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blxetsi · 3 years

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armin arlert, mikasa ackerman, and eren jaeger polyamorous headcanons (modern au)

armin arlert x gn!reader, mikasa ackerman x gn!reader, eren jaeger x gn!reader, mikasa x armin x eren x gn!reader

warnings: uhh fluff, this is very long, reader has a gf b4 getting w ema,

this is like my first post since feb that isnt a request 😍😍😍 how did i pull this out of my ass

- obv eren, mikasa, and armin have been besties since childhood so its no wonder they all got together first 🤩🙏

- and theyre all hot so why wouldnt they wanna date each other

- i think armin and eren wouldve gotten together first, and then invited mikasa into their relationship

- the three of them have been officially going steady for like over a year now, and its going really well

- they didnt really expect you to drop into their lives tho

- youre an old friend of historia's and you two reconnected after you moved to the city, securing yourself a decent paying job working as a writer for the city paper

- you usually get the boring stuff, never able to get a good story to write about, focusing your time on heartwarming stories in the community or the sports column

- its boring but it pays the bills

- you were thankful when historia called you during your lunch and asked if you wanted to get drinks at a bar with her and a couple of other friends

- of course you said yes

- so historia and her girlfriend ymir picked you up after work, having dinner with them after a long week was the best, but you were a bit nervous to meet all of their friends

- thats how you met eren, mikasa and armin

- at first you were sure that mikasa and eren were dating, seeing as mikasa had her head on the taller man's shoulder, while his arm was wrapped around her

- but when armin leaned down to give mikasa a kiss before heading off to the bar you werent so sure

- ymir pulled you away to get more drinks and explained to you what the situation was, while commenting on the way you gawked at the three of them before

- you were embarassed to say the least but they didnt bring it up that night so you hoped the throuple didnt notice (they did)

- you really hit it off with all of them though, especially sasha and jean, and were constantly talked about among the friend group

- because of your demanding job dealing with writers block and deadlines you couldnt really meet up with all of them often, usually just having sleepovers at ymir and historia's apartment, the three of you drinking while you wrote on your laptop

- after a couple months of casual hangouts with historia and ymir and their friends, you kinda became one of them too which was nice

- you were added to the groupchat, you all followed each other on social media, and a certain brunet had taken a liking to you

- eren didnt know why exactly he was so attracted to you but he was, maybe it was your hair, or how pretty your skin looked even when oily or with breakouts, maybe it was your smile or your body or your sense of humor or you kindness or maybe it was all of it

- eren jaeger would always stay faithful to his boyfriend and girlfriend, but maybe they could add another person into the mix, more to love right ?

- he had only known you for a couple of months though, he didnt want to jump the gun and bring this up with his partners so soon, especially if they didnt feel the same way he did

- and it would be a bummer if you turned out to be a bad person or smth

- so summer rolls around with lots of memories being made with your new friends, as well as friends from work, and you get a girlfriend ??

- shes not really your girlfriend you two have only been out on a couple of dates and she kisses you a lot but, you havent talked about labels

- one night you, along with your friends are back at the same bar where you first met them

"so, tell us about the girl youre seeing." ymir says, smirking over her beer.

eren's ears perked up at the mention of you seeing someone. "girl ?"

historia nodded. "mhm ! y/n's been talking to someone recently, they've gone on dates and kissed and stuff."

"and stuff, jesus tori you make it sound like we've had sex." you sighed.

the blonde just laughed, leaning her body onto her freckled companion.

"well ? what about her ?" eren asks. armin slapped him on the arm, already having suspicions about eren's interest in you.

your shoulders sagged. "well, she's great and everything, truly..."

"but ? is there a but in this ?" connie asked. sasha started laughing at connie's use of the word but, while jean slapped the girl on the arm because of her reaction.

you shrugged, swirling what was left of your fruity cocktail in your glass. "well, i'm not sure. she's very lively, and sweet. but i don't know, i just don't see myself being able to be in a steady relationship with her."

"so you're gonna end it ?" eren asked. you thought he seemed a bit too eager about your failure in the love department.

"why do you care so much ? you like the thought of me being lonely ?" you shot back, before downing the rest of your drink.

"no i just-"

"i think what eren means is," mikasa intervened, her smooth voice calming you as she looked at you with a smile on her face. "is that there's no point in staying with her if you can't see yourself with her. don't lead her on."

you nodded. "you're exactly right my friend. which is the plan for tonight because i," you quickly checked the time on your phone. 8:17. "have a date with miss molly at nine, so i will be taking my leave."

the group engaged in a chorus of boos for leaving so early, while you chuckled and took the lighthearted insults thrown at you by sasha and connie with ease. grabbing all of your things you put down two twenties onto the table. "i'll see you guys later, have a goodnight." as you walked off you heard jean yell "have a good time you heartbreaker !" making you shake your head

- the date with molly went less then well. she yelled, and cried, and even tried hitting you at one point. your walk back from the park was spent blocking her on every form of social media you followed her on, and when you got back to your apartment you spent the night in a hot bath before retiring to bed

- meanwhile, armin and mikasa were trying to pry the truth out of eren, who was constantly denying his attraction to you

- finally mikasa took one for the team "eren, you aren't alone with the way you feel, i do too." this made eren more willing to open up to his partners

- armin doesnt say anything about you, only saying how youre kind. he doesnt feel the way that his girlfriend and boyfriend do, but he knows that may change

- soon enough, more time flies and christmas rolls around, with you all deciding to have a secret santa get together.

- historia invites everyone to her home on christmas eve, with ymir begrudgingly allowing it

- bertholdt and annie come too, reiner not being able to make it due to going home for christmas, while everyone else decided to stay in the city

- you picked out your secret santas at the beginning of november so you would all have enough time to find something for each other, you hoped whoever picked your name gave you something good

- after hours of games and karaoke and drinking you all decided it was time to open the presents

- ymir got socks from bertholdt, connie got an ugly beanie from ymir, historia got new pens from mikasa, mikasa got knitting needles from annie, annie got a dumbell from eren, jean got a not so appropriate t shirt from connie, jean gave sasha more comic books, armin gave new stationary paper to bertholdt, sasha gifted you that new biography you've been wanting to read and you gave armin your old copy of frankenstein by mary shelley

- he was surprised but very thankful, "how did you know i needed a new copy ?" "well i remember you said eren spilt water on your old one, and the pages just stuck together so i thought you might as well have mine"

- it warmed armin's heart that you remembered something so insignificant, and opened him up to the thought of being with you

- the rest of the night was spent with hugs and thankfulness, cheering when the clock struck 12 and it became christmas day

- after getting things cleaned up everyone decided it was time to leave, with armin, eren and mikasa offering to give you a ride home

- a ride where armin straight up kissed you in the backseat

- you stopped him of course, thinking that it was weird he would cheat on his partners right in front of them, while they were shocked all on their own for different reasons, armin who didnt have feelings for you KISSED you

- and surprisingly armin took the lead in explaining how he felt, why he kissed you, an apology for doing so, and an offer to start dating all three of them

- your heart was pounding in your ears and your entire face felt hot, it was probably the alcohol, or the way his lips felt so soft when they touched yours, so you said yes.

- its not smooth sailing from there

- youre kind of awkward

- this is your first relationship where you really feel like you could love these guys (you already do) but its also your first relationship with multiple people

- the trio start inviting you over more often, soon for sleepovers, and start inviting themselves over at your own place, mainly eren

- he just comes at random times, sometimes when youre not even there and waits for you, or stays and cleans up a bit before leaving

- armin and you share a deep love of literature, and you often find yourselves in hot debates about whatever youve read (mikasa and eren have to pry you two away before things get physical)

- mikasa likes to cook with you, she shares recipes that her mom taught her, and her and armin love to cook dinner together whereas eren is the breakfast maker of the household

- the first time you slept in the same bed as them you were so nervous your whole body thumped to the tune of your heartbeat, you were convinced armin could even hear it as he was laying beside you, but eren wrapped an arm around your waist, pulling you into his large chest before whispering "youre as stiff as a board, relax honey"

- eren snores, mikasa drools, armin has those dreams where you fall and then violently wake up before you hit the ground

- slowly but surely you stop thinking about your relationship as the trio and you, but as all of you together, and that really helps you come out of your shell a bit

- you may still be in the honeymoon phase, and there may be bumps along the way, but you like being with armin, eren, and mikasa. they make you so happy, it feels like the happiest youve been in a long time

- you like watching eren and armin dance in the living room while you and mikasa cuddle on the couch, before the boys pull you two up as well

- you like when armin reads to you, his soft voice reciting the words of the great gatsby

- you like it when eren can just tell youve had a rough day, and pulls you into a hug like hes protecting you from all the bad things in the world

- you love being with them. you love them. and you think that theyre it for you

i rushed the ending bc im fucking tired but i kinda wanna do a poly!series with like sasha, connie and jean, or annie, bertholdt and reiner, or any other poly ships u guys may request !

so yeah pls give me feedback it rlly helps me figure out whether you want a polyamorous series (or just like what i write in general), and it would be my first series ever which would be super cool anyways

yeah requests open for poly!ships anyways

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stevesharrlngtons · 4 years

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Snow being shoved down the back of your coat + Roman or Mickey

@screechingexpertpruneneck & @girlinthecorner also requested this prompt for roman

Tremors from ice and anger still vibrated through you as you made your way through the lobby. The snow that had been unceremoniously pushed down the back of your coat had long melted and left your sweater and undershirt wet and sticky with condensation and sweat. The water that your clothing had soaked in had begun to freeze against your clammy skin and you were beyond the meaning of uncomfortable.

You were uncomfortable with a thick helping of rage draped over the top.

All thanks to Roman fucking Godfrey.

Your family, along with his, were in Aspen for the holiday break. Your mother and Marie Godfrey had met in college as doe eyed sorority girls, and remained close through the years as they both went on to marry high level executives. Heartbroken that their executives chose to run their companies on opposite coasts, your mothers had insisted on bi-annual joint vacations -- one in the winter and one in the summer.

Two years into the extravagant vacations, Olivia Godfrey nosed her way into the festivities. Your mother and Marie were less than pleased, but Norman had insisted it was the right thing to welcome her with open arms on the vacations. It would be good for Olivia and her two small children to have some socialization. And so, Olivia, Roman and Shelley were added to the bunch (though, not without any reservations from the two matriarchs).

The destinations varied, but they were always somewhere festive and approatite. Winter: Sweden. Summer: Hawaii. Winter: Iceland. Summer: Puerto Rico.

This year it had been decided that you all would pack up and head to Colorado for two weeks of icy December fun.

While some of your peers dreaded family vacations and time spent away from their friends, you never minded. Your father kept you happy with a credit card in hand and your mother was too busy with Marie to provoke you. You were free to shop with Letha or swap novels with Shelley, or venture out on your own in whatever new and exciting landscape you were in.

And then there was Roman.

There was always Roman.

Over the years, Roman had morphed from reluctant player in your and Letha’s fantasy realms, to cruel preteen ready to insight chaos if looked at wrong, to outrageously charming and good looking young man who knew every trick and how to use them. He hadn’t lost the glint of wonder from his childhood, or his deep seated anger from his adolescence, he had just gained a sauve charisma that was dangerous when he used it correctly (and he always did).

You and Roman had a flirtation, one that sometimes blossomed in chaste touches and charged glances; or through amorous conversation and zealous foreplay.

Each and every vacation things were the same; you and Roman resumed wherever you had last left off, just to press pause the second you boarded separate airplanes.

Sometimes you would yearn for more, when he’d send you the occasional tender text or call in search for phone sex on the off season from your vacations. But, you shooed away any lingering warmth that he quelled in your stomach as soon as you recognized it. Roman Godfrey was no good for you, no matter how delicious he tasted and how blissful it was to surrender with him.

You could only indulge so much in a good thing before the repercussions reared their ugly heads. And Roman most certainly had repercussions, and pitfalls, and isms that you hated. And with enough time spent with him, you would see them all in spades.

His immaturity. His possessiveness. His stubbornness. His short temper. His inability to apologize.

Somehow all of your least favorite traits that he possessed came out one morning before he, Letha and yourself were set to go skiing.

Bundled in thick layers of wool and cashmere, down-feathers and ski bags slung off your shoulders, you three headed out to the slopes. You had spent two semesters at a private school in Whistler when your father was sent to Canada for work, and because of this, the only one out of your little group with any ski experience. You were excited to revel in your skill and teach Letha and Roman how to make it down the hills in one piece (lots of pizza and french fries to come…). But before you all headed to the chair lifts from the resort, Letha wanted to stop for something warm to drink and a bathroom break.

“I really think you’re going to appreciate all the expertise I can offer you,” you commented to Roman as you stood in line.

He blew an indigent puff out through his nose, “I don’t think I’ll need any help.”

A grin pulled at your lips, “Roman, with your long legs, you’re going to be like a baby deer out there. You are going to need my help.”

Roman glanced down at you with an amused expression, growing his own smile at the sight of yours.

“Yeah? You think I’m gonna go up there and eat shit? Fall on my ass so you girls can laugh at me? Fat chance.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll kiss all your bruises afterwards,” your grin smooths to a smirk and you can see his eyes light with the pictures of the after hours activities you two could yourselves into.

“Next!” the barastisa called out and you and Roman removed yourselves from your bubble long enough for you to order.

Your ordered Letha’s usual (a white mocha with a splash of peppermint) your usual, along with Roman’s (a black coffee with two sugars).

You hadn’t thought the barista was flirting with you. You hadn’t thought you were being overly friendly. You didn’t even think Roman had been paying any attention at all, he had been clicking away at his phone at the time. Though, after you paid and were waiting for your drinks to be made, it was clear that any and all banter that had begun in line would not continue.

Roman’s posture was ridged, as he stood two full paces away from you. His lips in a hard line and his hands stuffed deep in his coat pockets. You wanted to ask what had happened. You wanted to ask if he was ok, if something on his phone had upset him, if he was having second thoughts out the day you and Letha had planned? But you didn’t. Roman had angled himself away from you, and was looking over his shoulder every few seconds to search for Letha.

When she returned from the restroom, you silently handed her her mocha as she naively asked what she missed. You simply shrugged and you two shared a moment of knowing eye contact that Roman was in one of his trademark moods.

With linked arms and an effort to disregard Roman’s shift, you both clenched your paper cups, and headed toward the mountain in high spirits, ready to ski.

You were beginning to feel the pleasurable surge of adrenaline and the thrill of excitement the closer you got to the chair lifts. You were buzzing with anecdotes and tips and memories from your time abroad. Letha was playing along, nodding, oh-ing and ah-ing at the right moments, and thanking you for your know-how.

You and Letha were nearing the line for the lifts and you were about to pull her aside and help her onto her skis, when you were suddenly yanked backward.

Within the lapse of a blink, Roman had gripped the collar of your coat and jerked you back with such a power and haste, that your dwindling coffee was clamped in your fist and exploded onto your gloved hand and sleeve. When he had roped you closer by your protruding collar, he then continued to take a heap of snow and shove it down your back.

The snow shocked your senses, and your skin blistered from the cold and your muscles flinched and recoiled from the temperature change.

When it was all over, Letha was horrified, Roman was laughing and you were mortified. He had made such a spectacle of his antaic, that most of the line had turned to see what had happened. Not surprising by the decibel of Roman’s laughter and your scream.

“Roman!” Letha reprimanded as she fled to your side, doing her best to wick away some of the coffee from your sleeve and the snow from your neck, “What is wrong with you?”

“What? Never had that happen with any of your fancy french ski instructors?” he bit out maliciously, still laughing, but in a forced way. He was only laughing to continue your humiliation.

“You’re such an asshole!” you screeched.

“No, I’m funny. That was funny. It’s not my fault you can’t take a joke.”

“You’re not funny, Roman,” you whipped around, almost topoling a fretting Letha as you did, “you’re just a cruel little manchild who acts out when no one is giving his tantrum any attention!”

“Yep, see,” Roman gave a patronizing grin, “Can’t take a joke.”

He looked at you with condescending eyes, and he only seemed to grow happier the angier you became.

No matter how much you had been looking forward to the excursion, you refused to spend the day with him after this pathetic stunt. You picked up your discarded ski bag and let it hit Roman hard on the shoulder as you began back down the mountain.

“Aw, come on! Aren’t you the savant? Aren’t we getting ready to watch you show off your Olympic skill? Can’t do that if you throw a bitch fit and pout!” he called after you.

You could hear Letha’s frail calls as well, but at least she knew better than to come after you. You wanted to be alone and away from anything Godfrey.

When Letha and Roman came back later in the evening, he knocked on your suit door and was greeted with silence. He called your name, he dialed your number, he texted, but was left with no response. He was sure you were just enacting your silent revenge on him for the snow incident and he decided to let you. No matter how much he was looking forward to having his hands all over you (it’s all he had been thinking about for months).

But the next day, you were still nowhere to be found. Letha had been sworn to secrecy on your whereabouts, and even she was sticking her nose up in contempt when he entered a room.

He knew that you were serious about your indignation for him and what he had done, and he was becoming restless. He was only awarded fourteen days of your time twice a year, and he liked to make the most of the moments he was allotted. There was usually a day or two you would punish him for something he had said or done, but you always caved soon enough. Roman wished he knew what was so different about this time that had destroyed your usual refractory period for his bullshit.

“You embarrassed her in front of everyone,” Shelly’s automated voice informed him on the third day of silence.

Roman himself had taken to sitting in his suite, laying in bed with a scowl and an obligatory nasty bark when anyone commented on his new hibernation.

“You always teased her but this was different. You laughed at her and belittled her. She has every right to ignore you.”

Roman knew she was right, but only rolled onto his side so his back faced his sister. He didn’t want to admit that he was wrong, he didn’t want to have to tuck his tail and apologize. Because while he had embarrassed you, fessing up to his actions would embarrass him. He didn’t do well with putting his pride aside and accepting that what he did was wrong.

But as he spent the rest of the day holed up under hotel sheets and eating fresh potato chips from room service, Roman realized that maybe it would be worth it in the end. His moment of discomfort would pay off. Swallowing his ego and apologizing would be ok if it got him back in your good graces (which he so desperately craved).

That night, everyone gathered to have a nice dinner together. “Nice” entailed thousand dollar tabs, the highest quality champagne and whiskey, caviar and prime rib, and whatever anyone desired.

Roman had arrived before you, and made sure that the seat beside himself and your mother were the only two open by the time you joined them. As mad as you were at him, you would never willingly sit next to your mother, lest you want to spend the evening being picked apart by her freshly manicured fingers.

And sure enough, when you entered oh God, had you always been that beautiful? you spotted the seating arrangement and scowled. Your step faltered briefly in front of the open chair by your mother and Roman’s heart sank, before it slowly pushed its way back to the surface as you decided against your choice and rounded the table to take your place next to him.

“You look stunning this evening,” he whispered to you as you smoothed your napkin over your lap.

“You look like a kiss ass,” you replied, curtly thanking the waiter who was currently filling your glass with wine.

“Am I not allowed to compliment you now?”

“Stop talking to me. I don’t like you.”

Roman sucked in a breath and turned back to his appetizer. This was going to be a long evening.

Roman spent the rest of the dinner slowly chipping away at your resolve; with flirty jokes, jabs at your parents, reminiscing about your shared time together, and heaps of compliments and praise. He even pulled out his nickname for you at some point.

“I love when you run your fingers on the stem of the glass like that, sweet girl.”

Roman saw you put a strained pressure on the glass as he spoke.

Even after pulling out all the stops that he could, Roman didn’t seem to be making headway with you, which he despised. There was a flurry of fear in his chest.

Had he fucked up one of the very few good things in his life because of some stupid bout of jealousy?

As the night drew on, and all the parents were fat and happy with fine food and wine, they all drunkenly dismissed the four of you to do whatever you pleased.

Letha and Shelly, who had sat on the other end of the long table from you and Roman, fled away together. Maybe in hopes to avoid the tension between the two of you, or in hopes to force you both to reconcile. Either way, it left you and Roman to walk to the elevator alone.

Taunt, uncomfortable tension lay between you both on your path to the elevator. When you got to it and pressed the button for the upper levels, you tapped your foot impatiently for it to arrive.

Roman decided to strike.

“Are you going to be mad at me forever?”

Silence.

Roman frowned, “I’m sorry, alright? Is that what you want to hear?”

Silence.

“It was -- fuck, I don’t know. I don’t know what possessed me to do it. But yeah, I just, it was wrong. I’m sorry.”

More silence. You stepped forward to press the button again.

“Jesus Christ! I’m sorry! I said it, can we just put this behind us now? I was just tugging on your pigtails or whatever moms say. That and I don’t know, immaturity of something…”

“It was all immaturity.” you finally spoke.

So, Roman decided to steer into the skid. He told himself that he was only admitting to all of this so you would blow him later, but he secretly knew that everything he said was absolutely and undoubtedly true.

“Yeah, ok, it was immaturity and the old Godfrey gene of not knowing how to grapple with emotion.”

“Letha can express her emotions quite healthily,” you countered, still refusing to look at him.

He sighed, “I think only the men in my family got it… and my mother. But she’s a whole bag of fucked up, so…”

There was another bout of silence before Roman heard you let out a breath.

“You really hurt my feelings. You embarrassed me and stained my coat.��

“I know, I’m sorry,” Roman replied, his face crestfallen.

“You tugged me back so hard that my neck was all red and rashy from the pressure and my clothes for the rest of the day.”

Roman felt despair bubble in his stomach, “Fuck, I’m so sorry sweet girl. I’m an asshole, I know that.”

“Yes, you are.”

The elevator at last opened it’s steel doors and you and Roman entered and pressed the number for your floor (Roman pressed the button before you could, in his search for forgiveness and to be gentlemanly).

As the elevator started up, Roman inched toward you until his hand rested on the hollow of your back. You didn’t flinch away, and after a moment you placed your temple to his shoulder.

He felt a feeling of overwhelming relief as he took the chance at creeping his nimble fingers toward your waist, to gain better traction to turn you into his chest. You went easily and willingly, and nuzzled your nose into the hollow of his throat in the way that he loved and longed for on lonely nights in Pennsylvania.

Roman held your waist tight with one hand and brush your hair away from your neck to trace tender lines up and down your vertebrae. He felt a tremor quake through your body and smiled. He continued his ministrations until the doors opened to reveal the floor you were both staying on.

You let Roman lead you to his suite with no hesitation and let him worship your body for a majority of the night. And later, you let him feed you ice cream in a hot tub and you let him snuggle your naked form so he could go to sleep.

Indulging in Roman Godfrey always had its bitterness, but as he laid sleepy kisses across the expanse of your skin, you thought made the sweetness was worth it.

#I hope you like it!#I haven’t written anything good in a long time so yeah anyways lmao #this got long #roman godfrey x reader #roman godfrey imagine #stevesharrlngtonswrites

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dafukdidiwatch · 4 years

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Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Damn they went really hard on this.

This is probably one of the best Frankenstein adaptations out there. Like hands down. I don't think they missed a single part of what the original novel told, and still managed to add more in to further emphasis the message.

When they added in more material, it wasn't like the director was trying to put in tgeir own agenda to it. More like it was filling the gaps of what was said. Frankenstein is a short ass novel, and even Mary Shelly danced around certain points to get to the real meat of the story. So Victor's college life was shown. His relationship with Elizabeth was shown. Even using historical diseases to embellish the roles of the doctors back then and the mistrust of science. That was a good touch. Hell two of my favorite additions they did was showing the death of Victor's mother, and why Victor was telling the captain this at the beginning of the movie. They were important to the story yes, but the movie really drives it home on why.

I was just,in the zone while this is playing. Which is great because even while I know the story I can still get swept up in their failures and triumphs. But it also sucks ass because I know how the story ends. It ends in tragedy. So in the back of my mind I'm just thinking "oh shit you cute as hell....to bad you're going to die."

Which is mean as hell when both William and Elizabeth were fucking dressed in red when Victor returns. Like, why,do,you do this to me movie? Why?

Ok, so, it was mentioned in the book, and in a technical sense it would still be ok....but having a brother and sister marrying each other is still buck wild I'm sorry. They literally went with the same excuse used in hentai here. Like she flat out said "no longer will you love me like a sister" and I'm just like Uuuuhhhhhhh. Yes, she has no biological relation! But at the same time! They lived together since they were kids for at least 10 years here! That's weird as shit! They fucking called each other siblings!! That's WEIRDER as shit!!

And the worst part is that the movie made it as romantic as possible. They got cute dates and tender moments and oh so in love. But they ToTaLlY don't shy away from the fact that two siblings fell in love.

The aesthetic is actually very good in this film too. Like everything outside looks old and historical. Dramatic stairs with no railings for Dramatic Moments™. And the mad science creating life look had this steam punk vibes to it which makes more sense. It takes more than just slapping pieces together and getting a lightning strike. There is a steampunk process here. A rube-goldburg of playing god. Fits very well.

The Monster is also just so sympathetic. God I couldn't help but pity him. Just abandoning him to the world and seeing him trying to learn on his own. It still doesn't excuse the murder mind you, but it still justifies his need for revenge.

God one of my favorite moments is when The Monster confronts Victor in the mountains. They had this great philosophical debate on who The Monster is. Does he have a soul? Is he his own being, or a conglomerate of others? Is he as human as Victor, which reversal: is Victor as much of a monster as him? Just a good scene and good threats and I'm pretty sure they used dialogue from the book which makes it better.

And the end, I think that was the biggest twist of them all. The climax is the one thing the movie took and turned for itself. All for the better too.

*Major End Spoilers*

So The Monster frames Justine so she can die and he can get his zombie girlfriend. Evil. In the book, Victor totally made the Monster Girlfriend and was just about to flip the switch when he goes "oh fuck I can't do this! I can be responsible for then and their kids! Fuck this!" and just destroys everything. Which, I get. But the movie! What they do is Victor just nopes out as soon as he sees Justine. He can't! Strangers, morgues, he'll he had to convince himself that using the brain of his teacher was a necessary evil. But to completely do it to his childhood friend? Someone he knows and cares for? Yep. He still retains that little little bit of humanity. Or at the very least, he still has some line he couldn't cross.

Then this gets real good because the twists keeps coming. When The Monster kills Elizabeth, Victor actually tries to revive her! And it was so heartbreaking because they were just together. They were just married, and you just see Victor lose it and in his grief thinks he can fix it and regain her again. Which hurts so much to watch, because A) that's not her, not really and B) even if it was she wouldn't want that, she didn't choose that. The desperation he had reminded me a lot like Pet Semetary.

But uh oh, in the midst of Victor's breakdown, The Monster returns! And is here for Elizabeth! A Twist! Victor did the thing The Monster wanted anyway. And all it took was murder. So now they are fucking fighting over her like a dog trying to entice her to their side. And Elizabeth just snaps. I think she remembered enough to know that she shouldn't be here, and Victor revived her, and just ends it all. She kills herself via fire and burns the place down. Which honestly? She makes her choice, not to be trapped in the desires of the other two. This is something she did for herself. So I don’t blame her, even if it is tragic.

*Major End Spoilers End*

Basically this movie is perfect. Best. 10/10 would recommend. Absolutely watch the hell out of this movie. If there is anyone who can’t read the novel because it was written in Ye Olde Timey Lingo give them this movie because it literally explains everything the book is in the best way possible. The brother/sister thing is still WeIrD aS fUcK but it is still a hell good adaptation and a hella good movie. Perfect for Halloween and is now one of my favorite movies period.

#dafukblog #Mary Shelley's Frankenstein #frankenstein #frankenstein 1994 #robert de niro #helena bonham carter #Kenneth Branagh #dafuk #Dafuking Films #week 31 movie

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thequeerhistorian · 4 years

Text

Mary Wollstonecraft, Mother of the Mary’s

For centuries, women have fought for the right to a proper education. History shows that noble or upper-class women were the only women allowed to get any sort of learning, and as history has continued, there has been a greater fight to give all girls the right to a proper education. One of the most notable women in this fight is Mary Wollstonecraft, an English woman who would fight tooth-and-nail for the education of girls and would not hold back against her male opponents. But to understand Mary’s importance to history, as with anyone, we must take a look at her life to see what led to her trailblazing fight for women’s education.

Mary Wollstonecraft was born in Primrose Street, London, on April 27th, 1759. She was the 2nd of 7 children, and the eldest daughter, to her father, Edward, and her mother, Elizabeth Dickson, an Irish Protestant, though Mary’s life was anything but a primrose path. Edward Wollstonecraft was an abusive bully, who seemed to leave a trail of failed work behind him. His father had been a successful silk merchant from Spitalfields, and left Mary’s father at least 10,000 pounds, which he squandered in failed farming ventures. His failures took him to six different places in Britain, until 1780, when her mother died. This would not be the last time Mary is faced with death, or failed marriages.

After losing her mother, Mary decided to make her way in the world. She lived with her lifelong friend, Fanny, and in 1783, Mary helped her sister escape an abusive marriage, and kept her safe, while the divorce was finalized. The three girls, together, decided to build a school in Newington Green, which failed financially. After this, Fanny left for Lisbon, got married and became pregnant. She begged Mary to come visit and Mary arrived in Lisbon to Fanny in premature labor. Sadly, Mary would have to watch her dear friend, and Fanny’s newborn baby, die on the same night, in 1785. All of this would likely culminate in Mary’s less than happy view of marriage and motherhood. Mary was surrounded by women who died for motherhood and were repeatedly failed by men who were supposed to love and support them. Mary also supposedly mimicked Fanny’s death in one of her later novels. (Mary, A Fiction)

Mary would end up leaving the school to go to Ireland, which is when the young writer found herself employed as a governess in Co. Cork, Ireland, in 1786 for Lord and Lady Kingsborough. Mary taught their three daughters and was just beginning to make way as a writer. She had already submitted her first book, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, a series of essays, to Joseph Johnson. Her essays would be published in 1787. During her stay, Mary would begin working on her book, Mary, A Fiction (1788).

Upon her return to London, Mary began working for Joseph Johnson again, creating more writings and growing her literary prowess. She wrote her next book, Original Stories from Real Life; with Conversations, calculated to Regulate the Affections, and Form the Mind to Truth and Goodness (1788) and The Female Reader; Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose and Verse; Selected from the Best Writers and Disposed under Proper Heads; for the Improvement of Young Women (1789) created under the nom de plume, Mr. Cresswick, teacher of Elocution.

I find it telling that even as a woman with growing knowledge of literature and the education of young girls, she felt the best way to get people to truly listen to her was to take the appearance of a man. After all, despite Wollstonecraft’s lack of a formal education, she had gained quite a vast knowledge on these subjects. Considering the school she created, her work as a governess, her work with Johnson that led to her getting to rub shoulders with men like William Blake and Godwin, as well as having direct access to review and translate the works of men like Jacques Necker, Reverend C.G. Salzmann, and Madame de Cambon from Dutch, French, and German. Even with what little she had, she was a woman of great intelligence and knowledge in these fields.

Mary was also not afraid to go toe-to-toe with writers of the day. She was a staunch supporter of the French Revolution for their egalitarian views (though this support would pointedly end during the Reign of Terror) and wrote a scathing response to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France which would become her book, A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790). Two years later, Mary wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman which included an equally scathing response to Jean-Jacque Rousseau’s book on education, Emile, which included the story of a boy and his learning through experiences in nature, while in the same book, discussing a little girl who could not learn or understand like Emile could because she was a girl. Wollstonecraft likens him to a barbarian and calls his beliefs “madness”. She believed there was no reason a girl shouldn’t be taught as a boy would.

Perhaps Wollstonecraft’s growing attack against her counterparts shows her determination to stand up for girls and their education. After all, Mary would have particularly strong feelings, considering she had to watch her brother get a formal education while she and her siblings were pushed aside. After all, she worked just as hard, if not harder, than these men, so why shouldn’t she? I also find it interesting that while she worked with many of the more respected of her time, Mary’s name tends to be the one we know better over many of these men.

The same year Mary published her most well-known book, she met Captain Gilbert Imlay, whom she began an affair with and had a daughter. She named the girl Fanny after her childhood best friend. Mary would make a note to continue writing as she raised her daughter, but this romance would not last long. Imlay would turn on Mary and abandon her and their daughter, leaving Mary distraught and alone. She attempted suicide, but was luckily saved, and she would soon fall in love with her old friend, William Godwin. The two married and Mary gave birth to their daughter, also named Mary, but this would not be such a happy time. Despite Mary wanting a midwife who would be more experienced, Mary was put under the care of a doctor who mishandled a minor surgery that would lead to Mary’s death, eleven days after the birth of her daughter, who would go on to be as great a writer as her mother. Mary would die at the age of 38, never truly knowing the daughter who would follow in her mother’s path of literary skill.

Mary wrote eight books in total, one being published after her death. Mary was a woman of wit and fire, who as she learned, would become less and less apologetic about her opinions for women’s right to equal education, and how they should be taught to be independent and how a lack of education would lead to future generations not receiving the schooling they needed. She was a woman who would inspire future generations to fight for women’s equality and education. I studied Mary’s works through a class, “Women in Modern Europe” my sophomore year and after all we learned, I rather wish we got to see Mary Shelley grow up with her mother. I can only imagine the incredible things those two women would have accomplished together.

Links to Sources:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/84

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wollstonecraft/#Bio

https://www.biography.com/scholar/mary-wollstonecraft

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/mary-wollstonecraft-britains-first-feminist/zkpk382

#womenempowerment #mary wollstonecraft #girlpower #girl positivity #women in writing #education #girlseducation #women in history

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melodiouswhite · 4 years

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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde rewritten - Ch. 49

49. Her Ladyship's strange and remarkable Friends (tw: bad French and mention of violence and gore)

Just a few days later, Lady Summers informed them, that her old friends would be happy to meet them on Sunday. But they would have to come to them, as they had no housekeeper and couldn't leave their house alone.

Lanyon had major issues with permitting the Lady to travel across London in her state. It had been only three weeks since the incident and she was still very fragile.

But it was quite impossible to talk her out of this, so he gave up. He did however ask the coachman to drive as carefully as possible.

“Don' worry, Doc”, the Irishman replied gruffly, “My drivin' won't be the problem 'ere.”

This didn't make Lanyon feel better in the slightest, but he said nothing more.

And so it came that on Sunday, Lady Summers and the male quartet were on their merry way to Soho of all places and apparently not far away from where Hyde lived.

Of course Lanyon's greatest worry was that his Lady was fine. But deep down … he had to admit that he was curious.

He really wanted to meet those childhood friends she had been talking about so much lately.

After a while, the coach stopped and they got off.

Lanyon was surprised to see that they were standing in front of a corner bookshop, that seemed to share the building with a surgery. The house was in good shape and looked a bit out of place among all the other buildings that were anything but.

He read the sign above the door.

Flamel & Wife – Bookshop and Library, est. 1865

Antiquary books, textbooks and school utensils

And right next to it:

Dr. Faust, surgery

“Huh. I do know that house”, Hyde stated, “I bought a few books here. The bookseller was a Frenchman and he was really-”

“He's one of the friends I'm going to introduce you to”, Lady Summers told him.

Then she slowly stepped up to the door, but hesitated to ring.

“I seriously hope that they remembered”, she muttered, “Last time they thought I was someone else and the reception was … explosive.”

Lanyon swallowed and tried to ignore his sense of foreboding.

Now the Lady finally rang the bell.

Something moved inside and a chubby woman with auburn hair and brown eyes opened the door.

She recognised the Lady, gasped in delight and called something over her shoulder further into the house.

“Careful, careful”, Lady Summers told her, when she wanted to hug her, “I'm having a sick phase.”

The auburn-haired woman frowned. “Oh mon dieu! Je suis désolée¹!”

Lanyon's attention was up. That had to be the French proprietress.

Lady Summers stepped to the side, so the other woman could see her company.

“Perenelle, these gentlemen are-”

“Tell us all at once”, the other responded. “Entrez! Les autres vous attendent²!”

“Perenelle, speak English”, the Prussian reminded her. “Only two of my companions are fluent in French.”

Sheepishly, the Frenchwoman apologised and let them in.

About time, Lanyon thought. It's pretty rude to wait that long to invite people in.

“Cut them some slack”, Lady Summers responded telepathically, “They don't have guests that often and are quite apprehensive.”

The four men were lead into the parlour, which was a bit cluttered, but otherwise cosy enough.

A gaunt, platinum blond man with silvery eyes and a pince-nez fetched a few extra chairs. “Do sit down”, he invited them. That had to be the bookseller Hyde had mentioned.

And sure enough, they recognised each other.

“Monsieur Flamel”, Hyde spoke. “Quel plaisir de vous revoir³.”

“Mister 'yde”, the man returned. “Fancy seeing you again.”

Their tone was cool and they didn't look as pleased, as they claimed. Then again, no one was pleased to meet Hyde and the brunette naturally reflected the antipathy he was met with.

Then the man named Mr. Flamel turned to them. “Welcome, gentlemen. I'm Nicolas Flamel, the landlord and owner of the bookshop in the front and the small library upstairs. This-” He pointed at the auburn-haired woman, “-is ma merveilleuse épouse⁴, Perenelle.”

Lanyon tried to recall, where he had heard those names before, but then Jekyll solved the riddle for him.

“Nicolas Flamel?”, he cried, “The Nicolas Flamel? The man who is said to have found the philosophers' stone?!”

Oh. Now Lanyon remembered, but-

What the hell?! That man lived 500 years ago!

The Frenchman chuckled. “I'm surprised you know me. People aren't that interested in alchemy these days.”

Jekyll blushed a little. “I am”, he admitted quietly.

The other man, who was tending to the fire, paused. “Really? How nice! I'm an alchemist myself. Everyone in this house is, actually.”

The man was stocky and thin, had unkempt, ginger hair, a crooked nose and sharp blue-grey eyes with slight bags and frowning wrinkles. He gave Lady Summers a warm smile and said something in German to her.

She laughed: “Good to see you too, Johann. Gentlemen, this is Prof. Dr. Johann Georg Faust. Yes, that Dr. Faust”, she added, when she saw their incredulous faces.

They just had time to introduce themselves, before Hyde suddenly barked: “You! I remember you! You're the doctor I was forced to pay, when-”

“You trampled a little girl”, Dr. Faust finished icily. “Well, if it isn't Mr. Hyde! It's not a pleasure to see you again.”

“Likewise!”, Hyde hissed, “You wanted to kill me!”

The ginger-haired doctor looked at him scornfully. “I didn't try to. Besides, what kind of reaction would you expect after walking over a little girl like she's a dirty rug!”

“Well, what was that brat doing out there in the middle of the night to begin with?!”

“Running from a creep her parents had sold her to! I know that, because-”

“I don't bloody care-”

“Don't lie to me! I have the same ability as Luise and some more. And if I didn't know what happened to you since then, I would-”

“What would you do?”, the brunette snarled. “Turn me into an animal?”

“Why not, I bet you'd make a beautiful cat-”

“Please!”, Jekyll cried, startling them, “This is not the moment to argue about this!”

“He's right. Pull yourselves together, girls! You're both pretty!”, Lady Summers agreed firmly.

The two squabblers stared at her. “GIRLS???”

“And please don't turn him into a cat, Johann. You know I'm allergic to them. Außerdem hat er viel gelernt in den letzten Monaten⁵.”

Lanyon stared at Dr. Faust in horror. “So what Marlowe and Goethe wrote about you is true?!”

Dr. Faust shook his head. “It's not. Don't wreck your brain, Dr. Lanyon.” A mischievous smirk. “I don't need a demon to do the fantastic! Do you want to see-”

“No, I do not want to see it! I've seen enough witchcraft in one year! This is too much!”, Lanyon spat angrily. Then awareness of his tone set in and he apologised: “I'm sorry. How rude of me.”

Dr. Faust shook his head. “It's fine. I'm accustomed to worse.”

Then he smiled lopsidedly. “I'm stoked to meet you. Not to sound offensive, but … you three went to school and finished it. So far I've been the only one!”

The Flamels coughed in the background.

“Oh shut up, you two have been home-schooled!”

Jekyll frowned. “Not to sound offended, but what is that supposed to mean?”

Two more men entered the room.

Dr. Faust sighed and pointed at one of them. “This is what.”

The one he pointed at was a peaked boy with long hair, glasses and amber eyes. He looked young, but his black hair was greying and tied up in a messy pony tail.

The other was huge (not smaller than 8ft), had yellowish, nigh transparent skin, creepy yellowish eyes, a black mane of hair and looked more like a huge rag doll than a living man.

“Oh, they're here! Hello, everyone”, the boy said, “It's a pleasure to meet you. Luise told us so much about you-”

“Did you clean up the mess?”, Dr. Faust asked.

“Yes, Doctor. I did.”

“Next time think twice, before you make a mess in my lab, do you understand me?”

“Yes, I do”, the boy said duly, but looked a bit agitated at being talked to like a child.

But Mr. Flamel jumped to his aid: “I don't see 'ow you're one to admonish 'im about making a mess, Jean. Do you remember that one time you almost blew up my bookshop in Paris?”

“That was 200 years ago and an accident! You can't still be angry about that!”

The Frenchman's silvery eyes narrowed.

“… I guess you can.”

Meanwhile the boy turned to Jekyll: “I'm Victor Frankenstein.”

Jekyll gasped: “What a surprise! I read the novel by Mary Shelley, but I didn't think that I would ever meet you! Charmed!”

Oh! The novel 'Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus' by Mrs. Shelley! Henry loves that one!

Victor blushed awkwardly. “Likewise. You must be Dr. Lanyon?”

“No, that's me”, Lanyon spoke up sourly.

Frankenstein blushed. “Oh! Oh Heavens, I'm so sorry! I didn't think-”

Dr. Faust facepalmed and groaned: “Of course you'd assume that Luise would love the man you would find most handsome in that group!” (Jekyll blushed) “Stop stuttering and introduce to them what you made!”

“Right, sure. This-” He pointed at the giant, “-is my creature.”

“His homunculus”, Dr. Faust corrected cuttingly, “And he has a name.”

Lady Summers stood up slowly and introduced the creature. “That's Adam. Johann named and adopted him – sort of – because Victor doesn't want to deal with him.”

It was Hyde, who first stepped forward, looking up at the giant in wonder. The creature named Adam stared back. Then he knelt down and Hyde placed one of his small, bony hands onto one huge knee. He looked even tinier and more fragile next to the black-haired giant.

Lanyon could tell in their eyes, that they were recognising each other, seeing the fellow artificial creation in each other, the suffering companion. There was something heart-rending and intimate about it and the bespectacled doctor had to hold back tears, when the two hugged each other (awkwardly, as Hyde wasn't used to giving affection, while the other seemed unused to getting it).

From the corner of his eye, he could see Mrs. Flamel wipe her eyes with a handkerchief.

Dr. Faust looked mollified at their interaction, seemed like he really cared about the giant.

After a while Jekyll joined his other half and held out his hand. “It's a pleasure to meet you, Sir”, the blond said kindly. “I'm Dr. Jekyll. I'm his creator.”

Jekyll placed the other hand on Hyde's shoulder and rubbed it gently.

The giant blinked. Then carefully took the offered hand and replied: “The pleasure is mine.”

Lanyon and Utterson exchanged a glance, before following suit and introducing themselves.

“So, we 'eard about what 'appened at the royal gala”, Mr. Flamel brought up later.

Hyde and Adam were sitting in the library, while the rest of the group was still in the parlour, having tea and cakes.

“Such a barbaric thing to do to a lady. Seeing you in such a state around this time of the year, when you're normally fine … 'ow bad was it three weeks ago, right after it 'appened?”

“It was awful”, Lanyon told him, before the Lady could answer. “We needed to give her two transfusions, because she was suffering from severe anaemia …” He felt a lump in his throat and had to turn away to regain his composure. “I'm sorry”, he apologised.

Lady Summers grabbed his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

But Mr. Flamel shook his head. “Why apologise for love and care? It's the most wonderful thing in the world. And we don't just feel this way because we're French.”

Mrs. Flamel took her husband's hand and gazed at him lovingly. “We've been married for 518 years”, she told them.

“That's wonderful”, Jekyll replied, “I wish I had such a wonderful relationship.”

“You will”, Dr. Faust suddenly spoke up, “But you need to learn an important lesson.”

The blond doctor frowned at him. “And that would be?”

“To be careful with how you speak to and about the ones you love and, most importantly, consider the feelings of others!”, the ginger told him bluntly.

Lanyon could tell that Jekyll was offended and about to make a snappy retort. But a gentle look from Utterson silenced and pacified the angry scientist.

They all knew that Dr. Faust was right, but it was wiser not to say that out loud.

Still though, how the hell does that man know?

The eerie alchemist answered aloud: “I already told you, I have the same ability as Luise and some more. I can also predict the future and perform necromancy, but I don't use that to earn my livelihood these days. I'm tired of people insulting or trying to kill me.”

“Necromancy?”, Lanyon repeated, “You raise the dead?!”

Dr. Faust frowned. “No. No spell in the world can really bring back the dead, even though Victor here would love to tell you otherwise. I can only conjure their spirits and question them. And that alone is something that shouldn't be done.”

“Have people ever asked you to do it?”, Utterson asked curiously.

“Of course!”, the alchemist groaned, “In fact, it happens quite a lot lately. It's always the same kind of people. They can't get closure over the death of a loved one and want to get them back. This is so boring and tiring, that I just send them away. If they have an actually good reason and can pay accordingly, only then I consider it, maybe!”

“Uhm …”

Everyone startled, when Victor Frankenstein spoke up.

Right. That lad was still there too. He was looking at Jekyll in fascination. “So … you're in love?”

The blond Doctor blinked. But then he nodded and smiled. “Yes. I certainly am.”

Frankenstein tilted his head. “But you're not married. I see no ring on your finger.”

Jekyll shrugged.

Of course he could have replied something the likes of: “I would, if I could.” or “It's illegal”. But then he would have given away that he was loving another man (or two, because Lanyon was quite sure, that Jekyll loved Hyde as well) and that was more than dangerous these days.

Both Lanyon and Utterson knew that and that's why they weren't offended by his apparent nonchalance.

The Flamels and Dr. Faust seemed to get the hint as well, because they made no remark either.

But Frankenstein began to pry: “Who is it? The black-haired lawyer sitting-?”

Dr. Faust promptly elbowed him. “Shut up, Victor. It's none of our business, who he loves and it doesn't matter anyway.”

“But I want to know how their-”

“It's none of our business!”, the alchemist growled, “And even if it was, you wouldn't understand the emotional depth of it.”

The black-haired boy glared back at him. “How are you one to talk? In the 400 years of your life, you've never once been in love!”

“Neither have you”, the ginger-haired man retorted. “You claim that you were in love with Elisabeth, but you never confided in her, never were there for her, when she would have needed it and on top of that, you left her alone on your wedding night. Everyone in this room can tell you, that this has nothing to do with love and it's not how you treat someone you care about.”

The others nodded affirmatively.

But Faust wasn't finished yet – in fact, he seemed to be just getting started.

“And don't even get me started on how you treated your creature. You animated him and ran away, because you didn't like his eyes. And you still insult him and call him a monster, ugly and other charming things like that. I would have preferred dying over treating my little Gretchen like that, when she was alive.”

That caught Lanyon's attention. “So your alleged mistress was actually your daughter?”

“Mhm. My little sunshine she was!”

“'E was a good father too”, Mr. Flamel spoke up, “'E took good care of 'er.”

Dr. Faust smiled warmly. “She really was the best person in the world. But then she fell in love, married and decided to grow old and live a normal life with her family. Of course it broke my heart, when she died and I still really miss her sometimes. But she was happy and that's all I could ask for as a father.”

He pointed at an oil painting at the wall. “That's her. Nicolas painted that.”

It was the full body portrait of a beautiful, blond woman with grey eyes and rosy cheeks.

“She doesn't look anything like you”, Utterson pointed out.

“Oh, that's because I only adopted her. I met her shortly, after I had faked my death in 1541, when I was moving around with the Flamels (we were already a group back then) and she was sitting at the side of a road, begging for alms. She just looked so pathetic, I had to do something. That's how I got myself a daughter.”

“When did you become immortal?”, Jekyll asked curiously.

The German alchemist shrugged. “When I was 38 years old. Then I met the Flamels on a trip to Heidelberg and after some persuasion, they agreed to teach me how to make a Philosophers' Stone. For a while I could conceal that I wasn't ageing. There was no registry back then and as a wandering Doctor, I was always on the move. However … I was very famous in a lot of territories of the Holy Roman Empire, so it was only a matter of time, before someone would question my age. So I created a puppet, that looked like me and caused an explosion. It worked perfectly, they thought the Devil had claimed me.” He shook his head. “Of course I had to go into hiding after that. But I still nearly got killed countless times. Got accused of some vile stuff I don't even want to take into my mouth.”

“To their defence, Johann”, Lady Summers remarked. “You're rather unheimlich⁶.”

She had a point there.

Dr. Faust was obviously brilliant and charming in a gruff way, but he also seemed paranoid, difficult and – to put it politely – borderline creepy. Something was just off about him. Not as extreme as with Hyde, but it was unsettling.

Like Jekyll's science.

Yes, that was it. The aura of alchemy and dark magic was just oozing off him.

Totally someone people would pin to have a deal with the devil.

Suddenly Lanyon remembered, how Lady Summers had said that the two would get along famously. And he realised that she might be right.

“I can't decide, if I should be flattered or offended”, Faust drily responded to his inner musings.

The hoary doctor blushed at being caught red-handed.

The ginger-haired man turned back to Jekyll. “Are you interested in becoming immortal?”

That caught the Flamels' and Frankenstein's attention and they looked at the blond expectantly.

Jekyll considered the question.

But then he exchanged a look with both Lanyon and Utterson.

He smiled and shook his head. “No. I don't think I could handle watching my loved ones die, while I live for centuries. I don't want that. I'm fine with living a normal life, as long as the people I care about are in it.”

Lanyon grinned; he wouldn't have expected any other answer from their mad scientist.

Utterson smiled fondly, a rare thing to see in public.

Lanyon didn't need his Lady's telepathic abilities to know that the two men's feet were touching under the table.

These two silly lovebirds.

“That's coming from you?”, Dr. Faust's voice suddenly sounded in his head, nearly making him jump, “You call Luise your 'radiant angel' and you're her 'dear doctor'! So shush!”

Said Lady glared at her old friend. “Johann, stop that! The only one who's allowed to invade his mind is me!”

He laughed and stood to make a bow. “Of course. Do forgive me, oh Marchioness of Brandenburg, Princess of Hanover and Countess of Calenberg and Cornwall. Will I be granted mercy?”

“One last time, you lowly commoner”, she responded playfully.

The Flamels and Frankenstein chuckled.

Now Utterson spoke up again: “If you don't mind, ladies and gentlemen: how did you meet?”

The alchemist group and the mad scientist frowned.

It was Frankenstein, who answered: “Well, somehow that evil organisation found out about us and kidnapped us; that is, me and the Flamels. We were experimented on for weeks, they took quite a lot of our blood – to experiment on the samples, probably. One day they carried a half-dead ten-year-old girl into our cell. And that was Luise. That's how we met her. Dr. Faust and the Wre-” (he corrected himself, when Dr. Faust glowered at him) “-Adam came to free us. The Doctor blew up whole parts of the building and was totally shocked, when he saw the ill little girl with us.”

The ginger-haired man nodded. “Yes. But she wasn't too ill to get enthusiastic, when she looked into my mind and knew who I was. Seriously, I've never seen a little girl so happy to meet me.”

Lady Summers blushed and laughed awkwardly. “I'd never heard about the Flamels until I met them, but I had already read Goethe's Faust and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, so I was ecstatic to meet the men themselves – that's just how children are.”

Lanyon almost laughed at the Flamels' wry smiles and Dr. Faust's cocky grin.

He hadn't expected their visit to Lady Summers' old friends to be so strange, long or entertaining.

All the time their hosts had been nothing but friendly and well-mannered and Dr. Faust had quickly warmed up, when he had concluded that none of them meant harm to their mind-reading friend.

He even became friendlier to Hyde, after seeing how harmoniously the brunette and Adam interacted.

In fact, when the group came to pick the gremlin up, they found him dozing in the giant's lap.

Adam put a hand to his mouth as a sign to be quiet.

Jekyll broke into a huge smile, crossed the room silently and brought a gentle hand to Hyde's pale cheek.

“Hyde?”, he spoke, just barely above a whisper, “Hyde. Wake up.”

Lanyon saw those bilious green eyes slowly open and blink.

“Huh? Already time to go?”, he mumbled sleepily.

“I'm afraid so”, Jekyll replied and turned to Adam: “Sir, give him back to me, please. We have to go home.”

The giant was obviously extremely unwilling to let go of his “brother”, but Jekyll looked so friendly, asked so nicely and seemed to be so fond of Hyde (and he was, Lanyon knew that), that he finally gave in.

With a chuckle, the blond helped his alter ego up and helped him put on his coat.

“Let's go home, my dear other half”, he said fondly.

Hyde appeared too drowsy to really register it and just leaned into him.

They all said their goodbyes and left.

Of course not before Dr. Faust had threatened to blow Lanyon to bits, should he ever break Lady Summers' heart.

“I have nothing to fear, then”, the hoary man had calmly retorted, before saying goodbye and seeing himself out.

Jekyll and Hyde had been the first to get off the coach, when Mr. O'Connor had dropped them off one by one.

Something had concerned Lanyon though.

“Have you noticed something about Hyde?”, he asked the other two.

Utterson nodded. “Yes. He was so quiet, ever since he first saw Mr. Adam. And just now he was so clingy towards Jekyll. That's so unlike him. Something is making him upset and I wish I could do something about it. You have seen it, right, Milady? You know the answer, you have seen it inside his head!”

“Of course I have. But I'm not going to tell.”

Both men were frustrated.

But they knew: her silence meant that this was a matter between Jekyll and Hyde.

---

1) French: Oh my god! I’m sorry!

2) French: Come in! The others are waiting for you!

3) French: What a pleasure to see you again.

4) French: my marvellous wife

5) German: Besides, he’s learned a lot in the last months.

6) German: the feeling that something is off, without being unable to pitpoint it; uncanny valley; strange at best, a subtle kind of creepy/eerie at worst (sorry, I couldn’t contain myself XD)

Edit: I corrected the French grammar mistakes, in case it wasn’t clear. One of my followers was so nice as to point them out to me.

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x--daughters-of-darkness--x · 5 years

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HALESTORM's LZZY HALE Praises Teenage Climate Activist GRETA THUNBERG: You Are 'Our Modern-Day JOAN OF ARC'

HALESTORM's Lzzy Hale has praised Greta Thunberg as "our modern-day Joan of Arc," saying that the teenage climate activist is "sitting at a round table of young women who have inspired and shaped humanity."

The Swedish teenager has gained international media attention in recent months for her outspoken activism on climate change, including delivering an impassioned speech to the United Nations Climate Action Summit calling out world leaders for not responding to the climate crisis with more urgency.

President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly voiced skepticism about climate changere, shared video of Thunberg's speech on Twitter, and above it wrote, sarcastically, that "she seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!"

Earlier today, Lzzy took to social media to share a photo of Thunberg at the U.N. podium and included the following message: "Our modern day Joan of Arc. @gretathunberg Thank you for your candor, grace,logic and beautiful anger. Wield your sword. You are sitting at a round table of young women who have inspired and shaped humanity."

Hale went on to name a few other children who made a positive difference in the world through words and actions, including Ruby Bridges, Anne Frank, Malala Yousafzai, Claudette Colvin, Audrey Faye Hendricks and Mary Shelley.

Thunberg seemingly took Trump's slight in stride. Earlier today, she updated her Twitter bio to read: "A very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future."

In her speech to the U.N., Thunberg said: "This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean.

"Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet, I'm one of the lucky ones.

"People are suffering. People are dying and dying ecosystems are collapsing.

"We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth.

"How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you're doing enough when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight," she said. "You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency, but no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act then you would be evil, and that I refuse to believe."

#lzzy hale #Halestorm

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modernlcve · 5 years

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* — stats — tatum cohen !

* — basics !

full name: tatum mackenzie cohen. nickname(s): her dad called her Tatum Tot and yeah she hated it but. what can u do age: twenty. date of birth: january fifth. place of birth: carina bay, north carolina. gender: female. pronouns: she / her. sexual orientation: lesbian. level of education: high school graduate. pursuing a degree in geology + geography.

* — physical !

tattoos: none. piercings: ears pierced once. notable features: she’s bleached her hair to feel alive if even for a fleeting moment. weakness(es): half gremlin. scar(s): none.

* — domestic !

occupation: student. waitress. residence: she stills lives at home. social class: idk i should ask but . parents: she shares a mom with the rhodes siblings, i feel like we’ve Covered her story. her dad, dave cohen, lives in charlotte and hasn’t been in carina for a hot minute. siblings: the whole gang. in addition, her dad has two kids with his wife, another two half brothers, ethan and mason, middle schoolers she frankly can’t connect with. extended family: yeah this is one i could consult for but i feel like if there’s any discernible family she probably avoids them too.

* — personality !

positive traits: disciplined. resourceful. sincere. negative traits: jaded. harsh. reclusive. myers-briggs ( x ): istj; the logistician. temperament: choleric. moral alignment: neutral good. horoscope: capricorn, the sea goat. hogwarts house: slytherin.

* — favorites !

movie: donnie darko. tv show: true detective. book: frankenstein by mary shelley. drink: blue powerade. food: literally any pasta. animal: seals. color: olive green. song: piece of my heart by janis joplin. artist: haim. celebrity crush: rosario dawson.

* — impressions !

first impression: she’s defensive. she knows her family has a reputation, she knows she has a reputation. she knows that all proceeds her, and she tries to assert herself beyond all that right from the get go. its why she comes off as an asshole ( asides from her just being an asshole ). self impression: she genuinely does have a superiority complex over a lot of people In Town. she thinks she’s smart and capable and will be able to handle herself when she’s finally out, but first she’s just got to get out. lover impression: no clue. she’s really in a place where she’s not Mature enough to have a real relationship. just messing around she could probably handle, but she’s too selfish to actually be a Partner to someone.

* — et cetera !

turn ons: quick wits, ambition. intelligence. turn offs: if she deems you Vapid you’re Out. drink/drugs/smoke: yes/no/no. dominant hand: right. clean or messy: clean. early bird or night owl: night owl. hobbies or special talents: she can do a back handspring.

* — QUESTIONNAIRE !

01. where was your character born? what brought them to carina? what do they like most about the town?

tatum was born in carina. she doesn’t want to stay, but she’s sticking around for the time being, while she finishes her degree. the biggest perk at this point is living this close to the beach: she’s not a complete monster, she likes spending afternoons out by the ocean and taking long reflective walks around to Center herself.

02. who are your character’s friends and family? who do they surround themselves with? who are the people your character is closest to?

we know the Situation w/ her moms part of the family. of everyone there, i think she considers herself closest to bristol, she grew up really admiring her even if she was too big of a bitch to actually let her actions and words reflect that. when she was little, she saw her dad at least monthly for a good while, but when she was twelve, he got married, and started a family with his life. tatum became an afterthought and it’s just another thing on the long list of reasons she’s permanently pissed off. she’s probably got friends but they’re pretentious and mean like her.

03. what is your character’s biggest fear? who have they told this to? who would they never tell this to? why?

tatum’s biggest fear is that getting out of carina won’t magically make her life better. she worries that no matter where she is, maybe she’s just not likable or something, or that she’ll continue to fall into situations where she makes reasons for people to talk about her behind her back. she wants everything to fall into place after she moves away, but she has the lingering fear that it won’t be that easy. she hasn’t told his to anyone.

04. has your character ever been in love? had a broken heart?

tatum’s love life is virtually nonexistent. she’s never dated, never been the type to just fool around. she’s had crushes, the big wistful kind, but she’s too big of a debbie downer to ever act on them and too big of a negative nancy for any girl to have realized she was into them long enough to make the first move. it’s just not her top priority right now. she’ll settle for admiring girls from afar until she can get out of carina and do dating right.

her dad did break her heart a little though.

06. it’s saturday at noon. what is your character doing? give details.

she’s holed up in the library, either studying or just fucking around on the world wide web. she prefers posting up there for the day than hanging around the house, she finds it easier to focus or get a moment of silence to her fucking self if she’s there, or maybe loitering around a coffee shop.

07. what is one strong memory that has stuck with your character since childhood?

she genuinely does have fond memories of her big wild family. she doesn’t completely want them to choke. she remembers a dumb family backyard camping trip they went on when she was a kid. like most of her fond memories with her family, it was isolated from the town, a time when what everyone else in town thought didn’t matter, what mattered was who could tell the best scary story and bristol making sure nobody got 2 close 2 the fire when they made smores.

09. what is something that upsets your character? where do they go when they’re upset?

tatum is literally always upset. ol’ gal is an ace at finding something to bitch about do NOT underestimate her. as i’ve beat over ur head multiple times by now, she’s very preoccupied with reputation and people judging her unfairly. when she’s upset, she goes to the pier and fucks around a little, or, she goes to the library to simply power thru. she just doesn’t have the energy to really address every time shes upset. if she did, she’d never get anything done.

10. when your character thinks of their childhood kitchen, what smell do they associate with it? why?

whatever bristol’s go 2 meal was. while tatum got to be around for More of her mom’s good years than the older kids, she’s still just perfectly nestled in the middle enough to remember the bad times too. its one of the reasons bristol is the only motherfucker out here worth Respect.

#( tatum cohen. )#( stats. )

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cromulentbookreview · 6 years

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Menstruation!

Yes, that’s right, menstruation! Something half the world’s population experiences on a monthly basis - the regular discharge of blood and mucosal tissue from inner uterine lining through the vagina and...are all the dudes gone?

Sweet.

Let’s talk about Mackenzi Lee’s fiercely feminist follow-up to The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue: The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy!

“You’re trying to play a game designed by men. You’ll never win, because the deck is stacked and marked, and also you’ve been blindfolded and set on fire. You can work hard and believe in yourself and be the smartest person in the room and you’ll still get beat by the boys who haven’t two cents to rub together.” - From the ARC of The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy

For some reason, I have a terrible time writing about things I really, really like. I can go on and on about that one thing that I hate (and I do, often), but when I like something, I say “hey, I like that” and then not much else. My eloquence deserts me when I have to articulate why it is I love something beyond “aw man it’s the best” and then nothing else. Not sure why that is. What I do know is that I finished reading The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy on August 28th, actually, it was August 1. I know how dates work. I started writing a review as soon as I finished it, then just...didn’t. Perhaps it’s pure laziness. Perhaps its writer’s block. Perhaps it’s because I’m in the middle of another epic book binge (five books in, four to go, plus a novella and possibly an ARC of book 10!).

Whatever the reason, I’ve come back to this review over and over, determined to be clever and such, but...man it’s just harder to write about things you love versus the things you hate. It’s very easy to criticize (fun, too), but writing endless praise gets boring fast.

So how am I supposed to describe how much I love Mackenzi Lee’s books?

Mackenzi Lee’s works are the book equivalent of a warm, comforting hug. A hug delivered directly to your brain, with words. The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue was one of the best books I read last year, and its sequel does not disappoint in the slightest. Lady’s Guide is 100% pure feminist awesomeness. If you’ve ever been angered by the patriarchy, then this book is definitely for you.

Since praise is hard and complaining is fun, let me take a moment to complain.

All girls, all women, really, know how it is to feel “less-than” for simply being female. That shit starts the minute we’re born and it’s pervasive as fuck. It never stops. Even in a world where a family cannot survive on just one income, women are expected to work two jobs: one for pay, and one for free. Women are described not as people, but as extensions of others: “Wife”, “Mother”, “Girlfriend”, “Daughter” - as if that is all we are, and all we’re expected to be. (On a related note, I am so tired of books with titles that end with “wife”, “daughter”, “sister,” etc. Also, describing women as “girls.” Fuck that shit, I’m an adult, don’t you call me “girl.”). All the bad things that happen to women are our own fault somehow. Rather than teaching men not to attack women, women are expected to take every single precaution in the universe to protect themselves from men. A single “lapse”? Well, then, anything that a man does to you is your fault. Ladies, have you ever had to fake a hypothetical male partner in order to avoid being harassed? Because men would automatically respect a non-existent male before a real human female?

I am so fucking tired of all of that shit. I am so tired of women being blamed for every single bad thing that happens to them. I am so tired of men getting away with harassing, demeaning and belittling women. I am so tired of male authors saying shit like “Mary Shelley didn’t really write Frankenstein!” I am so tired of women’s accomplishments being treated as “less-than.” I am so tired of a woman’s value being equated with whether or not she has a husband or children. I am so tired of a woman’s worth being equated with her appearance. I am tired of being paid less for the same work my male coworkers do. I am so tired of job interviews with loaded questions meant to suss out whether or not you’re planning on taking maternity leave (because it’s illegal to ask if someone is planning on having kids, but perfectly OK to ask “what are your future plans?” wink wink). I am so tired of all of it. It’s bullshit. All of it is bullshit, and the fact that being a woman means fighting an uphill battle every goddamn day just makes me tired.

And all I’ve described above is just a fraction of the bullshit women of color experience. It’s the fucking worst.

This is why we need books like Lady’s Guide. The patriarchy might not be as visible or obviously terrible as it was in the 18th century, but it’s still here, and still as toxic as ever.

Ahem. Anyway. Ladies Guide! See, I can complain forever. When it comes to things I love I’m like “uh, I love it, you should read it” and that’s it.

Lady’s Guide takes place roughly a year after the end of Gentleman’s Guide - Felicity is living and working in a bakery in Edinburgh. She’s been trying, and mostly failing, to get accepted into medical school. But, this being the 18th century, and Felicity being a woman, she doesn’t get very far. After her coworker at the bakery proposes to her, dismissing Felicity’s desires for an education as nothing more than a phase, Felicity decides to take off and try again in London. She sets up shop with her brother and Percy, living happily ever after (because Monty/Percy forever, goddamn it!) and attempts to get into one of the London medical schools via subterfuge. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work out. Felicity is on the verge of giving up when one of the hospital’s more enlightened board members gives her the contact info for Alexander Platt - a trailblazer in the medical field and Felicity’s idol. Dr. Platt might just take a woman on as a student, but he’s all the way in Stuttgart...

...about to get married to Felicity’s childhood best friend, Johanna Hoffmann. Sounds like a perfect way for Felicity to ingratiate herself with Dr. Platt, right?

Except Johanna and Felicity had a falling out years ago. As kids, Felicity and Johanna loved exploring and science and getting dirty, but, as they got older, Johanna started showing more interest in “girly” things while Felicity’s interests never strayed. Nothing like that painful phase of adolescence where you look around and see that all your friends have changed, gotten into boys and makeup and all that shit, while all you want to do is read Tolkien and watch Sailor Moon...

Such a classic episode.

Anyway, Felicity decides to say “fuck it,” and head off to see Johanna in Stuttgart anyway, because this is her chance and she’s not going to throw away her shot.* So Felicity teams up with Sim, a friend of the pirates from Gentleman’s Guide, ditches Monty and Percy and heads off for the continent.

And if reuniting with an ex-best friend who you haven’t spoken to or seen in years isn’t awkward enough, meeting your hero, who is about to get married to said ex-best friend, is even worse. Like all heroes, Dr. Platt isn’t exactly everything Felicity thought he would be. And his upcoming marriage to Johanna isn’t exactly a love match on either side...

Lady’s Guide is not only a massive brain-hug, it’s existence-affirming. Felicity writes herself a message, one she returns to time and time again throughout the book, and something all women and girls should hear: You Deserve To Be Here. Yes. Yes you fucking do. Felicity deserves to attend medical school - but men block her path. She deserves to be her own woman, an intellectual, a scientist - all of that, without being scoffed at.

Lee also makes the point, throughout the book, that the patriarchy is not just men. Women perpetuate patriarchy as well by bullying and policing the behavior of other women. We’re kept down by our own infighting. We see this in the relationship between Felicity and Johanna, whose friendship fell apart because of their differing views on femininity. Felicity was keen to reject feminine trappings, like clothes, makeup, boys, etc., focusing instead on her books. Johanna wanted to embrace her femininity and be a scientist. Felicity looked down her nose at Johanna’s embrace of the traditionally feminine, and Johanna resented Felicity’s high-and-mighty-better-than-you attitude, and thus their childhood friendship fell apart.

The relationship between Johanna and Felicity and their views on femininity is very much like Sansa and Arya Stark. On the Sansa-Arya spectrum, Arya is all about rejecting traditional femininity - no frilly dresses or talk of marriage for Arya. No, she’s all about sword-fighting and vengeance and wearing other people’s faces as masks. Sansa, on the other end of the spectrum, embraces traditional Westerosi femininity, at first suffering it’s trappings, but then she learns to embrace it in another way. Sansa learns to wear her femininity like armor, and use it to her advantage. First, she uses it to survive in King’s Landing, where one wrong move would have gotten her killed, then she uses it to get the same thing Arya hopes to get with her assassin skills: vengeance. Independently, Sansa and Arya are both powerful women. Together? Aw, man. Shit’s going to go down.

I do have one nitpicky complaint, re: Lady’s Guide.

At one point, Johanna tells Sim: “I will drag you back to Bavaria by the ear and take you to court there if I must.”

OK, so in the novel, Johanna lives in Stuttgart. Stuttgart is in Baden-Württemberg, though so...why is Johanna threatening to drag Sim to Bavaria? In the early 1700s, Stuttgart was part of the Duchy of Württemberg which was definitely not in Bavaria. I’m not sure how the Swabians would take it if they were mistaken for Bavarians. Or vice-versa. And heaven forbid you mix up Bavaria and Franconia, even though Franconia is technically now a part of Bavaria…

Ok. Here’s the thing, though. Germany, as it is today didn’t exist until the 90s. The 1990s. Until then the 99.999999% of German history is trying to figure out the goddamned map. There was no unified “Germany” until 1871, and even then the borders didn’t mesh with what they are today. The area that we refer to as “Germany” historically was about 100,000,000 little Kingdoms/Grand Duchies/Duchies/Electorates/Principalities/city-states/what-have-yous tangled together by the Holy Roman Empire, until Napoleon kicked the Holy Roman Empire’s ass in 1805, leading to Francis II to dissolve the Empire in 1806 then it was the German Confederation with the same amount of Kingdoms/Grand Duchies/Duchies/Electorates/Principalities/city-states/what-have-yous … Jesus, just look at the maps. I mean, look at Baden-Württemberg in the 18th century alone!

I honestly don’t know how actual Germans sort this out. It’s easier to just be like “OK, we’re just going to start at 1871 and go forward, OK? Let’s just call everything that came before Germany and move on.”

Still, if you’re from Stuttgart and you show up in Bavaria to file a complaint, you’d probably get laughed at by a bunch of mustachioed dudes who’ve been drinking since 9 AM.

But really, that is my only complaint. Read The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy. If you pre-order it, you can get a bonus ebook epilogue to Gentleman’s Guide! So...go do that.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Everyone, women especially.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Assholes, men’s right’s activists.

RATING: 5/5

TOTALLY UNBIASED FANGIRL RATING: 5,000,000,000,000,000/5

RELEASE DATE: October 2, 2018

ANTICIPATION LEVEL FOR SEQUEL/CONTINUATIONS: Olympus Mons

AMOUNT OF TIME IT TOOK ME TO WRITE THIS RIDICULOUS REVIEW: 21 days. Hahaha, no it took me 48 days. Because...fuck...I don’t know.

* (curse you, Lin-Manuel Miranda!)

#the lady's guide to petticoats and piracy #mackenzi lee #montague siblings #monty/percy #felicity montague #historical fiction #ya historical #ya feminist fiction #we need diverse books #YA LGBT #lgbtq literature #the gentleman's guide to vice and virtue

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centerofstupidity · 6 years

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Dracula the Undead: Author’s Note Part 1 Snark

If you enjoy the content you are reading, please like and follow the Center of Stupidity blog.

Interested in reading the previous Dracula the Undead chapter snarks? They can be found here.

Summary: An aperitif of the clusterfuckery that is to come. This is a long-winded and self-congratulating author's note.

Both writers claim that their novel stays true to Bram Stoker's vision even though it contradicts and re-writes the original story.

In case anyone wants to read the original author's note in order to form their own conclusions, you can read it here.

~ Dacre's Story ~

Since I am a Stoker, it is not surprising that I have had a lifelong interest in the work of my ancestor.

At the risk of sounding like a complete ass...

This "interest" is financially motivated.

Bram’s youngest brother, George, believed to be the sibling with whom he had the closest relationship, was my great-grandfather, so I am Bram’s great-grandnephew.

"Which means that I am related to Bram Stoker and can write an 'official' sequel to Dracula. And that will make me a shit-load of money."

In college, I wrote a paper on my great granduncle,

I'm getting the impression that is statement is supposed to make Dacre Stoker sound unique...

Even though there are plenty of other college students who have written an essay about Bram Stoker or Dracula for an assignment.

For instance, yours truly did a PowerPoint presentation on Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley for a class in college.

examining what may have motivated him to write Dracula.

Again, this isn't groundbreaking stuff.

Many people have published articles or books discussing Dracula.

Scholars like Professor Elizabeth Miller have dedicated their lives to studying it.

My research opened my eyes to how, from my family’s perspective, the history of the book Dracula, is pretty tragic.

"And before I give everyone a history lesson, I'm telling you all this so I can justify butchering my ancestor's work."

Bram Stoker died without ever seeing Dracula become popular. The sales of the novel were so limited at the time of his death that his widow, Florence, thought she would never benefit financially from Bram’s “wasted” seven years of research and writing. With Bram’s other fiction and nonfiction books out of print, Florence was convinced she would live out her days on a tight budget.

Actually, that isn't true.

According to scholar John Edgar Browning, the majority of critics gave positive reviews.

His findings were published on February 1st, 2012.

It is important to note Dracula: The Undead was published in 2009.

But in an interview in 2013, Dacre Stoker said this: There is this statement that used to kind of drive me crazy—‘Dracula was met with mixed reviews when Bram was alive’.

He then briefly discusses Browning’s research.

Which means that Stoker knew about Browning’s findings...

But he ignored it and printed misinformation.

Dacre adds that it was only "ten years after Bram’s death" when Dracula became popular.

Posthumously, Bram started to receive recognition as the progenitor of the modern vampire/horror novel.

Not to diminish Dracula and its impact on popular culture...

But it is not the first influential vampire novel.

Varney the Vampire is.

Dacre Stoker goes on to talk about Florence Stoker (Bram Stoker's wife) and her legal dispute with the creators of Nosferatu.

He also states that Dracula became public domain in the U.S.A since 1899 because Bram didn't complete a requirement so Florence Stoker had to live off the U.K. royalties.

With the U.S. copyright lost, Hollywood, corporate America, and anyone else was free to do whatever they wanted to Bram’s story and characters.

This is the part where the reader is supposed to boo and hiss at Hollywood...

And then give Holt and Stoker a standing ovation for writing Dracula the Undead.

Dacre Stoker talks about how his family wasn't asked for approval of "any of the hundreds of incarnations of Dracula over the next century."

My father’s generation had a negative feeling for all things Hollywood and Dracula.

Which is understandable given what happened.

But after reading the author's note...

The history of Dracula is being used in order to deflect any criticism.

And to justify bastardizing Dracula under the pretense of honoring Bram's original vision and righting a past wrong.

—except, of course, for Bram’s original novel.

So we have two options:

They knowingly endorsed a novel that defamed Bram and mocked the original novel.

Or they loved Dracula and would be appalled that Bram was dragged through the mud and the original lore was ridiculed.

According to Ian Holt in an interview in 2010, he says that “Bram’s bitter demeanor was even worse in real life than we depicted in the novel.”

And in the same interview, Holt passively aggressively says: “Do your research. The fact that the chapters with Bram were written almost completely by Dacre in consultation with his family means nothing to them.”

So yeah...

I’m leaning towards option number one.

I didn’t write about these issues in my college paper, but they were always on my mind.

Dacre Stoker admitted that he didn't read Dracula until he went to college.

Stoker says it was "a shame" that his family was unable to "control the legacy of my great-granduncle" and "lay claim to the character of Dracula."

It was many years after college that I met an interesting character, Ian Holt.

Stoker doesn't realize that calling someone "an interesting character" can be a veiled insult.

Ian is a screenwriter who has been obsessed with all things Dracula since childhood.

A lot of people love all things Dracula.

Doesn't mean that they are a talented writer.

Ian, being a true idealist, had a plan that inspired me to not accept the frustrating history of Dracula.

"He was my knight in shining armor!"

He wanted to change history.

History reveals that change isn't always positive.

Sometimes it is negative.

Ian’s plan was simple: to reestablish creative control over Bram’s novel and characters by writing a sequel that bore the Stoker name.

To my surprise, none in my family had ever considered this.

Translation: "Why haven't any of my family members tried writing a novel? It's the obvious solution to the problem."

And it didn't occur to Stoker none of his family members had any interest in being a writer.

It really pisses me off when people act like writing any kind of fiction is easy or that anyone can be a writer.

While any literate person can write, not everyone can be a writer.

It requires talent and passion along with the desire to learn about the craft and improve your writing skills.

Intrigued, I decided to join Ian on a roller-coaster ride as coauthor.

And for readers, it is a nightmarish ride where clusterfuckery gallops and a literary classic is violently raped.

In writing Dracula the Un-Dead, I felt a strong sense of duty and familial responsibility.

"It isn't because I wanted to piss all over my relative's legacy and make a shit load of money."

I hoped to work with Ian to represent Bram’s vision for the character of Dracula.

Bram's vision should be called Sir Not Appearing in This Novel.

We aimed to resurrect Bram’s original themes and characters, just as Bram conceived them more than a century ago.

The Dracula characters appear in name only.

They are cast in an unfavorable light.

As for the themes?

They are discarded.

So many books and films had strayed from Bram’s vision—

It is extremely rare for adaptations to stick extremely close to the original story.

Usually, adaptations take artistic license with the source material.

And just because an adaptation or a retelling differs from the original story, doesn't mean that it will automatically suck.

For instance, I like films, mangas, and video games that are inspired by/loosely based on Dracula.

and thus our intent was to give both Bram and Dracula back their dignity in some small way.

Dracula is depicted as a misunderstood man with fangs who is every woman's erotic dream.

And readers are supposed to despise Bram.

I think Bram would be proud that a family member has taken this initiative, and finally done justice to the legacy he created.

Bram would be livid that his work was bastardized and that his descendant depicted him as a desperate and a talentless hack.

~ Ian’s Story ~

I am not ashamed to say it, I LOVE horror films.

Ah, all-caps.

How I loathe thee.

A lot of people like horror and it is a popular genre.

So that doesn't make you unique.

And horror movies are no longer considered depraved or scandalous.

Holt mentions that his favorite horror movie as a kid was Dracula (1931).

When I was ten years old, my mother bought me a record for Halloween with Christopher Lee narrating the story of Dracula by Bram Stoker. Reading that record sleeve changed my life, for it was then I learned that Transylvania was an actual place and that Dracula was a historical figure.

Where do I begin?

If you are LISTENING to an audiobook, you are not READING IT.

Ian was "inspired" by the audiobook that he decided to read Dracula.

I was surprised at how different the novel was from the films—and I had seen every Dracula film ever made.

"Who knew that Count Dracula swings both ways? Or that Mina is an assertive and intelligent woman and not a stupid Dracula fangirl?"

The novel was more intelligent, astute, and dark.

While this literary abomination is a cash-grab filled with gratuitous gore and sex.

The novel had more intricate and exciting characters than I could have ever imagined.

While Dracula the Undead has depraved lesbian vampires and a whiny prat along with a handsome and misunderstood vampire who only wants tru luv.

I felt cheated by Hollywood. I vowed revenge!

I get it, Holt and Stoker.

I'm supposed to hate Hollywood but adore your literary travesty.

Fifteen years later, my opportunity came.

And Dracula fans wished that it never arrived.

Flipping channels one night, I came upon a program on the making of Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

I'm getting the sneaking suspicion that this story will result in name dropping. And Holt insisting that he is a scholar.

On the program, Coppola held up the 1972 book In Search of Dracula written by Fulbright Scholars Professor Raymond McNally and Professor Radu Florescu (Prince Dracula’s actual descendant).

Vlad the Impaler is also known as Vlad III, Vlad Dracul or Vlad Dracula.

Sometimes he is referred to as Vlad III of Wallachia or Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia.

But I have never heard of any scholar referring to Vlad III as "Prince Dracula."

A quick Google search reveals only this book and a YA novel called Hunting Prince Dracula.

Every time I see Vlad III being mentioned as "Prince Dracula", I can't keep a straight face.

Because it reminds me of Beni Gabor calling Imhotep his "prince."

Coppola had used the professors’ research of the historical Prince Dracula’s life as inspiration for the opening sequence of his film.

And he discarded the rest of it in order to make Dracula a guy who is looking for his one tru luv.

Before taking a breath I was on a plane to Boston College to meet the professors. After showing them some notes on the screenplay I planned to write based on their book,

"I smelled an opportunity to make some money!"

the professors sold me the rights for one dollar

"They were impressed my awesomeness!"

The friendship I forged with McNally and Florescu has borne fruit in many ways. I soon began traveling with the professors giving lectures on the impact of Bram Stoker’s novel on our culture.

According to Dracula the Undead on the official Penguin Publishing House website, Ian is being described as:

There is a BIG difference between being a fan, a historian, and a documentarian.

A quick Google search reveals that Ian Holt has not published anything in an academic journal.

However, one of the first things that pop up in an internet search is this.

This garnered me an invitation to speak at The First World Dracula Congress in Bucharest, Romania, in 1995—a gathering of Dracula/horror scholars from around the world.

I don't doubt that Holt went to The First World Dracula Congress.

But I don't think he was a speaker.

Elizabeth Miller wrote a report about the gathering.

And Ian Holt isn't mentioned among the speakers.

Holt went sightseeing in Romania and how he made "the dream I had as a ten-year-old come true."

Thanks to the friends I made at the First World Dracula Congress, I was asked to join the Transylvanian Society of Dracula—a scholarly organization dedicated to the study of all things Dracula.

We get it, Ian Holt.

You want us to think that you are a scholar because you are friends with scholars and historians.

But I don't think a scholar would be constantly name-dropping.

Through friends in the society I met Professor Elizabeth Miller, the world’s foremost authority on all things vampire, Dracula, and Bram.

"And I'll use my scholar friends as a shield to deal with criticism."

Professor Miller asked me to speak at the Dracula convention in Los Angeles in 1997, where we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the release of Bram’s novel.

According to a report on the 1997 Dracula convention in Los Angeles, Holt isn't mentioned as being one of the speakers.

Holt says during the convention he came up with an idea to write a sequel to Dracula. He admits that a Dracula sequel isn't a new idea.

But a Dracula sequel was never written with "input from a member of the Stoker family."

Holt goes on to say that "securing that input became my goal" and contacted the Stoker family patriarch.

Still scarred by the Nosferatu copyright affair and years of being ignored and abused by Hollywood, the members of this generation of the Stoker family wanted nothing to do with me.

I could be wrong...

But I'm getting a strong feeling that Holt was miffed that some members of the Stokers didn't want to touch him with a ten-foot pole.

Especially since Holt said the Stoker family at "long last" supported the idea for an official sequel.

But I wouldn’t give up.

Holt says how he "kept building up my film-writing résumé and Dracula connections." He eventually meets Dacre Stoker.

I pitched him my sequel idea, which at the time I had been planning as a screenplay. Dacre was enthusiastic and suggested that the proper way to proceed was with a book first.

If it is a novel, then it will be proper lit-ra-choor.

Because a movie wouldn't be "deep" or "elevated".

Both Dacre and Ian agreed to a writing partnership.

And Dacre contacted his family members and presented them with the sequel proposal.

Once it was understood that this would be a labor of love,

"We gleefully shit all over the original lore and insist that it was all a lie."

our intentions honorable, and that our plan was to restore to the world Bram’s original vision and characters,

If that was the case, then:

The original lore of Dracula wouldn't be repeatedly violated.

The Crew of Light wouldn't be depicted in an unflattering light.

And Bram Stoker wouldn't be vilified.

the Stokers offered support, at long last.

Translation: They finally appreciated my genius!

Dracula the Un-Dead is the culmination of my lifelong dream and years of hard work.

"And why is the Devil laughing and doing a victory dance?"

It is my gift to every horror nut out there.

If by "gift", you mean a literary turd, then I agree with you.

My greatest wish is we have created a book that is close to Bram’s original gothic vision

"Close to Bram's original gothic vision"?

Hell no!

It contradicts the original story and reads like a shitty Coppola's Dracula fanfic.

—while modernizing it at the same time.

By stealing a twist from The Empire Strikes Back and copying a scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Believe me, I realize how lucky I am.

And readers will regard this novel as a plague upon mankind.

I have been truly blessed that in some small way, my name will be linked with

a mean-spirited and shitty novel.

that of my hero, Bram Stoker—

I'm not convinced that Dacre or Ian regard Bram as their hero.

Here is an excerpt from the novel:

"If there were to be any truth to Stoker's novel it would have to be where no sunlight could ever reach."

Translation: you can stick it where the sun don't shine.

the man who invented modern horror.

I'll say it again...

Stoker wasn't the only one who invented modern horror.

Some of the other writers were Edgar Allen Poe, Ann Radcliffe, Sheridan Le Fanu, Algernon Blackwood, and H.P. Lovecraft.

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nightmareonfilmstreet · 6 years

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[Trailer] IFC Midnight’s WILDING is A Dark, Coming-of-Age Fairy Tale

Wildling is the new release from IFC Midnight, the tremendous company behind Lowlife, Mary Shelley, and Ghost Stories. As with other IFC Midnight releases, the dark fantasy is a terrific horror movie with depth and character. It also has a killer cast, including Live Tyler (The Strangers), and genre star Brad Dourif (Child’s Play, The X-Files).

This is director Fritz Bohm’s directorial debut and is a fascinating, dark tale of a young girl’s slow metamorphosis into…something. Bel Powley plays Anna who was raised in captivity by a man she calls Daddy (Brad Dourif). During her childhood, he kept her confined with an elaborate story about something called The Wildling. Not what you think, Game Of Thrones fans, this Wildling is something much more wolflike.

According to the press release from IFC Midnight:

“Wildling, as per the tradition of IFC Midnight, is not just a good, scary movie, but it’s got more going on than the average scare stuff (which it does well), and that’s what always sets our films apart.”

Tales of the Wildling and it’s appetite for children, have kept Anna subdued, certainly until Sheriff Ellen Cooper (Liv Tyler) rescues her. The Sheriff helps Anna start a new life as a regular teen, and introduces her back into society. But there’s a problem. It turns out ‘Daddy‘ treated her to hormone injections that inhibited her growth. As these leave her body and she starts to develop, her childhood nightmares return. While trying to fit in with the society around her and keep herself safe from The Wildling, Anna discovers the secret of her true nature, and it’s hungry.

The film is also wonderfully shot by cinematographer Toby Oliver (Get Out), who gives the story a macabre, ancient vibe. A thrilling movie with a great cast that blows cobwebs off some old horror tropes and gives them a new spin. This dark fairytale will leave Horror fans wanting more from this director/writer.

IFC Midnight released the film in the US. and Canada on VOD and Digital HD on every horror fan’s (second) favorite day of the year, Friday 13th. Warner Bros. will release the film theatrically in the UK on April 20, 2018.

The post [Trailer] IFC Midnight’s WILDING is A Dark, Coming-of-Age Fairy Tale appeared first on Nightmare on Film Street - Horror Movie Podcast, News and Reviews.

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#IFTTT #WordPress #horror #horror movies #nightmareonfilmstreet #nightmare on film street #horror pod

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aaliyanate-blog · 6 years

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╰ ° 「 KEHLANI / 22 / CISFEMALE / SHE/HER / SINGER 」omg! that was definitely aaliyah brody i just saw over there !! should i ask for a picture ? ugh, i dunno. they seem pretty hot-tempered… but at the same time like, really sagacious ! i think i’m gonna go over there; wish me luck !! ☆

hi loves! i’m hannah and i’m here to bring you all my baby baelani/aaliyah. i’ll try my best to keep things short and sweet, and definitely hmu if you want to plot bc plotting = life.

GENERAL:

name: Aaliyah Brody

nickname: Lia

birthday: april 4th

age: 22

gender: cis female

place of birth: chicago, illinois.

places lived since: new york, hawaii, new york

current residence: new york

nationality: blend: african american, caucasian, native american, spanish, and filipino native american.

parents’ names: estella brody, michael lewis.

number of siblings: one little sister called ava. two half brothers.

relationship with family: grew up living with her mother who is quite poor. her father is wealthy but did not have anything to do with her, her mother or her sister. he’s tried to get in contact since lia’s fame soured but aaliyah is focusing on her mother and not ready to deal with her estranged father yet.

happiest memory: getting the phone call that confirmed her life was about to change forever.

childhood trauma: was often left alone with her little sister as her mother had to work so much to keep them afloat. they sometimes went weeks with nothing but beans and toast to eat.

PHYSICAL:

height: 5'5″

weight: 112lbs

build: toned, fit

hair colour: black.

usual hair style: textured loose curls but she indulges in wigs from time to time when she feels like a change.

eye colour: dark brown

glasses? contacts?: neither.

style of dress/typical outfit(s): comfort over anything, lia’s wardrobe consists of 80 percent loungewear/athletic wear. luckily, this fits right within her aesthetic.

typical style of shoes: she’s rarely in heels, usually only for music videos, award shows, events and sometimes concerts.

jewellery? tattoos? piercings?: lia looks at her skin as a canvas and she’s all too happy to showcase art all over it. her favourite tattoo is on the front of her calf and consists of a dagger piercing through a spider and a rose.

unique mannerisms/physical habits: rubbing the back of her neck when tired, taps her fingers against her thighs when she’s nervous or anxious.

athleticism: high. she has a lot of pent up anger about her childhood and this sometimes reflects when her temper is challenged, so she uses exercise as an outlet.

health problems/illnesses: none.

INTELLECT:

occupation: singer/songwriter

level of education: barely finished high school.

languages spoken: fluent in english, average in spanish.

level of self-esteem: relatively high, she’s quite confident in her physical and mental capacity.

gifts/talents: her voice, lyrics and cooking.

mathematical?: quite good with the simple stuff in her mind but believes algebra is a foreign language.

makes decisions based mostly on emotions, or on logic?: small decisions on logic, big decisions on emotions, which is probably not the greatest scenario.

life philosophy: ‘ hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny. ’

religious stance: can be quite spiritual and believes in karma.

cautious or daring?: daring.

most sensitive about/vulnerable to: children, in fact, she’s much softer with anyone under fifteen than she is with anyone else.

optimist or pessimist?: pessimist.

extrovert or introvert?: extrovert

RELATIONSHIPS:

current relationship status: single

sexual orientation: pansexual

past relationships: [ redacted ] she doesn’t speak about them

primary reason for being broken up with: she doesn’t commit.

primary reasons for breaking up with people: gets too attached, or not at all

ever cheated?: yes, several times… on several people. doesn’t entirely believe in monogamy.

been cheated on: isn’t aware of a specific moment but again, probably would not care.

level of sexual experience: high

story of first kiss: experienced first kiss in the backroom of the corner store she worked at with a manager she’d been coercing for a while. she was sixteen and he was twelve years older than her at the time.

story of loss of virginity: at a college party she crashed with a few friends. it was quite an ordinary experience but because of the cocktail of substances in her system it felt as if it was the greatest recreational activity in the world.

a social person?: unless she’s having a bad day. she enjoys spending time with people, but is a little clueless when it comes to other people’s emotions.

most comfortable around: her friends and family.

oldest friend: doesn’t keep in touch with many of the people she knew pre fame as she quickly realised they didn’t have the purest of intentions, so her oldest ‘friends’ are her mother and sister.

how does she think others perceive her?: as independent, fierce, stubborn

how do others actually perceive her?: same as above but also perhaps a little insecure.

SECRETS:

life goals: to help others struggling like she did during her youth.

dreams: she’s living them.

greatest fears: losing her mother.

most ashamed of: her inability to keep relationships outside of her family.

secret hobbies: learning about different languages and cultures. she’s obsessed.

crimes committed (was she caught? charged?): none.

DETAILS/QUIRKS:

night owl or early bird?: depends on the events of the day but a bit of both- she doesn’t sleep much.

light or heavy sleeper?: light.

favourite food: cheetos.

least favourite food: okra and creamed corn.

favourite book: lolita by vladimir nabokov

least favourite book: frankenstein by mary shelley

favourite movie: the prestige

least favourite movie: the lord of the rings trilogy

favourite song: gold digger, kanye west.

favourite sport: football/soccer

coffee or tea?: tea. coffee makes her anxious.

crunchy or smooth peanut butter?: crunchy.

type of car she drives: doesn’t drive.

lefty or righty?: right-handed

favourite colour: burgundy

cusser?: a complete potty mouth but tries her best.

smoker? drinker? drug user?: yes, yes, strictly herbal.

biggest regret: tries to live with the ‘no ragrets’ philosophy.

pets: a british shorthair called smudge.

I’ll probably try to do something more in depth later but for now this is all her background info!!

#luster.intro

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smallpressdistribution · 7 years

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Feast your eyes and your shelves on October’s

SPD Recommends *Backlist*,

ten still-so-relevant titles selected by our very own Matthew Hedley!

1. Cold Genius - Aaron Kunin

Have you heard Aaron Kunin get excited about Milton yet? In love with things that are funny because he loves them, like Milton’s bible fan fiction, or Chiquita banana, or language meaning a particular thing. Is it fair to say Kunin’s quote clusters are a joke, a reflexive reassurance, a kindness that doesn’t force words down your throat, a presentation, a kindness, so that his book feels deeply kind. I appreciate the Ben Lerner blurb – “it occurs to me often to be grateful for his work.” Because I am, also, deeply grateful. Reviewers seem to delight in calling him a genius – because it’s in the title, maybe – but this book is so much more interesting than that. He’s a genius, who cares, “genius” is really a silly thing, don’t you think? It’s a brand, maybe, or something a lover says and is misunderstood and misunderstood until he figures in a Kunin poem.

2. Trances of the Blast - Mary Ruefle

This book of Ruefle poems is an odd gem. Its title is given the lie by the duration of its gaze. A stanza for the thing, a stanza for the feeling about the thing, a stanza for life after living with the thing. Remember Inception? That movie all the memes come from? This book has all the immediacy of an explosion in that movie, as time dilates wider and wider, until we’ve forgotten we were running from an explosion in the first place. What was that movie about? Or – wait, what’s this book about? It’s not exactly still, since there’s so much life ahead to get to, and it has pace, some yearning to be turned on, left on, but its movement comes from turnabout, the unwieldy and furry shift of a person looming in the midst of a poem.

And so I have had to deal with wild intractable people all my days and have been led astray in a world of shattered moonlight and beasts and trees where no one ever curtsies anymore or has an understudy. So I have gone up to the little room in my face, I am making something out of a jar of freckles and a jar of glue

I hated childhood. I hate adulthood. And I love being alive.

3. Monk Eats an Afro - Yolanda Wisher

This book is embodied poetry, the talked about but rarely seen kind. It’s important that the book is anachronistic in its sensitivity – Cry of Jazz came out in 1959, Monk Eats an Afro in 2014 – but Wisher loves jazz, and is good at it. The Sonia Sanchez blurb should be a giveaway of how in scene this book is to Philadelphia, to Philly jazz, to clubs where Sonia still holds court at a central table, with similar tables around, Wisher at another, someone, maybe Dawn Evans holds down a third, there aren’t that many tables but they’re mostly full, with men and women who make Philly great. Sure, I’m being overly romantic, because this is a literal memory I have, being in that room, being in my hometown, sometimes it feels like it might disappear, also – this book is romantic. Its romance poems are downright sexy, and god, when Wisher swings into a rhyme at the end of a stanza it rings out. There’s a body at risk here, recounting personal experience with a heady sense of its own cultural touchpoints. There’s something conservative about a jazz fanatic in this day and age – to go through every day hearing what the radio does while still pulling back to Monk and fam takes work, a love of the way things were – which, in context with the rest of this list, makes a deep commentary on how conservative poetry as a whole really is. Because this book feels novel and standout amidst the others of the list for how separate its references are. No other book on this list is more than one degree of separation (in terms of debt owed) from John Ashbery, and this book might be two, and that makes all the difference. It’s not that it’s “anti-academic,” because that term posits the academy as the thing, and everything else as lying in opposition. But I remember a creative writing professor ask a creative writing graduate student what she could possibly talk to a slam poet about. Monk Eats an Afro is incommunicable with that sort of thinking. Not opposition – a powerful voice, sure in her self.

4. Stories in the Worst Way - Gary Lutz

This book makes me want to write better. Lutz’ style should be ponderous -- the whole text appears at a glance almost as marginalia, like liner notes on liner notes, but nothing is frantic. Somehow it feels calm, even, impossibly, focused. Which can be a little frustrating -- the game of the title STORIES IN THE WORST WAY always cycling through my mind as I am shocked by the talent. Because they are really well written and make you jealous and more than a little productive. Lutz makes me write. Because he really can write, and his overcrowded margin of a text feels absolutely effortless and easy for him, which is also impossible, and also untrue, and it’s – god, it’s frustrating! But if I didn’t have this book around, what other book could I use to make myself write. I admit, I throw this book around a lot. It’s a really nice weight and size to be thrown, and then picked up, mumble a bit, read the same story again, somehow write four pages, go for a walk, turn around mid-walk, come home and read the same story, write some more. It’s a book I love and picked from thousands of titles here at SPD -- and if you can’t handle being jealous and productive, I just don’t even know you.

5. Videogames for Humans: Twine Authors in Conversation - edited by merritt kopas

This book of playthroughs, essays, contexts, games and game-ified writing is unique and complex. Twine as a digital platform stands alongside all my other distant dreams of choice mediums for preventing academia and the state from incorporating language and work into their narrative. But, unfortunately, the space remains uncurated in meaningful ways to further that vision, which, as Wikipedia will tell you (by omission or deletion mill), perpetuates the same power structures as the world outside. So: CRY$TAL WARRIOR KE$HA (made pre-$ removal) is on the sample page today (looking absolutely amazing), while the most recent review is some undergraduate freshboy’s takedown of its writing structure. Which is to say that the academy is always uncomfortably present in the history and training of creators, players, readers – and even in the essays in VIDEOGAMES FOR HUMANS. The tension in the book’s movement back and forth between Kesha and undergraduate with a grudge is what makes the book so incredibly worthwhile. Beyond just a book for digital language nerds like myself, this collection feels so important for asking questions of how to create positive art spaces. Teenaged entertainment proposes an answer, negated in the misogyny of Lil Yachty, reconstituted in the queer narratives of Twine, complicated in the reactionary nature of write-ups… How will any of us make art in a time where to be an instrument of the state is such a bald-faced violence? But magic and a joy in loving self-sabotage shows a glimmer of hope:

“There’s this assumption that if you stray from The Scientific Method into actually caring about things like lying on the floor of your room in the middle of the afternoon with black canvas hung over the curtains to keep the sun out with a single candle burning, wearing lipstick—even though you pretty much don’t wear lipstick any other time in your life—sort of meditating and sort of tripping off sensory deprivation and sort of falling asleep, that you had better take that weird stuff just as seriously and humorously as scientists are supposed to take science. Like basically magic can’t be weird or fun or fucked up or stupid on purpose. Which is wrong!”

6. Event Factory - Renee Gladman

Event Factory – There’s a setpiece of science fiction where worldbuilding, forced to include some cultural background for the book, treats us to speculative songs and poetry that are, let’s be honest, always awful. The cantina songs, the God-Whispers of Han Qing-Jao, the water songs of the Fremen – let’s be real, these are painful moments. Even Delany – sorry. But then you have Gladman, a luminary poet, writing her Ravicka novels, and suddenly, writing becomes speculative in parsing and content. There’s all the textured concentration and phrasing her talent begets, combined with a character-driven, engaging and difficult science fiction novel. So that our transportation occurs on every level – not escapism, because the density of idea and descriptor doesn’t admit such an easy movement – as we are other before it. It’s a deeply disturbing book, to be sure. The disassociative trip of finding things already happening to yourself makes the book a Ketamine nightmare in its darkest, half-sexual, half-prone. That’s a warning, I suppose, or as much of a warning as I can give for a book I’d like you to read. It’s a book of recollections, and it often recalls the worst. Go read it.

7. In the Time of the Blue Ball - Manuela Draeger, translated by Brian Evenson

This is the only book on this list I didn’t know beforehand, but god DAMN. It reminds me of Kathryn Davis, but with a different set of idiosyncrasies. Or Monica Furlong’s deeply strange cousin. Or it’s not really like another person, but an outstanding talent all to itself that speaks in an unusual voice, with a style and focus all her own. Still, it’s hard not to try to put it in context, because I hadn’t heard of Draeger previously. Shelley Jackson wrote the back cover blurb, and if you’re not down with Shelley Jackson, there’s nothing I can say to convince you to read this.

“I’m warning you, Potemkine,” said the tiger. “Now, here we are together in too small of a space. It’d be better if you didn’t wiggle in front of me. In the darkness, I could imagine that you were running.”

“I don’t look like a wharf rat,” I said.

“When someone starts running in front of me, it’s too late for distinctions between species,” said Gershwin.

Half-accessible, half-mystic fantasy that flirts with various reading levels, IN THE TIME OF THE BLUE BALL is a gorgeous book of fiction. With thanks to Brian Evenson for a stellar translation.

8. This Lamentable City - Polina Barskova, translated by Ilya Kaminsky

He lies naked on something white, She laughs above She covers him With her pearl, her body her Star, her body her snow, her body On top of the word “strange,” On top of the word “fright.”

Barskova wanders the city and chronicles, and edits, and edits, and edits what she sees. This book is beautifully refined, calm, sure.

“In our village where small animals live slowly And humans jump on them.”

I’d like to do this little feature with only quotes, quotes and gasps afterward. The above a reaction to finding the scattered remains of snails in the lane. I hope it snows where you read this, in the evening.

9. The Feel Trio - Fred Moten

Fred Moten. Glory, Fred Moten. One of the most talented writers of a generation who makes the balance of phrasing and legibility feel effortless. Not that every line is beach-read-legible, but that his word clusters are drop-dead gorgeous, and always feel intentioned and deserved. Throughout his published works, Moten remains a cheat-sheet for debut writers – “how do I get away with putting this really fabulous but loud phrase in my writing” – but THE FEEL TRIO is a monstrosity of confidence, even for him.

“this a service on the surface for frank wilderness and carl flippant. my absolute beauty studies feelings in an open afterlife. I hold him and I’ve lost and I feel it in my hands and the sharp distance of his little bother, explosive flower of I’m not ready and don’t want to.”

10. That They Were at the Beach - Leslie Scalapino

My favorite book of poetry has somehow never been on a previous SPD Recommends Backlist. The narrator of the book fascinates me – defensive in language, insecure in relative positions, honest in gaze – in her movements between mechanism and pathos. The formalization of language, centered around the em dash – pretending to be a device of clarity – reminds me of coding languages, its Turing-complete, it’s a half step from language, but in this case not towards clarity but something else, something that masquerades as clarity but is poetry. Which isn’t an opposite of clarity, but it’s not the same thing either. I find it impossible not to copy this book’s phrasing for months after I reread it, so I’m trying to be good here. It’s the book that made me love poetry.

#instar books #fence books #wave books #hanging loose press #tupelo press #letter machine editions #north point press #dorothy a publishing project #calamari press

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harangularspectacular · 5 years

Text

Recent Reading

Neil Gaiman - Coraline [graphic novel]

It’s been a while between my reading this book and writing this annotation, but I remember thinking this was my favourite version of this story, ahead of the novel and the animated film. I can’t remember the specifics, but I feel like I thought some of plot elements and characterisations were fleshed out more effectively in this adaptation. I love the line about how “The sky had never seemed so sky, the world had never seemed so world.” There’s actually a similar line towards the end of American Gods...

Neil Gaiman - American Gods

I started reading this one while travelling, which felt very surreal; despite it’s seemingly anachronistic title, this is a novel that captures the feeling of being propelled into the future. Simultaneously, this is also a story about the lingering presence of the past. They way these two ideas are synthesised together feels true - it’s a story about survival. I don’t know how else to describe it, but I keep thinking about it, and I treasure the book for this reason.

Neil Gaiman - The Graveyard Book

This one is more of a children’s book -- perhaps similarly as scary as The Hobbit? It’s been a while since I read The Hobbit. Nonetheless, I particularly enjoyed the personification of death as The Lady on the Grey -- my own childhood would likely have been less terrifying if I had bee introduced to more ways of thinking about death as a compassionate character.

Mary Shelley - Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus

This was the first literary novel that I ever read, back in middle school. I fell in love with the language -- and the darkness too, probably. Since I’ll likely be teaching with this novel next year, I wanted to revisit the world of Viktor Frankenstein and his creation. However, as I was pressed for time, I listened to an abridged audiobook, narrated by Kenneth Branagh. And it was great! I think the first-person, epistolary nature of the novel translates tremendously well into an oral context. I wish I could say the same for Branagh’s film adaptation, although Deniro as the monster is compelling. Anyway, I was particularly moved by the reoccurring idea of friendship in the novel, which was something I hadn’t noticed before. There is something so lonely and lovely about writing letters.

Camille Bordas - How to Behave in a Crowd

Like many others, I struggle to find the time to enjoy the short fiction published in The New Yorker. To be honest, I struggle to even find the time to listen to the podcast versions. However, one of the short stories that I have actually read -- and since listened to again and again -- is The State of Nature by Camille Bordas. I find her writing to be both immensely humorous and sobering, and How to Behave in a Crowd delivers in both respects. She’s often been compared to Salinger, although her work seems to possess much more of a sociological, rather than spiritual, emphasis; she’s referenced Garfinkel and Goffman’s studies as influences, whose work I look forward to exploring. It’s been a while since I studied French, but I’m considering brushing up on my comprehension to try reading her as-yet-untranslated earlier novels, too; I am very excited to read more from Bordas. She has two other short stories published in The New Yorker, although I haven’t read the most recent one yet.

Min Jin Lee - Pachinko

Read this one for a book club, but didn’t get to finish it in time. Subsequently, I was made aware of the major plot (in the loosest sense of the word) developments before finishing it myself. I still found it to be a moving story about family, identity, and assimilation, and appreciated the opportunity to learn about the experiences of Koreans in Japan -- albeit through a fictionalised perspective. I honestly don’t have such to say about this one, other than to say that the prose is easy to read (backhanded compliment?) and I wanted to be more affected by the ending (perhaps my heart is cold and withered, although I did find other points of the story appropriately devastating). Speaking of accessibility and endings...

George R. R. Martin - Fire and Blood

I promised myself I wouldn’t read this. Five novels about Westeros was enough, I reasoned; there are other worlds to explore, including the one I actually live in. But then Season 8 of Game of Thrones happened. It wrapped up with all this talk of ‘breaking the wheel’ and I needed context. What was the wheel, exactly? Why, specifically, would characters in that world believe it needs to be broken? Just how unprecedented are the events depicted in the finale? So I turned to Fire and Blood for answers. I’m not sure if I found them -- or that Martin necessarily did as he was writing this fictional history of a continent, either -- but it proved to be surprisingly accessible and enjoyable bedtime reading. Someone please stop me if I ever express interest in reading The Silmarillion, though.

Louis Theroux - The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures

Another audio book! I basically just wanted to listen to someone with a mellifluous British accent speak for an extended period of time. Unsurprisingly, the essays are also great -- there’s a few really memorable final lines. However, I was uncomfortable with the way that Theroux caricatured the speech of his interview subjects. It seemed condescending and demeaning at times, a far cry from his usually humanist and compassionate approach. Weird indeed.

A. O. Scott - Better Living Through Criticism

Heckling isn’t something I’ve ever imagined myself doing, but I almost shouted at a comedian after reading this book. The guy was dragging everyone through this extended bit about reviewers and criticism that was reductionist and seemed misinformed. “But Ronny,” I wanted to offer, “good criticism is art!” It’s like when you believe broccoli tastes gross, but you’ve just never tasted a nice, fresh bunch, you know? Anyway, because I’m a not total idiot, I didn’t say anything -- which comedian has that bit about their doctor asking for a joke, and wanting to say that they will tell this story on stage and this will be the joke? Is this similar, even a little? Not really, I guess. I’m really grateful for this book.

Nick Hornby - Fever Pitch

I am trying my hardest to understand why people like sport. This book has been helpful. It’s very episodical, which can make for a choppy reading experience, but there’s enough genuine insight -- less about sport, and more about being an obsessive person, and just living in general -- to keep me turning the pages. It’s certainly a quieter way to research than sitting in a stadium.

#Reading #Lists #Neil Gaiman #Nick Hornby #George R R Martin #Min Jin Lee #Camille Bordas #Mary Shelley #Louis Theroux

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voidingintotheshout · 4 years

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Coronavirus Survival Kit

Introduction / Explanation: Okay, so if you’ve read this far then you’re at least intrigued at getting ebooks that you can read on your phone or other mobile device for free. The following links are on Project Gutenberg. That’s a site that offers no-frills versions of books in the public domain. They have more books than you’ll every read, and many of them are very obscure. Since many of you may be practicing social distancing or quarantine because of the crisis, I thought I would use my English degree to highlight some books from the collection that will entertain or illuminate your lives and will each take up as much space on your phone as a 90-second song or 30-second video—so almost no space.

A Word on the Formats: The two main formats you need to know about are MOBI/KINDLE and EPUB. Essentially, if you’re planning to read the book on the kindle app/device, then you should click/tap on the KINDLE/MOBI link. If you are planning to read it on any other reader app, then you should click the EPUB link. When I say link, that’s the thing that says EPUB and is underlined. Click the link on your device and your device should ask you if you want to open/download it in—well, whatever app you have on your device. How this works on your phone/device may vary, but you’re going to tap/download the book, then tell the phone what reader app is opening this file. Then, boom; you have a free book to read.

Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters: A collection of interconnected tales as told by the dead in a local graveyard. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1280

The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2 by Edgar Allan Poe: Contains most of the classics he’s known for: The purloined letter, The fall of the House of Usher, Silence: a fable, The masque of the Red Death, The cask of Amontillado, The pit and the pendulum, The premature burial & The tell-tale heart. A great place to start. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2148

In Morocco by Edith Wharton: A travel narrative of a westerner’s forays into Muslim Morocco in 1917. I’ve only just started it, but it’s so well written. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39042

My Ántonia by Willa Cather: Love & longing in the rural midwest. Nobody paints a picture with words like Willa. Also, she was in the LGBTQ community. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19810

Swann's Way by Marcel Proust: Book One of Remembrance of Things Past. A richly detailed study of place and characters that does require patience, but rewards those with the ability to know a character more deeply than you know yourself. He also was one of the first major writers that wrote about gay life and relationships, based, ahem, on personal experiences. Although it’s worth knowing that this book deals with his childhood where he was a shy, sensitive boy in a very wealthy household. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7178

Monday or Tuesday by Virginia Woolf: An early collection by the queer modernist master. Although more well-known for her novels, her short stories are a great place to start because you can get more of a sense of what themes she comes back to and how she tells stories. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29220

Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave by William Wells Brown: A great slave narrative, and a good one to start with if you’ve never read one. I like that he recounts the events vividly, but journalistically, so it’s up to the reader to pause at the horrors he was all to familiar with. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15132

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: Naturally it’s about a dude traveling in time, but what’s revealed says a lot about how Wells saw the human story evolving. The section about the subterranean species stays with you. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35

The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: Aliens come over and kick our asses. Wait, what’s that? *cough, cough* OH NO! IS THAT RELEVANT SOCIAL COMMENTARY?!?! I THINK IT IS!! https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36

Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley: Man makes a monster out of corpses, but, wait for it—something goes amiss. The great thing about this book/tale is that it can be said to be about so many different things. Mass production, A.I., hubris, nature versus nurture, bad parenting, and/or whatever else you think the monster represents. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/84

Pride and Prejudice by Stone Cold Jane Austen: She is, without doubt, the classic author that almost everyone likes more than they think they will. It’s got romance and period drama. Very likable. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1342

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A short story about how women are robbed of their free-will by opinionated men to the point that it makes them crazy. So… um… not at all relevant now or anything, LOL. Seriously, a great feminist novella. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1952

A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: In 1665 the plague swept through London, claiming over 97,000 lives. Daniel Defoe was just five at the time of the plague, but he later called on his own memories, as well as his writing experience, to create this vivid chronicle of the epidemic and its victims. 'A Journal' (1722) follows Defoe's fictional narrator as he traces the devastating progress of the plague through the streets of London. Here we see a city transformed: some of its streets suspiciously empty, some - with crosses on their doors - overwhelmingly full of the sounds and smells of human suffering. And every living citizen he meets has a horrifying story that demands to be heard. — So, super relevant for today. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/376

Jane Eyre, An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë: Another writer that stands the test of time. If you didn’t read this in school, perhaps you can amuse yourself with this great, doomed love story. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1260

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: The biggest, most bloated adventure story of them all. It’s got prison breaks, pirates, fighting, massive amounts of treasure and a revenge plot that takes literally decades and about eight hundred pages to get through. It’s probably the longest book that you’ll ever fly thorough. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1184

Books to Read to School-Age Kids:

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll: A slice of life story about a child following a bunny down a hole into a hallucinogenic fantasyland. I mean, who hasn’t this happened to? Very relatable and filled with social commentary that’s still discussed today. Read this and understand the Red Queen Theorem! https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: My mom’s favorite book from when she was a girl. It’s about a horse. So if your kid loves horses, this is your book. I have not read it, so I have no idea if it has a sad ending, but y’all can learn & grow together / spaced six feet apart. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/271

#coronavirus #covid19 #coronavirus survival guide #project gutenberg #book review

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news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog · 6 years

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Why I’m only reading books by women this year

My bookcase in my bedroom in my childhood home is bursting full of books that have shaped my education and, come to think of it, my entire life to date.

During a recent visit home, I observed that the overwhelming majority of these books — many of which were prescribed texts during my sixth form studies and my literature degree — are authored by men.

SEE ALSO: Snobbery about romcoms goes all the way back to the 1930s

However, among those books gathering dust, the most dog-eared, well-thumbed ones were written by women. These books were old friends I'd revisit time and again throughout my teens and twenties. Their authors: Virginia Woolf, George Eliot (AKA Mary Anne Evans), the Brontë sisters, Mary Shelley, Margaret Atwood, Edith Wharton, Maya Angelou, Iris Murdoch, Sylvia Plath, Joan Didion, to name a few.

But, after studying English literature at university, something turned me off reading for many years. The vast majority of books I read during my studies were penned by male authors, and more often than not, they told stories about male characters. I was hungry for a woman's voice, for a story that resembled my own life, for pages that read like the inside of my mind. But, my university studies didn't provide the nourishment I so desperately craved. Fast forward a few years and I had pretty much stopped reading altogether. "You don't read," my best friend said to me last year. How had I, a former bookworm, become so far removed from something that defined the first 20 years of my life? I didn't know how to rekindle my romance with reading.

But, something happened earlier this year that changed everything for me. During a lunch break in early March, I wandered over to a pop-up bookshop called Like A Woman in east London which was only stocking titles penned by women. The shop was set up by publishing house Penguin Books to coincide with International Women's Day — but it was during an interview with its creator that I realised that this wasn't just yet another stunt by a brand. Zainab Juma, creative manager at Penguin and the creator of the bookshop, told me that female authors account for a huge swath of literary fiction's commercial success, but they're grossly undervalued when it comes to awards. "The majority of the bestsellers on the literary fiction list last year were written by women, but out of the 114 Nobel Prize laureates, there have only been 14 women. Fourteen out of 114, that's bonkers," Juma told me. "Women make an awful lot of contribution without necessarily the recognition that goes with it."

Prizes aside, research has found that books by male authors are more likely to be reviewed by critics at esteemed literary publications like the New York Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement. British-American novelist Nicola Griffith analysed 15 years of literary fiction awards including the Man Booker Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, among others, to look at the gender breakdown of winners. The results showed that between 2000 and 2015 "not a single book-length work from a woman’s perspective or about a woman was considered worthy" of a Pulitzer Prize. "Even when women win prizes, it is generally for novels about men," Griffith told me over email. "So do we see much progress in terms of more novels about women winning prestigious literary prizes? Perhaps a little, but not much. Not nearly enough."

Incidentally, women also account for two thirds of those buying novels in Britain, but male authors and narratives still dominate literary criticism. So, who's responsible for the cultural devaluing of women in publishing — an industry where women dominated the bestsellers list in 2017. Griffith believes that gender bias in education is to blame.

"If I had to point at a single culprit, I'd say education. That is, the standardisation of syllabi, and therefore canon/s," says Griffith. "If we grow up reading and being examined on books by and about men, and if we watch film and TV by and about men, how can we avoid internalising the understanding that women are less interesting and prize-worthy than men?"

"Prize jurors are people, products of our culture. Women and men on prize juries often genuinely believe they are choosing the objectively best book. The problem is that we all grow up being taught that 'best' = male," she adds.

In 2017, a mere 30 percent of set texts prescribed by GCSE specifications are books written by women. These shocking statistics have sparked petitions and campaigns for more female representation in school syllabi — curricula which inevitably shape students' perceptions of what is considered the very best literature.

We, as readers and writers, are not necessarily in control of what educators choose to include in syllabi, but there are some things that we can do to affect change. "What *readers* can do is easy: buy books about women, read them, and talk about them," says Griffith.

Griffith wrote a response to the 1983 book by Joanna Russ How to Suppress Women's Writing outlining what we as readers can do to make women's writing more visible and more culturally appreciated. "The single most important thing we (readers, writers, journalists, critics, publishers, editors, etc.) can do to improve the visibility of books by and about women, and to secure that visibility for the future, is talk about them whenever we talk about books," writes Griffith. "And if we honestly can’t think of books by and about women 'good enough' to match those about men then we should wonder aloud (or in print) why that is so."

After visiting that book shop the day before International Women's Day, I made a pledge of my own. For the next year I would only read books by women, about women. There began a journey of rediscovery of my love of reading, of returning to the thing I used to love more than anything else. Of course, I'm not advocating feminist separatism here or permanently entering into another echo chamber. For me, this is more about redressing a historic imbalance in the books I've been taught to value since my education began. It's a recalibration.

Since making that decision, I've read so many books that made me want to shout about them from the rooftops.

Image: rachel thompson

The first book I read was Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, an account of the year following the author's sudden death and a touching reflection on the reality of grieving for a loved one. Next up was Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton, a beautifully relatable memoir about navigating relationships in one's twenties. Continuing in my theme of devouring books of essays, I read Look Alive Out There by Sloane Crosley, who's one of my absolute favourite writers.

Next up was Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture by Roxane Gay, a necessary text to emerge in the post-#MeToo landscape. Then I read The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy, a book that was infused with so much raw emotion I found myself welling up on the Tube. On holiday in France I read The Pisces, which was a fast and fun summer read (who doesn't love a bit of merman erotica?). As I fell back in love with reading, I noticed that I no longer viewed reading as a chore, as something I didn't have time for. I now read whenever and wherever I — in bars, on public transport, in bed, in the breakout space at work.

Image: rachel thompson

I milled through Florida and Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff. I read My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh and loved it so much I instantly bought her previous book, Eileen. I read Heartburn by Nora Ephron and adored every page.

Then I read What a Time to Be Alone by Chidera Eggerue, She Must Be Mad by Charly Cox, The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer. The next book was perhaps my favourite one I've read in years. A book that felt like I was reading my life on a page, my innermost thoughts spelled out in letters — Normal People by Sally Rooney. Not for a long time have I read such realistic renderings of the intricacies of human emotions and relationships. I followed that immediately with Rooney's brilliant debut novel Conversations With Friends.

As summer turned to autumn I sped-read Crudo by Olivia Laing, then moved to the dark The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner, and The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy. The latter book of essays was a beautifully written rumination on what it means to be a writer and a woman. I'm now reading Putney by Sofka Zinovieff and am finding it gripping and disturbing in equal measure.

Image: rachel thompson

I'm not alone in my mission to read only women writers this year. Some are choosing to read books by women of colour. Jalisa Whitley, founder of equality organisation Unbound Impact, told me she decided to only read books by women of colour this year "because we're often not discussed in the 'must read' books lists."

"Looking at my own Goodreads list I realised how male-dominated it was and wondered how that framed the way I saw the world," she says. "I wanted to widen my frame of reference and expose myself to different types of stories that centre the experiences of women in ways that are layered, complicated, and represent the many ways we show up in the world including but not limited to our roles as wives, mothers, and love interests."

Whitley says she reached out to people on Twitter for ideas of what to read and she ended up getting hundreds of book recommendations. "I could literally just read women of colour for the next five years," she says. "I've been exposed to AMAZING books including: When They Call You a Terrorist by Patrisse Khan Cullors, Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, My Mother Was A Freedom Fighter by Aja Monet, An American Marriage and Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones, The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez, In the Country by Mia Alvar and so many more." She says that in this political moment these books have afforded her "community" and "comfort" as well as making her laugh, cry, and "re-energised for the resistance."

What are your favorite books by women of color? Need some fire recommendations to round out my goal of reading 50 books only by women of color this year. Bonus pts for international writers #wellreadblackgirl

— Jalisa Whitley (@JalisaNichole) August 12, 2018

I, too, share this feeling of re-energisation. I will forever be grateful that I chose to go on a walk that lunchtime in March. And I'm glad that I got to meet Zainab Juma, whose insights prompted me to question the types of books society tells us are more worthy of our attention.

Ultimately, this has been, and continues to be, a lesson in exercising choice over the pages I put in front of my face. What we're told to read by our teachers, professors, literary critics, and even our friends are not necessarily definitively the best. If we amplify the voices of women writers through reading them, sharing them on social media, and recommending them to people in our lives, we remind readers that women's writing is essential.

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#_uuid:be772424-c4eb-367a-8a47-ed50bcc6e655 #_author:Rachel Thompson #_category:yct:001000002 #_lmsid:a0Vd000000DTrEpEAL #_revsp:news.mashable

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