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cyrusfm · 2 years

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𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐆𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐁𝐘𝐄, 𝐘𝐎𝐔’𝐕𝐄 𝑩𝑳𝑬𝑫 𝑴𝑬 𝑫𝑹𝒀. 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐆𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓, 𝐌𝐘 𝑺𝑶𝑼𝑳 𝑯𝑨𝑺 𝑫𝑰𝑬𝑫. — 𝐜𝐲𝐫𝐮𝐬 𝐩𝐡𝐨𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐱, 𝐚 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭.

PUNCHING BAG, palaye royale. SOFTCORE, the neighbourhood. MAMMAMIA, måneskin. 1X1, bring me the horizon & nova twins. WELCOME TO THE BLACK PARADE, my chemical romance. HUSH, the marías. THIS IS WHY I’M HOT, kailee morgue. YOU’RE MY TEMPTATION, alice cooper. POST MODERN RHAPSODY, wargasm (uk). DRAMA, jesse. RICH GIRL, gwen stefani & eve. STRAWBERRY LIPSTICK, yungblud. KILL ALL YOUR FRIENDS, my chemical romance. FLOOR 13, machine gun kelly. BLACK SHEEP, palaye royale. I’M A SLAVE 4 U, britney spears. SAVE THAT SHIT, lil peep. IN NOME DEL PADRE, maneskin. SIN, nine inch nails. NIGHT CRAWLING, miley cyrus & billy idol. TURBULENT, waterparks. DONTTRUSTME, 3oh!3. W.D.Y.W.F.M?, the neighbourhood. PARANOID, palaye royale. FAMOUS LAST WORDS, my chemical romance. NEON GRAVESTONES, twenty one pilots. FLEABAG, yungblud. BRAND NEW NUMB, motionless in white. PARANOID, chase atlantic. SEX DRIVE, machine gun kelly. S&M, rihanna. I WANNA BE YOUR SLAVE, måneskin. PRETTY BOY, the neighbourhood. LONELY, palaye royale. HOLLYWOOD WHORE, machine gun kelly. DEVIL’S ADVOCATE, the neighbourhood. NEED TO KNOW, doja cat. BAD KARMA, miley cyrus & joan jett. LOOKS THAT KILL, mötley crüe. VAMPIRE MONEY, my chemical romance. SEXY DRUG, falling in reverse. SLOW DOWN, chase atlantic. MR. SELF DESTRUCT, nine inch nails. ANXIETY, palaye royale. DADDY ISSUES, the neighbourhood. I’M NOT OKAY (I PROMISE), my chemical romance. LIVE FOREVER, lil peep. FCK ME, i hate myself because. WHISPERS, halsey. TOBACCO SUNBURST, the neighbourhood. DUMB, pretty sick. SAME OL’ MISTAKES, rihanna. FOR YOUR LOVE, måneskin. VERBATIM, mother mother. BREAK UP WITH YOUR GIRLFRIEND, I’M BORED, ariana grande. 21ST CENTURY LIABILITY, yungblud. SUGAR, WE’RE GOING DOWN, fall out boy. TEENAGERS, my chemical romance. ALL THE THINGS SHE SAID, poppy. HOT, avril lavigne. GIRLS & BOYS, jesse. BUBBLEGUM BITCH, marina. DR. FEELGOOD, mötley crüe. JESUS DON’T LIKE THAT I’M GAY BUT SATANS COOL WITH IT, lil boodang. LOVE ME, the 1975. POISON, alice cooper. MONTERO (CALL ME BY YOUR NAME), lil nas x. SWIM, chase atlantic. CRYBABY, lil peep. PIGGY, nine inch nails. THE GHOST OF YOU, my chemical romance. REDEEMER, palaye royale. || @rocketfm

#remade his playlist since i've added a bunch of songs since i did it the first time so #my traumatized slutty pretty boy<3 #TWO songs with slave in the title.... ok cyrus WE GET IT #roswelltask #❛ ⠀ all these fucking voices in my head ⠀ 、 ⠀task ⠀ .#❛ ⠀ all these fucking voices in my head ⠀ 、 ⠀tunes ⠀ .#body image tw

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lesbianrobin · 4 years

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hello em i have a request. can u please rate mr harrington's looks/outfits i just feel like u have the best takes and i'd LOVE to know how you'd rank his choices 👀

this is the single greatest ask i’ve ever received. i will be ranking the outfits, not steve’s moral alignment or actions in each scene. in order of appearance:

The Introduction

4/10

hair is tragic

steve copied this entire fit from a mannequin in the ralph lauren polo outlet store

would honestly be a 0/10 except for the obvious valiant effort being put forth by his lower half to resist the sexless curse of khaki pants. the devil (st costuming department) works hard but by god steve harrington (joe keery’s body) works harder

nice brown watch that certainly came from a department store

also gains points for being next to nancy’s anemic librarian fit, thus looking better by comparison

The Rich Bitch

8/10

thank god he ditched the khakis

hair looks much less demonic

it’s a simple look but the sweatshirt rides up when he shotguns the beer

he also gets wet

solid 8 for sluttiness alone

The Whore

10/10

wet

please note that his chest is waxed. keep this in mind.

The Heterosexual

2/10

hair looks like he dipped his head in glue

bold choice with the grey pants. unfortunately that choice was wrong

matching outfits with your comphet girlfriend isn’t as cute as you think it is stevie

you only get points because despite that ungodly pastel stripe pattern the polo’s decently fitted and makes your arm look kinda nice

The Dickhead

3/10

glue head pt. 2

at least the stripes aren’t pastel this time

The Cuck

6/10

hair slightly less glue-y

yet another striped polo is peeking out unfortunately

but! it’s green and green looks good on him

finally wearing jeans like a normal fucking human instead of weird slacks

pivotal moment in steve’s fashion evolution from preppy male model to sexy morally upright king

his morals are stored in the denim

The Final Girl

9/10

an outfit with a character arc to rival steve’s own

pretty fucking good hair if i do say so myself!!

it’s fluffy!

that shit looks like if you touched it it’d be soft... no glue here!

finally not copying from the goddamn l.l. bean catalog

iconic green slut sweatshirt? check! jacket and nikes? check! fucked-up gorgeous face and baseball bat full of rusty nails? check, baby!

looks good on its own OR with some blood on top

overall a very solid look

The Darling Little Drummer Boy

7/10

babe no... please don’t go back to the khakis... they won’t treat you like jeans do...

not quite glue head but not his best

apparently steve owns a single green sweatshirt, a thousand striped polos, and one very precious christmas sweater

almost makes up for prep-related khaki crimes by being really fucking cute

The Simp

8/10

glue head is DEAD

further evidence that steve harrington’s entire closet is just striped polos

this is his fifth unique striped polo

most of these points are for the sunglasses and the hair

actually all of these points are for the sunglasses and the hair

he’s finally let go of the fucking pastels thank jesus

and you can’t see it but he did wear jeans with this fit i just forgot to make sure they were pictured and it’s 4:15 am so i don’t feel like going back to remake this collage

cannot tell if this is a lighter blue version of the jacket he wore three times in s1 or if it IS the jacket he wore three times in s1 and the color grading is just that different

either way he loves jackets and i think that’s very sexy of him

The Intellectual

9/10

i’ve been waiting for this one... turn it up!

literally invented vests

excellent hair

loses a point for unfortunately introducing steve’s SIXTH unique striped fucking polo

i can’t see the collar but i know it’s there i know you’re wearing another fucking polo steve you can’t hide from me

can’t decide if he looks gay or just really preppy but either way he’s got some repression going on

still a very solid look

The Oh No Oh God It Hurts I’m Looking Away I Can’t Watch This

10/10

yes that middle picture is absolutely to show off the texture of his blazer and not at all me making sure that if i have to see his heartbroken little face then you all do too

anyways i Know that blazer cost at least $100 like i Know that shit’s expensive

excellent gorgeous soft-looking hair that someone ought to run their hands through but only people who haven’t dated him for a year while pining after someone else

emotional devastation... but make it unbelievably fucking sexy

stevie baby i know you’re a colorful guy but please wear more black

The Meathead Jock

9/10

aw christ whatever happened to standards?

introduction of the blue nikes <3

god his hair looked fucking good here

could have gained that final point by using tube socks with blue and GREEN stripes to tie together the shoes and the gym uniform :/

shorts could be shorter but are an altogether appropriate and enjoyable length

fun sweatstain to customize the look <3

The (is there a word for victim of bullying?) Serious Athlete

8/10

the yellow stripe was more fun

still cute though

The Sudsy Boy

11/10

wet

suds indicate that he’s washing his hair, presumably with faberge organics. is this why he’s being bullied?

steve brings his faberge organics shampoo and conditioner and his farrah fawcett spray to school with him whenever he has basketball practice

steve either has shampoo, conditioner, and hairspray in his backpack at all times, or he has a separate gym bag that’s mostly haircare products

just need to make sure we all know that

excellent freckle showcase

his chest is still waxed. please, i beg, keep this in mind

one of his strongest looks

The Babysitter

10/10

his most versatile look to date

a different jacket than the one(s) he’s worn before but it still has the same kind of collar. steve found a jacket he liked and bought it in at least three colors

the whole thing fits So fucking nicely! shirt, jacket, jeans... baby boy is TAILORED

return of the white nikes with the red check indicate that they are his fashion nikes, while the blue nikes with the white check are his sport nikes. interesting.

this fit lasts like 48 hours and steve simply looks sexier as time goes on which is a testament to its quality as well as his inherent power

every new accessory elevates his appearance. roses, nail bat, rubber gloves, blood, sweat, band-aids, bandana, goggles... each element complements the look in its own way!

an overall win

The Chauffeur

8/10

we can’t really see the whole fit but he’s not wearing a striped polo so i’m calling it a win regardless of what’s on his bottom half

cannot give him a 10/10 though because he might be wearing khakis

red is such a nice color on him when it’s not just from his blood

i lied when i said he should wear more black he should wear more colors

that plain sweater absolutely cost $85 or more

hair looks very nice and soft

excellent look!

The Sailor Man

9/10

very precious

absolutely the best hair i’ve ever seen

baby boy got highlights for his hot girl summer!

bright colors make his very red lips pop

shorts could be shorter

love the little accents! especially the white pockets and belt

excellent color coordination on steve’s part with the blue sneakers (notably different than his s2 blue basketball nikes) and the red bruising/blood

i hope you remembered that steve’s chest was waxed. as you can see his chest is now unwaxed. some change between s2 and s3 drove this decision, presumably either his breakup with nancy or the fact that he no longer showers in front of other guys at school. up to your interpretation

shock blanket at the very end is a nice touch so we don’t forget he’s traumatized

The Drowned Rat/The Man Overboard

10/10

wet

shorts could be shorter

the decision to purchase and wear a hoodless raincoat is absolutely ridiculous and stupid

however it is also very steve harrington and i value self-expression

The Chick Magnet/The Flaming Homosexual

100/10

what can i even say about this fit?

the absolute best pants he’s worn thus far. amazing fit, excellent classic wash. i say this as a former american eagle outfitters associate and the winner of my freshman year dorm’s “best at folding jeans” award

manages to make blue jeans with a half-blue denim vest work effortlessly

bold primary colors make him stand out without being too gaudy

excellent pairing of t-shirt with simple stripes and vest with simple color blocking to create a complex yet cohesive and flattering look

simple brown belt gives the look a put-together yet down-to-earth vibe

hair has only gotten better

still wearing that same brown watch that he’s had since the introduction

this man looks like he waxes his chest

this is steve in his final form

thank you for your time

#em talks #asks #long post #steve harrington #stranger things #battleonthedeathstar

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toongrrl-blog · 4 years

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Part One of Barb Series: Why Barb Died (Character Device Talk)

*Please watch the Betty Draper Francis video first, for extra credit, check out the channel’s vid on Jack Dawson and come with knowledge of Beth March*

Happy end of the 2010s! Before I discuss what Barb could have brought to the Party in Stranger Things I need to discuss how as a character she needed to die.

1. Beth March

In one scene in Little Women, the girls and Laurie discuss their ambitions for adult life. Oldest sister Meg wants to marry and have kids, oldest middle sis Jo wants to become a known and successful writer, youngest sister Amy wants to become rich and famous as an artist and maybe a socialite, and middle child Beth wants things to stay the way they are for her, with her loving family at her side. What’s wrong with this? What the other three sisters have in common is that they are hoping for adult lives which include a lot of change, responsibility, independence (either as a career woman or running a household with little kids underfoot), new experiences, and even new people in their lives (Meg would need to meet a guy to marry and have kids with him, Jo would need to meet people in her professional life, Amy would entertain guests and appeal to patrons). Shy Beth is a talented pianist, vet, and doll collector and is very charitable but she doesn’t seem to want to take the risks it would take to grow as a person and thrive and mature or be noticed for her own merits aside from “Angel of the House” and the future looks pretty hostile; so by the end of the novel, Beth has died in her early 20s while sisters lives have changed (Meg married and had children in a cottage while gaining confidence as a homemaker, wife, and mom; Jo sells her writing and meets a professor who wants to start a school where she becomes headmistress after they marry; Amy goes on a Grand Tour of Europe and marries wealthy and happy).

The series Stranger Things, on a whole, is a coming-of-age series that borrows from the John Hughes and Steven Spielberg films of that era that captured the joys and pains of growing up, while Joyce’s and Hop’s storylines borrow from conspiracy thrillers around that era and somewhat from Hitchcock films. All these films captured ordinary people undergoing extraordinary (E.T., North By Northwest, The Goonies, The Stepford Wives) and life altering events (Jaws, The Breakfast Club, Silkwood) that force them to encounter challenges and make decisions they wouldn’t normally make in their mundane lives. Joyce ends up facing a monster with an axe and even makes demands of people who could wipe her off the Earth, the boys have to ride their bikes to evade murderous men in vans and hide a young traumatized girl, Nancy has to learn to create and use deadly weapons and use her skills of sneaking out for something besides sex, Jonathon has to cut his and another girl’s hand to lure a monster to their trap, Hop sneaks into a morgue just to slit a dead boy’s corpse and find cotton stuffing, Will has to use what knowledge and skills he has to survive another world filled with creatures out to kill him, most of the kids throughout the series have to lie and break laws to save their town.

While the official guide does list Barb as being a varsity softball player and a mathlete and Shannon Purser concurs that Barb would have been the Velma of the group if she lived, there is one big thing that separates the Velmas from the Barbs and Beth’s of the world: Velma takes risks, she would trespass private looking property and dilapidated buildings to solve a mystery. Barb is a loyal friend and honest and studious and smart, but she’s ultimately the good girl archetype: cautious, obedient to her elders, predictable, conservatively and femininely dressed, chaste. An archetype that Nancy is trying to flee (not that the alternative of being a girl who sneaks out with her boyfriend to makeout is going to help Nancy at all) to avoid ending up like her mother. Barb has the fangs (talent and means) to be a Party member, she just lacks the nerve to jump and sink those fangs.

2. Commentary on the Patriarchy and the Tyranny of Beauty Standards

Most of the female characters in the series don’t fit the strict criteria of their Reagan era Indiana small town regarding what makes a good woman. Joyce is a single mother who doesn’t come with well-coiffed hair and she appears to be hysterical and is a working mother in a time and place where all these factors would label her a “bad mother”, Nancy is a frank young woman who takes risks and even asserts her sexuality and herself when plenty of people (like the shitheads at Hawkins Post) would prefer her to be a delicate virgin in pastels, El is physically stronger than the boys with her powers and she is very direct in her manner despite her soft-spoken demeanor, Max is a girl who is interested in arcade video games and skateboarding and brightly colored summer clothing and reads her Mom’s Cosmo cover to cover and is assertive, Erica is an assertive young girl who can talk truth (and shade) to adults and has a knowledge of My Little Pony and Cold War Politics, Robin is snarky and has a style that makes her stand out from most girls in Hawkins and is a teen genius, Kali’s rage and Joan Jett-esque appearance would make the preppy and pastel and autumnal tone wearing residents of Hawkins in Cardiac Care, Suzie has defied notions about girls in science and math and even the Mormon beliefs of her parents by french kissing and dating a non-Mormon boy like Dustin, and Karen despite her appearance of hot housewife perfection is dissatisfied with her marriage and comes close to cheating on her husband.

In contrast Barb is pretty much the most conventional character: she dresses conservatively in ruffles and pink, she is seemingly chaste, follows the rules diligently and worries about getting punished by the Holland and Wheeler parents, and has a more common body type found in cis-gender women (correct me if I’m wrong, hopefully I don’t offend trans pear shaped women) and not often found in the older members of the female cast. But despite Barb’s body being common among women in general and specific to her region (the American Midwest is noted for starchy and creamy and fried foods and is historically farming country, where pioneers would find her strong for work in and out of the log cabin and give birth to the necessary amount of children i.e. extra hands for work), the delicate and slender builds of Joyce and Nancy, the classic proportionate and slender grace of Robin, and the leggy and toned image of Karen are closer to the female standard of beauty in the 1980s. In Barb’s lifetime (1967-1983), the image of beauty was dominated by leggy, toned, slim, busty women or lean women with minimal breasts: no room for tall, broad, pear shapes like herself. And in 1983, Molly Ringwald wasn’t yet a household name that freckled redheads with dry wit and atypical images could look on with pride. Hell I remember reading a copy of Color Me Beautiful where they recommend that women with heavy hips and small waists (similar features of Christina Hendricks and Shannon Purser) shouldn’t cinch their waistlines, the celebration of Marilyn Monroe pinups with round hips, pillowy thighs and tummies, rounded tushes were long gone by then. Basically Barb being her natural self, was not seen as “feminine enough” and combined with her glasses and style (any plus sized or early developing gal can tell you that it is hell to find junior styles that suit your body size and shape) have ruled her as “uncool”.

There is also that Barb does a lot of things that the boys do: being slightly geeky, a loyal friend, has innocent and wholesome interests, chaste, and is quiet (like Will) but she still gets killed. One can sense that #JusticeForBarb came out of an anger with misogyny in media and society that tells women to be a certain way and punishes them whether they fit a mold or not. Women are still underpaid in the workplace, underrepresented in government, still deal with unequal and toxic relationships, are shamed for being virgins or for having sexual experience (Carol pokes fun at the idea of Barb finding the sex sounds too much and yet contributes to the slut shaming graffiti of Nancy), are told on one hand to look a certain way to attract the male gaze and shamed when they indulge in sexual desire (something Nancy can attest to with her glamorous mother who offers to lend her black heels and focuses on Nancy’s beauty before a funeral, the same mom who was angry her daughter had sex), they are either too fat/skinny/busty/flat/frizzy/straight haired/pale/slutty/prudish/dark/feminine/masculine/full-butt-ed/quiet/loud/naive/cynical/smart/dumb/angry/happy, and they deal with a media that sells a very narrow standard of beauty to the point that when they see a drop dead gorgeous actress or model with similar features they feel seen.

Oh Bondage, Up Yours!

*Read this is not a “Barb is a slut shamer!” piece yes that was shitty but she was a teen girl in a small 1980s town and she ISN’T starting a (paraphrasing Kimberly Nicole Foster quote) “no whores allowed campaign” OR trying to pass a law that demands women keep their ectopic pregnancies to full term*

3. End of Innocence

When Barb died, it marked the end of Nancy’s childhood and her needing to grow up. That was the night Nancy went straight from childhood (Barb), teenager (sex with Steve), and then shortly became an adult when she realized that Barb had disappeared. For many women (like myself at ages 9 and 10), the moment they get their period or grow breasts or reach a certain age, marks a dramatic end of their childhood. Suddenly many are told to police their behavior and language around boys, even policing the food they eat or their bodies. There is also extra responsibility and stress, demogorgans being one of them. Nancy is now having to deal with the sorts of issues that adult women dealt with on Mad Men along with scary monsters threatening her town and the fact her parents are not as happy as they look to the world, there is a gap between the experiences of her and Mike, she has a baby sister who probably was conceived to save the marriage, and Nancy can’t confide or trust either of her parents (who are absorbed with their own issues). Now Nancy is making big decisions that Barb, with the sheltering and seemingly close parents, will likely never deal with. Nancy is even taking fashion risks with clothes that are more functional, stylish, show off her figure, and can even withstand flayer blood and exorcising her boyfriend’s little brother.

4. A Huge Threat

Barb was intended to be a character that we connected with, someone to be built up somehow. There was a character like this in a movie: her name was Marion Crane. She was a secretary who has been supporting herself and her little sis since their parents died, patiently waiting for her boyfriend to make more money at his job so they can marry and stop sneaking around sleeping with one another, in desperation she steals a lot of money from her workplace, drives to California where she meets a mild-mannered but strange young man who manages a distant motel in the vicinity of a Victorian house where an older woman is croaking about promiscuity, after talking with him over a dinner of sandwiches in his taxidermy themed office, she goes to take a shower and has decided to return to Phoenix to return the money, then a strange figure comes with a large butcher knife in horribly out of date clothes and starts stabbing her to death.

This was from the Hitchcock film Psycho, the forerunner of the slasher genre that dominated the earlier half of the 1980s, and it premiered to shocked audiences in 1960. The meaning of the grisly murder of Marion, a character the audience was following from the beginning of the film, was that Norman Bates was a huge threat and intensified the need for Marion’s killer to be brought to justice.

The same thing can be said about the deaths of Benny and Barb, to show how much a threat the demogorgan and Hawkins National Lab were to the townspeople of Hawkins (and the world as a whole), basically such big threats that a little boy can be kidnapped from the safety of his home, a young teenage girl could be snatched up and killed from a suburban swimming pool, and a kindly cook and owner of a local diner would be executed for knowing about a runaway child.

5. The future of Women in Stranger Things

Not all is lost, Barb’s death forced the Duffer Bros to take a look at how women were written and treated in their series, and even helped spurred tv viewers (who ordinarily wouldn’t pay attention to social issues) to take a deeper look and interest in how people especially women are treated. For some reason I like to think: Max, Robin, Erica, and Suzie are a way of recognizing Barb’s potential within the series and even what viewers saw.

Now stay tuned to where I figure out how Barb could have been beneficial to the party.

#barb holland #justice for barb #StrangerThings #womeninmedia #beth march #betty draper #1980s women #messy #Not A Space For Character Bashing #Role of Women

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roboticspacecase · 6 years

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All of 'em :D

Oh shit alright, prepare to learn WAY too much about me :p HERE WE GOOOOOooooo!

0: Height - 5′ 2″, short af1: Age - 22 slutty, slutty years and getting bigger every day2: Shoe size - Like, 7 - 7 ½? Depends on brand and stuff. I can wear kid’s shoes, though :p3: Do you smoke? - Socially4: Do you drink? - Also socially5: Do you take drugs? - ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) 6: Age you get mistaken for - Well, LOOKS-wise I get told I look like a teenager, but when people talk to me they think I’m like 25+7: Have tattoos? - Nope8: Want any tattoos? - So many omg9: Got any piercings? - Lip, both ears are double pierced on the lobe, double helix in my right ear, and a belly ring.10: Want any piercings? - A few more, yeah11: Best friend? - It’s totes @ciphertext-x 12: Relationship status - Single and deeply confused :D13: Biggest turn ons - Intelligence, and biting. Talk dirty to me and leave marks, baby ;D14: Biggest turn offs - Being rude, bad hygiene15: Favorite movie - MEGAMIND16: I’ll love you if… - You let me be myself around you without judging me17: Someone you miss - My sister. She moved to Colorado and I miss her a lot.18: Most traumatic experience - Tbh I’m not really comfortable saying, but all I WILL say is that I had a really shitty childhood, my mom was neglectful af and my dad was at work too much to know what was going on.19: A fact about your personality - I’m nice af to people and idk why because in my head I’m just mean and salty all the time.20: What I hate most about myself - I let the negative thoughts win too much.21: What I love most about myself - When I do manage to do things, they’re awesome and I’m always pretty proud of them.22: What I want to be when I get older - An author :p23: My relationship with my sibling(s) - Mostly pretty good, but we don’t talk much anymore :/24: My relationship with my parent(s) - My dad is pretty cool. Fucking crazy, but cool. My mom though, she’s abusive and shitty so I tend to not wanna be around her as much as possible.25: My idea of a perfect date - Something either super chill or super crazy. I love adventure but I’ll also hella take a night in with snacks and a show/movie.26: My biggest pet peeves - People being mean??? Like, my inner bitch is STRONG, but you really don’t gain anything from being an asshole, so why????27: A description of the girl/boy I like - They cute. That’s all you’re getting :p28: A description of the person I dislike the most - Loud, annoying, stupid.29: A reason I’ve lied to a friend - To make myself seem less nosy tbh30: What I hate the most about work/school - My bosses, always. They’re real fucks for no reason.31: What my last text message says - “He’s inside” to my mom because she thought her cat that meows a lot was stuck outside. Quite ominous and weird without context xD32: What words upset me the most - “You didn’t even try” because trust me, bud, I’m ALWAYS trying for something.33: What words make me feel the best about myself - “I love your writing”, “Your writing made me feel better”, stuff like that.34: What I find attractive in women - Physically? Softness, long hair, ability to kick someone’s ass :p35: What I find attractive in men - Tallness, nice smile, ability to be cuddled.36: Where I would like to live - Somewhere that I can feel safe and where the weather isn’t all over the place all year.37: One of my insecurities - My body sucks.38: My childhood career choice - Used to wanna be an archaeologist real bad :p39: My favorite ice cream flavor - Death by Chocolate ;D40: Who I wish I could be - Someone who isn’t so afraid and has their shit together at least a little bit.41: Where I want to be right now - In bed.42: The last thing I ate - Don’t be grossed out, but hot lime Cheetos dipped in nacho cheese :p43: Sexiest person that comes to my mind immediately - Dan Avidan44: A random fact about anything - I’m scared of those blow-up bounce houses and waterslides because of recurring nightmares I had as a kid about them. Same with alligators and crocodiles ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#about me #personal #hope y'all enjoyed your Robo History Lesson lmao #thinking about some of this made me sad tbh #but all is well #I did have fun with it :p #anon #ask meme thing

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mermaidsirennikita · 7 years

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August 2017 Book Roundup

Last month was not a good reading month for me, partially because work and depression make reading hard and partially because the books themselves weren’t that great. There are times when a ton of new, exciting books get dropped and they seem to swing around the spring (people beginning buying for the summer? Beach reads?) and the fall (obviously, in preparation for Christmas). The one book I really super enjoyed was A Map for Wrecked Girls by Jessica Taylor--a tale of sisters getting shipwrecked on an island (with a boy, but he’s not super important) and working through the fact that one is borderline psychopathically manipulative and they hate each other. Also, sibling codependence. There were decent books aside from that one, but nothing that gripped me quite as much. (Ratings and mini reviews below.)

Stolen Beauty by Laurie Lico Albanese. 3/5. In World War II era Austria, Maria Altmann’s world is turned upside down as her Jewish family attempts to flee. In the process, the Nazis snatch up portraits of her beloved aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer, painted by the renowned artist Gustav Klimt. As we follow Maria from the turmoil of World War II to her twenty-first century struggle to regain the paintings, a parallel story is told--that of Adele and her relationship with Klimt. While this book was pretty accurate as far as I could tell--I’m no Klimt expert--it could have done without Maria’s story. This is better told in the Helen Mirren movie “The Woman in Gold”; here it’s pretty flat, and distracts from Adele’s much more engaging journey from impetuous young wife to immortalized muse. Maria’s narrative becomes a fairly standard--I hate to say it--World War II story. Adele’s is far more interesting and unique, and the book would have been much better had the author stuck with that.

Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found by Frances Larson. 4/5. Larson takes on the topic of severed heads, from those captured during war, to those decapitated by royal decree, and those belonging to saints. Morbid curiosity and the recommendation of Caitlin Doughty drew me to this book, and it’s both well-researched and quite interesting. I thought it would be largely about the heads lost through the decapitation of living people, like those who would become “shrunken heads” and famous people like Anne Boleyn. While a couple of chapters are devoted to such subjects, Larson also discussed people decapitated after death, as well as the topic of life remaining after decapitation. It’s a pretty thorough book, and while some topics were more interesting than others and it was certainly all a bit gruesome at times, I was impressed by the fact that Larson even went into the topic of decapitation in art. Overall, a good read if you’re in the mood for something niche-y.

The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter. 2/5. In the 80s, sisters Sam and Charlotte (later Charlie) undergo a horrific event together that leaves their mother murdered and both deeply traumatized. Thirty years later, Charlie--an attorney, albeit not one as controversial as her “defend any client” father--witnesses a school shooting, and is compelled to help defend the shooter, a teenage girl. The subsequent events will bring up the truth about what happened to the sisters that night, as well as the truth of who they became after. I really enjoyed this book at first--even though the beginning is quite harrowing and not for the faint of heart. But there’s “not for the faint of heart” and “this makes me actively uncomfortable because I don’t think it’s being handled well”. This might act as a spoiler, but honestly it’s a theme throughout the novel and, well... The topic of rape is not handled the way it should have been, in my opinion. Lots of people will feel differently, and I’m sure some will have valid reasons, but I could not get behind this book.

The Life She Was Given by Ellen Marie Wiseman. 2/5. As a young girl, Lilly is sold to the circus by her mother. She hasn’t even had much experience of the world, locked away by her parents to keep her albinism a secret. In a parallel timeline, 20+ years later, nineteen-year old Julia learns that her estranged mother is dead, and she has inherited the family horse farm. Returning home, she stumbles across Lilly’s story, and becomes wrapped up in the mystery of what happened to her. Obviously, this story is interesting--but I think it might be time for me to stop trying these parallel narrative historical fiction novels. They just aren’t for me. Furthermore, the simplicity of the writing and the characters was off-putting. It felt like I was reading about Lilly and the Good People versus Cartoon Villains.

Happiness: A Memoir by Heather Harpham. 3/5. Upon finding out that she was pregnant, Heather Harpham soon realized that her boyfriend, Brian, loved her but wasn’t sure about the idea of fatherhood in his forties. She went through her pregnancy alone, gave birth without him--but things became even more complicated upon the discovery that their daughter, Amelia-Grace, had a blood disease that would quite possibly kill her before she hit thirty. “Happiness” is the story of not only Amelia-Grace’s treatment and the fight for her life, but Heather and Brian’s journey towards finding each other. It’s at times frustrating, as many memoirs are; I really don’t know that Brian and Heather are people I would identify with if I met them, and some of their decisions were... questionable. But the writing is lovely, and I really felt for what was an incredibly human story. It’s a well-done memoir.

A Map for Wrecked Girls by Jessica Taylor. 4/5. Shipwrecked with her sister Henri and a virtual stranger, Alex, Emma has little hope of being found or rescued. Complicating matters of survival is her fraught relationship with Henri, ruined by recent events. Parallel narratives tell the story of the three teens’ attempts to survive, while also revealing what happened between Henri and Emma. This book is extremely gripping and interesting, and while there is a romance that largely serves to develop Emma’s character, the crux of the story is her relationship with the magnetic, manipulative Henri. Henri is the kind of character you love to hate, and so is Emma in a way. Their codependency was extremely compelling, and while a couple of the later “twists” weren’t the strongest, they didn’t dull my interest in the sisters and what happened to them.

Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman by Anne Helen Petersen, 3/5. This book is a collection of essays on women who Petersen--someone who got her doctoral degree on celebrity gossip, essentially--terms as “unruly” for a variety of different reasons. Petersen, who wrote for Buzzfeed, does know how to write a thinkpiece, and in an engaging manner. It’s definitely a quick, fun read. Nothing she says here reinvents the wheel if you’re already engaged in feminist theory, but most of it isn’t actively wrong and it’s good to read. But she does write as a straight, cis, white woman (as she acknowledges). She’s conventionally attractive; she isn’t fat. So there is a part of me that’s like “ugh, I wish someone who could speak from personal experience about what she’s writing had written this book”. She’s not even old, like Madonna (the subject of her “Too Old” essay). But that’s not really something Petersen can help. What she can help is the manner in which she overlooks the ridiculousness of Caitlyn Jenner’s political views, barely mentioning them in the “Too Qu**r” essay. Really, Petersen acknowledges that Jenner doesn’t embody that label; so why not discuss another woman like Laverne Cox or Janet Mock over Jenner? And I know she’s capable of criticizing her subject, because she does so in the aforementioned Madonna piece (though she doesn’t get into exactly how problematic Madonna’s rearing and presentation of her black children has been; that’s not the point of the piece). The Lena Dunham piece is similarly shortsighted. She doesn’t discuss many of the reasons why lots of people--including many feminists--hate Dunham. She doesn’t get into her racism, her troubling discussion of her relationship with her sister. If Petersen didn’t want to get into these issues, there are plenty of “unruly women” who coincide with her topics and aren’t loaded with ugliness, for lack of a better term. So while I liked the book--it could have done with more women of color, by the way--a couple of the essays I side-eyed.

The Devil’s Lady by Deborah Simmons. 4/5. When Aisley de Laci (yes) is forced to marry--but given the option to choose her husband--she chooses Piers Montmorency (yes) otherwise known as the Red Knight (YES). Fierce and mysterious, Piers is said to have a made a pact with the devil, and doesn’t allow Aisley to see him in the light. If you think this means they have a lot of sex in the dark, fuck yeah it does. This is a classic sort of romance novel, made better by the fact that the heroine has a lot of agency in terms of her sexuality for a romance novel written in the 90s, and the guy isn’t a total douchebag. He kind of is at first, but he’s not put in the best situation so.... One of the most appealing parts of the story is dealt with in a manner that was way too easy for my taste, and the ending was all a bit rushed, but that wasn’t the point. The romance was. And it was good.

Shimmer and Burn by Mary Taranta. 2/5. After an attempted escape from their guarded city, Faris is left alone, her love murdered and her sister enslaved. Desperate to free her sister, she enters into arrangement with the king’s executioner and a the Princess Bryn--who wants to become queen--to slip out of the kingdom and transfer magic and honestly that’s all I got because this world was so badly explained and constructed. It was one of those worlds that naturally doesn’t appeal to me, where magic is a substance and you can, like, put it in your body with a syringe? Which made me think of an addiction plotline on the rise and addiction + magic is something I hate and even if I did understand this world, which I didn’t because the writing didn’t explain it to me, I probably wouldn’t like it. Then there were little things, like the king’s executioner being a teenage boy (was there... not someone a little older) and Faris streetfighting~ to earn her keep. Cliche.

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