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TW // Mention of rape

I was thinking about Ana from Beartown today.

A wild girl, with a disfunctional home life, that she still embraces as much as she can. She learnt to be self-sufficient early on, but she didn't really grow up until she had to be there for Maya after the rape and when she had to face the consequences of outing Benji.

About the outing thing, Ana was a teenage girl who wanted to feel something when she felt lonely and desperate. Teenagers are impulsive, they don't think their actions through. Ana got rejected when, in her mind, she shouldn't have been (I think there would've been a very different outcome if Ana had gone for Benji when she wasn't emotionally distraught). Her rage went deeper, it wasn't for Benji only, but he was the one closest to blame at that moment. So she gave into her impulses and the snowball effect happened.

We know Ana's nature was never cruel and seeing how she crumbled and regreted outing Benji speaks volumes. Benji forgave her, he understood that she had acted in a moment when her judgement was impared by too much happening all at once.

Ana grew up to be one of the best people in beartown and she represents the children who have a rough life, who surrounded by the right kind of people and driven by ambition can raise to be whatever they want.

Ana's lack of surname, though, that's interesting. I'll have to think about the significance of that some other time

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The thing about having a huge physical TBR (+100 books) is that even when a book/series hits you right in the feels, there's always another book you can pick up to self-soothe OR to throw you into another round of despair

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After the inner devastation Beartown, Us Against You and The Winners caused, I'm picking up something to heal me

Howl's Moving Castle - never read it, only watched the Ghibli movie a few times

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I finished Us Against You and here's what I have to say.

I love Benjamin Ovich so much. He is one of the most respectable people to have walked the fictional Earth. So highly respected by everyone - in town and out. Maybe it's out of fear, or maybe it's pity, or maybe it's out of just respect for his character. He smells like pine and bonfires. He climbs trees and solves problems with his fists. He sacrifices himself for others and takes the fall unconditionally. He's a child of the forest. His role models are all women who raised him perfectly. His moral compass is unbreakable. He conformed to other's labels and lost himself. He hears others out before forming an opinion. He is the most caring motherfucker and many people skip over that part of him. He is hurting, but no one can read that about him. He can not be controlled but can be tamed. He thinks before he speaks, and he doesn't talk much unless he means it. He can't handle responsibility. Deep down he is still just a boy. A wildfire. A diamond in the rough. But he's our Benji. And despite his flaws, I love Benji so much.

God if I was in the Beartownverse, I would be so painfully in love with him but so much that I would follow him anywhere. I would love him so much that as long as I was in his life, I would be happy. He would never love me back in the same way, no. And that'd be okay. I would still look for him in everyone I met. And I'd sacrifice everything for his happy ending.

The Winners is going to destroy me. Fredrik Backman I am SOBBING and SIMPING over a fictional man

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Shouting into the void:

Can someone, please, draw Alicia playing with #16 (that one single game) and Benji, also in #16, watching over her???

You know, like in Shaman King when the spirit hovers behind the shaman when they're united???

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"This hurts too much to touch with words."

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experimenting with some of the beartown kids

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how fitting yet so unfair that Benji Ovich dies in an ice rink. How he left Beartown to find himself, to figure out who he was without hockey as his only identifier. How he comes back and still feels so painfully at home on the ice. How he’s somehow closer but also further away from knowing who and what he wants to be in this world. How the universe decides it for him with a bang. Benji Ovich dies in an ice rink protecting a little girl who will one day wear his name and number on her back, who will go on to live the life so many wanted for him … the life he deserved. Benji Ovich dies in an ice rink that was once his safe haven, in a locker room that used to be his, and surrounded by a team he was supposed to lead. A life of what-ifs that he was finally making peace with. He could be something more than just a hockey player. Alicia was proof of that. Benji Ovich dies in an ice rink … and maybe in death, he can finally be able to just play.

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I will go to war for Benji Ovich

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benji ovich and his need to belong and his desire to leave and his innate loneliness and his air of tragedy and his complete lack of fear while being totally scared and his wearing of his heart on his sleeve and his closely guarded secrets and his constant yearning for the past and his blunt sense of humor and his guilt over being unable to stop loving the version of kevin he knew and his genuine love for maya and his camaraderie with his teammates and his refusal to show weakness and his relationship with his older sisters and his complete exhaustion but inability to rest and his gentleness with alicia and his heroic nature despite him not ever believing himself to be a hero and his feeling useless but he’s not actually useless not at all and his need to run away from who everyone thinks he is but his inability to escape his past, from what beartown made him.

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benjiiiiiiiii

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ohhhh shut up the way benji ovich literally gives and gives and gives and no one recognizes it because they refuse to look deeper or because he doesn't let them. its interchangeable tbh. the way he destroys the rest of the bathroom for maya. the way he gives her his and k/vin's island. i will never be quiet about him

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I never thought that a book about ice hockey would make it to my all time favourites shelf. And I never thought that a book about ice hockey would make me cry so damn much 😭💔 Everyone, go read Beartown by Fredrik Backman.

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I fucking finished The Winners 😭😭😭😭

I'll need 100 years to recover, thanks

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I demand for The Winners to end on chapter 70 without those last lines

I don't care about plotholes or unfinished plot threads or about the book not getting a proper ending, finish this book with Benji alive and playing his heart out with friends!!!! 😭😭😭

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My friend prompted me to write a crack short story about a rich city boy moving to a remote village because he turns into a chicken every day and then he ends up being accidentally killed by the love interest when they go chop a chicken for soup