ribs and a recalcitrant heart.

17. Your equally huge dick.

Chapter 10, in the V&A

“Oh, yeah,” Alex says. “The top list of reasons to love you goes brain, then dick, then imminent status as a revolutionary gay icon.”

18. The face you just made when you read that last one.

Chapter 4, new years eve party

[Alex] was having fun watching everything he did play out on Henry’s face.

19. The way you look when you first wake up (I know I already said this, but I really, really love it).

See #14

20. The fact that you loved me all along.

Chapter 10, morning after alex storms kensington

“What about you?” “What about me?” Henry says. “Christ, Alex. The whole bloody time.” “The whole time?” “Since the Olympics.” “The Olympics?” Alex yanks Henry’s pillow out from under him. “But that’s, that’s like—” “Yes, Alex, the day we met, nothing gets past you, does it?” Henry says, reaching to steal the pillow back. “‘What about you,' he says, as if he doesn’t know—”

Chapter 11, re hometown stuff email

But the first time I saw you. Rio. I took that down to the gardens. I pressed it into the leaves of a silver maple and recited it to the Waterloo Vase. It didn’t fit in any rooms. You were talking with Nora and June, happy and animated and fully alive, a person living in dimensions I couldn’t access, and so beautiful. Your hair was longer then. You weren’t even a president’s son yet, but you weren’t afraid. You had a yellow ipê-amarelo in your pocket. I thought, this is the most incredible thing I have ever seen, and I had better keep it a safe distance away from me. I thought, if someone like that ever loved me, it would set me on fire. And then I was a careless fool, and I fell in love with you anyway. When you rang me at truly shocking hours of the night, I loved you. When you kissed me in disgusting public toilets and pouted in hotel bars and made me happy in ways in which it had never even occurred to me that a mangled-up, locked-up person like me could be happy, I loved you.

#rwrb #red white and royal blue #firstprince #henry fox mountchristen windsor #alex and henry #rwarb spoilers #alex claremont diaz #rwarb #rwrb fic

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kellykadesperate · 9 months

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red white and royal blue film thoughts n live comments below:

alex being scared of putting a foot wrong and thinking hey let me actually start off on a good note with someone who is familiar to me and henry just completely ignores him! lmao

romcom silly intro titles showing how different their lives are, through drawings with bad reputation playing. early 2000 vibes let’s gooo

“we’d ship the ashes to heathrow” lmaooo she is perfect actually

“white blond british” is so valid

henry asking the kids if they know who alex is just so he can watch all the kids shake their heads in unison

it’s funny how watching it i instantly pick up on the fact that henry has a thing for alex more than alex having a thing for henry

alex. eyelashes. eyelashes. alex

henry’s bitmoji has a crown. he made sure to add headwear

the text montage was such a creative way of going back and forth rather than just showing texts on the screen the whole time

henry’s face when the girl randomly sits on alex at the new years party needs to be studied i think

see i kind of like how they’ve leaned into the fact that in the book henry has loved alex for years and never thought he could be with him because we don’t get that perception in the book. but in the film it’s clear as day that this little guy is so secretly happy about getting to spend time with alex and then alex kisses two random girls at the stroke of midnight and henry is like: oh {something beautifully tragic and poetic}

idk why but henry’s little ‘here’ text sort of sent me over the edge

a black woman as the pm of the uk? we can dream

ok but the look of absolute relief, and awe on henry’s face when alex kisses him in the red room. he literally has to pull away in shock to see if alex is being serious like wow

“i hated how fit you looked” hehehe

the little just putting it out there about their sexualities was so cute and sweet

the way alex is just very much always himself but henry swings violently between so soft and earnest to ridiculously sarcastic and insincere about everything is so !!!

it is … [a mouthful] 😏😏😏😏

the fact that henry thinks he can only belong to someone else momentarily … is really something

“i went to an english boarding school … trust me you’re in good hands” HENRY FOX

i’m the first person to say sex scenes are really unnecessary but why was that actually so sweet and tasteful?? wow

again the addition (i’m sure it is) of alex talking about how important it is for people to see people like him in politics, saying that henry doesn’t understand and henry saying: “i’m learning”. it was such a cute important moment

henry and alex giggling in the hotel room in texas as they take each others closes off. best thing in the world actually

ok sorry henry is SO charming with his little “once unsuccessfully” comment like SIR stop

“where IS SHEEEEE? HELLO HELLO” lmaoooo

alex’s ability to not hesitate in the slightest about not seeing henry again always gets me

“i want you chewing on a crumpet by sunset” ok her lines are actually killing

alex saw henry letting loose being himself just living his best life and had to take a deep breath in because he was realised he was so in love

henry literally throwing himself overboard rather than hear alex say that he loves him. that was … HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME

very much needed alex to be screaming and swearing in the rain outside the palace but we cannot have it all i suppose

the way ‘i can’t help falling in love with you’ is such a top tier romantic song and they danced in the prettiest museum in london

ngl them sneaking into the v&a and that being leaked feels better than them just randomly kissing in the back of a car

a part of me until you have all of me was the sentiment to kill me dead. the addition of the exchanging of items as well was such a clever touch, considering how much that key meant to alex

ok but the way henry thought alex would never love him but alex did not only that but also said he would patiently wait for henry until he was ready. he constantly looks so shocked that alex is so ready just to be his urgh

“love sick homosexuals” no seriously why does she have the best lines in the world

staircase moment quite nearly killed me

alex watching henry play piano with this big smile on his face and then trying to play the national anthem whilst henry is just like: :D

it’s so cute because the film has really picked up on the idea that henry admires alex and his ability to just be himself so much

the bit where henry was going to reach down to play with his ring but realised alex was wearing it on his finger … the little look because they’re so connected

the little balcony moment was so cute, seeing all the little flags waving felt like such a moment

henry just running after alex rubbing his back making sure he isn’t freaking out on election night and then being like i wore a yellow tie :) it’s meant to reminder you of texas :) and alex just instantly hugging him and feeling better

really loved how they had the ending be the same as the book in terms of them walking into alex’s home. the little: “lead the way darling … OK well i took my first steps here” just took me out

so:

overall the cutest little romcom ever. it had comedy and chemistry and it was sweet. it was what it said it was

i actually didn’t find that it went too fast in terms of their relationship because it felt like so much had already sort of happened between them if that makes sense? so so so much was said through their facial expressions, like it was insane how much actually? i also felt like the paris sex scene added so much to their relationship because it just felt so ridiculously intimate and i felt the shift into something so much more serious between them

i wished we got a few more scenes (idk why but i wanted david and alex to meet lmao)

again the addition of miguel was something i got? didn’t like it but got it because i think the book leak idea was a little too complex or would have taken too much time to build up (aka too much time away from alex and henry). he was just a bit of a creep lmao

i definitely feels like it will be appreciated and understood so much more by people who have read the book. the idea of them both loving each other before we saw them at the wedding was felt within the book a lot more. the way alex had a photo of henry when he was younger and henry was so taken by alex back then was never said?

i also … don’t shoot me but … didn’t really miss june that much? like nora was fine but even if june was there i feel like she would have had the exact same vibe as nora. basically a sound board for alex in regards to henry but they didn’t delve into their family history or had their parents divorced which again … i kind of get? it feels like they were interested in alex and henry’s relationship more so than the building blocks to their individual personalities and they definitely sacrificed elements of complexity on alex’s part especially

the scene in the book where alex rings henry and just complains about his family is such a little turning point for them and would have been lovely to see in the film but like i said … i kind of get it

henry and alex were perfectly cast in my eyes. henry was so endearing and charming and complex and they nailed all of that and alex was loud and passionate and unapologetically himself

having read the book and found it hopeful and optimistic and so so charming, the film was exactly that too

#red white and royal blue #rwarb spoilers #rwarb #rwarb movie

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