uhbasicallyjustmilex · 1 year ago
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wingsofwriting · 5 years ago
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Tamora Pierce Reread- The Lioness Rampant
And so I’ve reached the end of Tamora Pierce’s first quarter. I thought going into this one that this is the novel I remember the least. And I remembered why as I read it. I’ve read it the least of all of this quarter (and maybe the entire Tortall series), and it’s mostly to do with the first half.
I find something just slightly boring about the first half of this book. I’m not really interested in the plot of trying to attempt to get the Dominion Jewel, so the interesting part to me is the characters. And even then I have issues with the Shang Dragon.
Liam is an interesting character, and as well written as any of Pierce’s characters, but a frustrating one. I like a lot of what he represents narratively, but very few of his actions as a character. I like that Alanna gets to be with someone for sheer sexual attraction, and to enjoy it. It’s freeing to see a woman behave in such a way (particularly in young adult literature). But I’m frustrated with their interactions when they try to be true lovers. They’re worse for each other than Jon and Alanna, so it’s not always pleasant to read. Though I do understand more of how he acts now as an adult than I did as a kid; he is 14 years older than Alanna after all, but still it makes reading some sections of the early half of the book tiring to me.
Moving on to Thayet though. I’d been looking forward to seeing her again since I first started my reread. I love Thayet and always have. She is amazing written, amazing for Jonathan, and an amazing Queen. Her character just shines in the narrative. And she’s beautifully placed in it whenever she appears. I love that she’s every part a member of nobility; she’s a princess and later a Queen by heritage and by nature. But she is not weak; she is as strong as Alanna and just as fierce, and it’s that balance that makes her Jon’s perfect match. (I also very much love that Alanna sees her and literally within like a day of knowing her is like ‘this is Jon’s future wife I must introduce them).
Now as much as a struggle with the first half of the book the latter half of it is great. Alanna’s return to Corus and the days leading up to Jonathan’s coronation are interesting and rife with great plot and character moments. I wish the entire book could be this way.
I love the reintroduction of Roger. It’s a perfect end to how villainy. If he’d remained dead after the second book he would have felt a lesser villain. The fact that he returns and manages to once again manipulate everyone to allow him one final attempt at the throne makes him an extremely compelling villain. Though I also appreciate how simple his final moments are. Alanna beats him by doing the exact opposite of his expectations, and it’s wonderful to see her able to do that.
I still find issue with Alex’s character. I just have a hard time reconciling him as one of Alanna’s first friends and one of her final enemies. I do not understand how Roger so wholly one him over.
And as always watching my reactions to Jonathan throughout. He really settles into being a king here, and it’s marvelous. He’s a great king and there’s a reason the God’s hands were on him. And I like seeing this Jon better than the one who threw tantrums in the Bazhir taunts. I love that he and Alanna acknowledge they’ll always love each other, but our now able to move on to the people they should actually be with and can support and love each other in the way’s there meant to. Alanna will always be his Champion, and that’s exactly where she should be. His closest friend, his closest guardian, and the sword arm of his country.
And George. Oh George. I really cannot talk enough about how I love George. He’s an amazing man among amazing men. He is the only man in Alanna’s life (except maybe Miles) to never put any expectations unto her. He loves her; he wants to be with her. But he wants her to be herself and be happy. And to see them finally come together in this novel, and Alanna to finally realize she’s loved him all along? It’s fulfilling to read. One of my favorite thing about Pierce’s writing has always been that that fantasy adventure books, but romance is always given it’s due time and always allowed to shine when it needs to. And she writes amazing couples.
Also I haven’t really talked about Alanna explicitly in my other reviews. But I do love her more as an adult than I did as a kid. The Alanna books were always my least favorite of the Tortall series, but I find new appreciation in them as an adult. Alanna is asked a lot, perhaps more than any of Pierce’s other characters. And so to watch her growth from the child afraid of the destiny thrust before her to the King’s Champion assures in her place in the works is a wonderful journey to watch. And to watch her go from the girl who has spunk but denied herself her womanhood and love because she thought she had to to an adult woman whose proud to be female and who wants someone wii will love her as both a woman and a warrior is extremely important for young girl’s to read.
And I think that’s kinda the crux of it for me. I’ve always know that Tamora Pierce novels were an extremely formative part of my youth. I read them first as a preteen (starting with the Kel books and working my way through the rest) and I’ve always said I grew up feminist in part because I read Tamora Pierce. And this reread is proving that true, though I think it also helped me always realize I should value myself over a man and never let men treat me as less than I deserve. And I’m thankful I had these books as a child. They taught me a lot and also just gave me such joy to read. And I’m glad I still love them now.
I have more to say. Mainly over Tamora Pierce’s world building. I may do a general series review before moving on to The Immortals. Or I may save it for after I finish the Tortall series, since I know she builds on the world even further in the books to come.
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woozapooza · 5 years ago
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On male and female deaths on Lost
(I’m sure somewhere in the fandom the following has been pointed out already, but I haven’t seen any posts about it, so I’m writing my own. Keep in mind that I’ve only just started my first-ever rewatch. I checked Lostpedia whenever I was unsure about something, but there could be mistakes in here, although I’m confident that I’m right about the overall pattern I’m observing. This is a critical post, but rest assured Lost is still one of my favorite shows. Sometimes you gotta complain about something you adore. Also, I’m excluding Nikki and Paolo from this post, lol.)
It’s been pointed out that Lost repeatedly uses the “women in refrigerators” trope: with Shannon, with Libby, with Charlotte, and with Juliet. (You could also make an argument for other characters, including Nadia and, if non-love interests count, Alex, but I’m going to focus on members of the main cast.) While thinking about Lost’s many main-cast deaths, another gendered pattern occurred to me: female characters’ deaths tend to be accidents, whereas male characters have more agency over their own deaths. I think this trope (which probably has a name but I don’t know what it is) is very closely connected to women in refrigerators, but I’ll get to the connection at the end. Let’s go through each of the main-cast characters who died and see how they died. Ladies first:
Shannon dies while chasing after Walt’s image. Ana Lucia hears her coming at shoots her out of fear. Ana Lucia could just as well have shot Sayid, who was running after Shannon and calling to her, but she didn’t.
Ana Lucia and Libby both die at Michael’s hand in his quest to save Walt. Ana Lucia dies because she happens to be guarding Ben and Libby dies because she stumbles upon the scene of the crime. If it had been a man guarding Ben, Michael would have shot him, but it wasn’t, and if Hurley had gone back for the blankets instead of Libby, Michael would have shot him, but he didn’t.
Charlotte dies as a complication of time travel, which could just have easily happened to Daniel or Miles, but it didn’t.
Juliet dies because she gets caught in a chain and falls down the shaft that became the Hatch. The chain could just as easily have pulled Sawyer to his death, but it didn’t.
Ilana dies because she mishandles dynamite. This could have happened to any of the men who handled dynamite, but it didn’t (not counting Arzt because he wasn’t a main character).
Finally, Sun dies because the explosion in the submarine caused her to be trapped behind a heavy...I don’t know what it was but the point is she couldn’t get free so she drowned.
Out of the seven main female characters who die, not one of them chooses their death, and only two (Juliet and Sun) have a chance to confront what’s about to happen to them. Both of them use their last moments to tell their men that they love them. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing in itself—after all, Jin also uses his last moments to tell Sun that he loves her—but the point is that there are no women who get cool death speeches about anything else like some of the men do.
Now the gentlemen:
I’m going to break chronological order for a second to start with Jin, as the difference between his and Sun’s deaths illustrates the pattern I’m talking about. It could just as easily have been him who got stuck behind the heavy thingy, leaving Sun to make the choice to die with him, but it wasn’t. Sun’s death is an accident; Jin’s death is a choice that gives the audience our final impression of him.
Going back to season one, Boone could be seen as an exception to the pattern. He dies because Locke told him to check out the plane. He’s “the sacrifice the island demanded” or whatever, but he doesn’t willingly sacrifice himself. Still, he chooses death in the sense that he explicitly absolves Jack of the responsibility to try to keep him alive.
Eko dies facing the smoke monster head-on. He gives ones of the coolest speeches in the show, making peace with his past and bringing his character arc to a close.
Charlie knows well ahead of time that he’s going to die. Desmond offers to go down to the Looking Glass in Charlie’s place, but Charlie takes responsibility for the task. He drowns intentionally, bravely, and at peace with himself, having done something heroic.
Michael dies as a deliberate act of redemption when the bomb explodes on the freighter. He stays behind to die so that Jin, Desmond, and the Oceanic Six can survive.
Locke, as a murder victim, is another possible exception in that he has no agency over his death. It’s never 100% clear why Ben killed Locke as far as I know, but it seems to be at least partly out of jealousy. Locke’s death is definitely anything but accidental or random.
Daniel is shot by Eloise for threatening Richard. This in itself is already pretty far from random. Then there’s the fact that Eloise had spent Daniel’s whole life bringing this moment about. True, it’s a very sudden death, not a death Daniel was able to choose or to face on his own terms. He dies feeling like a pawn. On the other hand, it’s not random or accidental and it explains a lot about Daniel’s life.
Sayid, my darling, beautiful, brave Sayid, dies, like Charlie and Michael, as an act of self-sacrifice and redemption. Before he carries the bomb away from his friends, he makes sure Jack is prepared to be the hero the island needs. Sayid’s death is meaningful on both an external level and an internal level. Not only does he save Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Hurley, but by doing so he overcomes the “sickness” that had brought out the worst in him, and thus he proves that he was at heart a good man. I have to take a timeout from this post to cry.
Okay, I’m back. Finally, Jack dies of his wounds after fighting the Man in Black and restoring the cork at the center of the island. He willingly sacrifices himself to make sure good triumphs over evil and to make sure the passengers on the Ajira plane make it off the island alive. He dies at peace, with a smile on his face, having fulfilled his destiny. I have to go cry again.
Okay, I’m back again. So, out of nine men who die, only three—Boone, Locke, and Daniel—can really be seen as victims. Of those “victims,” only’s Boone’s death is really random, and he gives the audience closure with a cool death speech. The remaining six know that they have to die in advance, and they face death with great dignity and courage.
So, what have we learned, and how does this connect to the four women in refrigerators? Well, tropes aren’t an exact science, so your mileage may vary on what I’m about to say, but in my opinion, a character is usually only “fridged” when their death isn’t really about them at all. If Libby had died bravely, standing up to Michael and defending Ana-Lucia, and if in doing so she had reached the culmination of previously established character arc, then I wouldn’t consider that an instance of fridging—at least, not when evaluated on its own as opposed to as part of a pattern of women dying and men being sad. Fridging basically means turning a character into a prop that moves the story forward, rather than letting that character embody a story in their own right. Not that none of the women who died had interesting stories. But their deaths weren’t part of those stories; instead, they interrupted those stories. Take Shannon, for instance. She might be the woman whose death comes closest to meaning something other than sadness for a man. After all, she initially comes off as pretty self-centered, but by going after Walt she shows concern for someone else. But her growth just gets cut short when she gets shot. That didn’t have to happen. She could have said some last words to Sayid about how she hoped the rest of the gang would rescue Walt. Or something like “make sure Vincent is taken care of.” But because she doesn’t get to choose her death OR say anything before dying, her significance as a character vanishes and what’s left is a plot development for Sayid (and, to be fair, to a lesser extent Ana-Lucia) to react to. The men’s deaths are about the men one way or another: either they’re targeted by someone else for who they are or for a choice they’ve made (Eko, Locke, Daniel), or they choose death (Boone, Charlie, Michael, Sayid, Jin, Jack). Not one of the women’s deaths is about that woman in either of these ways. In other words, when a man dies, it’s part of his story, and when a woman dies, it terminates her story. In other other words, men are the protagonists of their own deaths and women aren’t. I’m not saying every one of the women’s deaths was objectively bad writing or that every one of the men’s deaths was objectively good writing. I’m just saying the pattern seems glaringly obvious now that I’ve noticed it.
Finally, some statistics: Out of nine women whose actresses had main-cast billing, only two—Kate and Claire—were alive at the end of the show. Out of seventeen men whose actors had main-cast billing, eight—Hurley, Ben, Sawyer, Walt, Miles, Richard, Frank, and Desmond—were alive at the end of the show. So while more individual men (nine, or ten if you count Paolo) than women (seven, or eight if you count Nikki) die, a much larger chunk of the female cast is killed off than the male cast. Women have a 22% survival rate and men have a 47% survival rate. This suggests that the writers are simply more interested in keeping men’s stories going than women’s. Hopefully this is obvious, but I’m not accusing the writers of having some nefarious woman-hating agenda. I doubt they realized what they were doing. I think it stems from subconscious assumptions about men and women that manifest in all sorts of media. It doesn’t make that media irredeemably misogynistic, let alone flat-out irredeemable. It’s just unfortunate.
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swarkler · 6 years ago
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Chapter 2 - Day 01 (read Chapter 1 on ao3)
“So, why aren’t we staying at the Hostel with the rest of your friends?” Julie asks as they cuddle in bed, her chin propped up in Karolina’s elbow, her lips pursed in the most adorable little frown. “Wasn’t that supposed to start today?”
“Well, since the Hostel is less than an hour’s drive away, I thought it would be more comfortable to stay here.” Karolina tries to sound as neutral and reasonable as possible. Lying was never really her forté. “We can still go to our classes like we usually do and we’ll swing by the Hostel at night for dinner and stuff like that.”
“Since when do you care so much about missing class?”
“I don’t, I just…” She scrambles for a good excuse. “I thought you liked having me all to yourself.”
“Well, of course I do.” Julie smiles coyly, her hand sliding down Karolina’s side and resting near her waist.  “But I was actually looking forward to getting to know your friends a little better. How did Gert take it when you told her you aren’t coming? She must have been pissed.”
“Nope, she totally got it, actually.” Karolina nearly chokes on her words.
Gert did not, by any means, totally get it . In fact, she gave one of her classic 40-minute-long Yorkes Monologue about how Karolina was single handedly ruining everything . She even mentioned the carbon footprint of driving to the Hostel and back everyday in an attempt to guilt her into giving up. Still, Karolina played the Nico card and they were able to reach an agreement: Karolina is going to hang back initially and test the waters, and if things with her ex-girlfriend aren’t completely unbearable she’ll relocate to the hostel midweek.
What Gert doesn’t know is that there is another factor that will definitely contribute to the already overwhelming awkwardness: Julie doesn’t know about Nico yet - and it’s not just that she doesn’t know Nico is coming, she doesn’t even know who Nico is. Karolina has been trying to gather up the courage to tell her for the past three weeks with no success.
It wasn’t a conscious decision, not telling Julie about Nico. It’s not like Karolina was trying to hide anything, she just didn’t know how to bring it up and frankly she didn’t want to. She and Xavin talked extensively about Nico and it took a huge toll on their relationship. It was kind of cathartic for Karolina at first, specially back then when things were still so fresh, but it must have been no fun for Xavin, listening to their girlfriend go on and on about how she spent her entire life loving a girl who broke her heart. So when Karolina started dating Julie, she decided she’d done enough wallowing in the past and that she would only talk about Nico if it ever came up.
Except one day it did come up, and Karolina had gotten so used to not talking about Nico she chickened out completely. When Julie asked her about her past relationships, she told her all about Xavin, how they met when she was spending a year abroad in Europe and decided it was best to break up when Karolina came home. She never explicitly said Xavin was her first relationship, but she let Julie assume - which is just as bad.
In Karolina’s defense, she genuinely thought it would never be an issue. Her friends never talked about Nico, at least not while Karolina or Alex were in the room. She was their group’s version of Voldemort, always up in the air but never directly mentioned. They even replaced whatever framed pictures she was in with newer versions without her. She was erased, and it hurt, but not nearly as much as being reminded of her did. Karolina had made peace with the fact that she would never see Nico again, so what was so wrong about wanting to keep that particularly painful part of her past to herself? It had never even occurred to her that Gert would invite Nico to the wedding, much less that Nico would agree to come.
“Babe? Are you there?” Julie almost has to physically shake Karolina’s head in order to get her attention. “You kind of spaced out on me.”
Karolina blinks. “Uh, sorry, I… didn’t get much sleep last night.”
(She hasn’t gotten much sleep since Gert asked her to meet for breakfast three weeks ago).
“Poor thing.” Julie caresses her cheek affectionately, looking at Karolina with eyes so attentive and trusting it makes her stomach fill with guilt. “I was just asking you if we’re going over there tonight.”
“No, not tonight. Everyone’s probably jet lagged, I don’t think there’s any plans for today. We’ll swing by tomorrow, though.”
“Okay.” Julie nods, clearly a little disappointed.
Karolina decides it’s now or never. She has to tell her. “Hey, Julie?”
“Yes, love?” Her girlfriend smiles at her expectantly, looking particularly angel-like with her strawberry blonde hair falling carelessly around her face. God, she’s so beautiful. And loving, and kind, and hopeful. She realizes Julie reminds her a little bit of her 17 year old self, and she knows it’s the wrong thing to do but she can’t bring herself to let her, down not right now.
“How about we go out tonight, just the two of us?”
Julie grins contently. “I’d love that.”
If it’s their last night of normalcy before hurricane Nico arrives, they might as well enjoy it.
. . .
By the time they finally get to the Hostel, they’re both sweaty and exhausted. Their Lyft driver dropped them off about a quarter of a mile away from the actual entrance, and the rest of the path had to be done on foot. Nico realizes she had completely forgotten how hot the LA sun could actually get, specially when you’re wearing all-black.
They let themselves in through the open entrance and Nico is pleased to find that Gert and Chase have completely redecorated the place, making it look a lot more modern and a lot less like the Hostel from their youth. It makes it a little be easier to bare, not having all of those memories flushing back at once.
“Well, if it isn’t the prodigal daughter!”
Nico barely recognizes Gert and she comes over to greet her, the familiar purple hair she knew replaced by a much more sober shade of brown. Still, the fiery spirit in Gert’s eyes thankfully hasn’t changed a bit, and Nico can tell her old friend is still every bit of the unstoppable activist she knew.
Chase looks just about the same as always, now sporting a scruffy beard to hide his eternal baby face. He wraps her up in a bear hug as soon as he sees her, and she’s not nearly as bothered by the contact as she thought she would be.
“You’re still just as tiny as remember, maybe even tinier.” He looks to Gert. “Does she look tinier to you?”
Nico shrugs. “Maybe you got bigger.”
Chase is annoyingly pleased at this, opening up his signature goofball grin as he stretched out his arms. “You know what? Maybe I did.”
She turns around to make introductions, but Victor is already shaking Gert’s hand.
“Hello there mis amigos , I’m Victor. Victor Mancha. I’m Nico’s plus one.”
Nico can’t help but roll her eyes at his smug face and suggestive tone. That boy can’t even introduce himself without seeming flirty. She doesn’t even have to look at Chase to know he’s giving Victor the death stare right now.  
Gert and Chase introduce themselves politely, and Victor’s eyes light up instantly. “Oh, Nico told me about you guys! Gert, you’re the social justice warrior, right?”
She seems a little proud to know Nico has talked about her. “Well, I prefer the term activist , but sure, that’s me.”
“Great! We seriously need to talk about your wedding venue accessibility problems.” He rolls up his cargo pants’ left leg to show off his prosthetic - a rather flashy piece of black and silver titanium he made himself using their university’s medical-grade 3D printer. “The Lyft driver can’t get anywhere near this place, we’re on a literal mountain and this bad boy here wasn’t really designed for hiking.”
“Damn, he’s right!” Gert stares at him in what could only be described as awe. Did he just call her out? Did Gert just enjoy it? “I’ll ask my parents to bring their jeep up here, that way we can get everyone all the way to the entrance with no trouble.”
“Hey, Vic?” Nico tugs at his jacket, trying to get his attention. “Can you drop our stuff at our room while the rest of us catch up?”
“It’s the second door to the right.” Gert adds, still smiling at her new best friend Victor Mancha.
“Sure thing, cariño .” He grabs Nico’s wheel bag from her hand and disappears into the corridor.
“I love him!” Gert exclaims as soon as he’s out of earshot. “Can we keep him?”
Chase looks considerably less pleased. “ Cariño, huh?”
Nico rolls her eyes once again. Victor seriously needs to be stopped. “He only calls me that because he knows I hate it.”
“So, are you two, you know…” Gert makes smooch-like noises while Chase uses his hands to mimic two people kissing. Nico feels as if she’s been thrown straight back into 8th grade. Half of her is amazed that these dorks really are old enough to get married and the other half is annoyed at how perfect they are for each other.
“No, we’re not. He’s just my roommate. And my best friend, I guess.”
“Well, you do have a bit of a history with best friends…” Gert starts.
Nico doesn’t even know how to react to that. Thankfully, Chase looks at his fiancée disapprovingly. “Too soon, Gert. Too soon.”
The three of them stare at each other in silence for a second before Gert speaks, her tone quiet and serious. “Just so you know… she’s not staying here with us. She says she’ll come over tomorrow for dinner, though.”
Gert doesn’t need to specify who she is, they all know exactly who she’s talking about. Nico thought she would be relieved to find out she still has some time to prepare for what will probably be the most intense moment of her trip, but it turns out all she feels is concern. She knows Karolina would never pass up an opportunity to spend a week hanging out with her friends, and for a moment Nico feels that familiar feeling creeping in again, that dark mix of guilt and self-hatred that silently whispers to her that this is all her fault. She’s been back for all of five seconds and she’s ruined Karolina’s week once again. Hasn’t she hurt her enough? Can’t she just stay the hell away and just let Karolina be happy?
Nico shakes her head to stop the thoughts from continuing, taking deep breaths and counting down from 10 just like Steve told her to. She reminds herself that this is Gert and Chase’s wedding, and they reallywant her to be there. She wants to be there. And Karolina has the right to stay away if that’s what makes her most comfortable, and Nico should respect that. She can’t change what she’s done, but she sure as hell can make sure she will do better from now on.
Gert and Chase definitely realize something is going on with her, both eyeing her sympathetically, but they give her time to gather herself instead of asking if she’s okay and she’s grateful for that.
“So, there’s something else I should probably give you a heads up about…”
“Let me guess…She’s bringing over some over-achieving, supermodel-looking girlfriend with her?”
Chase holds back a chuckle. “Yep, pretty much, yeah.”
“Of course she is. I’m happy for her.” Nico is surprised at just how much she means what she says. God knows she could be a annoyingly possessive of Karolina back when they were young - it was hard not to be when everyone within a 10-mile radius instantly fell in love with her girlfriend - but now she’s made peace with it. She’s just glad to know that Karolina is happy and that she loves somebody who loves her just the way she deserves.
(Maybe deep down Nico is just glad to know she didn’t wipe out Karolina’s light entirely).
“You seem different, tiny one.” Gert dips her head a little bit to look at Nico, scratching her chin and squinting as if she were staring at an unsolved puzzle.
Nico smirks. “I like to think I’ve matured.”
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foursprout-blog · 7 years ago
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61 Juicy Details From The ‘Bachelor Nation’ Book That Prove The Show Isn’t All Champagne And Limos
New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/happiness/61-juicy-details-from-the-bachelor-nation-book-that-prove-the-show-isnt-all-champagne-and-limos-2/
61 Juicy Details From The ‘Bachelor Nation’ Book That Prove The Show Isn’t All Champagne And Limos
laureneburnham Instagram
LA Times reporter Amy Kaufman wrote an engrossing and in-depth peak into all things Bachelor in Bachelor Nation: Inside the World of America’s Favorite Guilty Pleasure. It’s required (and enjoyable!) reading for any fan of the series. Here were some of the best things I learned:
What goes into each episode
[*] Each episode has a budget of $2 million.
[*] Production keeps costs “down” by writing to hotels and venues and exchanging a mention of their name for free stays and services.
[*] During casting, the producers pick two girls they think the Bachelor/Bachelorette will really like. The other 23 contestants are cast only because they will make good TV.
[*] The people the producers think has the best chance of winning will be the first and last people out of the limo.
[*] Producers will influence who stays and who gets in the limo ride of shame by introducing certain contestants to the Bachelor/Bachelorette and making sure they have time, through which information they feed to the Bachelor/Bachelorette about each contestant, and by telling the Bachelor/Bachelorette directly of a few contestants they’d like to keep around for TV.
[*] Former co-executive producer Scott Jeffress would ensure they made good TV by rewarding producers who created drama with $100 bills he kept in his pocket. Producers would get the cash by causing a contestant to cry, getting the Bachelor to kiss someone, or catching someone mid-puke.
[*] The other executive producer, Lisa Levenson, is the character UnReal is based on. She was making $10,000 a week.
[*] The production staff often drinks with the contestants, especially expressing faux sympathy and then offering to do a shot with them prior to an interview so that they’ll be less guarded with their answers.
[*] Production staff would routinely function on as little of an hour a sleep a day because they were staying up so late partying.
[*] After years and years (and a lawsuit) of public criticism for not casting diverse leads ABC announced their first lead of color, Rachel Lindsay. Ratings went down about a million viewers from the previous season (Jojo Fletcher’s): “Fletcher’s audience was 86 percent white and 7 percent black; Lindsay’s was 80 percent white and 12 percent black.”
[*] You don’t own the Neil Lane ring unless you are together for two years.
[*] For two years after the show you can’t get married unless you let ABC film. They only pay you $10,000 per hour of TV. (It wasn’t made clear if this was per person or per couple).
[*] The bachelor mansion has 6 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms and the family that owns in it actually do live there. Production pays to move everything out of the house and for the family to stay at a hotel for 42 days each season. Here is the house’s (weird) website.
How to get on The Bachelor
[*] If you make it to the final interviews, you’ll get flown to LA, a $50/day stipend, and unlimited alcohol.
[*] There is an STI test you need to pass to get on the show and it’s one of the top reasons finalists don’t get cast. This was the most confusing part of the show for me because the author doesn’t specify which STIs and herpes is so common that doctors don’t even test for it as a standard. It would be hard for me to believe they have SO many casting options after eliminating this pool. Really wish the author would have followed up here.
[*] The producers say they won’t take people with borderline personality or who have had suicidal ideation in the past, but former contestants like Rozlyn Papa have struggled with depression, so it’s not clear what the line is.
[*] The contract you sign means you have to go to “After the Rose” reunions if they want you to appear for up to three years.
[*] It used to be the case that contestants would go into debt buying dresses for the show. Now people get them discounted or free with the promise of showing them on social media.
[*] On the show, you might sleep up to twelve people per room in bunk beds. You will have to do your own laundry and cook your own food.
[*] You’re not allowed to bring music or magazines, but for the most recent seasons contestants were allowed books. Prior to that the only book allowed was the bible. Contestants also usually bring vibrators.
[*] The contestants are so bored that production can bribe them with music or a movie in exchange for gossiping about someone on camera or doing something else that builds the storyline.
[*] Sometimes the cast members will say things in interviews just because they are tired and want to be done with the interview, but they know the producers will keep going until they get something juicy.
[*] One producer explicitly says the show is formed around a storyline the producers create, vs editing what actually happens. They’re quoted as saying “There’s no allegiance to what happened in reality.”
[*] You can read one of our former staff writer’s detailing her audition experience here.
Past Bachelor/Bachelorette drama
[*] The very first winner of The Bachelor, Amanda Marsh, broke up with the bachelor (Alex Michel) when she learned (months later) that he slept with the runner-up, Trista Rehn, in the fantasy suite.
[*] Sharleen Joynt from Juan Pablo’s season is one of the few former contestants interviewed in the book. I think both Sharleen and the book’s author think she comes off well but each time one of her quotes appeared it made me cringe. Every one was about how she was somehow different/better than the other women on the show. At one point she bragged a producer told her she was the most “analytical” and “reflective” contestant they’ve ever had on the show… which seems like the exact kind of buttering up that a producer says to lots of people over the years to get them to open up more in an interview.
[*] When Desiree Hartsock was on Sean Lowe’s season she was living paycheck to paycheck and didn’t have a plan for if she ended up missing a lot of work for the show. Eventually she had to ask producer’s to pay her rent for her (which they did).
[*] Meredith Phillips was the second Bachelorette. She was paid only $10,000 for the whole season.
[*] Now, the bachelor or bachelorette typically receive $100,000+.
[*] The author, Amy Kaufman, has a viewing party in her Los Angeles apartment. Robby Hayes (a castoff from Jojo’s season and purveyor of diet creamer #ads on Instagram) promised to come and made her buy supplies so he could drink Moscow Mules and then ghosted her.
[*] Andrew Baldwin, the “officer and a gentleman” former Bachelor had a somewhat shady response to Kaufman’s request to interview him for the book. He asked for a percentage of the profits in order for him to “spill all”. (I don’t think anyone should spend time doing something for free but he should just decline or not respond. In journalism it’s generally considered unethical to pay someone for an interview because it gives that person an incentive that isn’t truth-telling).
[*] Matt Grant had a better response: “unless your business opportunity can help my daughter’s university fund then I have little interest in getting involved.”
[*] Chris Bukowski only found out he was cast on Emily Maynard’s season 3 weeks before it began. He frantically started working out and kept chicken in his pockets because he was trying to eat so much protein and build muscle. He said: “I would work out before work. I would work out when I got home from work. I’d run, like, six miles before I went to bed. It was ridiculous.”
[*] By 11am on his first day of Bachelor in Paradise Chad Johnson had already consumed 7 shots of Jack Daniels and an entire bottle of wine. Production let him pass out in the sand and allowed crabs to crawl over his face. He eventually was asked to leave after Sarah Herron gave production an ultimatum.
[*] Clare Crawley recalled her famous conversation with Juan Pablo. In the helicopter she was trying to discuss the proposal/ending of the show with him. She asked him how he was feeling about it and he responded, “I don’t know. I liked fucking you.”
[*] The sex Juan was referring to didn’t take place in the ocean. Clare tells a pretty sad story about wanting to go for a midnight swim to celebrate being able to travel and being at a good place in her life after a battle with anxiety when the producers forced her to ask Juan Pablo to join her, made it look like they had sex in the ocean, and then filmed and broadcast a scene where Juan Pablo shamed her for being a bad example for his daughter. (Fuck that guy).
[*] The insane part of being on the show is that you don’t even know what you feel anymore because it’s so disconnected to reality. Chris Bukowski was pressured by Elan Gale and production to propose at the end of Bachelor in Paradise to Elise Mosca. Despite being aware enough of how bad of an idea it was that he told his mom “I don’t know. Should I propose to her? I don’t, like, love her or anything.” he was very close to going through with it.
[*] There was so much negativity about Chris Bukowski on the internet that he and his dad stopped talking for awhile because his dad was so embarrassed by it.
[*] Rozlyn Papa claims she never had any kind of inappropriate relationship with a producer (she was kicked of Jake Pavelka’s season for this reason). It seems convincing enough in the book that it could have been totally made up by production to create a storyline. In retrospect, Papa says “You go on that show and you are meat for the grinder.”
[*] Ben Flajnik basically broke up with his pick Courtney because of what he saw once the season started airing (she was “the villain”).
The Bachelor
[*] Ben was the runner-up on Ashley Hebert’s season of The Bachelorette. He said of proposing to Ashley “I liked Ashley enough. You’re not really in love with a person. But Ashley was super cool, and I was like, ‘Who knows where this is gonna go?’ If she says yes, I’ll just do a very long engagement.”
[*] Lauren Bushnell’s $100,000 Neil Lane ring was the most expensive in the series history. She had to give it back when her and Ben Higgins broke up.
Lauren Bushnell Instagram
[*] A lot of couples don’t get to know each other much more than we see on TV when they get engaged. Melissa Rycroft says when she started talking to Jason Mesnick after the show ended (and they were engaged), they’d never discussed his job, or whether she would move from Dallas to Seattle.
[*] Donnie Wahlberg told the cutest story about being a Bachelor fan: “I will literally walk on-set after lunch and say, “OK, it’s Monday. Bachelor in Paradise tonight. Let’s get the hell out of here so everyone can watch it.”
[*] Of criticism Catherine Lowe has faced for turning her happily ever after/family into #ads, she says “As much as I don’t want to do the ads, it’s like, ‘Well, I have a beautiful home and a child that I have to pay for, and I don’t have to go to an office every day,’”
[*] Ashely Iaconetti defended her sponsored Instagram ads by saying she uses it as her “day job” while she tries to create her own career: “Yes, I get money from ads, but I’m also working every day on jobs that don’t pay anything.”
[*] Bachelor alum can basically quite their day jobs and live off Instagram if they play it right. They can arrange vacations around which places will pay them for appearances, comp a stay, or pay them to post social media tagging the location.
Mike Fleiss
[*] Mike Fleiss is the producer and creator of The Bachelor. His second cousin is famed Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss.
[*] Mike is a decent writer and started his career as a journalist. However, he was jealous of people like Howard Stern, who had more creative freedom. He discovered that he didn’t like to be “restricted” by facts.
[*] Fleiss got his start in raunchy reality specials like Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, a precursor to The Bachelor that he pitched as like a “Miss America pageant”.
[*] Mike sounds exactly like the character on UnReal based on him: a total nightmare to work with. His former assistant said of working with him:
“We’d refer to him as ‘The Dude,’ because he was just like The Big Lebowski in his slippers and his sweats and his leather jacket, smoking and playing the guitar… Keeping a conversation with him in his office was a challenge, because he’s on the other side playing the guitar, feet up on the desk.”
[*] ABC originally passed on The Bachelor when it was pitched to them. They only bought it when Fleiss added on a proper ending for the season: the bachelor would propose.
[*] After the show became a big success, Fleiss would smoke a joint during meetings with ABC and no one would say anything.
[*] He named his son Aaron, in part after Aaron Spelling.
Chris Harrison
[*] Mike Fleiss’ first impression of Chris Harrison was that “He looked like a guy barfed on by an 8-year-old.”
Elan Gale
[*] He became Twitter famous after he got caught making up a story about a woman on the same flight as him and the story went viral.
[*] After seeing him in person coaching a contestant to cry on camera and reporting on it, the book’s author was “no longer invited” to Bachelor events by ABC.
[*] Many former cast members spoke to her about how they protected (and feared) the status of their friendship with Gale.
Why we watch
[*] From a young age we learn that the most valuable feedback (says our culture, not reality) women get is about their attractiveness to straight men.
[*] Dating is something basically everyone has in common. We love to share dating “war stories” because it’s a way to bond, discuss, and check-in with each other about social norms. The Bachelor makes this an even more social experience.
[*] The fantasy of the show is that it subverts the expectation women have for me, instead of “no expectations” the men talk about their emotions, “plan” fantasy dates, and are all looking for commitment.
[*] Allison Williams has a good argument in the book (each chapter is bookended by celebrity essays) about how we don’t just learn about feminism from pro-women content, but from watching and discussing real life scenarios that aren’t exactly intended to be intellectual.
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foursprouthappiness-blog · 7 years ago
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61 Juicy Details From The ‘Bachelor Nation’ Book That Prove The Show Isn’t All Champagne And Limos
New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/happiness/61-juicy-details-from-the-bachelor-nation-book-that-prove-the-show-isnt-all-champagne-and-limos-2/
61 Juicy Details From The ‘Bachelor Nation’ Book That Prove The Show Isn’t All Champagne And Limos
laureneburnham Instagram
LA Times reporter Amy Kaufman wrote an engrossing and in-depth peak into all things Bachelor in Bachelor Nation: Inside the World of America’s Favorite Guilty Pleasure. It’s required (and enjoyable!) reading for any fan of the series. Here were some of the best things I learned:
What goes into each episode
[*] Each episode has a budget of $2 million.
[*] Production keeps costs “down” by writing to hotels and venues and exchanging a mention of their name for free stays and services.
[*] During casting, the producers pick two girls they think the Bachelor/Bachelorette will really like. The other 23 contestants are cast only because they will make good TV.
[*] The people the producers think has the best chance of winning will be the first and last people out of the limo.
[*] Producers will influence who stays and who gets in the limo ride of shame by introducing certain contestants to the Bachelor/Bachelorette and making sure they have time, through which information they feed to the Bachelor/Bachelorette about each contestant, and by telling the Bachelor/Bachelorette directly of a few contestants they’d like to keep around for TV.
[*] Former co-executive producer Scott Jeffress would ensure they made good TV by rewarding producers who created drama with $100 bills he kept in his pocket. Producers would get the cash by causing a contestant to cry, getting the Bachelor to kiss someone, or catching someone mid-puke.
[*] The other executive producer, Lisa Levenson, is the character UnReal is based on. She was making $10,000 a week.
[*] The production staff often drinks with the contestants, especially expressing faux sympathy and then offering to do a shot with them prior to an interview so that they’ll be less guarded with their answers.
[*] Production staff would routinely function on as little of an hour a sleep a day because they were staying up so late partying.
[*] After years and years (and a lawsuit) of public criticism for not casting diverse leads ABC announced their first lead of color, Rachel Lindsay. Ratings went down about a million viewers from the previous season (Jojo Fletcher’s): “Fletcher’s audience was 86 percent white and 7 percent black; Lindsay’s was 80 percent white and 12 percent black.”
[*] You don’t own the Neil Lane ring unless you are together for two years.
[*] For two years after the show you can’t get married unless you let ABC film. They only pay you $10,000 per hour of TV. (It wasn’t made clear if this was per person or per couple).
[*] The bachelor mansion has 6 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms and the family that owns in it actually do live there. Production pays to move everything out of the house and for the family to stay at a hotel for 42 days each season. Here is the house’s (weird) website.
How to get on The Bachelor
[*] If you make it to the final interviews, you’ll get flown to LA, a $50/day stipend, and unlimited alcohol.
[*] There is an STI test you need to pass to get on the show and it’s one of the top reasons finalists don’t get cast. This was the most confusing part of the show for me because the author doesn’t specify which STIs and herpes is so common that doctors don’t even test for it as a standard. It would be hard for me to believe they have SO many casting options after eliminating this pool. Really wish the author would have followed up here.
[*] The producers say they won’t take people with borderline personality or who have had suicidal ideation in the past, but former contestants like Rozlyn Papa have struggled with depression, so it’s not clear what the line is.
[*] The contract you sign means you have to go to “After the Rose” reunions if they want you to appear for up to three years.
[*] It used to be the case that contestants would go into debt buying dresses for the show. Now people get them discounted or free with the promise of showing them on social media.
[*] On the show, you might sleep up to twelve people per room in bunk beds. You will have to do your own laundry and cook your own food.
[*] You’re not allowed to bring music or magazines, but for the most recent seasons contestants were allowed books. Prior to that the only book allowed was the bible. Contestants also usually bring vibrators.
[*] The contestants are so bored that production can bribe them with music or a movie in exchange for gossiping about someone on camera or doing something else that builds the storyline.
[*] Sometimes the cast members will say things in interviews just because they are tired and want to be done with the interview, but they know the producers will keep going until they get something juicy.
[*] One producer explicitly says the show is formed around a storyline the producers create, vs editing what actually happens. They’re quoted as saying “There’s no allegiance to what happened in reality.”
[*] You can read one of our former staff writer’s detailing her audition experience here.
Past Bachelor/Bachelorette drama
[*] The very first winner of The Bachelor, Amanda Marsh, broke up with the bachelor (Alex Michel) when she learned (months later) that he slept with the runner-up, Trista Rehn, in the fantasy suite.
[*] Sharleen Joynt from Juan Pablo’s season is one of the few former contestants interviewed in the book. I think both Sharleen and the book’s author think she comes off well but each time one of her quotes appeared it made me cringe. Every one was about how she was somehow different/better than the other women on the show. At one point she bragged a producer told her she was the most “analytical” and “reflective” contestant they’ve ever had on the show… which seems like the exact kind of buttering up that a producer says to lots of people over the years to get them to open up more in an interview.
[*] When Desiree Hartsock was on Sean Lowe’s season she was living paycheck to paycheck and didn’t have a plan for if she ended up missing a lot of work for the show. Eventually she had to ask producer’s to pay her rent for her (which they did).
[*] Meredith Phillips was the second Bachelorette. She was paid only $10,000 for the whole season.
[*] Now, the bachelor or bachelorette typically receive $100,000+.
[*] The author, Amy Kaufman, has a viewing party in her Los Angeles apartment. Robby Hayes (a castoff from Jojo’s season and purveyor of diet creamer #ads on Instagram) promised to come and made her buy supplies so he could drink Moscow Mules and then ghosted her.
[*] Andrew Baldwin, the “officer and a gentleman” former Bachelor had a somewhat shady response to Kaufman’s request to interview him for the book. He asked for a percentage of the profits in order for him to “spill all”. (I don’t think anyone should spend time doing something for free but he should just decline or not respond. In journalism it’s generally considered unethical to pay someone for an interview because it gives that person an incentive that isn’t truth-telling).
[*] Matt Grant had a better response: “unless your business opportunity can help my daughter’s university fund then I have little interest in getting involved.”
[*] Chris Bukowski only found out he was cast on Emily Maynard’s season 3 weeks before it began. He frantically started working out and kept chicken in his pockets because he was trying to eat so much protein and build muscle. He said: “I would work out before work. I would work out when I got home from work. I’d run, like, six miles before I went to bed. It was ridiculous.”
[*] By 11am on his first day of Bachelor in Paradise Chad Johnson had already consumed 7 shots of Jack Daniels and an entire bottle of wine. Production let him pass out in the sand and allowed crabs to crawl over his face. He eventually was asked to leave after Sarah Herron gave production an ultimatum.
[*] Clare Crawley recalled her famous conversation with Juan Pablo. In the helicopter she was trying to discuss the proposal/ending of the show with him. She asked him how he was feeling about it and he responded, “I don’t know. I liked fucking you.”
[*] The sex Juan was referring to didn’t take place in the ocean. Clare tells a pretty sad story about wanting to go for a midnight swim to celebrate being able to travel and being at a good place in her life after a battle with anxiety when the producers forced her to ask Juan Pablo to join her, made it look like they had sex in the ocean, and then filmed and broadcast a scene where Juan Pablo shamed her for being a bad example for his daughter. (Fuck that guy).
[*] The insane part of being on the show is that you don’t even know what you feel anymore because it’s so disconnected to reality. Chris Bukowski was pressured by Elan Gale and production to propose at the end of Bachelor in Paradise to Elise Mosca. Despite being aware enough of how bad of an idea it was that he told his mom “I don’t know. Should I propose to her? I don’t, like, love her or anything.” he was very close to going through with it.
[*] There was so much negativity about Chris Bukowski on the internet that he and his dad stopped talking for awhile because his dad was so embarrassed by it.
[*] Rozlyn Papa claims she never had any kind of inappropriate relationship with a producer (she was kicked of Jake Pavelka’s season for this reason). It seems convincing enough in the book that it could have been totally made up by production to create a storyline. In retrospect, Papa says “You go on that show and you are meat for the grinder.”
[*] Ben Flajnik basically broke up with his pick Courtney because of what he saw once the season started airing (she was “the villain”).
The Bachelor
[*] Ben was the runner-up on Ashley Hebert’s season of The Bachelorette. He said of proposing to Ashley “I liked Ashley enough. You’re not really in love with a person. But Ashley was super cool, and I was like, ‘Who knows where this is gonna go?’ If she says yes, I’ll just do a very long engagement.”
[*] Lauren Bushnell’s $100,000 Neil Lane ring was the most expensive in the series history. She had to give it back when her and Ben Higgins broke up.
Lauren Bushnell Instagram
[*] A lot of couples don’t get to know each other much more than we see on TV when they get engaged. Melissa Rycroft says when she started talking to Jason Mesnick after the show ended (and they were engaged), they’d never discussed his job, or whether she would move from Dallas to Seattle.
[*] Donnie Wahlberg told the cutest story about being a Bachelor fan: “I will literally walk on-set after lunch and say, “OK, it’s Monday. Bachelor in Paradise tonight. Let’s get the hell out of here so everyone can watch it.”
[*] Of criticism Catherine Lowe has faced for turning her happily ever after/family into #ads, she says “As much as I don’t want to do the ads, it’s like, ‘Well, I have a beautiful home and a child that I have to pay for, and I don’t have to go to an office every day,’”
[*] Ashely Iaconetti defended her sponsored Instagram ads by saying she uses it as her “day job” while she tries to create her own career: “Yes, I get money from ads, but I’m also working every day on jobs that don’t pay anything.”
[*] Bachelor alum can basically quite their day jobs and live off Instagram if they play it right. They can arrange vacations around which places will pay them for appearances, comp a stay, or pay them to post social media tagging the location.
Mike Fleiss
[*] Mike Fleiss is the producer and creator of The Bachelor. His second cousin is famed Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss.
[*] Mike is a decent writer and started his career as a journalist. However, he was jealous of people like Howard Stern, who had more creative freedom. He discovered that he didn’t like to be “restricted” by facts.
[*] Fleiss got his start in raunchy reality specials like Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, a precursor to The Bachelor that he pitched as like a “Miss America pageant”.
[*] Mike sounds exactly like the character on UnReal based on him: a total nightmare to work with. His former assistant said of working with him:
“We’d refer to him as ‘The Dude,’ because he was just like The Big Lebowski in his slippers and his sweats and his leather jacket, smoking and playing the guitar… Keeping a conversation with him in his office was a challenge, because he’s on the other side playing the guitar, feet up on the desk.”
[*] ABC originally passed on The Bachelor when it was pitched to them. They only bought it when Fleiss added on a proper ending for the season: the bachelor would propose.
[*] After the show became a big success, Fleiss would smoke a joint during meetings with ABC and no one would say anything.
[*] He named his son Aaron, in part after Aaron Spelling.
Chris Harrison
[*] Mike Fleiss’ first impression of Chris Harrison was that “He looked like a guy barfed on by an 8-year-old.”
Elan Gale
[*] He became Twitter famous after he got caught making up a story about a woman on the same flight as him and the story went viral.
[*] After seeing him in person coaching a contestant to cry on camera and reporting on it, the book’s author was “no longer invited” to Bachelor events by ABC.
[*] Many former cast members spoke to her about how they protected (and feared) the status of their friendship with Gale.
Why we watch
[*] From a young age we learn that the most valuable feedback (says our culture, not reality) women get is about their attractiveness to straight men.
[*] Dating is something basically everyone has in common. We love to share dating “war stories” because it’s a way to bond, discuss, and check-in with each other about social norms. The Bachelor makes this an even more social experience.
[*] The fantasy of the show is that it subverts the expectation women have for me, instead of “no expectations” the men talk about their emotions, “plan” fantasy dates, and are all looking for commitment.
[*] Allison Williams has a good argument in the book (each chapter is bookended by celebrity essays) about how we don’t just learn about feminism from pro-women content, but from watching and discussing real life scenarios that aren’t exactly intended to be intellectual.
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