Upstairs Neighbor Appreciation

Opening post here:

He really didn't wanna be Debbie Downer on his birthday. "That was my mother," he mumbled to himself, giving himself a small smile. That hadn't been her name.

I just really loved this little bit in Ezra's thread. It's so natural and funny while still maintaining the sad vibe. Good work to Brit.

Drew will probably kill me, but in all honesty, the Update thread was so good? I loved reading all of it, even if I’ll highlight only a few snippets.

This evening, it was impossible not to be struck by the intimacy of her servitude. Everyone wanted to be cared for, and she could manage it very effectively when the time came.

And above it all, this ugly slap to his masculinity, to his dominance. All but groped, then unable to even kill the perpetrator. How soothing it would be to find conquest in this woman who had so long been his.

I think this bit encapsulates Beauregard and his ego very well without being overly wordy and I don’t think there’s much point in me elaborating either. His masculinity is wounded, the power dynamic is shifting. He’s a character I honestly wanna slap? But I also love reading?

He wanted to want her, and how cruel to them both.

This bit is also powerful, I think.

Hal also did a great job writing Razi, and it was difficult for me to find a favorite tidbit. In the end, though, these two snippets stood out to me:

Now she was a woman with her dress stripped open, only to find the undresser had recoiled away from the sight of her. Not literally, any of it, but the effect was the same even while he clung to her. Made to feel so inadequate, so undesirable.

It was cruel to expect her to stand here and accept it, this limpening as he tried to hide against her. Cruel for her to be so ready to serve him through this shocking insanity, so prepared even to soothe him through the regrets that he might feel after. None of that. Only regrets before he could start to commit.

There, there, Raziyya. No one could ever comfort you here, not even if they wanted to. That was your job, after all.

"Take your time," she murmured back, a thousand years away as she found herself disappearing into that imperceptible space where the ceiling met the wall.

The conflict between duty and her own wants and needs was very interesting to me to read. Here you have Raziyya, stone cold and simultaneously breaking. I honestly hadn’t expected her to give into vulnerability and cry in front of Beauregard in the following post; it was all very humanizing for a vampire who’s been alive for over a millennia.