#richmilla

This is such a sweet ask thank you so much for giving me an excuse to rant about my favourite dynamic in the novel !! To preface the topics I'm about to delve into I want to give a warning for mentions of Rape, Violence, Domestic & Child abuse and Incest.

Also, I have a Richmilla dorm room deep dive currently in my drafts and despite that being the most important passage regarding their relationship, I don't want to repeat myself too much, so I'm going to mostly focus on other scenes involving them / smaller interactions I don't see mentioned very often.

To start, I don't believe their relationship is nearly as antagonistic or malicious as people paint it. Nor is it as one sided in the platonic sense as people usually agree it was. Some of my favourite lines about them are one liners that showcase a more friendly side of them.

And I think it’s quite understated how often Camila does attempt to involve him and befriend him, it’s just he usually accidentally rebuffs her. When he’s invited to dinner at the twins he doesn’t actually accept Camilla’s request until Charles says it again. But this also goes the other way. When Richard is making his care for her apparent, saying he’s glad she’s not in Argentina and such, she ignores his remarks. To be clear, I don’t believe this is them being purposefully cruel, or even attempting to rebuff each other, it’s just an unfortunate showcase of their lack of chemistry. They don’t entirely understand each other, even with my opinion that they’re quite similar.

Richie

Nail biter

Dislikes the name John because it’s short, common, and his father’s

Has an older half brother (father’s first marriage) and a younger sister, Judy reminds him of her somewhat

His dorm building has a cat that follows ppl around, sometimes he’ll let it in his room and leave the door open a bit so it can get back out

Never loved another person before, even family, tho cares for siblings a bit

Communal/grandiose narcissist

Used to play guitar, writes solid lyrics but boring progressions, ends up abandoning every song before it’s finished, mostly just plays covers

He’s a good lay, very cognizant of partners’ body language

Likes to hang out with Judy when she’s getting ready, even if he’s not going out with her that night + could absolutely hook up with/date Judy if he wanted but he likes having her as a friend, even if he takes her for granted

Has sun damage that looks like freckles, he spent a lot of time outside as a kid, just to get away from that house

Ears pierced, did not go unnoticed by Bunny

Cam

Small collection of Guerlain lipstick, but ends up wearing just one shade all the time: a wine color

Wants girl friends but feels out of place among them when she tries

Blonde lashes and brows, same with Charles, looks a bit stark in black mascara so she uses brown

Shower singer + takes long showers, she likes to think in there, thought daughter, steams up the bathroom, Charles’ showers run cold sometimes as a result

Gifting her fur is a safe bet on holidays

Internalizes her feelings, the opposite of Charles who can barely hide his to save his life

Deviated from the norm when she went to Richard while she was upset, she usually keeps such things to herself (hence the way she downplayed how painful the glass in her foot was) but took a chance at being vulnerable only for him to take shots at her - she took this into account later when he asked her to marry him

She wanted to say yes when Richard asked her to go back to his dorm with him, but she wasn’t willing to jeopardize the dynamic between her and Henry, especially when she needed a contingency plan for Charles

Henny

His scar is from broken glass, this intensified his anxiety about the sitch with cam’s foot

Tism haver, but he’d be offended at the notion

Can be mechanical during sex

No sexual preference or hang-ups, but catching his attention is near impossible as it predicates on intrigue, hence his interest in Camilla/Richard as they are both mysterious to him

Fine with making plans last minute, hates changing plans last minute

Bunny was his first real/meaningful friendship

American psycho ahh workout routine + he meal plans

Tailored clothes, not just because of his size, but also for minimizing sensory discomfort

Firmly believes the final bacchanal attempt was “successful” specifically because of Bunny’s absence, that it was Bunny holding them back before by not taking the endeavor seriously

Sometimes mutters to himself when agitated, under the impression no one can hear it

Pomade > gel, washes that shit off his hands expeditiously when he’s done styling

Has a signature cologne he uses everyday and never deviates from, I’m thinkin Guerlain Vetiver (1961): Top Notes: Bergamot, lemon, mandarin, neroli, and coriander, Heart Notes: Vetiver and cedarwood, Base Notes: Tobacco, nutmeg, pepper, and tonka bean + you know that man reeks of cigarettes

Bun

Likes crackerjack, sticks the stickers on Henry and sees how long it takes for him to notice, which is almost immediately, “I can feel you doing it”

Preference for vacationing on the coast

Listened to radio shows as a kid

Derisive sense of humor as a result of having so many brothers, he doesn’t understand just how much it grates on people cus it’s his norm

I’m retconning his blue eyes, he’s actually blonde with the lightest golden honey brown eyes

Sometimes when speaking to Richard, he’ll try to piss him off by bending his knees just enough to bring himself and Richard eye to eye, emphasizing the height difference between them

Leg bouncer, never sits right in a chair

Deflects and projects like a mf, almost never takes criticism to heart, but will not let a perceived slight slide, when a nerve is struck it’s disastrous so it’s good then that he doesn’t often pick up on stuff like that

Good with kids, he seems to understand them, Marion likes that about him

Doodles portraits of strangers or whoever’s around when bored, he did one of Camilla once that she liked so much she asked to keep it, he doesn’t much care for Camilla but so rarely does he get praise (especially for his artwork, being in such a machismo family and all) that it meant something to him all the same

Charli

Used to be bit of a film buff, vintage film of course, still reads up on it from time to time

Knows it’s time for a haircut when Cam gets hers cut

Wine enjoyer, but started drinking stronger stuff after the bacchanal

On occasion will significantly exaggerate how inebriated he is when hooking up with Francis

Feels the need to pick up the slack in a dead convo, lots of practice carrying a conversation having Camilla as a sibling

Francois

Smokes Newports, the menthol makes them easier to chainsmoke

Passive aggressive, he and Richard have that in common, they can have brat offs

Bunny makes fun of his accent with the go to phrase “boston habah”

Will let someone vent without trying to give solutions/advice

Kim, as a lawyer, had a way with words, writing love notes that Francis would later keep in secret after his marriage with Pricilla. He likes having proof he was worthy of being someone’s first choice

Switchy

Will drink coke (from a bottle but not a can) with cherries

Vinyl record collector + but with a nasty fossil of a record player

Well first off, I am a multi shipper (in fact richmilla isn’t even my fav ship in the book, that honor prob goes to winterpapen, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying richmilla, Henrymilla, ect. as well) but what I like about richmilla’s dynamic specifically is how similar they are (based on the limited info we have); in the narrative they act has parallels and foils to each other in multiple ways, here’s a couple of the big ones off the top of my head:

Parallel

They are both very stoic in the sense that they keep their burdens to themselves. That may seem a little comical considering it seems that all Richard does as narrator is complain and self-deprecate, but in regard to how he actually interacts with other characters in the narrative, he goes out of his way to not burden others with his woes, even if help is direly needed and it would be more than appropriate to ask/or confide in others; same with Camilla.

They are both aided by Henry in a time of need; he provides them with housing: Richard in his own apt and Camilla in a hotel (there’s implication he stayed there with her too), as well as sees to them while they are injured: staying with Richard while he is hospitalized with pneumonia and by removing a shard of glass from Camilla’s foot and bandaging it accordingly + in both instances he physically carries them in his arms as well. Additionally it is implied they both have romantic feelings for him during the events of books one and two, and they both admitted to having loved him in the epilogue.

Both have suffered physical abuse at the hands of a family member

They’re both rather calculating and can occasionally be described as cold or uncaring; additionally neither is squeamish about being an accessory to murder.

Foil

Where Camilla escaped familial abuse with help, Richard never received any and had get himself out of the situation on his own + by extension Camilla’s relationship with her abuser is the inverse of Richard’s, she takes on the role of caretaker w/ Charles (a semi-romantic dynamic albeit) while Richard, being his father’s literal child, was the dependent in his own relationship w/ his abuser

Richard receives a head wound, inflicted as the result of conditions that he put himself under, and Camilla injures her foot as the result of circumstances that she didn’t anticipate and were beyond her control.

Camilla comes from money and Richard is middle class

Camilla is involved with her family and Richard is not

Richard is male and receives male privilege while also being uniquely targeted by homophobia/toxic masculinity, both externally and internally. Camilla is female and endures misogyny, while her sexuality is a double edged sword that is used both to sexualize and sanitize her of desire; both of these aims, despite being opposite in their means, function to objectify her and strip her of her autonomy. Additionally, she does not express her gender in accordance with traditional convention; wearing her hair short and occasionally donning men’s clothes.

None of that even touches on the views that the characters’ themselves held about each other: good, bad, and otherwise. I don’t want to get into all that tho cus I’d be here all day (and also I wanted to reread the book before I spoke on it; I’ve only read it just the once you see, and wasn’t paying super close attention at the time. I didn’t think I’d fall so in love w/ the story the way I have lol) but for further insight on the topic, users talkshowboyluvr and arasaka-android have some great in depth analyses on richmilla’s interpersonal dynamic and I’m sure they’d like to yap about it too.

As it stands in the epilogue, I like the idea of them sticking close together for the simple fact that they’re probably the only two ppl in the world who could understand what the other has been through: they’re both are hung up on the same deceased man, they’ve been involved in the carrying out and cover up a crime (the same crime in fact), they’re both victims of familial abuse, and grew up without strong parental figures, having instead only themselves to rely on. I think it would be nice for them to finally find in each other someone who is steadfast and dependable, someone who won’t abandon them (in fact I think these traits were what they initially found so appealing about Henry, even if in the end, he did abandon them).

Do I think that they’d be inclined to get together in the canon? And by extension would they be good for each other if they’d chosen to do so? No, probably not. What’s interesting tho is their canon interaction in the epilogue can be read as another parallel: his proposal and her subsequent rejection of it demonstrates that both are still clinging to a nonexistent ideal, they’re stuck in the past and willing to make themselves miserable over it as opposed to moving on, looking for something new and finding happiness or satisfaction in that.

But I digress. I find that only shipping pairings so long as they’re perfectly healthy and compatible to be rlly boring; shipping to me is a way to deepen one’s understanding of a character by imagining what they’d be like/how they’d respond in a hypothetical, kinda like an au or the scientific process lol. That putting the same character in multiple different ships is akin to changing the independent variable in order the measure the dependent, the control in question being the character themselves. My specimen.