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ystrike1 · 1 year

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Meow Man - By Olso (8.5/10)

Wanna hear a joke? Too bad. If you came here to read funny cat man jokes stop reading at chapter twenty. There is so much darkness hiding in the fractured world of cat and dog people. It comes out slowly. By the time you notice you're already sad. Yandere fans beware. Both of the toxic relationships here end, and the romance that wins is pure.

Prince Claude Cattington of the cat Kingdom is extremely handsome. He is also homeless, and his real body is a humanoid cat that looks like a mascot.

What a catch.

Claude isn't special. There are lots of cats in human society, and lots of interbreeding has happened over the years. There are less pure cats than there used to be. Claude knows nothing. Bonnie picks him up. She doesn't throw him out because she's a moron. She loves pretty faces.

Bonnie is a capable student with no worries. She just wants a hot boyfriend, and a cat. Claude wants to date her, but he also doesn't want to be homeless. The two don't date for a looong time. It takes over one hundred chapters. Claude falls in love first, but he was a sheltered and somewhat spoiled prince. He doesn’t flirt very well. Bonnie is a sucker for hotties. She's had a million crushes. She joins the fried chicken club to get close to Nathan, who runs it.

Nathan is in a toxic on again off again codependent relationship with a cat person named Frances. Here we get another nugget. The dog kingdom was destroyed hundreds of years ago. Nathan is a powerful purebreed who will never see his magical homeland. He's completely obsessed with Frances, because she trusted him with her secret past. She ran away from the cat kingdom, after a terrible magical fire left her scarred. Their relationship is a joke to their friends. Their constant breakups are seen as betting drama, but Nathan just isn't willing to be friends with Frances. He wants more in exchange for his loyalty.

Frances kind of causes the story. Nathan is so obsessed that he lets Bonnie drool over him. He entices Bonnie to join the club, and he treats her well because Frances likes her. He is dead set on killing the cat who scarred Frances with fire, to earn her love and dependence forever. His nice guy act is good, but by the end of the series you can see he doesn't love Frances. He just loves controlling her.

Frances is in love with Bonnie. She continues to have feelings for Bonnie until the very end. Her character arc ends when she breaks up with Nathan for good. She did bad things. She used Nathan to get close to Bonnie. She was never honest, but she learned and changed.

That's a pretty goddamn deep lesson in a cat sexy guy webtoon.

In the beginning Claude is NOT a good boyfriend. He is clingy and dependent and he relies on Bonnie for everything. He even starts fights. Hid presence affects her grades, but Claude is a good cat guy with a crush. He does what he can do. He cooks nutritious meals for Bonnie, because the Queen taught him to cook well.

He also gets a goddamn job, and he is excellent at it. He gets hired at a cafe, and he quickly gains fans. The fans bring in cash. A silly fanclub grows, and Claude starts to improve. He shows Bonnie that he cares.

Bonnie sees him as a pet for a long time. She even falls for other men. Nathan, and then Claude's playboy coworker Doug. The gag is the owner only hires handsome men at her cafe. Doug has fans too, but he's a mutt. He's a dog that isn't pure. He can transform, but he doesn’t have super strength. He was bullied for that and he flirts with women for validation. This is where we learn about Bonnie. Bonnie doesn't date him. Bonnie eventually becomes his friend. He betrays her and they stay friends, because she knows he's a good guy under his past. He proves himself and he puts his own feelings aside so she can be happy with Claude.

When Bonnie was young she had a black cat named Pepper. Pepper is the second prince. He hated his life, because Claude was the future king and he wasn’t. He wanted his father's love. He bullied Claude and he learned magic. Pepper is the most powerful magic cat. When he was little he summoned a great fire that killed hundreds of cats. It almost killed Frances, and it killed her sister.

He is the villain, and he loves Bonnie, because she is the only person who ever loved him.

Princess Abby is the witness character. Through her we learn that Pepper isn't redeemable. His real name isn't even Pepper. He doesn't want the name his parents gave him anymore. He misses Bonnie, and he eventually finds her. Pepper isn't sorry. He thinks everyone who ignored him and his magical talent should suffer. Abby falls in love with Bonnie's incredibly kind best friend. Their romance really is one of the best parts of the series.

Nathan almost kills Pepper. This pushes Frances to finally kick him out of her life. Pepper is powerful, and he's not lying. He loves Bonnie, and he wants Claude to rule the cat kingdom now. He says he'll stay with Bonnie, because she's all he wants, and Claude can do his duty. Claude chooses to leave. It's the right thing to do.

Pepper tries to replace Claude in every way. He starts working at the cafe. He gets a fan club. He is respectful and corny with Bonnie, but it's too late. She misses Claude, but at least he is ruling his happy kingdom.

....

It's gone.

The cat kingdom is dead. The fire Pepper did damaged the royal family as a whole. Claude's parents exiled him to protect him. They called him weak because they loved him and they wanted him to be happy in the human realm. The rivers are dry. The flowers are gone. Every cat has left for the human world.

Pepper trapped Claude there with Abby, who is now suicidal. Her homeland is no more, just like the dog kingdom.

Pepper is the only one strong enough to open the gate again.

Claude barely manages to get back with his powers, but he can't save Abby.

Pepper has to.

He refuses. His lies catch up to him. He says he'll save Abby if Claude agrees to never be with Bonnie, but it's too late. He can't step in and have what Claude has. Claude is truly kind and caring. Pepper only came back to take Bonnie's love after the entire cat kingdom was ash.

That's not real love...or is it?

Pepper knows he cannot atone or be loved.

Bonnie gets attacked by a stalker he personally pissed off. As she dies he thinks about love, and how happy he was in the human world with Bonnie. When his parents exiled him it wasn't out of love.

He was a monster, but Bonnie loved him.

He uses a special spell. It erases his existence to make Bonnie's wish come true. She survives, and everyone she loves is blissfully happy. Abby and her best friend Jina are dating. Frances is a flirt around her, and Nathan doesn't hang out with them anymore. Claude is her loving boyfriend. Her friends are all enjoying life, because it's what she wished for.

She wanted to be a part of her friend's happy lives. She grew and matured into someone special, who is the absolute life of her friend group.

Sometimes, she feels like something is missing. Only sometimes. She's so happy that it's hard to remember why. There are no exceptions. Everyone forgets Pepper, which is painfully ironic. He threw away his old identity to chase Bonnie, and then he gave having an identity up for her. In an attempt to make up for what he put her through.

His death was the only good thing he ever did.

*The art style makes this a hard sell...

#yandere #male yandere #yandere male #yandere boy #recommendations #recs #rec #recommended #webtoon #korean webtoon

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dangermousie · 3 years

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Case File Compendium - ch 55

Good God, these are getting longer and longer, I feel like the ghost of Leo Tolstoy, sans the beard, is possessing me.

This was hilarious! And I love that despite last night, HY does not get the balance of power permanently altered. He Yu is so very young. And underneath the madness and the rage and the violence, he still has that remnant insecurity and awkwardness that could go away with age.

If he could use a scalpel as well as he can use his tongue, XQC would be the premiere surgeon of the country. But this was brilliant! God, I love XQC so very much!

I wondered for a minute why XQC does not act more distraught and destroyed and then it occurred to me - he is literally incapable of it. This is the same person who saw mangled bodies of his parents as a kid and moved on, the same one who kept functioning when he thought the sole person he loved, his sister, was dead. And this is the same here. He already doesn’t care if he lives or dies, this won’t change that. He will do with the latest horror the same as he did with the rest of the horrors in his life - shove it in a small room in the back of his mind and padlock it, while smoking three packs in a row. It’s not healthy but it enables him to survive.

YESSSSSS! He Yu was clearly fooling himself when he was all “he is gonna hate me and this is great!” He is distraught at the thought of XQC hating him but what the hell else did you expect?! It’s like a teeny baby step on the long road of remorse and groveling MB is gonna stick him on.

YES!!!! Applause!!!! Regardless of what one thinks XQC did or didn’t do, nothing he could have ever possibly done could justify what He Yu did. Not to mention, he treated He Yu when he was his doctor to the best of his ability. (Whatever one thinks of their post-employment interactions, he was not his doctor any more.)

The other thing, I don’t think XQC is a therapist. He’s a psychiatrist. He was clearly there to monitor HY’s illness back way when but it’s to treat physical manifestations and similar. That is why so many of his interactions come from this place. Sure, he talked about HY reintegrating back into society but it wasn’t part of any specific structured therapy sessions, it was just his personal beliefs/conversations. HY needed a bona fide therapist for proper therapy. But his parents never got HY one because they only cared about him being controlled enough to not cause issues to them, they never cared about his well-being. Hell, they never bothered to get him ANY doctor once XQC left and HY was only 14. Because hey, he controls himself so who cares about mental trauma. They are the worst!

Oh God, I want to cosmically slap HY into next week. “You Honor, I drugged and raped a dude but that’s justified because I never got birthday cake as a kid.” I am imagining that as a defense in a court of law.

Yes, I am being snide and disingenuous and reductionist because He Yu’s issues are obviously way beyond that and are genuine and serious, but I have absolutely zero sympathy for a rapist telling his victim that he is the one actually wronged.

And then he says he wouldn’t tell the truth because HY couldn’t bear it.

And guess what? Last night has proven XQC right on all accounts - yes, XX should stay away from He Yu as should anyone who likes self-preservation. And yes, learning that things were hallucinations was something HY couldn’t bear (yes, it got aggravated by finding out people concealed that, but I don’t think reaction would have been in the realm of good even without that.)

I loved that bit so much and I love that He Yu was sooooo close and then wrecked it himself.

The thing is, I don’t think all of the “XQC didn’t see the strength/validity of He Yu’s feelings” is what it seems. I don’t think it’s because he’s paternalistic or weird or heartless. I think it’s a defense mechanism due to trauma. He refuses to see ANYONE’s feelings - hell, he refused his wife’s! I think once his parents were murdered, he locked his heart to survive and refused to allow anyone or anything is so as not to be hurt again. XX is the only exception and that is because she was grandfathered in, so to speak.

And then HY’s actions actually did manage to make it through to the armor. Only for He Yu’s other actions to slam that door shut and put an extra layer of protection on.

Ummm, there is nothing in these chapters that is convincing me that He Yu shouldn’t be locked up forever and instead should be allowed to be in human society.

In general, I keep wondering how XQC will get past chapter 52-53 stuff and my brain breaks. Despite the vast amounts of noncon in 2ha, it is a much easier case there. CWN of main storyline never truly had to - he kept thinking his flashbacks were not real memories but weird dreams and by the time he realized they weren’t, he learned about the flower shortly after and how none of TXJ’s actions were really his fault in close succession. CWN -.5 also learned that near the end of the 0.5 timeline and that is what allowed him to love even that warped 0.5 version of Mo Ran and to tell him to forgive himself before CWN 0.5 died. And when we look at whatever went on with CWN and zombie Taxian Jun, leaving aside that CWN himself was in part looking for the man he loved and lost and being with this tormented, destroyed, controlled version of him was the most he could have, zombie TXJ was not even a proper person to be held responsible - he was a sliver of a soul, mad and controlled and with memory and personality lacunae the size of Australia. And of course the fact that he is the way he is because he sacrificed himself for CWN hangs over everything. We don’t even need to get into “and CWN loves him” to get why for CWN this is really a non-issue.

Despite a much healthier dynamic, Yuwu is interestingly closer. Because Mo Xi x Gu Mang first time is dubcon at best. But even there, it’s a very old-school romance novel set up of “gentleman overcome by his feelings can’t control himself” (and I am not going to get into the fact that Gu Mang’s life is so devoid of love that it’s matter of fact for him to look past the method of expression and fixate instead of the feelings being shown however dysfunctionally, because it would make me depressed.) But it’s basically, intense and terrible at intractions bear child Mo Xi expressing his love/lust/obsession/admiration/devotion to Gu Mang even if in an insane way and Gu Mang is under no mistake than that is what it is and they are in mutual love with GM having the emotional upper hand in every interaction this included (in fact, when he defects some years later, one of the regrets he feels is that he was always more crucial/paramount to Mo Xi than other way around.)

But CFC - forget 2ha, it’s not even Yuwu set-up! He Yu does what he does explicitly to humiliate and destroy and hurt XQC and makes no bones about it - saying things to humiliate him throughout, acting in such a way etc etc. It’s not even a sex version of the infamous Russian proverb “if he beats you means he loves you,” it’s just rape as an act of revenge and power and degradation. (And yes, as a reader, you are aware that the reason HY glommed onto that specifically is because without getting it at all, he’s been obsessed romantically/sexually with XQC for years so he’s acting out. But there is no way XQC can get anything like that from it and even if he somehow magically could when even HY himself doesn’t get it, expressing interest through humiliating and hurting someone on purpose to hurt and humiliate is a whole other level from something like Yuwu.)

So how?!

#cnovel #meatbun doesn’t eat meat #case file compendium #yuwu #2ha

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inmyarmswrappedin · 3 years

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ok now i need to hear more of your thoughts about the remakes and how they adapted even’s favorite films

Hi anon 🎬 Sure!

So, first off, the thing about Baz Luhrmann is that he makes unapologetic love story movies. His movies have elements of action and adventure, but they’re first and foremost love stories, and that makes him stand out from other big movie directors. His movies aren’t even romcoms, first because they don’t have happy endings (as Even notes in the video with Mikael) but also because the setting is never contemporary. Like even aside The Great Gatsby or Moulin Rouge, which are not set in the present day, Romeo + Juliet does ostensibly have 90s technology. But since the characters speak in Shakespearean verse, it gives the movie an atemporal feel. So this is a super tragic, super romantic movie that is actually super toxic for Even to model his life after, because Even is convinced that, in order for him and Isak to be in true love (for any love story to be valid), their story has to end badly.

In Skam, Even provides the twist himself, by starting to make references (and model his life after) Pretty Woman when he starts to become manic. Pretty Woman is like, far from a non problematic movie lmao. But it does have an unlikely happy ending, and it’s through Isak’s understanding of how Even sees Romeo + Juliet and Pretty Woman, that he is able to ultimately reassure Even that their love story doesn’t have to end tragically.

So anyway, the fact that Even unabashedly loves this super romantic movie makes him mysterious and attractive and passionate, because it’s not a dude bro action or superhero movie. By loving this movie, Even is rejecting the macho persona Isak so badly wants to project.

I’ll start with the examples I like lol:

Only Lovers Left Alive: David identifies with this movie to the point that his cartoon persona is a vampire. Like Adam in the movie, he dresses in all black. He is convinced that he’s a monster who can’t live in society because he will be rejected. So it’s pretty clear how this movie is toxic for David. But I also think the movie is sooo telling of David’s actual desires. David likes to pretend that he can go it alone, that he doesn’t need anyone, that he wouldn’t take anyone with him in the case of a catastrophe. But... The movie is about Adam and Eve, the titular only lovers left alive. By loving this movie to the extent that he does, David is parading his major yearning for a forever partner. And like, of course he eventually asks Matteo to run away with him, but Matteo demonstrates how innately he understands David by telling him he does want a relationship with David, but he doesn’t want the toxicity of acting like they’re two monsters who’ve been cast aside from society.

Dangerous Liaisons: I think Skam España took an interesting route by choosing to not have Cris verbally connect the dots (like Druck did). The thing is, Dangerous Liaisons is a tragic love story, yes, but a love story between Valmont and Tourvel, whereas Joana projects on the Marquise de Merteuil, who is all but the villain in the story. Tragic story aside, Romeo and Juliet do love each other, as do Adam and Eve. Joana’s idea of romance (and of herself by extension since she projects on Merteuil) doesn’t even allow for loving and being loved back in return, because no one in Dangerous Liaisons loves Merteuil, and Merteuil herself has become so twisted that she can’t even call her feelings for Valmont “love” (though that’s how Joana interprets them). And the thing is, Joana still finds beauty in the movie! She writes Cris a letter with the edges burned out because it reminds them both of the story. She wants to meet at a specific park because it reminds her of the movie. So it’s just so... beautiful, that Cris takes all of this and just gives Joana the Liaisons dangereuses book. Like, she is lowkey reminding Joana that the book is just a book, that Joana is a real person (within the Skam España story I mean lmao) and not a twisted awful villain, that she is loved, and that Dangerous Liaisons can be their thing (like “their” song, but a movie in this case) without having to be the horrible thing that will destroy them. I really like that the writers chose to imply all these things in their minutt for minutt scene, without saying them explicitly.

Last Man on Earth: Honestly, like I don’t particularly have a big issue with Skam Italia making this Niccolò’s thing, other than it’s so... dude bro-y bland? Like one thing you can say about Romeo + Juliet, Only Lovers Left Alive and Dangerous Liaisons is that they are all such high key romantic (as in, emotions running high) movies, it’s what makes Even, David and Joana so mysterious and attractive and passionate. If I knew someone who told me he projects on Last Man on Earth I’d be like, “The Good Place is better” or “if you wanted to stan a SNL cast member, Andy Samberg was right there.” I mean, I do think Bessegato knew what the point of Even’s movie was, but Last Man on Earth is exactly the type of dude bro material I would expect from him, and would not expect from an Even.

Polaris: Polaris is an undeveloped motif who seems interesting because of the dark and light aspects, and I claim my five pounds. Polaris is in no way toxic for Eliott, like all the others movies and show (even Last Man on Earth) were for the other characters. It’s just... cute. Cute like everything about Eliott is cute and nothing more. Eliott drawing himself as a raccoon is cute because he has a mask and is nocturnal! Whereas Lucas is small and defensive like a hedgehog! And Lucille is elegant and mean like a cat! Etc. This motif is never really developed or explored, it’s never given a twist, Eliott is in fact still obsessed with it 3 seasons later, just like he was obsessed with it before he met Lucas and it was Idriss he envisioned in the other role. There’s no growth, Eliott just never progresses beyond what Polaris represents for him. It sure is cute as fuck though, which is why the stans love it.

???: Does Sander even have a movie? I heard he likes Baz Luhrmann and maybe even Romeo + Juliet, but this isn’t really explored. I don’t think even David Bowie’s life or sexuality or various musical personas (like you could do something with Ziggy Stardust or Aladdin Sane if you couldn’t think of a movie) are explored. Sander likes Bowie like he could like Iggy Pop or Freddie Mercury, queer music icons who for the most part are “safe” for straight men to stan without their sexuality getting called into question. I assume Robbesander stans think the lack of an Even’s movie motif is a sign of excellent writing, and proves Sander is a better Even because he doesn’t project on anything toxic or whatever the hell, just like Robbe is the best Isak because he was so good at letting Zoë and Senne have drama uninterrupted.

#ask #skam #skam españa #druck #skam france #wtfock #Anonymous

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carriagelamp · 3 years

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April l was apparently the month for me to revisit some children’s authors who are steeped in controversy at the moment. So here’s my hot (well, lukewarm) takes on issues that absolutely do not need a single other person talking about them. Also some actual good books that I read this month!

Badger in the Basement

The Animal Ark books are a childhood classic — though I recently found out that apparently there’s a difference between American and British publications, and the American versions didn’t include a lot of actual COOL animals which is… bizarre. As a Canadian stuck in the middle of this, this nonsense drives me nuts. This one was about the main character, the daughter of pair of vets, trying to protect a local badger sett from men wanting to participate in badger digging and baiting. These books are always feel-good, and it was a nice single-day-read while I waited for a library book to come in.

Chi’s Sweet Home

The cutest manga series about the misadventures of a little kitten, Chi, who has been adopted by a loving family. I’ve never bothered to read them in order, but apparently this time I stumbled across the last in the series -- whoops! Still, stood on it’s own pretty easily, and it was a fun read! Things get tense when the family realize that they may have found Chi’s original home… and may have to give up Chi forever.

Earth Before Us: Dinosaur Empire!

This was an odd graphic novel, I feel like I’m not sure who the target audience was exactly. It was a nonfiction comic done in a Magic School Bus style, with the purpose of teaching current, up-to-date facts about the animals that lived in the Mesozoic Era. If you’re into dinosaurs, you’ll probably enjoy this! The art is absolutely adorable, I love the dinosaur illustrations, and I learnt some really neat facts. That being said, the pages are really dense, and there’s a lot of info crammed in… some of it will probably go way over a child’s head without specific additional teaching or a very strong personal interest. But that being said, a dinosaur obsessed kid is still probably going to really dig this… as would a dinosaur obsessed adult. It wasn’t my cup of tea exactly but I’m sure it is someone’s.

assorted Dr Seuss Books

I love these types of controversies because it means getting to listen to every moron who has never had an opinion on Dr Seuss ever start generating a mile of them out of the aether. So many people are so mad about the six books that are getting retired and I bet most of them haven’t even read them. These are not the friggin Cat In The Hat or The Lorax or even the likes of Yertle The Turtle. I was raised by a grade one teacher, was a voracious reader who loved Dr Seuss, and wrote my university thesis on children’s literature, and I still only knew two of the six books on that list. So by all means, if you want to write an essay explaining why those specific books are worth clinging to, feel free, but if you haven’t even heard of them maybe it’s not a big deal. *grumble*

Anyway, my grousing aside, it gave me the urge to reread a bunch of Seuss books, including the two retiring books I personally knew: McElligot’s Pool and To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street. I do still enjoy both, especially McElligot’s Pool which always sparked my imagination, but it’s obvious why they’re being retired and I personally think it’s the right choice. There’s so much good kidlit out there, we can survive without these.

Goodbye, My Rose Garden

A f/f romance manga, fairly standard fair though cute if you’re looking for some historical angst, pretty dresses, and mutual pining. A young Japanese woman moves to England in the hopes of meeting a writer (Mr Frank) who she has long admired. Along the way she is employed by an enigmatic woman with plenty of money, rumours, and melancholy following her. I’ll be honest, uncut romance isn’t really my genre, but I’ll probably still try to the second book to see if the story picks up.

From The Holocaust to Hogan’s Heroes: The Autobiography of Robert Clary

It’s no secret that I’ve been on a Hogan’s Heroes kick. This is the autobiography of Roberty Clary, who plays my favourite character in the show, Louis Lebeau. And holy shit what a life this man has had. He was a Jew growing up in France before the start of the war, and who was one of many children taken away from his family and sent off to the concentration camps in Germany. This was an amazing, intense, inspiring, and heartbreaking read… it has Clary’s voice all over it, and it tells everything from the charming childhood he had, to the horrors of the concentration camps, the brutality of survival, and then about his exciting journey into the entertainment industry afterwards. It’s an experience, would recommend if you’re a fan of the show.

The Ickabog

The second controversial author I read this month. Originally I was going to give Rowling’s new book a miss, given everything that’s been going on over the past few years, but in the end my curiosity got the better of me. Politics aside, it was a fun read! Not groundbreaking, but enjoyable enough and written in an interesting style. It didn’t read the same as a lot of modern kidlit, it felt more like a cross between a classic fairytale and a Dahl book. Perhaps a bit like Despereaux. It tells the tale of how an idyllic country gradually falls into ruin through the ignorance, inaction, and greed, and how a supposedly fictional monster hides the very real, human monsters at the heart of the country. It was cute and pleasant and I’m glad I decided to get it from the library, though for anyone who is choosing not to engage for political reasons: you aren’t missing anything major.

Franklin In The Dark

A Canadian classic. I don’t think there’s a single person my age who hasn’t read or been read a pile of these books, and the nostalgia is so comforting. I found this on Youtube and listened to someone read it to me, and honestly 10/10 would recommend for a calm evening.

The big reason I decided to seek this one out though, was because I finally got to the M*A*S*H episode that inspired this entire series! In the episode C*A*V*E, in which Hawkeye is freaking out over his claustrophia while the camp is forced to take shelter in a nearby cave during some intense shelling, he mentions that if he had been born a turtle he would have been afraid of his own shell, and that the other turtles would make fun of him cause he’d be forced to walk around in his underwear. And so this first story about a young turtle who’s afraid to sleep in his own shell and drags it around behind him. So if you were ever curious, Franklin the Turtle is in fact named after Dr Benjamin Franklin Pierce. (this is also why the French version is named Benjamin!)

Wolves of the Beyond: Lone Wolf

I loved the Guardians of Ga’Hoole books as a kid but I never read the Wolves of the Beyond series. This first book was an interesting read, Lasky does a great job creating worlds and societies for the animals that inhabit them. Lone Wolf is about a deformed wolf cub who was abandoned in the wilderness to die. And he would have, if a desperate mother bear, who had recently had her only cub killed, hadn’t stumbled across him and saved him, vowing to raise him as her own...

Petals

A “silent” graphic novel. It has beautiful artwork and is told entirely through pictures, no text at all. It’s loves and heart-wrenching, though it left me feeling somewhat unsatisfied… I felt like there should have been more. Still, a neat story.

The Southern Book Club‘s Guide To Slaying Vampires

What a banger of a novel!! I can’t recommend this one enough. It’s about a group of suburban mothers in the ‘80s who form a book club out of a shared need for community and a love of grisly true crime novels. But when a strange drifter appears in town and starts setting down roots… and when children begin disappearing… these women need to band together to confront the horrors that have invaded their neighbourhood, and face down not only a terrifying monster among them but the patriarchal system that allows it to flourish. To quote the preface:

“Because vampires are the original serial killers, stripped of everything that makes us human — they have no friends, no family, no roots, no children. All they have is hunger. They eat and eat but they’re never full. With this book, I wanted to pit a man freed from all responsibilities but his appetites against women whose lives are shaped by their endless responsibilities. I wanted to pit Dracula against my mom. As you’ll see, it’s not a fair fight.“

The Weirn Books: Be Wary of the Silent Woods

I love Chmakova’s graphic novels, though I’ve only ever read her slice-of-life middle grade series before. This one is pure fantasy and very fun. It’s about two cousin “weirns” — witches with demon familiars — who attend the local night school. Things get strange though when an ominous figure appears outside the old, abandoned school house deep in the Silent Woods, and begins tempting children down its path…

I’m very much looking forward to word of a second book and was honestly kind of surprised that I haven’t heard more about this book given how popular her other series is. This has all the same charm and quirks but for those of us who prefer stories based in fantasy rather than reality.

And A Bonus...

For some masochistic reason I got a Garfield book out of the library. Jeez, if I didn’t love these as a kid, I found them absolutely laugh out loud hilarious, and now I just don’t see it anymore. But here I will share the one strip in the book that actually made me laugh

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365days365movies · 3 years

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February 24, 2021: Annie Hall (1977) (Part 1)

Well...Woody Allen.

I, uh...OK, look, I could get into the whole Woody Allen thing, but INSTEAD of me doing that, I’ll just say this: look into it. Because there is a LOT on this subject, and it’s controversial as HELL. At the end of the day, I’ll recommend this upcoming series on HBO, and just recommend that you look into it.

Because, uh...yeah, it’s not great. That’s all I’m gonna say, because I need to educate myself on it more as well. Instead, let’s talk for a few seconds about divorcing the art from the artist. But ONLY for a few seconds.

I understand why some of you might be surprised I’m doing this one. Because, again...Woody Allen. But, yeah, I always try to do my best to divorce the art from the artist. Because some people suck, but they still make nice things, or at the very least, things that should be open to interpretation and appreciation.

“Superfreak” is a classic song of 1981, and everybody’s heard at least some of it, but Rick James fuckin’ kidnapped two women and kept them in his basement, WHERE HE TORTURED THEM. Edgar Degas made beautiful paintings of ballet dancers, and was also A MASSIVE ANTI-SEMITE. And before he was (RIGHTFULLY AND JUSTIFIABLY) outed as a roofie-ing piece-o-shit...I grew up with - and genuinely enjoyed - this guy’s comedy.

And you can judge me for this, but...I still think his stand-up was and is genuinely funny, and I still appreciate the cultural impact that The Cosby Show had on society’s perception of African-American families, divorced from the stereotype of the ghetto. Fact of the matter is, works themselves deserve to be separated from the artist who made them. That’s my philosophy, and I’m sticking with it Entirely fine to disagree with me, by the way, I get it.

But in that spirit, I’m watching Annie Hall, despite its creators likely transgressions. After all, this is technically his magnum opus, and it’s a good look into the man himself. And so, with that in mind: Annie Hall! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap (1/2)

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Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) is talking directly to us about his outlook on life, and his view on the potential future. He tells half of a joke, then an amusing anecdote, and a bit more until telling us that he’s broke up with Annie, and he’s still thinking about it, trying to figure out exactly where things went wrong. He goes back to the beginning, which is punctuated with flashbacks.

He grew up in Brooklyn in World War II, and a young Alvy (Jonathan Munk) is with his mother (Joan Newman) at the doctor’s. He’s depressed after learning that the universe will one day end after a period of expansion, and is having his first real existential crisis. I had mine around the same age, actually, went I learned that the Earth will one day get swallowed by the sun. And THEN came the realization that I’d be dead by that point. AND THEN came the realization that I’d die one day, and that was a WHOLE NEW crisis to...anyway.

He grew up under the Coney Island rollercoaster according to him (although his analyst says that he exaggerates), and that’s what he blames for his “nervous personality. He’s also got an active imagination, often blurring fantasy and reality. His Dad ran the bumper cars on Coney Island (a place that I’ve never been, but desperately want to go).

He continues on talking about his former schoolmates, and not really that well. While in class, young Alvy kisses a...little girl...ahem. And then, when reprimanded by the teacher, current Alvy notes that he was always...like that...and he also says this to the little girl, and they talk about Freud’s latency period, and Alvy said he never...had...one...that’s uh...that’s fuckin’ SOMETHING, now isn’t it?

OK, well, shoving that forcefully aside as hard as I can, Alvy wonders aloud on where his classmates now, and one of them says this:

This also involves a little girl saying she’s “into leather,” which is...awkward as FUCK, but WE’RE GONNA MOVE THE FUCK ON. Alvy recounts his paranoia, and was so even after he became a famous comedian (which we say after a VERY good joke about qualifying for the army as a hostage). He speaks to a friend, Rob (Tony Roberts) about potential anti-Semitism from a person in a passersby meeting, then heads to meet Annie.

Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) arrives at a movie theater, late and in a bad mood. The two are late to their intended film, argue briefly, then head to another film that they’ve already seen, The Sorrow and the Pity. In line, they’re in front of a man loudly soliloquizing on film, much to Alvy’s annoyance.

Annie and Alvy continue to argue a bit, while Alvy openly berates the casual film critic. In the middle, he talks to the audience about it, only to be followed by the crtiic himself, who also acknowledges the audience! Huh! Anyway, he’s a professor at Columbia, and starts continuing his line speech, this time on the work of Marshall McLuhan, one of the most important early media theorists ever. And then, Alvy brings out Marshall McLuhan (Marshall McLuhan) to debate him on it, only for Alvy to turn to the audience and wish aloud that life could really be like this!

I’m beginning to understand why people like this film. It’s metacontextual before metacontextuality was really a thing in film. It’s a fourth-wall breaking movie in some fantastic ways. But will it still hold its muster after breaking the fourth wall’s become so commonplace? we’ll see, I guess.

After a showing of the film, the two return home, and Alvy tries to initiate sex. But Annie’s not really into it at the moment, and Alvy complains that they used to have sex all the time, and it’s been a while since. So, I guess that retroactively awkward scene at the school was meant to foreshadow Alvy’s high libido, that will probably cause some conflict in the film. Anyway, Annie notes that Alvy once went through something similar with Allison, his first wife. Who’s Allison? Flashback!

Allison Portchnik (Carol Kane) is a graduate student in political science, working for a campaign that Alvy’s about to perform for. He’s nervous, as he’s going on after another comedian. She comforts him by saying that she thought he was cute, and he does well. But we flash-forward to a night after they’re married, shortly after the death of JFK, which Alvy’s obsessing over, entertaining various conspiracy theories.

However, Allison rightly points out that his obsession is simply a way for him to avoid having sex with her, which mirrors the present-day situation him him and Annie. Flash forward TO Alvy and Annie, and there are just lobsters...everywhere, on the floor in their kitchen. After that commotion, they talk about Annie’s past romances.

And by talk about, I mean they LITERALLY WALK THROUGH her memories. And I gotta say...I fuckin’ love this method of storytelling. One of her previous boyfriends is an actor (John Glover), and his over-dramatic prose sickens Alvy. We see a second marriage of Alvy’s to New Yorker writer Robin (Janet Margolin), who’s dragged him to a stuffy high society party of intellectuals that he has no interest in going to. Same her, Alvy. I bet the caviar’s canned.

He tries to initiate sex with her - in the middle of the party, mind you - and she turns him down. later, when they get to it in their apartment, she’s unable to, uh...reach satisfaction. From there, we flash-forward after that marriage ends to a tennis match with Rob, where he meets one of his mutual friends: Annie Hall.

And for the record, Annie’s pretty obviously got a crush on him, and she’s adorable as fuck. Also, that outfit, real talk...that outfit rules. She offers to give Alvy a list, during which he’s quite worried about her driving, but the two still get along well enough. Annie’s an amateur photographer, during a time period where photography is considered a relatively new art form. The two go to her apartment, and share familial anecdotes and personal stories about themselves. And as they talk, we also see a set of subtitles on top of each of them that betray their inner feelings and thoughts.

I do genuinely like the stylings of the movie, goddamn. This conversation leads to Alvy asking her out on a date, although they end up scheduling it after Annie auditions at a nightclub as a singer. And while it doesn’t go great, Alvy tells her she was fantastic, and they share a kiss before they head to dinner. They head to her place afterwards, and we cut to later that night, post-coitus.

And then, we get a flash-forward back to the next day, where the two are at a bookstore, and Alvy speaks on his personal philosophy of life.

I'm obsessed with uh, with death, I think. Big - big subject with me, yeah. I have a very pessimistic view of life. You should know this about me if we're gonna go out. You know, I - I feel that life is - is divided up into the horrible and the miserable. Those are the two categories, you know. The - the horrible would be like, um, I don't know, terminal cases, you know, and blind people, crippled. I don't know how they get through life. It's amazing to me. You know, and the miserable is everyone else. That's - that's - so - so - when you go through life - you should be thankful that you're miserable because you're very lucky to be miserable.

Iiiiinteresting.

Shortly into their relationship, they admit they’re in love (or “lurve”, as Alvy says). She moves in with Alvy, which he initially isn’t the biggest fan of, having been burned in two previous marriages And already, their relationship is showing a few bumps. Alvy’s also always trying to push her to take college classes, while she uses mariuana whenever they have sex, which Alvy doesn’t agree with.

But as they have sex one night, without the marijuana at Alvy’s urging, Annie’s mind wanders - LITERALLY.

This film...this film has a VERY unique style of visual storytelling, and I am HERE for it! Seriously, I genuinely love this method of storytelling and comedy, it’s extremely engaging to me.

Soon enough, Alvy gets an interview to write for a talk show host, which he ABSOLUTELY despises. But in doing so, he decides to go into stand-up for himself, and is actually quite successful at it! But before we get to that, we’re at the halfway point! See you in Part 2!

#annie hall #woody allen #diane keaton #tony roberts #carol kane #paul simon #shelley duvall #christopher walken #romance february #romance movie #romcom #romantic comedy #user365 #365 movie challenge #365 movies 365 days #365 Days 365 Movies #365 movies a year

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ravenwritesstuff · 4 years

Text

Best Laid Plans (13/?)

Fandom: Frozen (modern AU, no magic) Pairings: Helsa, established Kristanna, Rapunzel/Eugene, lotsa frohana Rating: T for now, M later almost for sure A/N: Meh.

She goes to the bathroom where she had changed originally.

By some mercy all of her things are still there. She does not know why she thought they might not be, but this day is quickly showing her just how unexpected things can be. Her mouth still tingles from the pressure of his and if she is honest she cannot say it was entirely unwanted.

Still: this precedent cannot stand. If this event is to go forward she absolutely cannot abide this kind of behavior.

It is distracting. It is unprofessional. More than that it hints at the one thing she has not allowed herself to consider for over two years: a future.

Hans Westergaard may not want anything from her more than a fling, but she cannot know that for sure. She cannot entertain anything that may have staying power and if his reaction to her is even a fraction of what she has felt when he touches her then they are in trouble.

The first thing she does is breaths. She knows she tends to not do that and that is no good. She must breathe. Breath is crucial to brain function and clearly she needs as much of that as she can get.

She needs to breathe.

She needs to think.

She needs to move forward.

Her first step of moving forwards is to go to the miniature version of her traveling drugstore in the corner of the gold and marble bathroom, and she immediately starts setting herself right. She cannot get out of her wrap and suit fast enough. Even with the rinse down below she still feels sticky. She pulls out her face and body wipes and gets to work, then the lotion. It is not the type that drenched her skin with cloying scent, but instead offered a delicate perfume that she hopes will remove all traces of the reef and everything after. As she works the cream into her skin she feels her body relax. The familiarity, the sense of routine, slows the spinning world enough that she finally feels like she stands on solid ground.

Her body is hers. Her mind is hers. Her spirit is hers. She focuses on that.

She tells herself this routine has nothing to do with erasing his touch, covering it with additional sensation so she can forget the heat he poured into every inch of her. She tells herself that caressing her body with her own hands has nothing to do with forgetting the imprints he left on her. She reasons that gargling sharp minty mouthwash is to take the tang of ocean salt from her tongue and not the memory of his own intimate flavor. She tells herself that she hadn’t kissed him back.

She wishes she believed herself, but the last point is a lie and she knows it.

Still she comforts herself knowing that if nothing else it reminds her that there is life off of this boat, outside of his initiative. These steps, routines, exist outside of him. The vast majority of her world exists outside of him and would continue to be so for as long as she is alive. It is a victory, she tells herself, to not need him.

All she wants is to plan a great event. All she wants is to elevate her company to the next level so when she leaves she will know they are set. All she wants is to make peace with her fate and leave her family with the resources they need for success.

She dresses, glad for the shapeless way her shift floats around her body revealing nothing. She untangles the mess of her hair and combs her fingers through the white blonde mass. The salt from the ocean brings out its fullness and body. Without a blowdryer and a round brush there was no hope of taming it to lay around her shoulders and down her back without it exploding into a frizzy mess. Her fingers deftly create a braid that she curls and pins at the nape of her neck, hiding her scar.

Finally she finds her silver locket and clasps it behind her neck.

She may have been tempting fate wearing this specific piece of jewelry. Hans Westergaard had taken a special interest in it at the wedding after all, but she knows she cannot simply stop wearing it. It is her most precious belonging and she is not about to allow one over-inflated playboy keep her from exercising what little control she has over her life.

She straightens her shoulder and swipes on just enough makeup to make her feel like she isn’t a ghost: a bit of mascara, concealer, brow fill, blush, and a swipe of nude lipstick. She has never been a gloss girl. Her fair complexion already makes her look younger than she is. She does not need help in that department, especially since she will never grow old.

The thought slips in before she can stop it but it still catches her breath. It has been easy to ignore for the last two years, but she knows she is chasing the end. Time and fate do not just stop because you turn your eye. She feels them both biting her heels.

In an act she hopes is fortifying she looks herself in the eye in the mirror.

She says what she has said for many other days to remind herself of her position, her focus, whenever she felt lost:

“The end is coming.”

The words bend in a strange way in this space. She has grown used to how they unfurled in the small bath off of her studio apartment where she has often found macabre comfort in her single affirmation. What use has she for self-help mantras and manifestation when science has told her the truth?

The end is coming, and it is coming soon. She has felt it. It is not constant, but just enough that she recognizes its impending presence. This is when she must bow out and relinquish herself to fate - no matter how cruel. She did not choose this, but it seems the universe did. Who is she to argue with the universe?

Her shoulder rolls back, eyes catching in the mirror, and she cannot delay further. If she does it will result in her heaving herself off the deck into the depths of the ocean and not coming back up and that is not becoming for PR regarding an up-and-coming event planning business.

She must face this.

She considers what she has faced to this point and in many ways is able to convince herself that anything she has encountered between herself and Mister Westergaard is quite small. Perhaps, in many ways, it is. Perhaps this ephemeral chemistry has left them grasping at things that do not exist.

There is no future and she is fine with that. Yes she may have reacted and even enjoyed the attention of his kisses but that does not mean she must succumb to the succulent pleasure he offers. After all he does not know what he is asking.

She does not have a future.

She does not know how to tell him that.

So she looks at herself in the mirror and decides that after this event she is done. Of course she will do her best at finishing out what she needs to contractually, but she will not accept any more events. From here on in her purpose will be to transfer whatever authority she has to a new trainee. It is the most she can hope to do for a company that was founded on the fact that she is dying.

Her head shakes, hand gripping pure stone counters veined with what she can only assume is actual gold, and this is her purpose. This is why she is here. If she can keep this event under the guise of E&A Events without ever giving away her position as she has done with everything they have done. Then their business will catapult to the stratosphere of society.

They are ready. She knows they are. They all have the skill and capability to reach the heights she never will, but she hesitates. Hiring. The one thing they have never really done. Kristoff was acquired through dating Anna. Rapunzel and Eugene were acquired through Kristoff and Anna drinking at a bar and forcing Elsa to realize they were the perfect fit for their expanding needs. The intern Sven, Kristoff’s friend, fit in well enough to warrant a staff position if available, but he definitely could not fill her shoes.

They needed someone who was focused on delivering perfection, someone who would balance out her obsession with black and white solutions, someone who could move them forward when her own desire for being more kept them from actually accomplishing anything.

Someone like Hans. Her own mind betrays her and she takes a breath.

She had not lingered in this bathroom to have her own motivational mirror time accost her so she knows it is time to go. Turning towards the door she sucks a serrated breath and reminds herself of the truth.

All that matters is the deal, the zeros on the bottom line, the chance to upscale the business.

At least that is what she tells herself as she tries to settle an errant, romantic heart.

Romance. The very word simultaneously makes her laugh and cringe. Of course she had wanted someone to share her life with, someone who didn’t judge or query or laugh. Someone sober-minded, driven, responsible, kind… but she shoves aside that narrative.

Even at Camp for Those Who Probably Weren’t Going to Make It (not the official name but the name given by her and her best camp friend in the summers spent there) she knows how unrealistic this is.

Love can heal, it does heal, but not when it comes to cases like her.

This is no simple saga of a single broken heart that could be bandaged if the right pair of hands came along. This is her own body declaring war on itself while requiring her to be inside of it but also sit back and watch. The cruelty is not lost on her, but she is prepared. This has been her end for a long time.

She will watch until the bitter end.

So she looks in the mirror. She squares her shoulders. She tightens the muscles in her back. Though not the tallest woman in the room she is above average and feels that is very much to her advantage. She will take every advantage she can during this negotiation for more than one reason.

After all: what is negotiation other than having the best side of a deal?

Little does she know that she is about to find out.

….

The rest of the party is back and dressed in their original clothes when she emerges onto the deck where they had first started. She takes stock and if she was not wound as tightly as a child’s music box she may have found the mix of mussed and professional endearing.

Well, at least where her team was concerned.

Her sister especially struck a chord in her disheveled pigtail braids, freckles shining on her cheeks and nose from their time in the sun, and her negligence to reapply any kind of makeup. Even in her casual professional outfit Elsa could not help but see her sister as they had been as children. As they had been before -

That thought is dangerous territory in current company and she reigns it hoping no one noticed the flicker of sentiment (and by no one she means Hans Westergaard). The situation has made it clear that she cannot afford any emotional weakness, no chinks in the armor, and she whips and beats her consciousness to submit to meet what she is so sure they need.

With an effort she is chagrin to admit she meets Mister Westergaard’s eyes to find them carefully resigned, as if he had to muster a similar effort to meet her gaze. Still the moment her eyes meet his she is struck with a heat she cannot explain - especially considering the distance. She swallows nothing, throat working around the promise of relief that cannot be found in such a simple action.

“Sorry to have kept you waiting,” she says around the lump in her throat, gaze scanning everything.

The elaborate spread of food and drink menus have been removed and she feels a pang of hunger that makes this discovery a regrettable one. Simultaneously she is surprised she is even interested in food at this moment. Not just because of her racing heart but she hasn’t been hungry in weeks, not genuinely anyway. She knows what that signals, but has been ignoring it.

Perhaps this is a good sign?

She tightens her core against the burgeoning hope. She is beyond trusting herself. If her condition has gone far enough she really cannot trust her own mind. The idea sends a spiteful fever through her gut, coiling and venomous. Who was she if she could not trust herself, her judgement?

She pushes at the hunger and levels her gaze somewhere in the middle of the group: “What did I miss?”

Anna smiles in a way that betrays nothing. She is either getting better at masking her feelings or Kristoff really hasn't divulged anything.

“We all just got here,” her sister smiles. “We were waiting for you.”

Elsa does not dare look at Hans for his response to that comment.

“Well I’m here now,” Elsa squares her shoulders and shifts her attache case in her hands. “Shall we discuss the initiative?”

The words themselves rest a tang on her tongue, bright as blood, and she is just glad it does not taste like him.

“Of course,” it is he, his voice smooth and calm as she hoped she had sounded before. “But you all must be hungry. I have taken the liberty to make sure lunch was provided today so we can spend the afternoon discussing details.”

It is only then that she allows herself to realize that he has lost his sweater from the morning and only wears the crisp white button down that had been hidden beneath. The long white sleeves are rolled to the elbows. His forearms are lean, roped with purposeful strength, and sprinkled with both freckles and thick copper hair. The sight of even part of him reminds her of how much she had seen before and unease descends upon her like a guillotine.

“Certainly,” Elsa nods, aware everyone is watching for her cue. “Thank you for the consideration, but we cannot presume to take so much of your time. I am sure after a working lunch my team and I will have enough to get started on your project. After all we want to provide you with the absolute best services and we are best prepared to do that in our offices.”

“Of course,” Hans Westergaard steps nearer and even at the distance of several feet she feels her calf cramp against the impulse to step back in response. “But you see I plan on being involved through this entire process. It is crucial that I work alongside you and make sure you understand everything you need to know so you can deliver exactly what I want.”

She levels her gaze, steadies her breath, and sees exactly what he is doing. Just as he clearly saw her own tactic a few moments before and she has never met someone to challenge her like this.

“That is the beauty of hiring E&A Events,” she smiles instead of screaming. “We can accomplish things for you in less time and with less supervision things that many other event planners cannot. That is why we hope you trust us and our recommendations. Once we outline your expectations we will only have to check in periodically to make sure we are on track.”

A shadow of a smile pulls at his lips as his gaze darkens. “And if I want to have a more hands on approach?”

Her breath catches against her will. Her body heats with each memory of exactly what his hands felt like across her frame and that is not part of the deal. It never will be, but she can feel the tension in the air. She can sense her crew’s suspicion rising at this exchange, inferring indiscretion, and she raises an imperious brow in counterpoint.

“There are no contracts signed, Mister Westergaard. Let’s sort through the particulars and see if we are a good fit.”

It is the best she can do to diffuse and redirect a conversation she can only describe as wildly out of hand. Still the look in his eye at her phrasing does nothing to settle the rolling feeling in her stomach. His enigmatic gaze tells her nothing but that she is in trouble.

“Lunch sounds great,” it is Kristoff who breaks in. His voice is just a little too eager.

“Yeah,” Anna chimes in too and Elsa cannot help but wonder just what she has gotten out of Kristoff explicitly and what she has read between the lines. “After all of that swimming I am starved!”

Rapunzel and Eugene seem all too happy to acquiesce and she can see Hans Westergaard slip into his perfect host skin. His smile broadens, his eyes get less focused, and he moves his attention from lasering in on her to directing the party as a whole. At least he can read a room - but maybe that is what makes him so dangerous.

Hans introduces the impeccable brunette that had directed her to the Sunset Parlor. Janet, her name is Janet. Elsa fixes onto that, on the humanness of this woman and how she could clearly care less about Hans Westergaard and his charm and his influence and whatever else he brings to the table as she offers the most gracious of smiles and gestures to Elsa’s crew to follow her.

The group all goes ahead of them.

Elsa had thought Hans Westergaard would go first but all he does is rock on his toes like a dare as the rest push into the interior of the boat. Elsa’s mind flashes to creamy yellow leather and lush mahogany wood and how if the lunch options were anything like the brunch options she may actually have to indulge (slightly). If this is the challenge he wants to lay down she will meet it.

She turns and follows the group. In no less than three steps she stopped by a strong hand on her shoulder turning her to meet his watching eyes. They have not quite left the main deck and she has watched carefully enough to know that the reflective glass is keeping them from further chatter of indiscretion. That does not mean she is thrilled to be stopped before she is coupled with the relative safety of going into lunch with her team.

Still she turns with razor eyes: “Stop it. This is not the right time.”

“Oh? Why do I feel like it will never be the right time with you?” he pulls the easy smile she knows is not his and her stomach turns.

“Stop,” she steps back and his hand drops. “You really have to stop.”

Her spine tightens as she tries to not lean away even though he has not moved closer. The kisses between them still sing. She may not be the most experienced girl at the bar but she knows a player when she sees one and there is no way she is letting him get closer in any way.

He cocks his head to the side, “why?”

“I understand you are an influential man,” she stares at the third button down his chest, ignoring that the first two are undone, and trying her best to not remember… “But we are, well I am not in the habit of pawning off favors for the sake of business. If I gave you the wrong impression or insinuated what you might expect…”

Her blush cuts her off and swallows.

His voice is low and soft, “I don’t expect anything.”

That rips her eyes to his. She does not know him, but she knows enough to never trust that sentiment.

“Everyone expects something,” she replies before she can catch herself and her mind goes double time to make up for her misstep, for showing her authentic feelings.

Even if it is true - even if he is born to an entire line that expects something - that does not give her permission to spew all over him. Still she is not about to allow her company to become the laughing stock of higher society because this man can adapt to any circumstance. There are no stakes for him here as far as she can see.

So she straightens her shoulders and does not back down. His chin lowers, slow grin melting across his face. All he does is shift his weight and she has to keep herself from jumping. What if Anna - ?

“What is it that you think I expect that has you so on edge?”

His eyes are hooded, lips soft, and the heat of their kiss is so near to her memory it would only take the slightest effort to pull it to the front of her mind and make a terrible decision, but she reins it in.

“Honestly I don’t want to patronize you with what we were both privy to,” they hold each others gaze for an uncomfortable breath then: “Before we move forward I need you to be honest about your potential contracting of E&A Events. It must have no ulterior motive beyond your event creation and completion. Tell me that you are hiring us for our collective merit, the event we could plan for you, and not for any other reason.”

He tilts his head to the side with a smirk, “What other reason could I have?”

She flushes, but not of embarrassment. This time the flush rises from - she hates to admit - agitation. She had though they had been on the same page, that he was actually listening to her, but that seems to be untrue.

“Are you asking me to suppose that you kissed me - repeatedly - was simply out of some sort of goodwill?”

His grin blossoms in full at that and it fills the room to where her whole body tense to stop a step back though he does not move. Even with feet separating them she can feel the heat of him against her and it is not fair. He rests so easy across the space from her that she cannot help but cross her arms over her chest in resistance to him.

“No. I am fully supposing you understand I kissed you because I find you wildly attractive,” his smile stretches so wide she wonders if it hurts even as it stops her lungs.

“Then this cannot go on,” it is a hard rush of the only air left in her body. The exhalation of this truth gives her space to suck in new air and continue, “while I am flattered there is no version of this story that ends the way you want unless that story ends with my company planning you an unforgettable event and us not getting involved in any way.”

The moment the words are out of her mouth she second guesses them. Her mind goes wild with everything she said wrong or could have said better but she is glad that the truth is at least out there. When expectations are set, she has learned, most parties end up happy. Still as she watches him she cannot quite be sure that rule applies here.

His hands tuck into his pocket and he rocks onto his toes. It isn't disappointment, but there are shades of that along with other things beneath the surface that she tries to not dissect too closely. Her mind comforts herself with the black and white of the situation. These kinds of boundaries are good and what they need to be professional. She had felt unsettled before because she had allowed gray to shade them. If he couldn’t accept her terms then -

“Well,” his tongue wets his full bottom lip and she can feel the gray slipping back in. “I told you I would kiss you like I would never get another chance. If that is all we get, I’ll learn to live with it.”

He smiles, not his mega-watt-light-the-night-sky-smile, but something softer and more secret. It sends a thread of anticipation up her spine that she cannot unravel.

Still she takes his words to heart.

I’ll learn to live with it.

He would have to.

After all. She had.

[ previous ]

#best laid plans #helsa #frozen #iceburns #kristanna #fanfiction #modern #au #tangled #crossover

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bloody-wonder · 3 years

Note

What are your favorite tropes?

thank you very much for being interested. here’s a post that’s ungodly long.

i love revenge stories. forget and forgive? how about no. i don’t believe in god or higher forces that distribute justice irl so even in stories where such forces actually exist i like when characters take matters into their own hands. will it make them happy or bring closure at least? i don’t care. for me it’s not so much about making the character who’s been wronged happy again as ensuring that the offending character isn’t happy. it’s all about bad karma. revenge stories are still done fairly often, so probably this would be the one popular trope that i like (idk if i can call it overdone though).

when a character does some favor for a stranger in the first half of the story to have it returned to them in the second half. i guess it comes from fairy tales: a hero rescues a person at the beginning of the story and later when the hero is in trouble and needs help it turns out that the person they rescued is very powerful and they just happen to ride by and help the hero out. it’s all about good karma. plus just generally i like when characters you thought were episodic turn out to be important later in the story.

when characters have to join forces with their antagonists to defeat a common enemy - both when it leads to them questioning why they are antagonists and becoming friends OR when they remain antagonists even after their enemy is defeated. the former situation is more common but it often isn’t executed very well in that the conflict between these characters isn’t resolved in a satisfying way - they just spend some time around each other and are like okay i forgive you we’re friends now which is frustrating. the latter scenario wouldn’t have such an issue but it’s very rare, i can’t even think of an example. a perfect situation ofc would be if after defeating the common enemy one side is ready to set their differences aside forever and the other one is not which leads to some delicious tragedy in the end (and to fandom discourse about whether person b should’ve forginen person a or whether they had every right not to).

forbidden romance. not of the montague / capulet kind, but of the actual “forbidden by society for valid reasons” kind. i don’t seek out books like this bcs all you will find is icky problematic romance books for people who have certain kinks, but i’m very intrigued when, for example, a literary fiction book will feature a forbidden romance. what will the author do with it? will they condemn it and remind everyone once again how harmful it is? will they have the nerve to make the ship endgame? how will they justify it? as the book leo has once put it, sometimes unhealthy relationships make for a more compelling story.

on a similar but very different note, when human characters have relationships with those who aren’t human. i guess paranormal romance is a subcategory of this trope but it’s not at all what i’m talking about. i like this inter-species dynamic bcs of how it makes different cultural norms clash and what it says about conditio humana and stuff. what if one character is a regular person and the other one is an unholy demon and they “fall in love” but for the human it means whatever it means but for the demon it means to devour their soul? in paranormal romance monsters learn to “love” like humans do but i think that’s cultural assimilation and also boring.

when a character is a prodigy at something and/or just very competent - like andrew at exy or toph beifong at earth- and metal-bending. many people like to see characters try and fail but i think it’s nice to have someone about whom you can’t be sure they won’t embarrass you. i have lots of first- and second-hand embarrassement in my life already, thank you very much. but admittedly there’s a fine line between such capable characters and mary sues.

when a character is obsessed with something or someone, often in an unhealthy Problematic way. i think it’s fascinating and i always root for such characters although they rarely come out on top (bcs turns out they’re “evil” or something) bcs they display the amount of enegry, drive and resourcefulness i can only aspire to. a subcategory of this type would be maniacs. yeah sometimes i root even for them bcs *looks at smudged writing on hand* i’m a bourgeois degenerate. plus, if you have a choice between the fbi and hannibal lecter and choose to root for the fbi it just means you’re boring and have no personality.

idk if the following ones are more character archetypes than tropes but i still decided to include them.

the first one i call “the douchebag ravenclaw” - it’s a character who’s very smart but also very mean which may or may not have something to do with how they’re Objectively Smarter than everybody else and their patience for other people’s stupidity and sensitivities is limited. yes, i’m a big fan of sherlock and dr house. tyrion and snape would also fit on this scale, although tyrion is not as mean as he is smart and snape is not as smart as he is mean. you know those tumblr posts that are like “it doesn’t matter how smart you are if you aren’t kind”? like yeah in real life certainly, but in fiction? big fat no. i have a lot of bottled up anger but avoid conflict at all costs so i need smart characters be mean at people to take the edge off it.

another character archetype i love is the lovable rascal - the morally grey and very sassy swashbuckler with a heart of gold. jack sparrow, locke lamora, seregil i korit are near and dear to my heart. it all comes from how when i was 12yo my favorite book was the three musketeers. much like douchebag ravenclaws give me a way of having (and winning) heated arguments i’d never start in real life, lovable rascals give me adventure which i’d never set off on bcs it sounds like too much trouble.

that’s all i could think of at the moment *says she as if this post isn’t too long already*

#book tag #i’ve been thinking a lot why i loved captive prince so much #and i guess the answer is that it both has the biggest douchebag ravenclaw i’ve encountered in fiction #and plays with the trope of enemies becoming reluctant allies in a very entertaining way #even though it doesn’t resolve the conflict in a way i find satisfying #anyway if you read this for some reason #recommend me books with these tropes :)

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rubbrfrk9 · 5 years

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REBORN

I HAD A NAME. I used to be somebody.

I had a profession, dignity, a position in the class structure.

Nowadays, I see through a cracked lens - society is broken, and the people participating in it are all prisoners. The people you see shuffling in the great to and from, every morning, every evening - they’re miserable. Ask any one of them if they wouldn’t leave their life, and - perhaps after some hesitation - they would say Yes.

Even the ones who have kids - the ones in love - all of them. In fact, those with ties to other people are the first ones to get in line.

For me, it was curiosity that opened the door. If one follows the classic Hero’s Journey, the arc that every myth and story takes, I heard the Call - just like you - through a buzzing, pixelated source… the great and sordid world of the internet.

One wrong step can put you on an entirely different path.

When you look back, the path you were on is obscured by the surrounding environs - pressed firmly closed, as though no thing had ever once passed through.

I should introduce myself before I preach anymore. I am rubbrfrk9. You’ve read the stories on the website, you might’ve seen my name watermarked on pics as you scroll by on your tumblr feed.

That hasn’t been our name always. But what our name was before does not matter.

All hail the Rubbered One!

And if you’re reading this, then you’re as curious as I was.

Do you dare follow your own Call?

If you do, keep reading.

THE CALL COMES FOR YOU. You don’t come for it. The Call has been there, waiting, for you to pick up the other end, for as long as you’ve been alive.

Like I was saying, for me, it was curiosity. It seems like it is for you, too.

I was always a curious guy. It’s how I became a teacher, I guess. I loved to learn about shit. Endless amounts of shit. The subjects that interested me were sucked dry by my voracious need to know. On top of it all, I was cursed (blessed?) by a need to collect, a completionist’s frenzy, and so I found myself needing not just to know, but to know it all.

Everything. A question could not go unanswered. I was a very vocal kid, always asking the dread “Why?” to anyone who had the faculty to answer. Of course, I learned quickly that faculty does not imply ability; and later still, that ability does not imply honesty. Soon enough, I started shutting up and consulting other avenues of information - books. I loved books. I read anything I could find, from my mother’s tawdry romances on the back of the toilet to magazines at the doctor’s office - but my preferred genre was Horror, without a doubt.

I loved to read stories of unfortunate people, blind to their predicament, be lulled to the predator in the story. I loved how the protagonists were slowly overcome by a sense of dawning knowledge, and were thus able to conquer - or not - the abiding horror. The best ones were when the hero failed, in my opinion - those dark, twisted passages of despair and helplessness …

I was a weird kid.

I didn’t have very much luck making friends. I didn’t really understand what a “friend” should be. I knew that it was some sort of social construct, but I hadn’t figured out how it worked yet. Taking the time to do that analysis set me back, quite substantially, in the invisible school of society. Maybe, at heart, I was always a bit of a freak, even before I came out.

Funny to think of that, now, sitting here, writing from behind my gas mask and full rubber suit.

All hail the Rubbered One!

I love how tightly it encases me. How tightly it erases me.

Slowly, now. Don’t give up too quick. Finish the story first.

As I was saying. Curiosity. After college, I became a teacher. A professor. Very highly regarded in my field, but poor with social interactions. Dates? Of a professional courtesy, only, and as awkward and dry as a lecture. Actually, for me, lecturing was my second home, aside from my tidy and obsessively-ordered apartment. I loved standing at the podium, talking about the books we read together. How they are structured, and how events, following a certain chain, can be transformative.

Although sometimes, horrific.

Life that is contained entirely within the snowglobe of acadæmia becomes brittle, after a time. Even the most relentlessly anti-social of us have a heartbeat, a pulse, and a sexual drive.

Most sexual drives will tend towards the obligatory, the procreational. Attractiveness, physicality, congruence, intercourse, and then the subsequent emotional tangle. Sex is more than just a body meeting a body a-comin’ thru the rye - it is a rendezvous of energy, some of which we can’t even begin to understand.

Some kind of cosmic interplay happens during sex.

Something so bright, so chimeric, that I was blinded just thinking about it.

I fled from it, like a medieval monk from a vision of God.

SPARE TIME. I spent most of my time in my apartment in my bedroom, perched with my skinny knees up, my face obliterated by the powder-white light of my phone. I’d scroll endlessly. And always pictures of men.

I’d known I was gay way before most people do, but I’d never bothered to “come out” or anything that obvious. I just kept my feelings to myself, for as long as I could - which may not have been the healthiest thing to do, in hindsight, and when they finally vibrated at the seal on the pressure gauge, I spewed it out all over the internet.

Tumblr was my outlet. You could find something for every kink, from men transforming into donkeys to using politics as a sexual tool. I considered myself omnisexual. I could be convinced, really, to like anything. Except a few things.

I never really got into the big “full fetish” scene. I’d, of course, seen the pictures go by - of Folsom, Folsom Europe, even some kinksters trying to make a name for themselves, become influencers, with pictures so heavily edited and filtered they almost looked fake.

But for me, my kink was - get this - intimacy. I loved pictures of men, beautiful men, kissing, embracing. Tangling together, with bliss inscribed on their faces. And it was that expression that did it for me - the bliss, the complete and total walling-off of any worldly concern but the physical, the presence of another’s lips, breath, proximity -

It got me off, every time. Imagining myself in those positions. Wearing those clothes. Caught up in those bedsheets.

Then, I’d stare into the mirror, and flex my coming-along biceps. My quads. I’d get dressed for the gym, and I’d go work out for an hour.

I loved my routine, even if I felt the dreary recalcitrance to wake up every morning and head to work, just another body with the other bodies, shuffling to and from. The night time is when I felt the surge of life - I would be free of the grimy shackles of the city, I would pound through the tumblr feed, I would shower, I would go workout.

Life was half-bliss.

But as anyone who has half of bliss will tell you, it is never enough. You must go searching for the second half of bliss - and I found mine on the night in question.

Knees up, one foot tapping a heel in idle, anxious rhythm. Eyes greedily consuming, picture after picture, and then -

My thumb hovered over the screen as if about to lay a fingerprint down on a reader. I stared.

The picture, my gateway, was a bedroom picture much like any other I saw in my daily feed, except for one crucial ingredient - one of the men was entirely encased, from head to toe, in shiny black rubber.

The rubber was so shiny, so depthless, so reflective, that it almost seemed as though its host was Not - as though there were some kind of blotting-out, erasing, blankening … And yet, this Not Person was being encircled by the arms of another man, a strong man, by the looks of it, his biceps bulging around the Rubbered One.

Even now, looking back on it, I find it insanely difficult to pry my eyes away from the memory of that reflective rubber. That shiny, reflective black rubber. And the detail! I could see the hollows of the eyes, the imprint of the big toenail, the curls of the ears down to the tragus - it was truly as though this was not a suit being worn, this was a suit that was animated, had breath and energy of its own.

Perhaps it was, in hindsight, seducing the man which embraced it.

I don’t know how long I stared at the picture. A long time. I was fascinated with everything about it - the mess of clothing on the side of the bed, socks and shirts strewn around, as if someone had melted and left only their garments as markers that they ever existed at all. Even a pair of glasses lay askew on the carpet, next to a pair of jeans and Chucks.

If I listened, I could almost hear my own heartbeat, beating in time with the glints of light off of that rubber surface, as though the Rubbered One were moving, in infinitesimally small increments, writhing on the bed in either pleasure or agony -

I blinked, shook my head, and pressed down deliberately on the screen, for the little “Save Image” dialog to appear. I needed to see that again, sometime.

It was a lot sooner than I thought.

I had to excuse myself from my lecture. I was shaking, and my breath was wobbly in my mouth. Words had come out gummily, and I was worried that someone would be convinced I was having a stroke. I’d send in a TA to finish off the lecture, not that anyone in the darkened hall was paying attention anyway.

I went into the nearest bathroom, a single-room lavatory, and sat down hard on the toilet. Instantly, my hands fished out my phone from my pocket and called up my Photos.

There, on the top of the digital heap, was the faraway glisten and shine of the Rubbered One. I sighed in relief, in pleasure.

You would too, if you’d seen the picture. Don’t judge me.

A whisper of triumph, of pleasure, of satisfaction, threaded through my mind as I opened up the picture. There it was again. That endlessness, that Void, that Nothing. I craved it, and I didn’t know why, and I needed to know why, and to know why, I needed to keep looking. I needed to keep looking to stop looking.

The Rubbered One had moved. I remember its legs being in a different scissor - left on top of right, and now it was right, on top of left.

This did not frighten me. Perhaps it should have. Pictures are not supposed to move.

But in my addled state of mind, I was blissfully unaware of the warning - or even, really, of the thought itself. It slid right out of my head, as if on a glossy sheet of black ice. I smiled, warmly, the shuddering ceasing.

Then, surprising even myself, I unzipped my pants, and hauled out my cock.

Nothing would stop me. I was a man determined. I could even smell the rubber, could feel it lifting, wafting out of the screen of my phone. That smell, that smell that I have no words for - something utterly inorganic, but somehow seductive for that very reason.

I jerked off, right there, in the bathroom around the corner from the lecture hall. I sat so still, my hand doing all the work, that the motion-sensing lights clicked off, leaving me alone, lit only by the powdery light of my phone. There, in the enclosing, mummifying dark, I jerked myself off and came with a jagged, oblique moan that slid out of me, catching me by surprise.

I may have even been in such a hurry to get inside that I didn’t even lock the bathroom door. This suspicion came to me as I exited, stuffing myself shakily back into my khakis and my blazer. You see, the door had opened seamlessly, with no hint of a lock dis-engaging.

In fact, the momentary thrill of being caught as I masturbated to the Rubbered One flicked a little shiver of pleasure up my shaft anew, and I started shuddering so much that I had to grab the wall for fear of falling over.

All hail the Rubbered One!

There was no way I could go back to my lecture now. I fled the campus for the safety of a local coffeehouse.

OTHER THINGS STARTED HAPPENING. Like how I thought I was having a stroke, before? I found that, when I spoke, my mouth felt oddly compressed, as though I had lockjaw. I went to the doctor, but when they told me to “open wide and say ahhh” I had no trouble - my jaw, seemingly re-oiled, complacently opened its full width, and I made the obligatory noise.

Nothing wrong with my temporo-mandibular joint, advised the healthcare professional.

And yet, as soon as I left the office, trying to speak to the Uber driver, to give him directions to my apartment, the same muffling, mysterious pressure returned, and I was only able to speak in tight, restrained tones.

It didn’t occur to me until much, much later, that this was the voice of someone wearing a rubber gas mask, much like the one I am wearing now.

After awhile, I stopped talking altogether. Of course, this did make it rather difficult to be a professor, and so that had to stop, too.

But what does a mute member of society do, when the one thing they have in life is a degree in English Literature?

Well, the first step is despondency, and denial. I spent a month at least, just searching tumblr for more pictures of the Rubbered One. Sure, there were plenty of pictures - the fetish for rubber has never been a subtle one - but none of them had that same irresistable sheen and shine, that fathomless Void, of the Rubbered One. I’d exhausted most of the blogs. I kept returning to the photograph I had saved to my cloud - and jerking off to it, again and again, like a desperate man. Like a junkie. If I went without, or even thought about going out, my hand developed such a tremor that I looked afflicted with tardive dyskinesia.

It got so bad, and the attacks so frequent, that I eventually just made the picture my home screen on my phone. That way, if the tremors started, a quick pocket-dig and finger-flip would open up the likeness of the Rubbered One, and instantly, I would calm.

And (he? It?) continued to move. Perhaps, now that (he? It?) knew that I had noticed the movement, it happened more and more, and faster, as though I were watching a video rather than a photograph.

Now, in addition to the slow, sensual scissoring of its legs, the Rubbered One was turning its head, away from the suckling devotion of its prey and turning to look at me, choosing me, directing its energy towards me.

I already had my rubber in the mail. It took some doing, some difficult work, some self-measuring, but before long the order was placed and the shipment was made. It was, of course, a link that I’d seen on tumblr, from one of the many rubber fetish sites. Drone, and a series of numbers, I think. One of the ones that’s talking about being absorbed into a Hivemind, a Central Core. Nothing that ever really appealed to me.

The only thing I wished to absorb into was the Rubbered One.

I ached, yearned, to be the man in that picture. I was even jealous of him. Who was he to show his devotion to such a being, such a beautiful entity? Would not I be a better candidate for the first apostle position?

But I knew, somehow, deep inside, that I wouldn’t even be considered until I had donned my own rubber.

Here’s where it gets a little weird, right - this is usually the point when in the story, the protagonist gets a little real, sizes himself up, maybe learns something about themselves. Call me crazy, I know, but at this point, I just knew on the inside, so strongly, that I would never be worthy of the Rubbered One if I wasn’t Rubbered myself.

And so I waited, agonizingly, nearly tearing my hair out, for the package to inch itself across the ocean to my apartment mailbox. I’d ordered the full suit, of course, the one that most closely approximated my photograph.

I was utterly consumed, I was ablaze with obsession. For the first time in my life, I felt an utterly overwhelming feeling - a lack. I felt as though I lacked something that I had had for just a moment - one sweet moment, hovering, crystalline - and now that I no longer had it, I could never live a whole life again.

And everywhere I went - watching with a hawk’s eye the slow drainage of funds from my bank account - I smelled it. Rubber. There was even an auto repair shop, blockaded on one side with piles and piles of tires - I altered my daily neighborhood walk so that I could slowly amble by it, inhaling the thick, gray smell. The more of it I could get on me, the more I wanted. If there were a cologne that smelled of rubber, I’d wear it - hell, I’d bathe in it! I twitched for it to be near me, on me, inside of me.

THE DAY MY NEW FACE CAME IN THE MAIL. I was wearing rubber gloves, made for chemical and construction workers, pressing them to my face, and inhaling as deeply as I could, when my phone made its little ringing noise to signify that a package was Delivered.

It could only be one thing.

It would only be a matter of moments before I could prostrate myself in front of the Rubbered One.

I hooked up my laptop to my flat-screen television, where the Rubbered One had also become my desktop wallpaper. I opened up the picture file and let it sit, in the middle of my living room, the picture of Him.

Again, I fell far into His Nothingness, His All-Consuming Void - He turned on the bed, in the picture. He silently got up. He moved so subtly that it was impossible to tell if my hallucination was real, or some sort of digital magic. He kicked, as if insulting, the pile of clothes left by the bedside.

The whole time, He kept his head, His black eyes, His shiny face, impassive and monstrous, but so aloof, so superior - His direct gaze - riveted on mine.

All hail the Rubbered One!

With barely a shimmer, He stepped out of the frame of my television and deliberately into my living room. Tendrils of black squirmed out around the square of my screen, lashing to and fro idly, almost amusedly.

None of this seemed unreal, or even fantastical. It was simply as it was - I was in a sort of ecstasy, like the kind the saints have, all-consumed, raptured. The Rubbered One had chosen me!

Go, He told me without speaking.

I was on my feet, I was sprinting, I was dashing, my hands, still in their gloves, slippery on the door knob. I was down the stairs before I realized I was barefoot, or that I was still wearing the heavy-duty black rubber gloves. And there it was - my Rubber. It was, of course, still in the box, it needed to be freed -

I cradled it in my arms. I inhaled, as deeply as possible, again. I could smell it, whining at the edges of my nostrils, begging to be freed. I felt it, inside its cardboard prison, shifting and rustling. Whispering.

I brought it upstairs with as much care as a mother would bring home her day-old newborn, but once inside, slamming the door behind me, I pillaged the drawers for the scissors, tearing into the box that would dare imprison my -

And there it was. Still in a sad, folded-up heap, but it was mine.

Now, said His voice in my head. I didn’t have to turn around to know that He, the Rubbered One, was standing behind me - had moved silently from the living room to the kitchen. I felt Him questing at the edges of my consciousness, starting the interview process.

I felt a strange mix of craven desire and hot-blooded lust twist through me. How I wished to possess the Rubbered One! And how I wished to be possessed by Him!

I began to don my Rubber. I felt it coo as it met my skin, as I replaced my own with its black sheen. I saw my toes go, then the top of my foot - ankles, calves and shinbones, kneecaps and thighs - I watched as the black tide continued its creep up my body, as quickly as night follows dusk.

The Rubbered One put His hands on me and I was nothing, I was everything. I was part of a gigantic, moaning chorus of voices, I was absolute silence.

I saw Him reach out to me, his Nothing fingers and Nothing hands, his Void arms, his Void body. I saw Him pull my self to His, and I felt us as we docked, somehow, for an imposssible moment, sharing the same physical space.

Then, with a sound that reminded me of a slurp and a sucking, closing noise, I was no more.

RUBBERBORN. I ceased to exist as I knew myself.

I had a name.

I wasn’t much of somebody, but I was somebody.

Now, I was part of a growing, aching consciousness - I was part of a vast, growing hunger. My thoughts were no longer my own.

All hail the Rubbered One!

I buzzed and chirred, excited beyond words. I was ramrod hard, even in the rubber, which smoothed everything away, everything - all emotion, all thought, all nerve, all worry. All features of my face - gone. All features of my body - slurped up.

I stood in front of the mirror. All sign of the Rubbered One was vanished. I could see, somehow, through my suit, though it had no eyeholes.

I saw through Rubber eyes.

I understood that I was Rubberborn. That this was my destiny.

The words “my” and “me” and “I” and “mine” were erased, scratched out heavily. I was plural, now.

We were plural.

We stand in front of the mirror, staring at ourselves, our new body. A mere morsel in the face of our hunger.

Do you feel it?

As our eyes swivel slowly, tracking across the room, away from the mirror. Looking into the camera lens backwards. Do you feel the chilly fingers of our gaze landing on you as you read? Playing along your bare shoulders, the pliable, delicate skin of your arms?

The Rubberborn understand and acknowledge that this body can be used for purposes that satisfy the hunger.

They gave it the name rubbrfrk9. The name you know, the author of these stories you read, curious in your own way to know how the rubber feels. The same name you’ve seen watermarked on pics of us as you scroll by on your tumblr feed.

Or maybe you already know - maybe you’ve already felt the ecstasy, struggling into your own shirt or pants. Gloves or socks. Mask or hood.

Perhaps all of the above.

Perhaps the voice of the Rubbered One is even now mingling with your own thoughts. Sinuous, twisty, shiny and smooth. Silken whispers, just an undercurrent of sibilant breath in the background, there. If you strain, you can make it out. Can hear our voices.

We can sense you.

We know.

We are coming.

Say it with us now: All hail the Rubbered One!

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karenxmenfan · 4 years

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(above: Jack Kirby, John Verpoorten, Glynis Oliver; John Paul Leon; Al Milgrom, Joe Sinnott, Julianna Ferriter; Daniel Acuña)

READING THE ETERNALS

Jack Kirby’s Gods return to the Marvel Universe

PART 1 — INTRODUCTION

“When two aggressive species share the same environment, evolution demands acceptance or dominance.” When Jonathan Hickman’s return to Marvel was first teased in 2019, I thought they might do something unexpected and announce a new Eternals series. Kevin Feige had revealed an Eternals movie not too long before, so it seems possible. I knew practically nothing about the characters, aside from Sersi being an Avenger, that it was Jack Kirby’s baby, and they were tied to the Celestials. I met these massive Space Gods in the beloved 1999 miniseries Earth X. That series includes a basic recap of the Eternals and Deviants in service of an epic plot surrounding the Celestials and their relationship to Earth.

The Hickman rumors sparked an interest in the characters, so I decided to read the original run from the beginning. What I found out is that there’s a lot of silly fun to these characters and I’m genuinely excited for the movie. The concept is weird and doesn’t quite have the same generative power as, say, the Fantastic Four, but it’s still enjoyable and Jack Kirby’s art is always a treat for the eyeballs. It’s easy to get caught up on all the essentials, since these characters are used so infrequently, but their presence is heavily seeded throughout the Marvel Universe. I’ve put together this reading guide to offer a roadmap for anyone wanting to take a deep-dive into THE ETERNALS!

WHO?

The Eternals are secretly one of three branches of the human race that were ENGINEERED BY ALIENS (a fact that gets reiterated nearly every time they appear in a comic). Yes, it’s that old urban legend that human evolution was kickstarted by extraterrestrial influence. In this case, massive space beings called the Celestials came to Earth and did experiments on apes, resulting in homo sapiens, but also the Eternals, powerful god-like beings, and Deviants, “monsters” who have unstable genes so no two are alike. Make of that what you will, it’s kind of messed up. Anyway, many thousands of years after their first visit, the Celestials return to Earth again to check up on their creations, and to see if the planet is worthy to survive.

PART 2 — KIRBY

The main draw of this series is Kirby’s art, weird ideas, and how funny all the characters are as they strut around exclaiming everything. What’s interesting here is that it’s not actually a part of the Marvel Universe - there’s an issue halfway through where they fight a robot Hulk, which is pretty explicitly based on a fictional character. The best characters in the whole book are Sersi, who is a hip, with-it party girl, Thena, and of course the Deviant leader Kro (the romance between the latter two is very good).

Entries in blue are favorites

The Eternals (1976) #1–6 — Where it all begins!! WHO ARE THE SPACE GODS? Some human archaeologists discover, with the help of a disguised Eternal, the big secret of the human race, and their relationship to Eternals, Deviants, and the Celestials who created them. This kicks off the series and the first arc where all the various Eternals are brought out of hiding as the Deviants, led by Kro, launch an effort to keep the Celestials from returning to judge their creations - this includes an attack on New York where the Deviants pose as demons from space hell. Meanwhile, the Fourth Celestial Host arrives on Earth…

The Eternals (1976) #7–13 — Picking up after the attack on New York, the human race is now formally introduced to its ancient siblings. This arc starts to get more into the relationships of the characters, with Sersi getting thirsty for a flummoxed, stuffed-shirt anthropologist, while Kro and Thena drop hints of a previous romance. Through their story, we see more of Deviant society, which introduces future BFFs The Reject and Karkas. Meanwhile, the Celestials are floating around the planet making observations like colossal roombas and freaking out humanity who start to get very worried. We also see the introduction of the Uni-Mind, where all the Eternals fly into a blue flame and emerge as one giant brain-thing. In this form, they leave Earth for a while.

The Eternals Annual (1977) #1 — A fun little adventure with Thena, The Reject, and Karkas (who has a human disguise in this) dealing with some Deviant menace who brings Jack the Ripper and Atilla the Hun to the present day to cause mayhem. The Eternals (1976) #14-17 - The momentum of the series comes to a halt - the Uni-Mind returns to Earth and the Eternals get swept up in a battle with a robotic Hulk who goes on the loose, and then a secret, all-powerful monster that Zuras was hiding in the basement.

The Eternals (1976) #18–19 — Probably with the knowledge that cancellation is nigh, the story picks up again. Druig becomes obsessed with uncovering the whereabouts of a secret weapon that is able to kill the Celestials (planting the seeds for the Dreaming Celestial). Ikaris tries his hardest to stop his cousin’s folly and avert the wrath of the Space Gods and I think it eventually comes to an end when the Celestials make Druig disappear? I guess this is when Jack Kirby peaced out of Marvel…

CREDITS* full series (Writing/Pencils - Jack Kirby; Inks - John Verpoorten, Mike Royer; Colors - Glynis Oliver; Lettering - Gaspar Saladino, John Costanza, Irving Watanabe, Mike Royer)

PART 3 — JOINING THE 616

Since the original series kind of was cut short with Kirby’s departure, the Eternals’ story gets picked up in other Marvel comics, where the heroes slowly learn about their existence.

Thor Annual (1976) #7 — Since the original series kind of was cut short with Kirby’s departure, the Eternals’ story gets picked up in other Marvel comics. This issue starts off a storyline where Thor recovers memories of the Celestials and some secret that Odin has been keeping from him.

(Writing - Roy Thomas; Pencils - Walter Simonson; Inks - Ernie Chan; Colors - Glynis Oliver; Lettering - Tom Orzechowski)

Thor (1966) #283-289, 291, 300-301 — Spurred on by his meeting of the Eternals, Thor takes the question to Odin. Odin won’t tell him anything, so this sets Thor off on a journey that takes him to the Eternals, the Deviants, and eventually the lead Celestial, The One Above All, who shows him hints of a deal between Celestials, Odin, Zeus, Zuras, and the other deities of Earth. Joining forces with the Eternals, Thor tries to stop the Fourth Hosts’ judgement of Earth which puts them at odds with the Norse and Greek gods. Thor finally learns the whole truth just in time to stand against the Celestials on the Day of Judgement. This is the big culmination of everything that started in The Eternals #1!

(Writing - Roy Thomas, Mark Gruenwald, Ralph Macchio; Pencils - John Buscema, Keith Pollard; Inks - Chic Stone, Gene Day; Colors - George Roussos, Glynis Oliver, Marie Severin, Bob Sharen, Carl Gafford; Lettering - Joe Rosen, Tom Orzechowski)

Iron Man Annual (1970) #6 — Rhodey is flying around and accidentally happens upon the Eternals’ city, but it’s overrun by Deviants! They’ve incapacitated all the Eternals and are trying to steal their power source or something.

(Writing - Peter Gillis; Pencils - Luke McDonnell; Inks - Roy Richardson; Colors - Carl Gafford; Lettering - Diana Albers)

Eternals: Secrets from the Marvel Universe (2019) #1 — This one-shot collects a series of backup stories that ran in What If? through the early 1980s. This covers the established origin of the Eternals and Deviants, but also goes into more detail about the branch of Eternals who left Earth to populate the solar system. It also ties in the Inhumans and creates a relationship between these two very similar groups of characters.

(Writing - Mark Gruenwald, Ralph Macchio, Peter Gillis; Pencils - Ron Wilson, Rich Buckler, Bruce Patterson; Inks - Chic Stone, Alan Kupperberg, Bruce Patterson, Joe Sinnott; Colors - Carl Gafford, Ed Hannigan, Nel Yomtov, Glynis Oliver; Lettering - Michael Higgins, John Morelli, Tom Orzechowski)

Avengers (1963) #246-248 — The Avengers crash one of Sersi’s parties and get dragged with her back to Olympia for some Eternals business. There we find out about the Eternals who went to Titan, and everyone finds out Starfox is an Eternal. The main plot involves a supervillain infiltrating Olympia to steal the power of the Uni-Mind. At the end of this story, the majority of lesser-known Eternals decide to leave Earth in a Uni-Mind for good, greatly narrowing their cast to just the essentials.

(Writing - Roger Stern; Pencils - Al Milgrom; Inks - Joe Sinnott; Colors - Christie Scheele, Julianna Ferriter; Lettering - Jim Novak, Diana Albers)

The Eternals (1985) #1-12 — This is actually a solid series, and does a huge amount to introduce new concepts and characters into the Eternals. It’s more of a standard Marvel superhero comic than Kirby’s weirdness, which perhaps allows it to fit more neatly into the greater shared universe. The best thing is that it features a lot of Kro and Thena as the latter becomes leader of the Eternals despite them not taking her seriously, and the former becoming embroiled in a sectarian power struggle with Ghuar (that guy from “Atlantis Attacks”) to lead the Deviants. The two find their love rekindled, putting them at odds with the other Eternals (Ikaris is a big asshole in this). Meanwhile, Sersi collects more human pets, including a guy she saves from suicide and tries to show that life is worth living. Central to everyone’s machinations is a plot to harness the power of the Celestials, playing off of the hints left by Kirby about the Celestial who was killed during the Second Host (this is the continuing foundation for the Dreaming Celestial idea).

(Writing - Peter Gillis, Walter Simonson; Pencils - Sal Buscema, Keith Pollard, Paul Ryan; Inks - Al Gordon, Keith Williams, Danny Bulanadi, Sam de la Rosa, Al Williamson, Tom Morgan, Geof Isherwood; Colors - George Roussos, Bob Sharen; Lettering - Joe Rosen, John Morelli, Rick Parker)

The Eternals: Herod Factor (1991) #1 — A little one-shot that is fun largely because it ultimately is about Thena and Kro. It’s written by Roy Thomas so doesn’t stray too far from established canon.

(Writing - Roy Thomas, Dann Thomas; Pencils - Mark Texiera; Inks - Bob McLeod, Christopher Ivy, Mark McKenna, Ian Akin, Sam de la Rosa; Colors - Mike Thomas, Dana Moreshead; Lettering - Jean Simek)

PART 4 — SERSI & THE AVENGERS

Despite the Forgotten One (aka Gilgamesh) joining the Avengers in issue #300, he doesn’t seem to have ever made much of an impression. His tenure does little more than to lead the team to another, more famous Eternal - the cosmopolitan Sersi! She definitely makes her mark on the team in the early 90’s. For better or worse!

Avengers (1963) #307-310, 325 — Gilgamesh is injured in battle, leading the Avengers to seek out the aid of his fellow Eternals - except Sprite has transported all of Olympia to the Negative Zone. After helping fend off Blastaar, Sersi joins the team in Gilgamesh’s stead. At this point she becomes a series regular and fans can start reading Avengers from here for more. Issue #325 is a great fill-in by Mark Gruenwald that features Sersi at her best – throwing a party and hitting on stymied squares.

(Writing - John Byrne; Pencils - Paul Ryan; Inks - Tom Palmer; Colors - Christie Scheele, Tom Fine; Lettering - Bill Oakley, Rick Parker)

Avengers (1963) #325 — A great fill-in by Mark Gruenwald that features Sersi at her best — throwing a party and hitting on stymied squares.

(Writing - Mark Gruenwald; Pencils - Rick Levins; Inks - Fred Fredericks [et al]; Colors - Ed Lazellari; Lettering - Brad K. Joyce)

Avengers (1963) #370-371 — Kro works at the Pentagon and has an outreach database for Deviants, which he uses to form Delta-Force! This team includes his kids with Thena who have the ability to merge into a grotesque fusion, and they need to save the Avengers from Ghaur.

(Writing - Glenn Herdling; Pencils - Geof Irsherwood, Mike Gustovich; Inks - Al Milgrom, Kevin Yates, Tom Palmer; Colors - Chris Matthys; Lettering - Bill Oakley)

Avengers (1963) #339, 344-347, 355-366, 372-375 — This is Bob Harras’ grand epic to ruin Sersi. After Sersi forms a version of the Uni-Mind with a bacteria-based group of Eternals (it’s… a thing), her behavior becomes erratic, presumably some Eternals mind-sickness. She begins to fawn all over Black Knight, linking to him in a soulmate ritual against his consent (he’s falling in love with Crystal). It’s all because of an alternate-reality Black Knight who wants to get revenge on Sersi because his version broke his heart. When everything is finally resolved, Sersi and Black Knight enter a wormhole and leave the dimension. At least Sersi has a cool costume.

(Writing - Bob Harras; Pencils - Steve Epting, Gordon Purcell; Inks - Tom Palmer, Steve Alexandrov, Fred Fredericks; Colors - Kevin Tinsley, Sarra Mossoff, Scott Marshall, Evan Skolnick, Tom Palmer, Gina Going, John Kalisz; Lettering - Bill Oakley, Michael Higgins, Rick Parker)

Heroes for Hire (1997) #5-7 — Sersi returns to a post-Onslaught 616 universe to warn about another plot by Ghaur to form an “Anti-Mind.” He’s been resurrected as a giant gold statue and is controlling all the Deviants. Once the day is saved, Sersi goes off on her separate way, with her bond to Black Knight severed at last.

(Writing - John Ostrander; Pencils - Pasqual Ferry; Inks - Jaime Mendoza; Colors - Joe Rosas; Lettering - Jonathan Babcock)

PART 5 — REBIRTH & DEATH / THE MODERN ERA

Having exhausted the story potential of the Eternals throughout the 80s and 90s, Marvel decided to pull in a ringer to give the franchise a reboot.

The Eternals (2006) #1-7 — the Eternals have all forgotten who they are thanks to Sprite, and the return of the Dreaming Celestial forces them to wake up… I am not a big fan of this run, and hold a bit of a grudge against it. John Romita Jr’s art is good though, especially when he’s drawing big bulky things. The biggest shame is that the Deviants are pretty generic here, and Kro is nowhere to be found. I mostly recommend reading this because it reintroduces the Eternals in the modern era and sets up the scenario for the next volume, with Makkari taking center stage and arranging Druig and Tiamet, the Dreaming Celestial on the board.

(Writing - Neil Gaiman; Pencils - John Romita Jr; Inks - Danny Miki, Tim Townsend, Tom Palmer, Jesse Delperdang, Klaus Janson; Colors - Matt Hollingsworth, Dean White, Paul Mounts; Lettering - Todd Klein)

The Eternals (2008) #1-6 — Druig is brainwashing as many Eternals as possible to his cause as Thena and Ikaris race against him. The heart of the story, though, is how Makkari is being used as a megaphone/alarm system by the Dreaming Celestial to warn about an intergalactic menace called the Horde that is coming to consumer Earth - a role that is overtaking his personality like an addiction. Sersi gets some good scenes in this but her character is kind of diminished in favor of Makkari. The story is actually pretty interesting, and salvages a lot of the ideas that Gaiman brought to the table. There’s a three issue X-Men crossover after this but I don’t have much to recommend it - Acuña’s not even drawing it.

(Writing - Charles Knauf, Daniel Knauf; Art - Daniel Acuña; Lettering - Todd Klein)

Thor: The Deviants Saga (2011) #1-5 — A little romp with Thor that takes the newer elements established by Gaiman and the Knaufs and brings them more in line with the previous depictions of the mythos. It does include a lot of details and references that Eternals fans should get a kick out of – Karkas and Ransak play a large role, Deviant Ereshkigal makes a return as does Ikaris’ dad Virako, there’s a lot of Kro – but it’s kind of meandering and doesn’t amount to that much. It ends with the entire cast essentially writing themselves out of future appearances.

(Writing - Robert Rodi; Pencils - Stephen Segovia; Inks - Jason Paz, Jeff Huet; Colors - Andy Troy, Will Quintana; Lettering - Jeff Eckleberry, John Rauch)

The Ultimates 2 (2017) #4, 6, 100 — Overall this is an amazing series, but as it pertains to this reading list, these issues shed light on the origins of the Marvel Universe, and thus, the Celestials. Created in the very first iteration of the cosmos, they not only have survived the many subsequent deaths and rebirths of the Multiverse, but they stand in opposition to a host of opposite, evil Celestials, known as the Aspirants. The Aspirants lay waste to the Celestials, who manage to live on through the surviving One Above All (this is even after the Celestials were seemingly all killed by the Beyonders in New Avengers [2013] #30).

(Writing - Al Ewing; Art - Travel Foreman, Filipe Andrade, Marco Lorenzana, Scott Hanna [Inks]; Colors - Dan Brown, Matt Yackey; Lettering - Joe Sabino)

Avengers (2018) #1-6, 8 — This series combines with Aspirants with the Horde of the last Eternals series to introduce the Dark Celestials, retconning the Celestial’s origin even further. The evil Dark Celestials have killed off their more colorful brethren and are coming to destroy Earth. Meanwhile, the Eternals are found to have all killed each other for some related reason. Ikaris holds out long enough to give Iron Man the power to make a Uni-Mind, which saves the day. The Celestials return and are cured of their Horde sickness – in return, they give the Avengers an ancient Celestial corpse to live in. Not my favorite, but as of this writing, it is the last time any of these concepts have appeared in the comics.

(Writing - Jason Aaron; Pencils - Ed McGuiness, Paco Medina, David Marquez; Inks - Mark Morales, Jay Leisten, Juan Vlasco, Karl Story; Colors - David Curiel, Justin Ponsor; Lettering - Cory Petit)

The History of the Marvel Universe (2019) #1 — As the name implies, this is a straightforward and beautiful explanation of the MU’s origins and the role the Celestials play, told from today’s vantage point with all the retcons and retrofitting that have happened over the years. Includes the obligatory origin of the Eternals and Deviants and the first three Hosts of the Celestials.

(Writing - Mark Waid; Pencils/Inks - Javier Rodriguez; Colors - Álvaro López; Lettering - Joe Caramagna)

PART 6 — XTRA-CREDIT

Being an X-Men fan, it's worth noting the times when the Eternals, Deviants, and Celestials have run into the mutants.

X-Factor (1986) #43-50 — Judgement War! X-Factor ends up on another planet which is visited by its own Celestial Host. The team gets involved between a set of Eternals and Deviant-type sects, trying to stop the Celestials from judging them unworthy.

(Writing - Louise Simonson; Pencils - Paul Smith, Rich Buckler; Inks - Al Milgrom; Colors - Tom Vincent; Lettering - Joe Rosen)

X-Force (1991) #77, 79, 82-90, 96-97 — X-Force starts running into people associated with the Damocles Foundation - a group of Deviants, Eternals, and Humans.

(Writing - Joseph Harris, John Francis Moore; Pencils - Adam Pollina, Jim Cheung, Angel Unzueta, Terry Shoemaker, Anthony Williams; Inks - Mark Morales, Rob Stull, Ray McCarthy, Bud LaRosa, Harry Candelario, Scott Koblish, Derek Mei, Scott Elmer; Colors - Marie Javins, Steve Buccellato, Mike Thomas; Lettering - Comicraft, Chris Eliopoulos)

Earth X (1999) #0-X — Issue 0 is basically Uatu explaining the history of the Marvel Universe to X-51, with a heavy emphasis on the role of the Celestials. This includes a very brief discussion of the Eternals and Deviants, but mostly focuses on the creation of humanity and the birth of super heroes, as the various Celestial Hosts visit Earth. By issue 9, the Celestials return for their Fifth and final Host, and more of their relationship to earth and Uatu is revealed as the remaining heroes defend their planet. Really really good and a must-read in general, even if the Eternals themselves are just footnotes. John Paul Leon makes the Celestials look like the coolest things the Marvel Universe has ever produced. The Reject does get to play a role in the sequel Universe X, though.

(Writing - Jim Krueger, Alex Ross; Pencils - John Paul Leon; Inks - Bill Reinhold; Colors - Matt Hollingsworth, James Sinclair, Melissa Edwards; Lettering - Todd Klein)

New Eternals: Apocalypse Now (2000) #1 — Apocalypse is behind some ill-defined plot that involves destroying Lemuria and turning Karkas into a kaiju. Ikaris’ father Virako is brought back, and they have some quarrels over leadership. This is another good one for Eternals fans but it’s kind of incomprehensible. At the end, the Eternals adopt new superhero identities as “the New Breed,” but this is never mentioned again.

(Writing - Karl Bollers, Mike Higgins; Pencils - Joe Bennett; Inks - Scott Hanna; Colors - John Kalisz; Lettering - Benchmark)

Uncanny X-Men (2012) #1-3 — Mr. Sinister messes with the Dreaming Celestial and it’s bad news for the planet. Magneto comes in handy.

(Writing - Kieron Gillen; Pencils - Carlos Pacheco, Jorge Molina, Rodney Buchemi, Paco Diaz; Inks - Cam Smith, Roger Bonet, Walden Wong; Colors - Frank D'armata, Rachelle Rosenberg, Jim Charalampidis, Dono Sánchez-Almara, Rex Lokus; Lettering - Joe Caramagna)

There’s more stuff with Eternals in it throughout the Marvel Universe, and even more with the Celestials, but this is pretty foundational and focused on the Eternals of Earth. Most of this stuff is on Marvel Unlimited, and the stuff that isn’t is looking like it will be included in a new Omnibus - ”The Complete Saga” - (currently scheduled for December, 2020), like the 1985 series and the “Herod Factor” one-shot. With the MCU movie scheduled for February 2021, it’s highly likely we may be seeing a new series before too long. I recently came across this fascinating bit of research on the behind-the-scenes of Jack Kirby’s work on the The Eternals -- check it out! Four Color Primer: Sersi & The Eternals Part 1

*issue credits gathered from marvel.fandom.com

#eternals #celestials #marvel #deviants #comics reading list #eternals reading list

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tbhwhocaresanymore · 4 years

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Nancy Drew 1x15

I HAVE FINISHED THE NEW NANCY DREW EPISODE AND NOW NEED TO TALK ABOUT IT.

LET’S GO.

Okay I will start with my three disappointments. First, I was hoping when they were going down the “you don’t have first-hand exp with the Aglaeca spirit” path they would bring in Victoria. They did not. WRITERS. WHERE IS MY DYSFUNCTIONAL CLAIRVOYANT. Two, they went to the historical society. They MENTIONED HANNAH GRUEN. And then she just wasn’t there, and I was Let Down. Three, Owen and Nancy had sex.

...

No further comment.

Alright to break this down, I thought this episode was fantastic. Nancy coughing up teeth was so metal (the seaweed was a little gross) and they brought back fan favorite Ace’s dad. Side note, I really love what this show does for sign language, just how it is so casually interwoven. And also Ace and his dad’s shock to see Nick knew it, pointing out how uncommon it is which is kind of sad when you consider it’s one of deaf people’s only means of communication. Maybe now that Karen is you know ARRESTED Ace’s dad whose name I do not know will be our point person on the police since the writers have apparently become allergic to Chief McGinnis.

Speaking of Ace, him and Nick being all dude detective duo this episode was fantastic and I loved it. Pair them up more often. And even though I have no idea if they’ll ever be written romantically or not, Nancy has exponentially more chemistry with Ace than with Owen and I would much rather see them explored. I also want to know if anything has even really changed since the last time Owen and Nancy kissed. He asked her out and she said no, and we didn't see what happened the morning after this time around but she clearly spent the night. Bess is bound to bring it up since she spent the night at Nancy’s house and Nancy wasn’t there, and also Owen is her cousin.

I love the bond between Nancy and her dad, it has grown so much and is so beautiful. Her absolute faith and conviction in his innocence and belief that she will get him out of this, especially when he seems to have given up. *chef’s kiss*

I will say going back to Ace and Nick’s detective work, why didn’t they just go ask Claire in prison? “Hey you know how you murdered a bunch of people? We’ll knock like five years off your I presume lifelong sentence if you tell us if you sold this guy poison.” Like admittedly she didn’t, but they didn’t know that at the time. And CAN WE TALK ABOUT KAREN? As soon as it was revealed it was her, I knew she must have known about Ryan and Lucy’s fight before Nancy gave her the emails. Lucy started drawing away after the Velvet Masque but she and Ryan were already dating when he took her, which is probably something Lucy would have told her best friend. And honestly I feel the poison was a little justified? Like at this point Ryan obviously didn’t kill Lucy because the writers know that’s what we’re expecting, but he was involved somehow and if my best friend had been murdered twenty years ago, the case was still unsolved, and her billionaire ex boyfriend was involved and untouchable? I may have also slipped the friend’s brother an untraceable poison. On that note, I love how the writers brought back the Claire episode. At the time we were like, oh it’s just a fun little killer of the week one-off episode, and now a few weeks later here they are like “PSYCHE. What, you thought everything we did wouldn’t have a meaning? Fools.” And honestly, more power to them. I support this kind of intricate planning it speaks to my obsessive perfectionism.

Everything except the Mr. Drew x Karen romance apparently 😂. Like they really did just include that in the pilot to create more drama between Nancy and her dad didn’t they?

Since it turns out Bess is a founder’s descendant, maybe she will be more interested in Marvin family history, get involved in the historical society and we will see Hannah Gruen more often. Make it happen writers. On the topic of Bess, please tell me someone gets that girl a therapist for her kleptomania before she breaks into a museum. Or a bank. Or a mausoleum. Or something high profile.

I did really want to see the Aglaeca, I was looking forward to seeing how costume and makeup pulled it off, but the blackness spreading through the water was really cool too. And considering this episode ended with Nancy like coughing up seaweed for not paying the toll, maybe we will see the spirit next episode as the gang tries to appease it? Let’s talk about the toll for a minute. Did the Aglaeca want to kill Owen or just like want a blood donation? Why? And if it demands a victim for every favor it grants, I can see why the ritual was not handed down through the generations.

NANCY AND NICK. Oh the moments were sparse but they were quality. At the beginning, watching the fight footage when Nick tensed up and Nancy looked away, and she almost rested her head on his shoulder. His continued concern for her. Nancy’s immediately going to the police station when he texted, compare and contrast with episode 7 when Nick kept calling and she kept ignoring. Nick’s reaction when Nancy was about to drink the “poison”.

CAN WE TALK ABOUT ACE’S LEVEL OF TRUST IN NANCY TO STRAIGHT UP DRINK POSSIBLE POISON. COME ON NOW.

George had a very small role this episode which is not exceedingly unusual, but she was funny to watch, falling for Nick, and a great friend to Nancy. All good things. I just hope she doesn’t fall too hard for Nick, since he and Nancy will most likely eventually find their way back to each other. Maybe she can get together with Ace since I ship him with literally everyone apparently. I also like how they brought back that blood bucket she kicked I was beginning to wonder if they’d forgotten about it.

One last thing guys where tf is Josh? Like he walked into a cabinet thing and vanished, maybe Karen is storing him somewhere. Also HOW DID HE SURVIVE GETTING FUCKING ELECTROCUTED. HOW.

Could we really be solving Lucy’s murder next week in The Haunting of Nancy Drew? We will now discuss possible suspects and where the show could go after this.

The episode summary reads “blah blah using forensics and spn stuff Nancy unravels what happened the night Lucy died.” I am going to discount the Hudsons as suspects since we already know they’re involved via the seance.

Owen Marvin. We know the Marvins have family secrets and shady pasts, he is about the same age as Lucy/Ryan and if there was some sort of love triangle

Holy fuck.

Hear me out.

Okay what if Owen was in love with Lucy, and he somehow broke them up (there was a fight and Lucy broke up with Ryan, but in the emails Ryan calls Lucy the whore, so I’m thinking there was definitely some sort of misunderstanding) and he went to profess his love and she turned him down and he killed her? AND NOW, assuming Nancy is Lucy (and Ryan’s) daughter that’s why Owen is so determinedly romancing her? I have absolutely no proof for this theory and it probably didn’t happen since he is helping them out with the investigation but I like it anyway.

There is Lucy’s mother, who I am now convinced was involved because of her trance thing last episode. You can read my last review for more detail (it’ll be under my Nancy Drew tag) but basically upon seeing crime scene photos of Lucy she started singing the Lucy Sable song and was very focused on how Lucy is in the water. And sure parents go crazy over their children dying, but this feels like a little bit more than that? In the transcripts Lucy said if anything happened to her it would be her mother’s doing, and we know they had some kind of falling out before she died over her dating Ryan.

Katherine Drew 😈. Again no evidence but I like to speculate. She was Lucy’s guidance counselor, it gives Mr. Drew a reason to not try very hard to defend himself, to spare Nancy the pain of her mom being a killer. It would make such great drama. That’s it those are the reasons.

Let’s take a moment to examine some untied threads that could be pulled upon in the solving of this murder. Lucy and Josh are only half-siblings, but we don’t know via which parent. So maybe Lucy’s biological mom/dad could have somehow been involved. There are the emails between her and Ryan following the unknown betrayal (you’re a whore like everyone says). I think this one could be tied to what Candice Weaver (sea queen runner up) mentioned, about how there were rumors Lucy slept with the judges to win the title. Maybe Ryan’s parents, especially his mother, were trying to discredit Lucy or frighten her off? Ryan was scheduled to meet with Lucy the night of her death, maybe he saw something he hasn’t come clean about. Back to Josh, right after Lucy died some developers offered Josh and his mom a LOT of money for their house. We know the Marvins deal in real estate, maybe they were trying to get them out of town to cover up for Owen? We also still don’t know for sure how Lucy died, maybe she wasn’t even stabbed at all. And finally, the crown Nancy’s forensic chemist friend examined proves that a woman was up there on those cliffs (KATHERINE DREW) with Lucy because the hair that wasn’t Lucy’s came from a female.

Assuming we do indeed find out who killed Lucy next episode, here are some things the writers could fill the last six episodes with or use to set up season two/things I really want to happen. The episode where Nancy broke into the morgue Ace mentioned Lucy haunts it, looking for her body. Three kids broke in a few years ago, one died, one went missing, one went insane. It was mentioned once and never picked up again. Since Lucy apparently knew where her body was this whole time, maybe a different spirit haunts the morgue and Lucy just gets the blame cause she’s famous. There is George’s blood bucket, which I admit was brought up this episode, but aside from that has not been touched since episode 4. George and Nick’s relationship, Nancy and Owen’s relationship, the Bess/Lisbeth/Amaya love triangle. Whatever sort of closure Mr. Drew needs from Karen or something idk. George could start to become psychic like her mother. There’s the trial of Mr. Hudson for the sinking of the Bonny Scot, along with the haunted dude who survived giving testimony. Maybe he will be killed and Nancy and Co will have to find another piece of evidence really fast like the urn from the Bonny Scot that Ryan is still hanging on to. MAKE BESS AND GEORGE COUSINS WRITERS. MAKE IT HAPPEN.

Even after Nancy solves Lucy’s murder, I want Lucy to stick around. She is my favorite character on the show. She and Nancy can be roommates, she’d be a really great security system. Some guy tries to break into the house only to be greeted by a drowned girl screaming her head off? I’d drop dead. And from next week’s trailer, towards the end when she says “I am trying to solve your murder!” Is it just me or does she sound a little exasperated? Maybe because Nancy is working her ass off here and all Lucy does is scream at her and make her cough up teeth 😂. Yes I want Lucy to find peace, but I also just really really want her to stick around.

Last thing before I wrap up. I know the show is astronomically different from the books but Nancy traveled in the books. She went to different cities, states, countries. As much as I love the creepy superstition loving town of Horseshoe Bay, I am hoping maybe in the later seasons the show’s location branches out a bit? It probably won't because it’s the CW and they use sets and yada yada yada but a girl can dream. See you next week!

#Nancy Drew #Nancy Drew cw #George Fan #Bess Marvin #Ned Nickerson #Nancy x Nick #Nick x George #Nancy x Owen #Dead Lucy #Lucy Sable #the terror of horseshoe bay #Carson Drew #@ the cw this is one of very few decent shows you have rn don't fuck it up #my theories

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richincolor · 4 years

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Crystal’s 2019 Favorites

Truly this is the most difficult post of the year for me. There were so many excellent books published this year, but I finally narrowed it down to the following seven titles:

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, adapted by Debbie Reese and Jean Mendoza Beacon Press || Crystal’s Review

Going beyond the story of America as a country “discovered” by a few brave men in the “New World,” Indigenous human rights advocate Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz reveals the roles that settler colonialism and policies of American Indian genocide played in forming our national identity.

The original academic text is fully adapted by renowned curriculum experts Debbie Reese and Jean Mendoza, for middle-grade and young adult readers to include discussion topics, archival images, original maps, recommendations for further reading, and other materials to encourage students, teachers, and general readers to think critically about their own place in history.

Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian Balzer + Bray || Crystal’s Review

It’s 1989 in New York City, and for three teens, the world is changing.

Reza is an Iranian boy who has just moved to the city with his mother to live with his stepfather and stepbrother. He’s terrified that someone will guess the truth he can barely acknowledge about himself. Reza knows he’s gay, but all he knows of gay life are the media’s images of men dying of AIDS.

Judy is an aspiring fashion designer who worships her uncle Stephen, a gay man with AIDS who devotes his time to activism as a member of ACT UP. Judy has never imagined finding romance…until she falls for Reza and they start dating.

Art is Judy’s best friend, their school’s only out and proud teen. He’ll never be who his conservative parents want him to be, so he rebels by documenting the AIDS crisis through his photographs.

As Reza and Art grow closer, Reza struggles to find a way out of his deception that won’t break Judy’s heart–and destroy the most meaningful friendship he’s ever known.

With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo HarperTeen || Group Discussion

With her daughter to care for and her abuela to help support, high school senior Emoni Santiago has to make the tough decisions, and do what must be done. The one place she can let her responsibilities go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness. Still, she knows she doesn’t have enough time for her school’s new culinary arts class, doesn’t have the money for the class’s trip to Spain — and shouldn’t still be dreaming of someday working in a real kitchen. But even with all the rules she has for her life — and all the rules everyone expects her to play by — once Emoni starts cooking, her only real choice is to let her talent break free.

Love from A to Z by S.K. Ali Salaam Reads || Crystal’s Review

A marvel: something you find amazing. Even ordinary-amazing. Like potatoes—because they make French fries happen. Like the perfect fries Adam and his mom used to make together.

An oddity: whatever gives you pause. Like the fact that there are hateful people in the world. Like Zayneb’s teacher, who won’t stop reminding the class how “bad” Muslims are.

But Zayneb, the only Muslim in class, isn’t bad. She’s angry.

When she gets suspended for confronting her teacher, and he begins investigating her activist friends, Zayneb heads to her aunt’s house in Doha, Qatar, for an early start to spring break.

Fueled by the guilt of getting her friends in trouble, she resolves to try out a newer, “nicer” version of herself in a place where no one knows her.

Then her path crosses with Adam’s.

Since he got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in November, Adam’s stopped going to classes, intent, instead, on perfecting the making of things. Intent on keeping the memory of his mom alive for his little sister.

Adam’s also intent on keeping his diagnosis a secret from his grieving father.

Alone, Adam and Zayneb are playing roles for others, keeping their real thoughts locked away in their journals.

Until a marvel and an oddity occurs…

Marvel: Adam and Zayneb meeting.

Oddity: Adam and Zayneb meeting.

The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee G.P. Putnam’s Sons || Crystal’s Review

Atlanta, 1890: By day, seventeen-year-old Jo Kuan works as a lady’s maid for the cruel daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Atlanta. But by night, Jo moonlights as the pseudonymous author of a newspaper advice column for the genteel Southern lady, “Dear Miss Sweetie.” When her column becomes wildly popular, she uses the power of the pen to address some of society’s ills, but she’s not prepared for the backlash that follows when her column challenges fixed ideas about race and gender.

While her opponents clamor to uncover the secret identity of Miss Sweetie, a mysterious letter sets Jo off on a search for her own past and the parents who abandoned her as a baby. But when her efforts put her in the crosshairs of Atlanta’s most notorious criminal, Jo must decide whether she, a girl used to living in the shadows, is ready to step into the light. With prose that is witty, insightful, and at times heartbreaking, Stacey Lee masterfully crafts an extraordinary social drama set in the New South.

The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf Salaam Reads || Crystal’s Review

A music loving teen with OCD does everything she can to find her way back to her mother during the historic race riots in 1969 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in this heart-pounding literary debut.

Melati Ahmad looks like your typical movie-going, Beatles-obsessed sixteen-year-old. Unlike most other sixteen-year-olds though, Mel also believes that she harbors a djinn inside her, one who threatens her with horrific images of her mother’s death unless she adheres to an elaborate ritual of counting and tapping to keep him satisfied.

But there are things that Melati can’t protect her mother from. On the evening of May 13th, 1969, racial tensions in her home city of Kuala Lumpur boil over. The Chinese and Malays are at war, and Mel and her mother become separated by a city in flames.

With a 24-hour curfew in place and all lines of communication down, it will take the help of a Chinese boy named Vincent and all of the courage and grit in Melati’s arsenal to overcome the violence on the streets, her own prejudices, and her djinn’s surging power to make it back to the one person she can’t risk losing.

*** CONTENT WARNINGS: Racism, on-page death, graphic violence, OCD and anxiety triggers. If you are affected by any of these things, please do consider setting the book aside until you feel more able to take them on. ***

Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett Audrey’s Review

In a community that isn’t always understanding, an HIV-positive teen must navigate fear, disclosure, and radical self-acceptance when she falls in love—and lust—for the first time. Powerful and uplifting, Full Disclosure will speak to fans of Angie Thomas and Nicola Yoon.

Simone Garcia-Hampton is starting over at a new school, and this time things will be different. She’s making real friends, making a name for herself as student director of Rent, and making a play for Miles, the guy who makes her melt every time he walks into a room. The last thing she wants is for word to get out that she’s HIV-positive, because last time . . . well, last time things got ugly.

Keeping her viral load under control is easy, but keeping her diagnosis under wraps is not so simple. As Simone and Miles start going out for real—shy kisses escalating into much more—she feels an uneasiness that goes beyond butterflies. She knows she has to tell him that she’s positive, especially if sex is a possibility, but she’s terrified of how he’ll react! And then she finds an anonymous note in her locker: I know you have HIV. You have until Thanksgiving to stop hanging out with Miles. Or everyone else will know too.

Simone’s first instinct is to protect her secret at all costs, but as she gains a deeper understanding of the prejudice and fear in her community, she begins to wonder if the only way to rise above is to face the haters head-on…

#2019 Favorites #YALit

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cassandraclare · 6 years

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Anna, Ariadne, sexuality and genderfludity in the Belle Epoque

SPOILERS (and a mass of text, much under a cut)

jonginflicted said: cassie i loved every exquisite thing so much oh god, i could almost see myself in ariadne, like a sort of refusal to fully be herself (we were born in the same place too!) and i'm wondering, does ariadne really love anna or is this just a time-pass or an experiment for her. she does say that she likes anna a lot, but her willingness to marry charles seems a little off to me (or am i seeing things) as always, thank you so much for writing for us!

-Thank you!

Ariadne is under crushing social pressure to marry a man. She does love Anna

— she’s fallen in love with her the same way Anna has with her, with that sort of sweeping at-first-sight romantic overwhelmingness that sometimes happens, especially when it’s your first time. I really tried to avoid any suggestion this was an “experiment” or anything like that for Ariadne. She’s a lesbian and she knows she’s a lesbian. She just also believes it’s impossible for her to live an authentic life as a lesbian woman in 1901 without being cruelly punished. I don’t think you’re seeing things so much as it’s hard to understand what Ariadne is facing in 1901 (and would face in some places now):

From Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century by Graham Robb: 19th-century homosexuals lived under a cloud...Most of them suffered, not from the cruel machinery of justice, but from the creeping sense of shame, the fear of losing friends, family and reputation, the painful incompatibility of religious belief and sexual desire, the social and mental isolation, and the strain of concealment.

That’s a horrific thing to face. (Not that we live in an LGBT+ utopia now and they lived in an LGBT+ dystopia then: it’s a lot more complicated than that.) Ariadne’s parents, unlike Anna’s, are extremely conservative, and this union with Charles is the thing they want. So it wouldn’t matter much to Ariadne whether it was Charles or some other guy – it’s not going to be the thing she wants except that she doesn’t want to be isolated, to be abandoned, to be rejected by her parents and family, which are totally normal things to be terrified of.

Everyone has layered identities. Ariadne has identities as a woman of color, as a lesbian, as an adopted child, as the daughter of conservative government officials, as a woman who wants children, and in many ways those identities are in conflict for her in ways Anna’s identities are less so. Ariadne isn’t a coward, or a cruel person. She is making the best choices she can within a set of limitations that are oppressive, and that she did not invent or ask for.

ti-bae-rius said: Hello Cassie! Firstly, wow okay turns out I have a huge fiction crush on Anna Lightwood. Hot damn. Secondly - and slightly less flippant/lovestruck - is Anna happy with female pronouns? Is that what Anna identifies with or was it more due to conformity of the time? Basically, is Anna’s gender expression limited by temporal factors? Such a badass character who is seriously fuelling my waistcoat obsession right now. Love the new GOTSM and all the best! x

I'm so happy you enjoyed the new GOTSM and that you like (have a huge crush on) Anna! I would say that Anna is happy with female pronouns, yes, as she's happy with the gift of the necklace that her mother gave her, something she can be comfortable with as she's not with dresses. That said, temporal factors are certainly a part of that! Today Anna would consider and call herself genderfluid, but the term didn't exist at the time, and of course many genderfluid people today refer to themselves by “he” or “she” pronouns, as well as many others, according to what feels most comfortable to them. Anna is a product of her time: had she been born in a different time many things might have been different — but that is the case for every single one of the TID and TLH characters, and for all of us alive today, who express ourselves in ways which would have been extremely unconventional in the past and will likely be considered backward and oppressive in the future. :)

In 1902 (a year after the events of EET) people were academically discussing the idea of a third or “intermediate” sex, but it was a very new thing — not something Shadowhunters would know about, or the average mundane. It was also referred to as “sexual inversion” which was seen as an academic term at the time. The idea of LGBTQ+ sexuality was a taboo topic--sexuality at all was a taboo topic, with people getting arrested for indecency for publishing pamphlets about contraception--and the idea of LGBTQ+ identity was scarcely understood at all.

Anna herself, and those who love and accept her, would find it very hard to conceptualize or articulate gender fluidity. Feelings have always existed long before there were words for them, and many words once used are not the words we use now. I wanted to be accurate and faithful to the time period, but I also wanted to be as sensitive as possible to the modern day, real life readers, and not hurt them by using terms which would have been acceptable then but are certainly not acceptable now. (A whole code for speaking about homosexuality existed at the time, ranging from the gentle “Is he musical?” or “Does she like Achilles?” to words I would just never use whether they’re historically accurate or not.) Anna, as we see, has strong feelings about not only romance with women but friendship and alliance with women, and female pronouns to her feel like another way of expressing that alliance, even while she wants to be true to herself and express her complex and beautiful identity as fully as she can.

ariadnebridgestock said: hello cassie!! I was incredibly touched by how understanding and supportive Cecily and Gabriel were about Anna so I was wondering, will we be seeing other support that Anna receives from the rest of her family, like her brother Christopher, her aunts and uncles and her cousins and family friends like the Fairchilds etc? thank you for taking your time to answer questions!

archerondale said: Hi, Cassie! I was just wondering- what does the Clave think about Anna wearing man's clothes and preferring women?

EET is set two years before TLH, so in 1903 Anna's already openly living a fabulous lifestyle in her own abode in Percy Street, and her family and friends are all fully aware and supportive of her lifestyle. We will see her family support her, though not every single one of their specific reactions to her starting to dress as she prefers, as that's well in the past. Everyone responds with love, in their characteristic ways, so we see Matthew, a loving and fashionable friend, giving her his clothing: Christopher, her sweet and science-minded brother, offering to perform a saving act of science (Christopher would blow up the Tower of London to make Anna feel better, any day of the week). Everyone offers support in their own way. Lucie asks to hear about Anna's scandalous love life so she can write about romance in her novels. James reads up on people like Julie d'Aubigny, who dressed as a man, fought duels, and liberated her lady beloved from a nunnery.

However, the Clave as a whole, and even the Enclave in London, is vaguely horrified by what Anna's up to, but Anna's helped out by the attitude that what Anna's doing can barely be true--there is a myth that Queen Victoria refused to believe in women feeling passion for other women, which reflects the prevailing attitudes of the time (which again, aren't the same as Shadowhunter attitudes, but Shadowhunter attitudes are influenced by the world) that love between women didn't happen, or if it did, didn't count (Unlike sex between men, lesbianism was not illegal in 1903).

That said, in 1902 (after EET, before TLH) society became interested in “sexology”--examining the different kinds of sexual attractions and activities that existed, and the terms sapphic and lesbian came into more common use. Lesbian activity wasn't criminalized in the same way as gay activity (though the denial of women's sexuality is a problem in itself): Oscar Wilde's fate would not happen to a woman, though as we see with Ariadne there was still horrible pressure to conform. During this same period, Vita Sackville-West (later, Virginia Woolf's lover) and Violet Keppel, the daughter of King Edward's mistress, were involved in a schoolgirl romance, but Violet's mother urged concealment and both were to go on to marry men. You can read their love letters here:

Oh, Mitya, come away, let’s fly, Mitya darling — let’s go away and forget the world and all its squalor — let’s forget such things as trains, and trams, and servants, and streets, and shops, and money, and cares and responsibilities. Oh god! how I hate it all — you and I, Mitya, were born 2000 years too late, or 2000 years too soon.

Anna insisting on living openly, dressing the way she wants and publicly loving who she wants, has created something of a sensation in the Enclave society. Sona's worried about Cordelia consorting with the infamous Anna: Mrs Bridgestock is appalled by the idea of Anna, now living so scandalously, approaching Ariadne. Many mothers are whisking aside their children and many proper Shadowhunters are shunning Anna. London society says Anna should be got under control, or that they should stop her from fighting because it's given her ideas: all manner of microaggressions are visited upon Anna, but Anna prefers to steadfastly ignore them (not that they don’t bother her or add up over time — this is just her particular coping strategy). Sometimes she trots off to Paris if they annoy her. But the fact she's learned to just avoid or not think about unpleasantness may become a problem for her, later, since eventually unpleasantness that she can't avoid does come and she has to face it.

Still, the constant love and support from her influential family and friends is very helpful, not just emotionally but socially: it matters that Charlotte's the Consul, that her Uncle Gideon is influential in the Clave, that her beloved Uncle Will is Head of the London Institute and loves and looks out for her. With them standing by her, the Clave has been able to mostly overlook Anna--maybe she's just going through a wild phase! Even the Consul's son Matthew is running wild, what will become of the children! They say nasty things sometimes, and Anna isn't invited to the most proper parties, and Anna DEFINITELY wouldn't be able to wield political power within the Clave or marry a really respectable Shadowhunter boy (luckily...Anna isn't at all in the market for a husband), but Anna's extremely popular with the younger set and well-supported by the older set. Which is all to say: as it has been for people like Anna in many generations and many places, one can create a society within a society where you feel comfortable. She is lucky that her own family home and the homes of her friends are places she can feel comfortable (the same is not true for Ariadne, for instance) but outside of those safe spaces, there are places where she would (and is) stared at, commented on, and subject to prejudice.

* One of the fascinating things about LGBT+ history is the way there have always been subcultural spaces where the non-straight and non-cis were able to carve out networks of neighborhoods, bars, clubs, salons and spaces where they felt safe and were able to be open. I don’t just keep mentioning Paris randomly: neighborhoods in Paris were a lesbian and gay haven during the Belle Epoque — one of those subcultural places I was talking about, where Anna and other non-binary and LGBT+ people could feel comfortable. Fin de siecle society in Paris included bars, restaurants and cafes frequented and owned by lesbians, such as Le Hanneton and le Rat Mort, Private salons, like the one hosted by the American expatriate Nathalie Barney, drew lesbian and bisexual artists and writers of the era, including Romaine Brooks, Renee Vivien, Colette, Djuna Barnes, Gertrude Stein, and Radclyffe Hall. One of Barnes's lovers, the courtesan Liane de Pougy, published a best-selling novel based on their romance called l’Idylle Saphique (1901). Descriptions of lesbian salons, cafes and restaurants were included in tourist guides and journalism of the era, as well as mention of houses of prostitution that were uniquely for lesbians. Toulouse Lautrec created paintings of many of the lesbians he met, some of whom frequented or worked at the famed Moulin Rouge. — Wikipedia

Sounds like a great place and we’ll definitely be visiting :)

#anna lightwood #ariadne bridgestock #eet #gotsm #tsc #th

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 6 years

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A Look Back on the Twilight Saga

I have never felt older than I have this year, in which the film adaptation of the first book in the Twilight Saga turns ten. Ten years ago, that movie came out, three years after the book. And what a book and movie they were! They inspired so much rabid devotion and equally rabid pushback, with people gushing over the beautiful romance in equal amounts as people saying how the books were offensively awful and filled with misogyny and romanticization of abusive relationships. Golly, I sure am glad discussion of fiction has improved since then and we don’t have dumb arguments like that anymore!

All joking aside, it is pretty interesting to look back on the series. With the passage of time, and the release of so much young adult fiction in cinemas between then and now, I have to say that looking back… Twilight is a pretty good film and, for the most part, a pretty good series.

Now, such a bold statement could never have been made in that period during the heyday of the series, where the popularity of the series was slowly souring and people began openly rejecting the series as trash. But I feel that rejection was just part of an obnoxious cycle I’ve seen a lot in recent years, where anything remotely popular with audiences (such as Frozen) becomes hated at the peak of its popularity, seemingly because of the sole fact that it is popular and not really due to anything having to do with the actual overall quality.

See, here’s the thing: despite the series having a reputation for being poorly written tripe, it really is a lot better than anyone gives it credit for. Now, I’m not going to say the writing is on par with other young adult fantasy series of the time, like Harry Potter or Percy Jackson, because that is just patently untrue. What the Twilight Saga was, and what it always seemed to aim for, was the level of quality of a tacky airport romance novel you pick up while waiting for your flight to kill time. It’s nothing but wish-fulfillment fantasy in which an unhappy young woman becomes the reason for living for several unfathomably hot supernatural men, a sentiment that quite frankly resonates with the modern atmosphere towards supernatural romance and the prominence of self-proclaimed “Monsterfuckers.” Bella’s situation is pretty much a dream come true, is it not? Among tacky supernatural romance novels, Twilight and its sequels are easily the queens of the genre.

Here’s the thing that really sets the Twilight Saga apart, though: there is actually a serious amount of thought and care put into nearly all aspects of the romance’s universe save for the actual romance. Every single member of the Cullen family has a fascinating backstory: Carlisle was a vampire hunter turned vampire who proceeded to venture across the world in the ensuing hundreds of years building up a family and practicing a different way of living; Alice was committed to an asylum and has a past shrouded in mystery; Jasper was a soldier in the Confederate army who was turned into a vampire and tasked with raising a vampire army; Rosalie’s backstory is Kill Bill, BUT WITH VAMPIRES!; and Emmet, while easily the least impressive of them all, still died apparently fighting a bear, and considering how he is one can only imagine what on earth he was doing. Esme is the only Cullen without a deeply fascinating backstory, but even what little we do get is a bit tragic: she lost her child and so committed suicide, or attempted it anyway. There’s absolutely no need for all of these rich, complex backstories for characters in a throwaway romance novel, and yet here they are. And that’s not all.

The rest of the world and overall vampire society is presented in a very interesting way. The Volturi in particular are a fascinating idea, a secret cabal of vampires who rule over all other vampires with an iron fist, but one that is, while a bit tyrannical and unforgiving, seemingly necessary to preserve the existence of vampire society. Hell, their rules don’t really seem TOO harsh, and they only really spring to action when there are vampires fragrantly and blatantly exposing themselves to human society. They wish to keep the vampire world hidden in the shadows, where they can feed in peace away from prying eyes. Their position is understandable in a lot of ways. They also have a very interesting history to them, having apparently wrestled power over vampirekind away from a sect of Romanian vampires. Now, I did say they are a fascinating IDEA; in execution, they always tended to be a bit… useless. Their appearances in New Moon and Breaking Dawn are ultimately wastes of time, as they are never really opposed in any sort of meaningful way and get away in the end with the status quo wholly unchanged. No impact is ever made on vampirekind when they’re involved, which almost makes me wish that they were kept in the shadows and used far more sparingly. Their influence over events in Eclipse, where they only send out their powerful agents, showcases that Stephanie Meyers could use them very effectively when she wanted to.

The werewolves are a bit less effective. While they do have an intriguing backstory, there is something a bit… problematic about shoehorning a bunch of fictional elements onto the real Quileute tribe. On the other hand though, a positive and heroic portrayal of Native Americans in fiction is never a bad thing, and Jacob Black is easily one of the more sympathetic characters until halfway through Breaking Dawn. It’s a very tricky, mixed bag. I kind of wish that the issue with the handling of Native American folklore was the biggest controversy with the series, but there’s actually one far worse and even stupider.

The Twilight Saga has come under fire for being a negative influence on young women, for romanticizing abusive relationships and stalking, and for being some sort of massive insult to feminism. Now, these arguments aren’t wholly without merit, but the issue is that they are being filtered through human understanding and imposed on fictional creatures in a fictional universe. If a real-life human acted as clingy, impulsive, over-protective, and obsessed as Edward is towards Bella, yes, it would be absolutely terrifying. Here’s where I let you in on a little secret, though: Edward Cullen is, in fact, not a human. He is part of a race of ageless semi-undead beings who live off of blood and glitter in the sunlight. He immediately sees his soulmate in Bella and goes out of his way to ensure they end up together, acting on the instincts granted to members of his kind. Trying to fit all of his actions into a human narrative is as fruitless as if an ant tried to explain humanity to his colleagues filtered through his ant experiences. The fact is, Edward operates on a far different moral code than humans. This is not uncommon for vampires in any fiction; Marceline of Adventure Time fame is a vampire who is certainly not above doing some rather sketchy stuff, for example. While Edward’s actions can come off as bizarre and creepy to humans, for a vampire, Edward is actually downright romantic and even benevolent. One also needs to take into account that Edward is a kissless virgin who has spent a hundred years doing nothing but reading romance novels and listening to classical music, which would go a long way to explain his awkward and sometimes offputting ways of trying to replicate human courtship rituals with Bella.

The criticisms leveled at Bella are rather unfair as well; while she often finds herself a damsel in distress, it rarely is something she doesn’t want. When Bella is in danger, it’s because she wanted to be there and put herself there. Yes, she does get into trouble, but that’s mostly due to her being a stupid horny teenage girl with zero impulse control. Recall New Moon, where she constantly did dangerous stunts so she could have hallucinations of Edward chastise her. Bella is, quite frankly, an adrenaline junkie, and I feel she’d rather resent being called a damsel. Even the times when she is in danger, it is no real fault of her own, but rather the fact she is a normal human out of her depth in a supernatural world. Bella is not Blade, she is not Van Helsing, she is not Alucard; she is Bella Swan, normal teenage girl, and she tends to be as effective as your average teenage girl in situations where superpowered monsters are hunting her. Imagine if we applied these sorts of criticisms to other characters in fiction… “John Conner in Terminator 2 is such a worthless damsel in distress character, why does he not just fight off the T-1000?” or how about “Why do the kids in The Goonies not take the Fratellis head-on? Why do they constantly flee from them when they cross paths? And Chunk, getting captured by them, what a pathetic damsel moment.” People not being successful in areas where they are out of their element is not some horribly evil thing. I also resent the idea the series is some horrible, anti-feminist work, particularly because the entire series revolves around Bella’s choice, and when she is not given agency she goes out of her way to take that agency. For all the flaws of Breaking Dawn, and there are many, I will give it this: presenting Bella as being in the right for wanting her choices respected is a good thing. With that in mind, I think the entire series is a lot more feminist than many are willing to admit.

And look, I’m not saying this book is a flawless masterpiece or anything like that. I have mentioned this is definitely a book more impressive for the world it creates than for the actual romance it centers around. But I do feel that, generally speaking, the books never descended to the point many who criticized the books say they did. I say “for the most part” because I cannot even muster up enough good will to say a single good thing about Breaking Dawn. But generally, the writing quality is decent. Even some of the twists on vampire lore are interesting and refreshing.

For instance… the sparkling. This is one of the most infamous additions to the lore of vampires in Meyers stories. When in the sunlight, rather than bursting into flames as vampires tend to do in fiction, their skin sparkles and glitters as if it was encrusted with diamonds. It does sound silly, and it really is, especially when they show it off in the movies… and yet, it is actually far more accurate than just about every depiction of vampires in nearly 100 years. You see, the idea vampires are killed by sunlight is actually a relatively new addition to vampire lore, being created for the famous silent masterpiece Nosferatu because they couldn’t come up with any other way to kill the vampire. In the original novel of Dracula, for instance, the titular count strut about during the day with no ill effect. So, by accident or perhaps by some better understanding of the creatures than most writers, Meyers was more accurate than nearly all contemporary portrayals of the characters. Also interesting – but not nearly so to the point I feel the need to dedicate a whole new paragraph to it – the idea of vampires having a sort of “love at first sight” thing that allows them to discern their soulmate was copied by Hotel Transylvania, so I feel like that addition to vampire lore has its merit as well.

The film adaptations tend to not truly fix the flaws with the storytelling, but instead to paint over them with some truly inspired silliness. The utter apathy Robert Pattinson exudes for his role as Edward Cullen is palpable in how he acts, and it tends to make Edward’s creepier actions actually less threatening than the were in the books – and I’d argue there he wasn’t particularly threathening, despite his angsting. Taylor Lautner’s oft-shirtless portrayal of Jacob Black seems a lot more genuinely, but equally cheesy; his and Pattinson’s onscreen chemistry really gives them the feel of two romantic rivals, which makes it easy to see exactly why there was such a devoted following rooting for one or the other back in the day. Then we get to Bella.

As usual, Bella is a horribly misunderstood character here. It’s easy to blame the books for how one-note Bella appears in the movies – as a romance protagonist, Bella has enough personality for you to care while still being enough of a blank slate that you can put yourself in her position so that you can fantasize about the outcomes – but I almost feel like her portrayal was a deliberate choice. Kristen Stewart is actually a very good actor when in the right role, and I feel like even in the past I’ve been too hard on her portrayal of Bella. I think I might go so far as to say her version of Bella is better than the book, because Stewart actually does inject some vapid, awkward teenage girlishness to the role. That’s something wonderful, especially about the films – the teenagers, more than a lot of other series, tend to feel like real people. They say the dumbest stuff imaginable, but really, is that not what being a teenager is? Everyone was a stupid, vapid idiot as a teenager, it’s just how teens are. So all t hat combined with everything else that has been said, does any part of Bella’s characterization truly feel THAT abnormal for an otherwise normal, brooding teen thrust headfirst into the world of the supernatural? I personally don’t think so; Bella is actually one of the most real characters of the series, an anchor to humanity in a sea of supernatural strangeness, a character that is absolutely perfect in her dull, flawed, overly-romantic personality. She may not be the strongest, or most interesting, or even the most pleasant character in all of fiction… but she has an air of realness to her few other characters can hope to achieve. Perhaps this is why a lot of people rejected and mocked her; it’s so much easier to dismiss and belittle something than accept that it is something real, warts and all. No one wanted to accept the less pleasant parts of Bella, and so she was rejected by all except the fans of the book; meanwhile, seemingly disinterested goth girls would be fought over by two equally strange men for her affection, all while she talks in a sort of half-awake near-monotone.

I was in that situation myself. It’s all real teenage bullshit.

I feel like this more than anything explains why the Twilight Saga ended up being violently rejected by so many people: too many people saw through the supernatural elements and into the real life teenage angst and did not like what they saw, as it reflected their own experiences. It’s so bizarre to say, but Stephanie Meyers may have been too real for her own good, and her portrayal of angst-ridden teen love triangles may have been just too close to home for a lot of people. I’m sure a lot of older people had negative experiences in high school as I did, so anything that reminds them of those stupid, painful years is not going to seem pleasant. With other stories that feature realistic elements with supernatural settings, such as Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and so on, they never really faced this kind of scrutiny and rejection as while they also are grounded with realistic portrayals of their teenagers, they also take place in overtly supernatural settings; there is no place where an experience could be like that of Hogwarts or Camp Half-Blood. But there’s probably of plenty of places like the dismal, dreary town of Forks, Washington, a perpetually cloudy town out in the sticks where nothing ever seems to happen. Reading about teen angst in such an agonizingly depressing setting will not go over well with anyone who has had negative experiences in regards to the elements portrayed, supernatural dressing or no.

Looking back at the Twilight Saga, after years of imitators of varying quality and numerous attempts by mediocre young adult franchises to capture this saga’s lightning in a bottle, the stories sans Breaking Dawn seem to have aged quite well, and hold up a lot better. Removed from the rabid fandom, overwhelming hype, ad constant mockery, the series stands as a solid and kind of cheesy young adult romance series, one with superb worldbuilding that I have yet to see any young adult series after it match and an absolutely fantastic ensemble cast that is just rife with fanfiction potential. I find that even the lead trio, be it in the films and in the movie, have a lot more layer and depth to them than initially thought, with Bella in particular a character I feel deserves some serious reevaluation. And while I’d never call the series a masterpiece to rival Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, or Lord of the Rings, I do think that the series is good enough to unironically be enjoyed. While there is of course plenty to snark at here – it’s a story featuring a rather honest depiction of teenagers, after all, and teenagers are idiots – I think there is a lot more to like than the insane hatedom of the book ever gave it credit for.

And even if you can’t bring yourself to admit the series is genuinely good (albeit cheesy), there’s no denying that it had a pretty good impact on popular culture. Aside from being the basis for Vampire Sucks, which has the honor of being the only genuinely good Seltzer and Friedberg film, it put supernatural romance stories back into the mainstream again. The biggest example of a supernatural romance film that I can see got a lot of mainstream recognition was 1990’s Ghost, which is held up as a romantic classic; while there were plenty of supernatural romance films between then and Twilight, none of them seem to be recalled fondly or even at all, and none of them can even come close to saying they had the sort of cultural impact Ghost did. Twilight, though… it had a huge impact. Without Twilight, we probably wouldn’t have gotten Warm Bodies, we probably wouldn’t have gotten Horns, and honestly? We probably wouldn’t have gotten The Shape of Water, or more realistically, the movie would not nearly be as accepted. Twilight for better or worse conditioned us to see the humanity in supernatural entities and find attraction in them (not exactly a new idea as far as vampires go, I know, but it definitely put it in the minds of young adults). I can easily see the genesis of the modern crowd of people lusting after the Asset, Pennywise, Godzilla, and Venom being the Twilight Saga; it was a gateway drug that put in the minds of youths “Hey, monsters can be really sexy. Like, REALLY sexy.”

The Twilight Saga is truly a fascinating work, for better and for worse. There is a lot in it that I really admire, and there’s plenty in it that I resent, but even at its worst I can never say that the series was boring. For all the flack I give Breaking Dawn, it is still far more readable than any of the garbage Cormac McCarthy has ever shat out, and nothing in the series was as overtly misogynistic as some of the dialogue in Ready Player One. As cheesy as the film series got, the first was a surprisingly effective indie supernatural romance and the third was a gloriously Gothic cheesy delight, with the second being the awkward but still enjoyable middle film and Breaking Dawn: Part 1 being the only genuinely awful film in the series; nothing positive could be said for the slew of imitators that crawled in this film’s wake, such as Beastly, Red Riding Hood, and even some of the would-be successors to this franchise such as the cinematic adaptations of Percy Jackson, Divergent, and The Hunger Games among others, which despite them being based off of books of far greater critical acclaim had absolutely no respect for their source material the way the Twilight Saga films did. As silly as some of the acting in the movies was – and it got very silly, considering the lead three all seemed to actively despise their roles – none of their acting was as painfully bad to sit through as Jennifer Lawrence’s attempts at acting in the first Hunger Games film, or the entire cast of the Percy Jackson movies. I would never say that Twilight is the absolute pinnacle of young adult literature, but I think a lot of us had our judgment clouded back in the day, and with the benefit of hindsight I think it’s safe to say the franchise was a lot of fun; I’d even go as far to say that it is an underrated work of genius in many aspects.

Removed from the climate that created it and put into a world it helped shape, I think the tale of Bella Swan and her romance of the angsty immortal Edward Cullen resonates quite a bit better. So thank you to Stephanie Meyers and everyone involved with the film series, because without your work, the world we live in would probably be a much less interesting place, with far fewer people horny for monsters. I really don’t think I would want to live in that world.

#CineMike #essay #my writing #Twilight #The Twilight Saga #Eclipse #New Moon #Breaking Dawn #Edward Cullen #Bella Swan #Jacob Black #Robert Pattinson #Kristen Stewart #Taylor Lautner

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theincorrigiblemagpie · 6 years

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Kasautii Zindagii Kay (2018) E02- Chunari Chunari

26-9-2018

I feel like I must warn all new followers that I’m terrible about keeping up and blogging about even the first few episodes that I set out to do, on average. Already, I hear there is the advent of a rapey dude and it has made me put off watching the rest of the first week.

Anyway, let us not drown in our sorrows before they are here. We return to Prerna and Anurag’s bumbling conversation about Anurag’s love life. A friend of Anurag’s has managed to give the gig away by talking about ‘Sarika,’ Anurag’s supposed ex who is now married and has turned out to be a ‘troublesome’ woman. Ok then, friend-of-Anurag. Anurag brushes aside Prerna’s apologies for assuming anything about his sexuality and delivers a rather magnificent speech about how ‘our society’ thinks any guy who doesn’t harass women or run after them overtly is gay and ‘not normal’ and it’s not her fault at all. Very nice, I hope all of Ekta’s other shows get the memo about rape culture.

Prerna’s giggly friend Anjali takes her toward the back of the pandal to gloat about...Anurag not being gay. I am SO tired of these stray ‘friends’ already and it’s only episode 2. In the meantime, that trash fire (literal) caused by mysterious-figure-in-the-back-alley has spread to the pandal and is raging out of control. Massive chaos as everyone escapes. Mohini Basu cannot get over the fact that a special chunari that she had commissioned for Durga in Anurag’s name has been left behind. Like, she’s sitting and SOBBING over it like she’s lost a family member. If anything, I suspect she’d cry less for a family member.

OF COURSE, saintly stupid Anurag decides to retrieve the chunari to get his mom to stop crying like this. He apprehends a guy with a jeep and casually asks how much it costs and then TRANSFERS ABOUT DOUBLE THE MONEY TO HIS ACCOUNT INSTANTLY so he can take it. This is an actual scene we all watched. On the one hand, I’m really glad they have a responsible hero but also I’m DYING over this commitment to his stick-in-the-mud-ness even during high voltage action scenes. He drives the jeep straight into the front of the pandal, overturns a big decorative thing of water and leaps out of the jeep a la Rohit Shetty’s heroes, while trying not to flash the world in his dhuti. Listen, this is just one of the many reasons Bengali gents don’t engage in Hindi film hero-giri. It’s not a part of the kulchaar.

Interestingly, Anurag still doesn’t know Prerna and her twit friend are stuck there. He’s just here for the chunari which makes all of this twice as funny. Anjali is literally “look your best friend Anurag is here to rescue us” and Prerna is all “but...we’re not even close friends” and Anjali is like “DOES IT MATTER?” Sorry, Anjali, I misjudged you. You’re showing superior sense at this moment.

Anurag is staring at the chunari like it’s the only thing in the world. Pah! Some hero. Can’t even sixth-sense his obvious love interest. He’s just parkouring his ass through leaping flames and falling burning things and loose electrical wiring. He sees the two women only when he’s RIGHT in their faces and then asks what they’re doing here. They’re chilling amid all this fire, Anurag. What nonsensical questions, my god.

He kicks aside some burning barrier that was blocking their way and Prerna pushes Anjali out of there and goes back after Anurag who has ofc gone after that dratted chunari. Prerna’s face is simultaneously impressed and can’t even with this foolishness.

No, I think the predominant desire was to indulge in some hero-giri of her own. One burning deep stambha type thing is going to fall on the Durga murti so Prerna runs over to stop it. I mean...maybe she secretly lifts but I would NOT have credited it. She isn’t even breaking a sweat.

No, okay, she is sweating. I just wish I sweated as prettily as Erica.

As you may have guessed from this screencap, her hands bled somehow and Anurag rushed over to help her. If Balaji is trying to sell this couple to me, I’ve bought it already. Two people this obsessed with gods and their paraphernalia to the point of disregarding their own lives fully deserve each other.

AND THEN

RED CHUNARI RABBA VE WHILE SURROUNDED BY FIRE

(I am aware nothing I say can really match the magnificence of what happens under Balaji’s aegis and moments like this really bring that home.)

Anyway, this is the same chunari that was in Anurag’s hand two seconds ago and I have no EARTHLY idea how it flew from behind the murti and landed on these two.

NO WAIT. THIS IS YET ANOTHER RED CHUNARI. THE ONE HE RISKED HIS LIFE FOR IS STILL FOLDED IN HIS HAND.

Me: please....stop...I get it...no more red chunaris

Balaji: did you mean ‘four more red chunaris?’

Durga is running this show personally, is what I gather from all the jumpy shots that pan to her whenever anything happens. And now that she’s had her fill of romance, she makes it rain and this RAGING fire goes out in a poof like silsila yeh chahat ka’s ill-fated diya. Durga is a #fangirl.

The priests have done absolutely NOTHING useful (like calling the fire department) and have PRAYED to Durga and now they’re claiming the rain as victory and all kinds of premonition of something “pure” and “auspicious” etc etc. Anyway, I just want to show you Nivedita’s face when Anurag is reunited with his family, with that dratted chunari.

Yeah, Nivi, I feel you.

Predictably, Mohini blames this fire and the fact that there was no contingency plan on Prerna’s dad Rajesh. I’m...kinda with her on this. There really should’ve been better fire safety standards and a disaster management plan. Moloy says it’s unfair to blame this on Rajesh, they should blame the event management company. Ok, hold up. There is an event management company?? Then why the fuck does Rajesh and co look after everything? The event management company is paid to sit around, or what? Mohini and Moloy are concerned about how they’ll hold Dashami celebrations at the venue the next day, and Rajesh reassures them ki he’ll make it happen, come what may. Mohini tries to not let him but Rajesh is all “haan, I’m sure tum sambhal loge.” And in typical rich dude fashion, he walks off with Mohini, without a thought to how it’ll actually happen. Man, I really hate Moloy.

Oho we have an identity for the arsonist. It is Naveen, Mohini’s muh-bola-bhai.

The rest of the episode is just Prerna and Anurag’s respective friends ragging on them about the romance of the situation. Anurag’s friend insists ki “kuch kuch hota hai, Anurag, why do you deny it?” and Anjali is mad that Prerna ne chance maar liya by risking her life. Both insist that there’s nothing going on until Shah Rukh Khan appears to reassure us at the end. Is this going to be a daily thing? How many snippets of SRK mouthing sentimental claptrap have they recorded?

Red dupatta count- just 1 but a big one.

#kasautii zindagii kay 2 #kzk2 #kasauti zindagi ki #balaji telefilms

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bookbeani · 6 years

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A Girl Like That by Tanaz Bhathena

“Abdullah had told me about such girls. NATO, he called them. No action, talk only. The ones who kissed like whores and then cried like virgins.”

Goodreads Summary: Sixteen-year-old Zarin Wadia is many things: a bright and vivacious student, an orphan, a risk taker. She’s also the kind of girl that parents warn their kids to stay away from: a troublemaker whose many romances are the subject of endless gossip at school. You don't want to get involved with a girl like that, they say. So how is it that eighteen-year-old Porus Dumasia has only ever had eyes for her? And how did Zarin and Porus end up dead in a car together, crashed on the side of a highway in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia? When the religious police arrive on the scene, everything everyone thought they knew about Zarin is questioned. And as her story is pieced together, told through multiple perspectives, it becomes clear that she was far more than just a girl like that.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

My Thoughts: This is officially the worst book I’ve read, ever, which is not something I say lightly. It’s a contemporary young adult novel set in Saudi Arabia that’s supposedly meant to bravely expose rape culture, but all it does is expose the author’s own islamophobia and girl-on-girl hate. Now, it’s a subtle islamophobia, and I suppose a subtle hate if you’re not looking for it, and maybe that’s why it’s gone largely unnoticed so far. But if anything, it’s more glaringly harmful for its subtlety. Let me take you on a tour through this novel, across the dozens upon dozens of quotes and bookmarked pages, and maybe I’ll be able to make myself a little more clear.

Let’s begin with the fact that Tanaz Bhathena clearly did no research when it came to Islam – which is sort of concerning considering she wrote an entire novel set in an Islamic country. Oh, sure, it seems she knows lots when it comes to the religious police, throwing around everyone’s favourite word, Sharia law, but the history? Apparently the accurate portrayal of that is beyond her. She seems to know a wonderful amount about bridges in hell and eternal damnation, but when it comes to common burial practices? No, not possible, sorry.

Okay, whatever, these are little things, right? Who cares if she doesn’t know that Muslims don’t get buried in coffins or that the three wise men were indeed Zoroastrian priests, that’s not harmful is it? Well, if only it ended there, I could have forgiven this book its shortcomings and moved on with my life.

Let’s move on to the actual Muslim characters portrayed in the novel, shall we? The main character, Zarin, is Zoroastrian, as is the love interest, Porus. The main Muslim characters you see throughout the novel are 1) the religious police 2) Mishal’s family and 3) Farhan’s family. And as far as fucked up representations go, these three really take the cake.

The religious police: do I really need to say much about them? It seems pretty self-explanatory. They’re a constant threat lurking throughout the novel – reminders that girls must cover up their hair, that unchaperoned interactions between unrelated boys and girls are Not Allowed (funny, that this is only mentioned when Zarin is with other boys, but never when she’s with Perfect Porus), and… that’s pretty much it. Is there any talk of the Muslims who are oppressed by the religious police for their beliefs? The fact that the religious police don’t follow any religion, and are pretty much one step short of being ISIS? Of course not, that would be an almost… positive and accurate portrayal of Islam wouldn’t it? And we can’t have that, obviously. But, ultimately, the religious police are a background thing – they don’t really take centre stage in this novel. That’s where the two families come in.

Enter: the two Muslim families closest to the heart of the story. In one, you’ve got a man who abandoned his first wife for a second, because polygamy is a totally common and normal thing (spoiler: it’s not). You have Mishal, a sixteen-year-old girl whose marriage prospects are “limited to creepy grooms nearly twice or thrice [her] age.” (spoiler: this is also not common, despite what every wonderful portrayal of the middle east would have you think). Mishal, whose brother tells her, after his friend attempts to assault her, “Have you learned nothing about men and the necessity of a proper hijab? Or did you want his attention?”. A brother who says that “A woman’s honor is like a tightly wrapped sweet. If you unwrap a sweet and leave it lying around, you expose it to everything out there. If, by accident, it falls into the dirt – tell me, Mishal, will anyone want to eat it?” Mishal, who lives in a society that believes that sex is something that a girl should “[suffer] through like a proper virgin.” (spoiler: also not true). All this, while Abdullah reads porn magazines, smokes, dates multiple girls, and Mishal the prude watches, scandalized. Not to mention the fact that since their father moved out to live with his new wife, he’s legally the “guardian of the household” and this is something that’s not questioned, even once, by anyone. What a great, wonderful, functional family, right? What a fantastically positive portrayal. But it gets worse.

Farhan’s family is where things start to get properly disgusting. How is it first introduced? Here are the actual first lines of Farhan’s point of view in the entire book, no joke: “They were going at it like dogs, Abba and the maid. My father, who my mother said I would look like when I got older – tall, dark, and handsome – banging the maid so hard that he banged the headboard against the wall and left a mark in the paint.” Yeah, a great start, isn’t it? So aside from a cheating father (because the only two Muslim fathers portrayed in the novel have to be these disgusting men who can’t possibly have a healthy relationship with a single wife, it’s impossible), you have the disgustingness that is Farhan himself. Farhan, who’s most renowned as being the school heartthrob. But unlike your usual YA contemporary heartthrob, because all these characters are Muslim, and thus must be degenerate somehow, right, this one drugs girls to get with them, sexually assaults them, and rapes them. On a regular basis. How wonderful, right?

Thus ends the part where I talk about how terrible each of these characters are, and we can move on to more of the general horrors that make up this book. If my above description hasn’t been clear enough, I’m just going to say it: you have the female characters portrayed as these sexually repressed individuals, completely lacking agency, while pretty much the only reason any of the male characters (aside from Perfect Porus, who wants to get to know Zarin for who she is, like the great non-Muslim guy he is) live is for sex.

In general, this book’s obsession with sex is seriously ridiculous. The entire first third of the novel, the only things that happen are that different people have sex, think about having sex, or judge other people for having sex – that is literally it, I’m not exaggerating in the least. Yes, teenagers are hormonal. Yes, they think about having sex a lot. But that is literally the only thing these characters are characterized by. None of the girls have any hobbies, other than gossiping about boys and hating on other girls (and by other girls I mean Zarin). There is not a single healthy girl-girl relationship in the whole book. In fact, the only relationship in the whole book that can actually be termed healthy is the one between Zarin and Porus. Funny, isn’t it?

There’s a lot more I could go into, honestly – the astonishing relationship between Zarin and her aunt (who started shaming her niece at the age of four for “spreading her legs and sitting like a boy”), the slut-shaming rampant throughout the whole book, the idea that a girl has to bleed when she loses her virginity, the inevitability of arranged marriage for not only Mishal but all the female characters, the objectification of girls for their boobs (seriously, there is a concerning hyperfixation on boobs for some reason, you’d think this was written by a white man because this is almost titting down stairs level boobery), a debate that only seems to show domestic abuse as normalized in this society, and more.

I can hardly begin to explain how damaging something like this is – a book that’s being lauded as this brave exposure of misogyny and rape culture, but is written in such bad taste. The context of this book makes the whole discussion fraught with damaging implications, and the lack of any good, or positive, or normal characters in the whole book to counterbalance all the shitty ones is really inexcusable.

In conclusion, this book is cancelled.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

#a girl like that #tanaz bhathena #book review #booklr #heretherebebookreviews

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