Why. You think you are good at your job? Are ypu smarter than the average person do you study and work hard to be excellent /?
Going back to your asks after months/years is wild because I have no conceptualisation of what this was about but I can still report I am amazing at my job. I really need to be less amazing in fact.
Accepting neurodivergency in 2024 means acknowledging you know your dumb ass can't maintain two blogs, so while all your main mutuals think you died, you're just vibing, head empty, on your side blog.
2024, gotcha, B.
TSITP kinda just. Frustrated me.
Like it was an enjoyable watch when I was anxious but fundamentally I disliked Belly's ability to flipflop between Conrad and Jeremiah. It didn't come across as a struggle but more down to who was showing her affection that day.
I think she wants Conrad to be more than he is. For him to live up to her mind's eye of him and it's neither right or fair of her. And Jeremiah, he comes across as somewhat of a second choice because Conrad fails.
Personally I see both sides, at that age Conrad is the first love, the epic, but tbh, Jere...he's the forever guy. He's that guy because he doesn't torture Belly the way Conrad seems to. Conrad for all his sweetness is very self involved at points and when he was spiralling he still didn't seem to learn that you can't just treat people poorly and think they'll still be there for you.
So yeah. I watched it but I didn't necessarily have that same love love relationship everyone else seems to have.
Do you ever think about how in the afterglow, Alex *isn't* wearing his necklace because he's Henry's now and his face on the plane confirms it? I do.
You know what I do have one complaint about the red white and royal blue movie:
I CANNOT BELIEVE they cast Taylor Zakhar Perez as Alex and then didn't include "fucking eyelashes" at any point in the film.
Look at that man's eyelashes and tell me you brain doesn't just go "fucking eyelashes" automatically
UK friends, tell me this is not true
I don't think we give the "when they write the history of my life..." line as much as it deserves.
Henry has been learning what it means for Alex to see himself in history. For himself, his father and people like him. Henry hears Alex when he says this and Henry wants to bring Alex into history with him. The world would never forget the love of a prince. Alex would never fall into obscurity if Henry told the world he loved him.
Henry feels unremarkable. Another prince in a long line of princes. What makes him more what makes him whole and Henry is Alex. He's saying I want the world to see me, who I love, because I'm not me without you. He isn't Henry Fox without Alex because loving Alex Claremont-Diaz is part of Henry's being, like breathing.
That's why he can't send him away. Why he never let go of his dreams however silly he felt they were. He longed to be himself, the person he never knew he could be until he met Alex. The true and solid version who isn't permeable like Henry thought he was before he let himself love Alex. Alex grounds him and lets him be himself.
It's just seeing the parallel and interplay with the themes from the book and how they all end in the same place really gives me emotions.
But like...this is what they'd look like up at the alter getting married because even though we don't physically see them do it, they physically commit their love to the world by going outside on the most famous balcony in Britain. This is my person.
This is very important research so I can figure out how to arrange my books
i'm very picky about tv shows, but my pickiness has only an incidental relationship to whether or not a show is "good". it needs to scratch a particular itch in my brain at the right moment. do i know what the right moment is? no. do i know what the itch is? also no. i can be relied upon to get instantly bored of 85% of tv shows and then turn the remaining 15% into a central facet of my personality for 3-5 business months and even i am incapable of predicting which one it'll be ahead of time.
Some of these bots are wild. Sure, ill-fatedcolon.
Mirrors! I love how they used mirrors to show subtle things in RWRB.
The wedding reception: Alex is watching Henry chat up Nora right after snubbing him in the receiving line and he doesn't like it one bit. Remember Nora telling Alex, if she is going to find herself a rich white boy, it would be 'that' rich white boy. No wonder Alex is getting worked up and drinks himself to oblivion.
Texas campaign montage: Alex watching Henry cut ribbons in events while we hear Henry's email voiceover lamenting his superficial role as a Royal family member doing inane things like cutting ribbons while Alex is out there changing the world.
This movie is a gift that keeps on giving.. Three weeks in and we are still finding Easter eggs in it. 🤌🤌
But it's also like...the artifiticiality of image. In each of those Alex is front and centre, very real, very Alex and Henry...Henry is playing a version of himself. It is a reflection, a surface layer, but not really him.
The latter is also really telling because *we* see that image but we don't see what Alex sees directly. We don't see his version of Henry, only the poor reflection because now Alex is falling for Henry he looks completely different to him.
Please don’t let fandom ruin something you love. Walk away and unfollow the fans and enjoy the thing by yourself, or find a limited circle of people who ignore the discourse, or get your irl friends into the thing and collectively ignore the Internet community, or blacklist from here to the moon if you need to and only ever scroll through your rarepair ship’s tag on AO3. But don’t let fandom distort a show or a movie or a book or a comic you used to love so badly that you can’t enjoy the original anymore. Please. It isn’t worth it.
Red, White & Royal Blue recs, all Alex/Henry. I've been doing nothing but read rwrb fic all week. I'm obsessed with the damn movie. All recs are using book canon as the starting point. All fics are 50k+ and explicit.
If you have any recs, please share!
Every time I rewatch and Alex says 'no such thing as a locked door when you're a prince, I suppose,' it makes me think about keys and how they're used in relation to Henry in the book vs the movie. In the book, Henry says:
“Funny thing about being a prince—people will give you keys to just about anything if you ask nicely.”
(Which that line from Alex is obviously a nod to)
And it creates this nice juxtaposition between Henry, the prince, who can go anywhere he wants, who has this illusion of freedom, vs Henry the man who is trapped in this life and sees no way out. (Although, by the point that he says this, he’s already starting to see that freedom in Alex.) And I love that! But I also love the changes made in the film. Instead, we get this (paraphrased from memory) exchange:
“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever owned a key in my entire life.”
“No such thing as a locked door when you’re a prince, I suppose.”
“Well… You’d be surprised.”
So, here, it's used to emphasise Henry's situation and how he feels trapped in his life—literally without a key to get out. Until Alex. Alex unlocks Henry's life
And, so, the symbolism of Alex giving Henry his actual, physical key, after Henry gives him the ring, is strengthened by Henry never having had a key. Like, Alex is literally the key to unlocking Henry from the shackles of his life, to unlocking Henry full stop. Henry has never had a key—metaphorical or literal—until Alex.
And it's just... It's really lovely, the way it all ties together! That conversation from their first night together, to Alex giving Henry the key, and to him using it to bring Henry into his home, the way it all circles around. And the idea of love setting him free—it does sound kinda corny when you say it like that, I guess, but it's really a beautiful thing. The love he thought he couldn't have, that he initially ran from, is what allows him to be himself. Being queer and loving a man—the parts of himself he thought he’d always have to hide—is what frees him
There’s definitely more to say and I’m not even saying anything new but I was just thinking about it and wanted to ramble a bit even if I’m rambling about very obvious symbolism lol
(As an aside, I do want to mention Henry grabbing that random key from like under the rock, or whatever, as he leads Alex out of Kensington Palace. I mean, I'm sure it's more of a communal key, or something, so it doesn't 'belong' to Henry, and they still have to sneak out under cover of darkness, but it might muddy things a little? I'm not sure. Maybe it fits in because it’s when he’s starting to allow himself to think of the possibility of being open and being with Alex. I do know the idea of, in the universe of the movie, there being a key to the gates for Kensington Palace under a rock right by said gate is so funny to me though)
Can I add? I just wanted to add a little bit onto this really cool meta and that's what the key represents to Alex and therefore Henry in terms of Alex's key is his home, his end point, quite literally where we end the movie. Henry is touching Alex, his future in his hands, when he touches that key and Alex...hands it over. He hands over his home and his fate to Henry to take care of and keep safe. It binds up that Alex opens himself to Henry, invites Henry into his home and allows him the power to access it. To have all of Alex.
Henry, who has never owned a key in his life, now owns the key to his love's happiness to wear around his neck. His duty, previously represented by a signet ring given to men in old noble/upper class families, is now key to prove that there are no locked doors. Not with Alex. He will always be open and there for Henry because this is forever.
