#but she also used her authority in that family to traumatize my mom almost as badly as their dad and I don’t say that likely | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

howelljenkins · 4 years

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As a muslim Iraqi American with a significant tumblr following, I feel as though I should let it be known exactly where I stand when it comes to Riordan’s statement about Samirah. I have copied and pasted it down below and my reaction to it will be written down below. This will be the first time I have read it. If you want to engage with me or tell me that I’m wrong, I expect you to be a muslim, hijabi, Iraqi American, and from Baghdad. If you are not, I suggest you sit down and keep quiet because you are not the authority on the way I should be represented.

Like many of my characters, Samirah was inspired by former students of mine. Over the course of my middle school teaching career, I worked with dozens of Muslim students and their families, representing the expanse of the Muslim world and both Shia and Sunni traditions. One of my most poignant memories about the September 11, 2001, attack of the World Trade Center was when a Muslima student burst into tears when she heard the news – not just because it was horrific, but also because she knew what it meant for her, her family, her faith. She had unwillingly become an ambassador to everyone she knew who, would have questions about how this attack happened and why the perpetrators called themselves “Muslim.” Her life had just become exponentially more difficult because of factors completely beyond her control. It was not right. It was not fair. And I wasn’t sure how to comfort or support her.

Starting off your statement with one of the most traumatic events in history for muslim Americans is already one of the most predictably bad moves he could pull. By starting off this way, you are acknowledging the fact that a) this t*rrorist attack is still the first thing you think of when you think of muslims and b) that those muslim students who you had prior to 9/11 occupied so little space in your mind that it took a national disaster for you to start to even try to empathize with them.

During the following years, I tried to be especially attuned to the needs of my Muslim students. I dealt with 9/11 the same way I deal with most things: by reading and learning more. When I taught world religions in social studies, I would talk to my Muslim students about Islam to make sure I was representing their experience correctly. They taught me quite a bit, which eventually contributed to my depiction of Samirah al-Abbas. As always, though, where I have made mistakes in my understanding, those mistakes are wholly on me.

As always, you have chosen to use “I based this character off my students” in order to justify the way they are written. News flash: you taught middle school children. Children who are already scrutinized and alienated and desperate to fit in. Of course their words shouldn’t be enough for you to decide you are representing them correctly, because they are still coming to terms with their identities and they are doing this in an environment where they are desperate to find the approval of white Americans. I know that as a child I would often tweak the way I explained my culture and religion to my teachers in order to gain their approval and avoid ruffling any feathers. They told you what they thought you’d want to hear because you are their teacher and hold a position of power over them and they both want your approval and want to avoid saying the wrong thing and having that hang over their heads every time they enter your classroom.

What did I read for research? I have read five different English interpretations of the Qur’an. (I understand the message is inseparable from the original Arabic, so it cannot be considered ‘translated’). I have read the entirety of the Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim hadith collections. I’ve read three biographies of Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) and well over a dozen books about the history of Islam and modern Islam. I took a six-week course in Arabic. (I was not very good at it, but I found it fascinating). I fasted the month of Ramadan in solidarity with my students. I even memorized some of the surahs in Arabic because I found the poetry beautiful. (They’re a little rusty now, I’ll admit, but I can still recite al-Fātihah from memory.) I also read some anti-Islamic screeds written in the aftermath of 9/11 so I would understand what those commenters were saying about the religion, and indirectly, about my students. I get mad when people attack my students.

And yet here you are actively avoiding the criticism from those of us who could very well have been the children sitting in your classroom.

The Quran is so deep and complex that its meanings are still being discovered to this day. Yes, reading these old scripts is a must for writing muslim characters, but you cannot claim to understand them without also holding active discussions with current scholars on how the Quran’s teachings apply today.

When preparing to write Samirah’s background, I drew on all of this, but also read many stories on Iraqi traditions and customs in particular and the experiences of immigrant families who came to the U.S. I figured out how Samirah’s history would intertwine with the Norse world through the medieval writer Ahmad ibn Fadhlan, her distant ancestor and one of the first outsiders to describe the Vikings in writing. I knew Samirah would be a ferocious brave fighter who always stood for what was right. She would be an excellent student who had dreams of being an aviator. She would have a complicated personal situation to wrestle with, in that she’s a practicing Muslim who finds out Valhalla is a real place. Odin and Thor and Loki are still around. How do you reconcile that with your faith? Not only that, but her mom had a romance with Loki, who is her dad. Yikes.

First of all, writing this paragraph in the same tone you use to emulate a 12 year old is already disrespectful. “Yikes” is correct. You have committed serious transgressions and can’t even commit to acting serious and writing like the almost 60 year old man that you are. Tone tells the reader a lot, and your tone is telling me that you are explaining your mistakes the same way you tell your little stories: childishly and jokingly.

Stories are not enough. They are not and never will be. Stories cannot even begin to pierce the rich culture and history and customs of Iraq. Iraq itself is not even homogenous enough for you to rely on these “Iraqi” stories. Someone’s story from Najaf is completely unique from someone from Baghdad or Nasriyyah or Basrah or Mosul. Add that to the fact that these stories are written with a certain audience in mind and you realize that there’s no way they can tell the whole story because at their core they are catering to a specific audience.

Yes, those are good, but they are meaningless without you consulting an actual Baghdadi and asking specific questions. You made conclusions and assumptions based on these stories when the obvious way to go was to consult someone from Baghdad every step of the writing process. Instead, you chose to trust the conclusions that you (a white man) drew from a handful of stories. Who are you to convey a muslim’s internal struggle when you did not even do the bare minimum and have an actual muslim read over your words?

Thankfully, the feedback from Muslim readers over the years to Samirah al-Abbas has been overwhelmingly positive. I have gotten so many letters and messages online from young fans, talking about how much it meant to them to see a hijabi character portrayed in a positive light in a ‘mainstream’ novel.

Yeah. Because we’re desperate, and half of them are children still developing their sense of self and critical reading skills. A starving man will thank you for moldy bread but that does not negate the mold.

Some readers had questions, sure! The big mistake I will totally own, and which I have apologized for many times, was my statement that during the fasting hours of Ramadan, bathing (i.e. total immersion in water) was to be avoided. This was advice I had read on a Shia website when I myself was preparing to fast Ramadan. It is advice I followed for the entire month. Whoops! The intent behind that advice, as I understood it, was that if you totally immersed yourself during daylight hours, you might inadvertently get some water between your lips and invalidate your fast. But, as I have since learned, that was simply one teacher’s personal opinion, not a widespread practice. We have corrected this detail (which involved the deletion of one line) in future editions, but as I mentioned in my last post, you will still find it in copies since the vast majority of books are from the first printing.

This is actually really embarrassing for you and speaks to your lack of research and reading comprehension. It is true that for shia, immersion breaks one’s fast. If you had bothered to actually ask questions and use common sense, you would realize that this is referring to actions like swimming, where one’s whole body is underwater, rather than bathing. Did you not question the fact that the same religion that encourages the cleansing of oneself five times a day banned bathing during the holiest month? Yes, it was one teacher’s opinion, but you literally did not even take the time to fully understand that opinion before chucking it into your book.

Another question was about Samirah’s wearing of the hijab. To some readers, she seemed cavalier about when she would take it off and how she would wear it. It’s not my place to be prescriptive about proper hijab-wearing. As any Muslim knows, the custom and practice varies greatly from one country to another, and from one individual to another. I can, however, describe what I have seen in the U.S., and Samirah’s wearing of the hijab reflects the practice of some of my own students, so it seemed to be within the realm of reason for a third-generation Iraqi-American Muslima. Samirah would wear hijab most of the time — in public, at school, at mosque. She would probably but not always wear it in Valhalla, as she views this as her home, and the fallen warriors as her own kin. This is described in the Magnus Chase books. I also admit I just loved the idea of a Muslima whose hijab is a magic item that can camouflage her in times of need.

Before I get into this paragraph, Samirah is second generation. Her grandparents immigrated from Iraq. Her mother was first gen.

Once again, you turn to what you have seen from your students, who are literal children. They are in middle school while Samirah is in high school, so they are very obviously at different stages of development, both emotional and religious. If you had bothered to talk to adults who had gone through these stages, you would understand that often times young girls have stages where they “practice” hijab or wear it “part time”, very often in middle school. However, both her age and the way in which you described Samirah lead the reader to believe that she is a “full timer,” so you playing willy nilly with her scarf as a white man is gross.

For someone who claims to have read all of these religious texts, it’s funny that you choose to overlook the fact that “kin” is very specifically described. Muslims do not go around deciding who they consider “kin” or “family” to take off their hijab in front of. There is no excuse for including this in her character, especially since you claim to have carefully read the Quran and ahadith.

You have no place to “just love” any magical extension of the hijab until you approach it with respect. Point blank period. Especially when you have ascribed it a magical property that justifies her taking it on and off like it’s no big deal, especially when current media portrayals of hijab almost always revolve around it being removed. You are adding to the harmful portrayal and using your “fun little magic camoflauge” to excuse it.

As for her betrothal to Amir Fadhlan, only recently have I gotten any questions about this. My understanding from my readings, and from what I have been told by Muslims I know, is that arranged marriages are still quite common in many Muslim countries (not just Muslim countries, of course) and that these matches are sometimes negotiated by the families when the bride-to-be and groom-to-be are quite young. Prior to writing Magnus Chase, one of the complaints I often heard or read from Muslims is how Westerners tend to judge this custom and look down on it because it does not accord with Western ideas. Of course, arranged marriages carry the potential for abuse, especially if there is an age differential or the woman is not consulted. Child marriages are a huge problem. The arrangement of betrothals years in advance of the marriage, however, is an ancient custom in many cultures, and those people I know who were married in this way have shared with me how glad they were to have done it and how they believe the practice is unfairly villainized. My idea with Samirah was to flip the stereotype of the terrible abusive arranged match on its head, and show how it was possible that two people who actually love each other dearly might find happiness through this traditional custom when they have families that listen to their concerns and honor their wishes, and want them to be happy. Amir and Samirah are very distant cousins, yes. This, too, is hardly unusual in many cultures. They will not actually marry until they are both adults. But they have been betrothed since childhood, and respect and love each other. If that were not the case, my sense is that Samirah would only have to say something to her grandparents, and the match would be cancelled. Again, most of the comments I have received from Muslim readers have been to thank me for presenting traditional customs in a positive rather than a negative light, not judging them by Western standards. In no way do I condone child marriage, and that (to my mind) is not anywhere implied in the Magnus Chase books.

I simply can’t even begin to explain everything that is wrong with this paragraph. Here is a good post about how her getting engaged at 12 is absolutely wrong religiously and would not happen. Add that on to the fact that Samirah herself is second-generation (although Riordan calls her third generation in this post) and this practice isn’t super common even in first generation people (and for those that it DOES apply to, it is when they are old enough to be married and not literal children).

As a white man you can’t flip the stereotype. You can’t. Even with tons of research you cannot assume the authority to “flip” a stereotype that does not affect you because you will never come close to truly understanding it inside and out. Instead of flipping a stereotype, Rick fed into it and provided more fodder to the flames and added on to it to make it even worse.

I would be uncomfortable with a white author writing about arranged marriages in brown tradition no matter the context, but for him to offhandedly include it in a children’s book where it is badly explained and barely touched on is inexcusable. Your target audience is children who will no doubt overlook your clumsy attempt at flipping stereotypes.

It does not matter what your mind thinks you are implying. Rick Riordan is not your target audience, children are. So you cannot brush this away by stating that you did not see the harm done by your writing. You are almost 60 years old. Maybe you can read in between your lines, but I guarantee your target audience largely cannot.

Finally, recently someone on Twitter decided to screenshot a passage out-of-context from Ship of the Deadwhere Magnus hears Samirah use the phrase “Allahu Akbar,” and the only context he has ever heard it in before was in news reports when some Western reporter would be talking about a terrorist attack. Here is the passage in full:

Samirah: “My dad may have power over me because he’s my dad. But he’s not the biggest power. Allahu akbar.”

I knew that term, but I’d never heard Sam use it before. I’ll admit it gave me an instinctive jolt in the gut. The news media loved to talk about how terrorists would say that right before they did something horrible and blew people up. I wasn’t going to mention that to Sam. I imagined she was painfully aware.

She couldn’t walk the streets of Boston in her hijab most days without somebody screaming at her to go home, and (if she was in a bad mood) she’d scream back, “I’m from Dorchester!”

“Yeah,” I said. “That means God is great, right?”

Sam shook her head. “That’s a slightly inaccurate translation. It means God is greater.”

“Than what?”

“Everything. The whole point of saying it is to remind yourself that God is greater than whatever you are facing—your fears, your problems, your thirst, your hunger, your anger.

337-338

To me, this is Samirah educating Magnus, and through him the readers, about what this phrase actually means and the religious significance it carries. I think the expression is beautiful and profound. However, like a lot of Americans, Magnus has grown up only hearing about it in a negative context from the news. For him to think: “I had never heard that phrase, and it carried absolutely no negative connotations!” would be silly and unrealistic. This is a teachable moment between two characters, two friends who respect each other despite how different they are. Magnus learns something beautiful and true about Samirah’s religion, and hopefully so do the readers. If that strikes you as Islamophobic in its full context, or if Samirah seems like a hurtful stereotype . . . all I can say is I strongly disagree.

I will give you some credit here in that I mostly agree with this scene. The phrase does carry negative connotations with many white people and I do not fault you for explaining it the way you did. However, don’t try to sneak in that last sentence like we won’t notice. You have no place to decide whether or not Samirah’s character as a whole is harmful and stereotypical.

It is 2 am and that is all I have the willpower to address. This is messy and this is long and this is not well worded, but this had to be addressed. I do not speak for every muslim, both world wide and within this online community, but these were my raw reactions to his statement. I have been working on and will continue to work on a masterpost of Samirah Al-Abbas as I work through the books, but for now, let it be known that Riordan has bastardized my identity and continues to excuse himself and profit off of enforcing harmful stereotypes. Good night.

#*#og #rr crit #samirah al abbas #rick riordan

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introvertguide · 3 years

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The Road Movie

Most movies follow a general script type depending on genre, and this is used to tell a story that has a satisfying ending. It is interesting when a movie mixes up type and tone and goes against genre type. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it is terrible. Great directing and acting can make the subversion of expectations less jarring (or more depending on the end goal), but the end goal and tone allows us to attach a film to a genre. But what about films that aren't about the end goal? There are many films that are in a sub-genre that focus on the journey with little regard to the end goal. These are what are called "road movies" and can fall under many different genres since the end goal doesn't really matter. Let's address some famous road movies through the years that are also classified in a variety of other genres:

Huckleberry Finn (1931)

The OG of travel films, this was the sequel to Tom Sawyer (1930) and had the same child actors. This wasn't what you would call financially successful, but this was largely due to the Great Depression. The 1939 version of the movie did a lot better and was one of the well known films of child actor Mickey Rooney. This story of travel was an early role for many actors including Rooney, Ron Howard, and Elijah Wood. Although there were threats of death and portrayals of slavery, this film was considered a family adventure in the pre-code film era. I guess a boy escaping his abusive father in the company of an adult escaped slave where people are actively attempting to rob and kill them was considered a fun family romp in the early 30s. This was the same story that came from a book that was banned in schools during the 1980s. It is a great story and I love the works of Mark Twain; I am just surprised at the genre.

Stagecoach (1939)

This is a great movie that transcends the Western genre of which it is categorized. A group of people all have different reasons for traveling from an Arizona territory over to New Mexico. There is word of vengeful thieves and angry Apaches that threaten the small band of travelers. It is actually very intense because the threat feels very real throughout the film. The entire film focuses on the journey and the relationships forged (and broken) on the way. This was the breakout role for John Wayne and was part of an amazing string of films directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne.

Easy Rider (1969)

This is a film that really spoke to the hippie movement during the Vietnam Era. It is statement on how difficult it is to truly be free and how society fears that freedom and tries to destroy it. The film might very well have the worst dialogue of any movie I have ever seen. Actors Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper were actively using drugs throughout film production, so the real draw was the sweet rides and the moving soundtrack. This is a movie where I actually want more driving montages and less character development because I don't identify with the characters at all. Maybe it is a generational gap.

Paper Moon (1973)

This film is amazing. It is the story of a traveling grifter who takes a little girl on the road with him after her mother dies. He teaches her how to make a living cheating people and they form a father-daughter type of relationship. It is a comedy drama that won the girl an Oscar for best supporting actress when she was only 10. Some nice back story, the girl is Tatum O'Neal and is the actual daughter of the grifter, played by Ryan O'Neal. It is kind of strange, but this is a "coming of age" film on the road.

The Blues Brothers (1980)

Now this is what I am talking about. Two brothers go on a trip after being released from jail because they got a message from God. I am pretty sure that this film still holds the record for most crashed vehicles in a single movie. It is also interesting that the film is technically a musical. The brothers stop at different locations and songs break out. In between stops, they are chased by the police in an almost demolition derby style chase. I really enjoy this movie and believe that it really keeps a fast pace (literally and figuratively), but, like many road films, I can't say it is good because it is more of an experience than a story.

Thelma and Louise (1991)

This was an interesting twist on the "run from the law" type of film. Two women are friends and decide go on a weekend retreat. They get in trouble after killing a man who tries to assault them and have to run from the authorities. It has a reputation for being very feminist (despite being directed by accused mesogenist Ridley Scott) because of the negative portrayal of men. It obviously wasn't that bad since it was nominated for 6 Oscars including both leads for best actress. In fact, Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon were both nominated for best actress at the Academy Awards, the BAFTAs, and the Golden Globes. It is the quintessential road film since the end goal is constantly changing and best defined as "away from here."

Natural Bork Killers (1994)

This was kind of a strange film. It is a crime drama where the audience follows two killers with traumatic childhoods as they meet and go on a murder spree. Similar to Bonnie and Clyde, but with gory murders as the focus over bank robberies. It is directed by Oliver Stone, and criticizes the glorification of violence by the media. It is most definitely a road movie because the end goal for the two is simply to be together and enjoy the rush of breaking the law. Hm. It is actually quite a bit like Bonnie and Clyde. Interesting. I would like to make a note that my mom hates this film because of the shaky cam and Dutch angles. It made her feel sick at the theater.

Road Trip (2000)

OK. This is far and away my least favorite film on this list, but it is the most famous "boner road comedy" that I am familiar with. It is a high school/college coming-of-age film that focus on the sexual pursuits of a group of young men. These types of films are marked with gross out humor, gratuitous nudity, and boys trying to have sex. There was a bunch of films like this that came out around the early 2000s and they all had to do with boys traveling some place in search of idealized sex (the plot on this one is a little different, something to do with a sex tape) and generally they find that the best girl for them was there by them all along. It takes a nice idea of character development and throws raunchy jokes and boobs at it. I was not a fan, but it was definitely a thing.

Death Proof (2007)

This is much better shlock. It is the Tarantino version of exploitation grindhouse films of the seventies, but updated to be a women empowerment film. It was part of a double feature that was paired with a horrific zombie outbreak film directed by Rod Rodriguez, but this one is much better on its own. It is the story of an old stunt man who travels around looking for unsuspecting victims whom he can run down in his indestructible car. This is a great example of what a road movie can be because Tarantino took the concept of a slasher and put it completely on the road.

Mad Max Fury Road (2015)

Here is an action revenge film in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where most of the film is driving. The producers couldn't find a director who they trusted with remaking George Miller's Mad Max franchise so the 70 year old Miller said "hold my beer" and made this masterpiece that is arguably better than any of the first three (edit: I guess Miller always intended to direct but it took so long to go into production that he joked in interviews about giving up on it). The original trilogy with Mel Gibson presents an amazing world where most people are nomadic and traveling can be a life or death proposition. Fury Road is the further adventures of the character and his interaction with one Furiosa. The use of many practical effects on moving vehicles that was garnished with CG effects made for one of the best action films in the last decade. It was more than a simple movie about traveling; it was a land were the road was life and everything surrounded the ability to be mobile enough to get supplies in a dead world.

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This is by no means all of the road movies. The Wizard of Oz is technically a road movie. The Grapes of Wrath is a critically acclaimed road movie from around the same time. Comedies like The Cannonball Run, Smokey and the Bandit, and National Lampoon's Vacation can all be classified in the genre. Rain Man is one of the best films of all time and it can be classified as a road movie. What it comes down to is that, when considering characters, a writer should think about the journey itself and think of how the leads interact with this entity. The road might be the best character in the whole story.

#road movies #thelma and louise #stagecoach #huck finn #mad max fury road #death proof #road trip #natural born killers #the blues brothers #paper moon #easy rider #introvert #introverts

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cloudy-leonhart · 4 years

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AOT Characters with a filipino S/O!

[Author Note: I just made this out of impulse lol, I’ll make a part two with the AOT veterans- if it’s requested then I’ll make a part three with the Marley Warriors- feedback is also appreciated on all my posts :))]

[Summary: It’s just headcanons, AOT with a filipino S/O lol, that’s it. that’s the post.]

Recommended song: Sa Susunod Na Lang - Skusta Clee ft. Yuri.

Gender Neutral Reader.

Theme: Fluff, Modern AU.

TW: Swearing.

Characters: Eren, Mikasa, Armin, Jean, Marco, Connie, Sasha.

Eren Jaeger

He probably fucks up his greetings with your parents, surprisingly your dad loves him, both of them talk about basketball and boxing, whenever Many does a fight, you and him come over so Eren could watch with you dad.

This man gets bodied by your dad ALL THE TIME during basketball, it’s valid because your dad used to be a basketball player.

He eats with his hands, yes he also got that from your dad. Your mom always comes up to you, while Eren and your dad talk, she’s happy that you found someone, and that Eren reminds her a lot of your dad.

Mans swallows rice like it was no one’s business, he eats that shit with barbecue and vinegar.

You can’t tell me he gets drunk with your dad and his friends?? They watch boxing matches and eat peanut while drinking beer.

For some reason he acts like he lives there?? Like the whole community knows about him, the kids like playing with him, the guys like doing karaoke and drinking beer with them, and the titas and lolas love talking about your relationship with him and how they would totally marry a guy like that if they ever met someone like that when they were younger.

His favourite thing about the culture? Probably how open the people were, they were very generous and kind.

Armin Arlert

When you first told him, he was kind of like, “okay??” but he also took time out of his day to research your culture, he’s the type to catch you in a sad mood where you really miss your country, and take time out of his day to try his best to make food from your culture.

He’s mastered to cook Tofu Sisig and Halo-Halo. You always ask him to make it for you whenever you’re sad.

He could never understand how your family’s able to sit in your traditional clothing, he tries his hardest not to scratch, he literally looks at you with a look begging for help because he was itchy but he didn’t want to take it off.

You had to explain that he doesn’t always have to participate in your culture, because respecting your culture was enough for you. Mans cried because he thought he was horrible for not wearing the Barong for the whole ceremony.

He does loves trying filipino recipes, he loves seeing you cook adobo or tapsilog in the morning, it just fills the house with an amazing aroma.

he knows how to say ‘i love you’ in Tagalog and he has fully replaced ‘I love you’ with ‘Mahal Kita.’

Favourite thing about the culture? The language, he just loves learning new words everyday, his favourite saying so far is, “Huwag kang mag-alala. Akong bahala.” (Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.)

Mikasa Ackerman

Poor baby was confused, she caught you talking on the phone in another language and she just stared concerningly at you, forgetting about whatever she’s doing.

She was also afraid to try your food?? Until you shove a ube-filled riceball (in filipino, Buchi) in her mouth, she ends up making it her comfort food, she asks you to make Buchi with her, she likes to eat the left over filling.

she actually wants to keep trying some of your culture’s food, her favourites so far is definitely Taho and Kaldereta, and of course Buchi.

She can’t say much in tagalog but she does know traditions, she did the binasuan dance with you once, amazingly she kept all cups in balance for her first time.

She knows how bless and actually calls people tita and tito, or ate and kuya. She was kind of, ahem, convinced, to call your parents nanay and tatay.

Your parents always complain about how you haven’t married Mikasa yet, Mikasa was confused about why she could hear them talking about her, but you reassured her that it was only just your parents egging you to marry Mikasa. In which she blushed in return.

Mikasa also learns recipes from Armin, those two cook for ther S/O’s so much that even their S/O feel like their not filipino enough, they got to try things even they didn’t know filipino culture had.

Jean Kirstein

SUPRISINGLY, he knows what blessing is, went as far as saying “Mano po.” whenever he did.

your dad hates him for some reason lmfao like your dad’s always staring at him with a weird expression.

He’s scared of your dad, no cap. first time you guys went on a date and didn’t have a house together, he almost shit himself talking to your dad.

You tried to teach him to do the tinikling dance and he almost broke his leg.

You and your parents conversed by yelling at each other, like Sasha, he too thought that you were arguing with them and he tapped you on the shoulder like, “Should I leave?-” You were confused as he was, you had to explain that yelling was a way filipinos communicated.

He was concerned when you would hit him while laughing, you also had to explain that was also something most filipino’s communicated.

He tried picking the language up but he just butchers the pronunciation.

Favourite thing about your culture is the places, if he could he probably would’ve bought a private island.

Does this man know how to cook filipino food?? Yessir!! He’s absolute god at cooking, imagine when he finds out we have a whole CHEESE ice cream-

Mans was confused confused, why..would you like cheese ice cream?? surprisingly he likes the ice cream, it’s sweet and salty??

Connie Springer

THIS MAN- he thought filipino was a sexuality?? when you told him, he’s like “so, what gender do you prefer then?”

HE WAS DUMBFOUNDED WHEN HE FOUND OUT WHAT FILIPINO MEANT-

I just know he shared filipino swears with Sasha, he actually grew accustomed to them, once in a while you’ll hear, ‘PUTANGINA’ throughout the house, because he stubbed his toe.

ugh he rocked the barong too, AND HE ROCKED HIS TINIKLING DANCE.

your titas seemed to love him?? Every time you talk to them, they ask if he’s doing okay.

He actually is a simp for filipinos, he was awestruck with how much beautiful women and men there were in the Philippines.

you cannot tell me this man doesn’t watch Manny Paqcuiao’s boxing fights.

In general he tries his best to respect your culture and not disrespect them, but he cannot bless for the life of him.

favourite thing about your culture is the adobo, he says its “bussin’”.

He drinks with your titos and your dad. No way he doesn’t, he also plays basketball with them.

traumatized somehow by the naked children running down the street sometimes- Filipino streets man, a little too comfortable-

He was shocked to find out that some people showered outside?? Like comfortably?

Man covers his whole face bc he feels like a perv.

Marco Bodt

Absolute researcher in your culture, like Armin, he actually makes sure he’s not disrespecting it or anything.

HE DOES THE BLESS GESTURE, but he whispers in your ear about how he accidentally blessed one of your titas too hard

his favourite filipino dish is Buko Pandan, he literally couldn’t help but get seconds when your grandma offered him a cup.

tbh he rocked his barong, he looked so good, like GAH DAYUM.

he picked up some words since he really loved being around your family, you were lively and your family was so open to accepting him.

you and him danced in a barong and baro’t saya for your wedding reception.

genuinely, he was in fearful awe when you caught a rat your parents have been complaining about in their house, remind you rats in the Philippines are as big as kittens

He also calls you Mahal, it’s kinda cringey but you thought it was cute.

Favourite part of your culture, the clothing, he’s always asking to go to parties just so he can wear the barong.

he’s also deathly afraid of the bodies of water the Philippines has, he doesn’t know if murky water scares him more than clear water in the islands.

Mans tried his best to corporate your culture into your guys’ wedding, until your Tito Philip brought a WHOLE ASS LIVE CHICKEN as a wedding gift?!

he was kinda sad y’all didn’t keep the chicken.

Sasha Braus

Sasha honestly didn’t know that your were filipino until you spoke your language with a family member, you guys were yelling at each other and Sasha thought y’all were fighting-

she wants to learn the language BUT ONLY THE SWEARS, connie and her both.

she loves when you speak to her in your langauge, she loves guessing what you’re telling her. SHE ALSO LOVES WHEN UR PARENTS TRY TO SPEAK TO HER AND THEIR ACCENTS COME OUT.

you guys actually went to the Philippines for your guys’ honeymoon. did she almost spend all your money? yes, did you let her? duh.

Her most favourite thing about your culture is definitely the food, and beautiful people like you.

Genuinely rocks the Baro’t Saya, her short hair goes well with the dress, her colour was a dullish-pastel pink, she had a matching fan with it too!

She wore it for your birthday, almost ruined it by almost spilling fruit salad on it.

THIS WOMAN- SHE WAS LITERALLY CRYING TEARS OF JOY WHEN SOMEONE BROUGHT OUT THE LECHON (a whole roasted pig).

Yes, she almost ate half of it, she would’ve probably finished it if it weren’t for her eating everything else, a human compost bin, you got leftovers? She’ll eat em.

She loved going to Jollibee with you, you and her have dates where you literally eat almost everything off the menu.

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auliasbookcorner · 3 years

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Review: Please Look After Mom by Shin Kyung-sook, Chi-Young Kim (Translator)

Book 8 of 2022

Start Reading Time: 9 March 2022

Finish reading Time: 17 March 2022

Page Count: 237

TRIGGER WARNINGS: GRIEF AND LOSS OF A LOVED ONE.

This is the spoiler-free part of the review. I will put up a spoiler alert before going into the review that contains spoilers.

There are some books that you just wish would come in a package with a box of tissue and a blanket, and this book is one of them. This book feels like a heartbreak, and that's what it's given me. At the end of it, I just feel so much grief, despair and deep sadness, for almost all of the characters in the book. So, not to give any spoiler, but just a little spoiler I guess, the book doesn't have a happy ending.

I kind of feel like it's a mistake for me to read this book, at the time and head-space that I'm in right now. Don't get me wrong this book is great, however this is definitely a spontaneous read. It wasn't even in my TBR, and I wouldn't have known or read it if it wasn't for my bestie, La, who recommended it to me. I was gonna go back to reading fantasy books after the disappointment that was The Enchantment of Ravens, to convince and remind myself that I still do love this genre. I was gonna read either Jade City or The Priory of the Orange Tree, and I put up a poll on my IG to help me decide which one to read next. But then I decided to read this book instead lol, I thought since it's not too long, and I like the synopsis, PLUS La recommended it and said that she liked it, so I read it.

I don't regret reading it at all, on the contrary, I really like the book and am incredibly grateful for the awesome recommendations I kept on getting from my amazing friends. However, I do wish I had read it at a time where my mental state is much better, because right now it is at an ATL.

I think it may be because I had a similar experience as the characters in the story not so long ago, and it really is traumatizing. Reading about it in first person POV kind of just brings it all back, and all of a sudden I can feel the anxiety, the cold sweats and the weak trembling legs. Fuck, even now i'm getting light headed just thinking about it.

So yeah, that's why I needed to pace myself with reading this book. I didn't want to DNF it, because I honestly liked it since the beginning, even though it was hard to read. If the book was anything less than great I would've DNF it at 5% probably.

Anyway, even though it's kind of a bleak story, I think it's still such a great book. I think the story is believable and incredibly poignant, and the storytelling is amazing. This is the first book I've read of this author and pretty early on I can tell I really like her writing style. I think her style is unique and refreshing to read, and it's made the whole experience reading this sad story pretty entertaining and engaging.

The story is about a family who are searching for their missing elderly mother. The mother was first going missing when she and the father were coming to Seoul to celebrate the father's birthday with their adult children who are all living in the city. The mother and the father still live in the village by themselves, and even though at first the children visit them regularly, as the time goes by, the children one by one stopped visiting them, so they go to the city to visit them instead. The second eldest was supposed to pick them up at the station but, the elderly mother, was left behind by the father who's used to always walking ahead of his wife.

As the children search for the mother, they start recalling memories about their mother, and they realize how selfless and kind-hearted of a person she truly is. Each child, and the father started having all of these regrets, about the things they should have done for their mother/wife, but they didn't, and guilt about the ways they have hurt her in the past.

Along the way, they also discover some things about her that they didn't know before, and at some points, they wonder if they ever truly know their mother/wife as a person she really is, or only as the role she played as their mother/wife. And the more they discover about her, the more eager they are to search for her.

Some people called to tell them that they saw her around their houses, but she didn't look like the person in the picture they use for the Missing Person posters that they handed out to people. The woman they saw was wearing blue plastic sandals that dug into her feet that looked to be wounded and they could see the bones through it. The woman they saw was unkempt and looked scared and confused, but they recognize her because the eyes are the same, they say her eyes look honest, like a cow's eyes.

So the children and the father keep on searching for her, while keeping her spirit in them alive. But they don't even know if she's still in this world or if she has already passed on to another world, leaving them behind.

The story is told from multiple POVs. First we get the POV of the eldest daughter, who's a successful and famous author and still unmarried. Then we get the POV of the eldest child, the pride of their mother. Next, we get the POV of the husband, who's in deep guilt and regrets for all the wrong he's done to his wife. And last, we get the POV of the mother herself.

It is a heartbreaking story of the children who's missing their sickly elderly mother, of a husband who's feeling guilty for how bad he has treated his wife for almost the whole time they were married, and of a mother and the life she had and kept from her children and husband.

🚨SPOILER ALERT🚨

From this point forward in the review, i will mention spoilers, plot twist and the ending, so if you don’t wish to be spoiled, you can skip the rest of the review and come back once you’ve finished reading this book

Here are the things that i love the most about the book:

One of the things that will always get me sobbing is family (well, I mean in terms of story themes in books, but I guess my own literal family also made me sob pretty frequently lol). I think almost all of the books I read that made me cry are all about families. Especially books about parents-child relationships, it's like my kryptonite. Books like "How to Make Friends With The Dark" by Kathleen Galsgow, "Things My Son Needs To Know About The World" and "And Every Morning The Way Home Gets Longer And Longer" and "Deal of A Lifetime" by Fredrik Backman, etc. How can you not cry at these books? And, as I always say, I love books that make me cry. The harder I cry, the better the book, lol. I love how the book portrays the realistic relationship between the siblings and between the children and their parents.

This book's theme is our childhood's nightmare: losing our mother. It's not even just a nightmare during childhood only, i think at whatever age you are, it is still one of the worst fucking nightmares. I'm sure we have all experienced that feeling when we were little and got lost in a big grocery shop or a mall and dreading never seeing your mother or your family ever again, but especially your mother. I think it depends on your relationship with your mother, because I realize not everyone has a good relationship with their parents, but for me personally, my mom is the most important person in the world, and without whom I would be lost, even now. And yes, I am indeed 26 years old. I am one of those lucky people who have an amazing mother and have a good relationship with their mother. It is truly a gift, especially knowing that there are some people who don't have that. And reading this book is like living out that nightmare, and as expected it truly is heartbreaking. And reading about how amazing of a person and a mother Park So Nyo is, just makes it all the more excruciating. But I think this book helps in reminding us to appreciate our mothers more. Because most of the time we think of all the physical and emotional labor that our mothers did for us as a given and we took it for granted. I personally, definitely do not appreciate her nearly enough. When I really think about it, mothers do not get any monetary compensation for all the labor they do around the house, let alone the emotional labor, and they do it quietly. You leave for school and work and the house is a mess, the laundry piled up, no food after breakfast, but magically when you come back home, the house is suddenly clean, the laundry done and there's food on the table. And when you hire someone to do all this, you get so surprised because it costs so much, yet our mothers never charged us for anything. Not to mention the hardship they went through with pregnancy, child birth and child rearing. It's all too much, and mothers are all superheroes, although they're the unsung ones at that. This book made me think about all of this, and it made me wish that I'd done more to help my mom and let her know that I am incredibly grateful for everything she has done for me and the whole family, and that I love her the most in the world.

I love the writing style of this author. I will definitely be reading more of her works, if they're available in English. As is the case with Backman books, I wonder if this book will feel different if I read and understand it in its original language. I never want any gems in the book to be lost in translation, if you know what I mean. But I think the translator also did a great job at translating it and making it easy to read and understand in English. Maybe I'll learn Korean someday.

There's not much that I dislike about the book, I just have small complaints about the story, such as...

We never get the POV of the 2nd child (since they have 4 children, but only 3 children get their POV, or at least a letter with their words on it), and I hope it could've been included in the book.

Because the story is being told through the memories of the children and the husband, it leaves many holes in the stories about what happened in between the stories. Like, how did the mother and father reconcile after he came back to the house from running away to live with another woman. I wanna know the whole tea about his affair and the whole situation. I think it's really pertinent to the story and I wish we get that in the book.

There are a a lot of heartbreaking scenes in the book, but these are my favorite:

When the eldest daughter and the mother were taking a walk and the daughter told her about the talk she gave to these blind people who had read her book in braille and love it, and she told her mother about the train to Machu Picchu in Peru that goes backward. And the mother told her daughter to never hide her words, and that she told such good stories.

When the mother breaks the dishes to let her built-up frustrations out, without anyone knowing.

When the youngest daughter bought her mother a mink coat.

When the mother came to the school to pay her daughter's tuition so she could continue her education, her daughter noticed afterwards that her mom's gold ring was gone, and that she sold it to pay for her education.

Here are my favourite quotes from the book:

"Leaving Hyong-chol’s house, you take the subway home but get off at Seoul Station, which is where Mom vanished. So many people go by, brushing your shoulders, as you make your way to the spot where Mom was last seen. You look down at your watch. Three o’clock. The same time Mom was left behind. People shove past you as you stand on the platform where Mom was wrenched from Father’s grasp. Not a single person apologizes to you. People would have pushed by like that as your mom stood there, not knowing what to do."

"How far back does one’s memory of someone go? Your memory of Mom?

Since you heard about Mom’s disappearance, you haven’t been able to focus on a single thought, besieged by long-forgotten memories unexpectedly popping up. And the regret that always trailed each memory."

"There are moments one revisits after something happens, especially after something bad happens. Moments in which one thinks, I shouldn’t have done that."

"When was it you realized that Mom didn’t know how to read?"

"As the third of five children, you witnessed Mom’s sorrow and pain and worry when each of your older brothers left home. Every morning at dawn after Hyong-chol left, Mom would clean the surface of the glazed clay sauce-jars on the ledge in the back yard. Because the well was in the front yard, it was cumbersome to bring water to the back, but she washed each and every jar. She took off all the lids and wiped them clean, inside and out, until they shone. Your mom sang quietly. “If there were no sea between you and me there wouldn’t be this painful goodbye.…” Her hands busily dipping the rag in cold water and lifting it out and wringing it and rubbing the jars, Mom sang, “I hope you won’t leave me one day.” If you called to her at that moment, she would turn around with tears welling in her big, guileless eyes."

"After Hyong-chol had left for the city, when Mom reached the clay jar she used to hide the ramen in, she would call out, “Hyong-chol!” and sink down, her legs giving way. You would slip the rag from Mom’s grasp, lift her arm up, and drape it around your shoulder. Your mom would break out in sobs, unable to control her overflowing feelings for her firstborn."

"Either a mother and daughter know each other very well, or they are strangers."

"When Mom scolded you freely, you more frequently called her Mom. The word “Mom” is familiar and it hides a plea: Please look after me. Please stop yelling at me and stroke my head; please be on my side, whether I’m right or wrong. You never stopped calling her Mom. Even now, when Mom’s missing. When you call out “Mom,” you want to believe that she’s healthy. That Mom is strong. That Mom isn’t fazed by anything. That Mom is the person you want to call whenever you despair about something in this city."

"Her dark eyes, which used to be as brilliant and round as the eyes of a cow that is about to give birth, were hidden under wrinkles. Her pale, fat lips were dry and cracked. You picked up her arm, which she’d flung on the platform, and placed it on her stomach. You stared at the dark sunspots on the back of her hand, saturated with a lifetime of labor. You could no longer say you knew Mom."

"You don’t understand why it took you so long to realize something so obvious. To you, Mom was always Mom. It never occurred to you that she had once taken her first step, or had once been three or twelve or twenty years old. Mom was Mom. She was born as Mom. Until you saw her running to your uncle like that, it hadn’t dawned on you that she was a human being who harbored the exact same feeling you had for your own brothers, and this realization led to the awareness that she, too, had had a childhood. From then on, you sometimes thought of Mom as a child, as a girl, as a young woman, as a newlywed, as a mother who had just given birth to you."

"Most things in the world are not unexpected if one thinks carefully about them. Even something one would call unusual—if one thinks about it, it’s really just a thing that was supposed to happen. Encountering unusual events often means you didn’t think things through."

"When was the last time you’d told Mom about something that had happened to you? At a certain point, the conversations between you and Mom became simplified. Even that was not done face to face, but by telephone. Your words had to do with whether she ate, whether she was healthy, how Father was, that she should be careful not to catch cold, that you were sending money. Mom talked about how she made kimchi and sent some, that she had strange dreams, that she sent rice, or fermented bean paste, that she’d brewed motherwort to send you, and that you shouldn’t turn off your phone because the messenger would call before delivering all these packages."

"“And I thought of Mom. I wondered, How did Mom feel all those years in that old-fashioned kitchen, cooking for our big family? Remember how much we ate? We had two small tables filled with food. Remember how big our rice pot was? And she had to pack all of our lunches, including the side dishes she made with whatever she could get in the countryside.… How did Mom get through it every day? Since Father was the eldest, there was always a relative or two staying with us. I don’t think Mom could have liked being in the kitchen at all.”

You were caught off guard. You had never thought of Mom as separate from the kitchen. Mom was the kitchen and the kitchen was Mom. You never wondered, Did Mom like being in the kitchen?"

"Your mom let out a deep sigh. “But it was nice when you kids were growing up. Even when I was so busy that I didn’t have time to retie the towel on my head, when I watched you sitting around the table, eating, with your spoons making a racket in the bowls, I felt like there was nothing else I wanted in the world. You were all so easy. You dug in happily when I made a simple zucchini-and-bean-paste soup, and your faces lit up if I steamed some fish once in a while.… You were all such good eaters that when you were growing I was sometimes afraid. If I left a pot filled with boiled potatoes for your after-school snack, the pot would be empty when I came home. And there were days when I could see the rice in the jar in the cellar disappearing day by day, and times when the jar would be empty. When I went to the cellar to get some rice for dinner and my scoop scraped the bottom of the rice jar, my heart would sink: What am I going to feed my babies tomorrow morning? So in those days it wasn’t about whether I liked to be in the kitchen or not. If I made a big pot of rice and a smaller pot of soup, I didn’t think of how tired I was. I felt good that these were going into my babies’ mouths. Now, you probably can’t even imagine it, but in those days we were always worried that we would run out of food. We were all like that. The most important thing was eating and surviving.” Smiling, your mom told you that those days were the happiest in her life."

"Mom’s hands were frozen. Grasping them, he vowed to himself that he would make these hands and this woman happy, no matter what. But a rebuke tumbled out of his mouth, asking her how she could follow a stranger just because he told her to. Mom scolded him right back: “How can you live without trusting people? There are more people who are good than people who are bad!” And she smiled her typical optimistic smile."

"“You’re my first child. This isn’t the only thing that you got me to do for the first time. Everything you do is a new world for me. You got me to do everything for the first time. You were the first who made my belly swollen, and the first to breastfeed. I was your age when I had you. When I saw your red, sweaty face, eyes shut, for the first time … People say that when they have their first child they’re surprised and happy, but I think I was sad. Did I really have this baby? What do I do now? I was so afraid that at first I couldn’t even touch your squirmy little fingers. You were holding those tiny hands in such tight fists. If I opened your fists up one finger at a time, you smiled. They were so small that I thought, If I keep touching them they might disappear. Because I didn’t know anything.""

""Later, I was happy to see your fingers and toes grow every day. When I was tired, I went over to you and opened your fingers. Touched your toes. When I did that, I felt energized. When I first put shoes on you, I was really excited. When you toddled over to me, I laughed so much; even if someone had spilled out a heap of gold and silver and jewels in front of me, I wouldn’t have laughed like that. And how do you think I felt when I sent you to school? When I pinned your name tag and a handkerchief on your chest, I felt so grown up. How can I compare the happiness I got watching your legs get thicker with anything else? Every day, I sang, Grow and grow, my baby. And then, one day, you were bigger than me.”"

"“I’ll become an important person,” Hyong-chol promised.

“What are you going to be?”

“A prosecutor!”

Mom’s eyes sparkled then. “If you want to be a prosecutor, you have to study hard. A lot more than you think you do. I know someone who wanted be a prosecutor and studied night and day and never made it and went crazy.”

“I’ll do it if you come home.…”

Mom looked into his anxious eyes. She smiled. “Yes. You can do it. You were able to say Ma before you were a hundred days old. Even though no one taught you to read, you learned to read as soon as you went to school, and you’re ranked first in your class.” She sighed. “Why would I leave that house when you’re there—why didn’t I think of that? You’re there.”"

"Now he reflects on this. When she was younger, Mom was a presence that got him to continue building his resolve as a man, as a human being."

"He never became a prosecutor. Mom always called it his dream, but he hadn’t understood that it had been Mom’s dream, too. He only thought of it as a youthful wish that couldn’t be achieved; it never occurred to him that he had deflated Mom’s aspirations as well. He realizes that Mom has lived her entire life believing that she was the one who held him back from his dream. I’m sorry, Mom, I didn’t keep my promise. His heart brims with the desire to do nothing but look after Mom when she’s found. But he has already lost that chance.

He crumples to his knees on the living-room floor."

"One Parents’ Day in May, years ago, none of the children called. Your wife went to the stationery store in town and bought two carnation buds, each tied to a ribbon that said “Thank you for giving me life and raising me.” She found you standing by the new road and urged you to come home. “What if someone sees us?” You followed her home. She persuaded you to come inside and lock the door, then pinned a carnation to the front of your jacket. “What would people say if we went around without a flower pinned to our clothes, when everyone knows how many children we have? That’s why I bought these.” Your wife fastened a flower on her clothes, too. The flower kept drooping, so she repinned it twice. You took off the flower as soon as you left the house again, but your wife went around the whole day with the flower on her chest."

"You had no idea that a stranger was reading your daughter’s novel to your wife. How hard your wife must have worked to hide from this young woman the fact that she didn’t know how to read. Your wife, wanting so badly to read your daughter’s novel, couldn’t tell this young woman that the author was her daughter, but blamed her bad eyes and asked her to read it out loud. Your eyes sting. How was your wife able to restrain herself from bragging about her daughter to this young woman?"

" “Are you here? I’m home!” you call to the empty house, and pause to listen.

You expect your wife to shout a greeting—“You’re home!”—but the house is quiet. Whenever you returned home and called, “I’m home!” your wife would, without fail, stick her face out from somewhere in the house."

"You get up and open all the doors in the house. “Are you in here?” you ask at each door. You open the doors to your bedroom and the guest room and the kitchen and the boiler room. It’s the first time you’ve desperately searched for your wife. Did she look for you like this every time you left home? You blink your dry eyes and open the kitchen window, to look at the shed. “Are you in there?” But there’s only the bare platform."

" You left this house whenever you wanted to, and came back at your whim, and you never once thought that your wife would be the one to leave."

"You thought you didn’t love your wife very much, because you married her after seeing her only once, but every time you left home and some time passed, she reappeared in your thoughts. Your wife’s hands could nurture any life."

"The moment when you had to confirm that you’d left your wife in Seoul Station, that you’d boarded the train and traveled one stop away, the moment that you turned around, accidentally hitting the shoulder of the person next to you, you realized that your life had been irreparably damaged. It didn’t take even a minute to realize that your life had veered off track because of your speedy gait, because of your habit of always walking in front of your wife during all those years of marriage, first when you were young, then old, for fifty years. If you had turned around to check whether she was there right as you got on the car, would things have turned out this way? For years your wife used to make comments—your wife, who always lagged behind when you went somewhere together, would follow you with sweat beaded on her forehead, grumbling from behind—“I wish you’d go a little slower, I wish you’d go at my pace. What’s the rush?” If you finally stopped to wait for her, she would smile in embarrassment and say, “I walk too slowly, right?”"

"There was a time when the dead didn’t speak and the ones left behind went crazy like that."

"“Your mom was very proud of you.”

“What?”

“If you were in the newspaper, she folded it and put it in her bag and took it out and looked at it again and again—if she saw someone in town she took it out and bragged about you.”

She’s silent.

“If someone asked what her daughter did … she said you wrote words. Your mom asked a woman at the Hope House orphanage in Namsan-dong to read her your book. Your mom knew what you wrote. When that woman read to her, Mom’s face brightened and she smiled. So, whatever happens, you have to keep writing well. There’s always the right time to say something.… I lived my life without talking to your mom. Or I missed the chance, or I assumed she would know. Now I feel like I could say anything and everything but there’s nobody to listen to me. Chi-hon?”

“Yes?”

“Please … please look after your mom.”

You press the phone closer to your ear, listening to your daughter’s forlorn cries."

"Even if everyone in the world forgets, your daughter will remember. That your wife truly loved the world, and that you loved her."

"I followed you in the funeral procession to City Hall, and I looked for you and grabbed your hand again and again, afraid I might lose you. You told me, “Mom! If we lose sight of each other, don’t walk around. Just stand still. Then we’ll be able to find each other.”

I don’t know why I didn’t remember that till now. I should have remembered it when I couldn’t get on the subway car with your father in Seoul Station."

"My love, my daughter. Every time I went to Seoul after that, you took me out, apart from the rest of the family, to the theater or to the royal tombs. You took me to a bookstore that sold music and put headphones over my ears. I learned through you that there was a place like Kwanghwamun in this Seoul, that there was something called City Hall Plaza, that there were movies and music in this world. I thought you would live a life different from the others. Since you were the only child who was free from poverty, all I wanted was for you to be free from everything. And with that freedom, you often showed me another world, so I wanted you to be even freer. I wanted you to be so free that you would live your life for other people."

"Now, dear. Raise your head a bit. I want to hold you. I’m going to go now. Lie down, put your head on my lap for a little while. Rest a bit. Don’t be sad for me. I was happy so many days of my life because I had you."

"I don’t know who I was to you, but you were my lifelong friend. Who would have known that we would be friends all these years? The first time we met, you made me feel so despondent by stealing the basin with the flour I needed to feed my children. Our children wouldn’t understand us. It would be easier for them to understand that hundreds of thousands of people died in the war than to understand you and me."

"I will let go of you now. You were my secret. You were in my life, someone whose presence would never be guessed by anyone who knew me. Even though nobody knew that you were in my life, you were the person who brought a raft at every rapid current and helped me cross that water safely. I was happy that you were there. I came to tell you that I was able to travel through my life because I could come to you when I was anxious, not when I was happy."

"A house is such a strange thing. Everything else gets more worn when people handle it, and sometimes you can feel a person’s poison if you get too close to him, but that’s not what happens to a house. Even a good house falls apart quickly when nobody stops by. A house is alive only when there are people living in it, brushing against it, staying in it."

"Over there.

Mom is sitting on the porch of the dim house I was born in.

Mom raises her head and looks at me. My grandmother had a dream when I was being born. A cow with a shiny brown coat was stretching, having just woken, raising its knees. My grandmother said I would be very energetic, since I was born just as the cow was using its energy to get up, and said that I should be well taken care of, because I would become the source of a lot of joy. Mom looks at my foot, the strap of the blue plastic sandal digging into it. The bone is visible through the wound in my foot. Mom’s face crumples in sorrow. That face is the face I saw when I looked into the mirror of the wardrobe after I gave birth to a dead baby. “My baby,” Mom says, and opens her arms. Mom puts her hands under my armpits as if she’s holding a child who has just died. She takes the blue plastic sandals off my feet and pulls my feet into her lap. Mom doesn’t smile. She doesn’t cry. Did Mom know? That I, too, needed her my entire life?"

"If I can’t live like Mom, how could she have wanted to live like that? Why did this thought never occur to me when she was with us? Even though I’m her daughter, I had no idea, so how alone must she have felt with other people? How unfair is it that all she did was sacrifice everything for us, and she wasn’t understood by anyone?

Sister. Do you think we’ll be able to be with her again, even if it’s just for one day? Do you think I’ll be given the time to understand Mom and hear her stories and console her for her old dreams that are buried somewhere in the pages of time? If I’m given even a few hours, I’m going to tell her that I love all the things she did, that I love Mom, who was able to do all of that, that I love Mom’s life, which nobody remembers. That I respect her.

Sister, please don’t give up on Mom, please find Mom."

"Even though Mom’s missing, summer will come and fall will come again and winter will come, like this. And I’ll be living in a world without Mom. You could imagine a desolate road. And the missing woman plodding down that road, wearing blue plastic sandals."

"Maybe you already understood that Mom didn’t exist in this world anymore. Maybe you came here because you wanted to plead: Please don’t forget Mom, please take pity on Mom. But now that you see the statue on the other side of the glass, sitting on a pedestal, embracing with her frail arms all of mankind’s sorrow since the Creation, you can’t say anything. You stare at the Holy Mother’s lips intently. You close your eyes, back away, and leave that place. A line of priests passes, probably on their way to celebrate mass. You walk out to the entrance of the basilica and look down, dazed, at the piazza surrounded by long cloisters and enshrined in brilliant light. And only then do the words you couldn’t say in front of the statue leak out from between your lips.

“Please, please look after Mom.”"

I had a good cry after finishing this book. All of my sorrow and regrets that I didn't do enough for my mom overwhelmed me. And I needed that. This is a hard book to read, not just for me, i know, but to a lot of people also. However, i think that's what makes this book that great, it made us think of our mothers and made us evaluate our relationship with them and how we view them.

I read somewhere that there's this survey that asks a lot of people worldwide; what's the most beautiful English word they have ever known. And according to the survey, the most beautiful English word is "Mother". I have never agreed more with something wholeheartedly.

Now, go give your mom a kiss and a hug and tell her you love and appreciate her. Tell her I think she's amazing.

PLOT - ⭐⭐⭐

WRITING STYLE - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

PAIN LEVEL- 💔💔💔💔💔💔💔

BOOK COVER DESIGN - ⭐⭐⭐

OVERALL BOOK RATING - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

#book review #please look after mom

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ziracona · 4 years

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Hello! I have always believed that Michael needed better doctors and good treatment. He was simply billed as "Evil". Sometimes I think that at that time they were unaware or ignorant of mental illness, and that is why Michael did not recover. I wish it had been treated better. I would like to know your opinion about it ;v;

Oh, absolutely. Michael is a very tragic character, and what happened to him was almost entirely Loomis’ fault, secondarily the system and his parents’, and like onyl 0.8% his own. It’s true that mental health aid has historically been really bad in most places, and even today treatment and acceptance—even in specifically medical settings—tend to be abysmal. Of course people knew less than they do now about how psychological stuff works, but bias, cruelty, and superstition as well as a system that enables and even to degrees outright encourages that is to blame for the awful treatment people woth mental illnesses and personality disorders faced and continue to face, not just a lack of knowledge, and the history is really heavy and awful to look over. : ( It’s horrific some of the things doctors have done and do to people just trying to get help.

Like, in Michael’s case, we’ve had a name and understanding of psychosis since the 1800s. Canonically, by the time the poor kid was six years old, he was hearing voices telling him to do bad things to people. He told his parents, seeking help, and they did nothing to help him—just told him it was his imagination—despite knowing hos grandfather had suffered the same symptoms. If they had only taken him seriously and given him therapy and possibly medication too, Judith never would have died. (I am not goong to say it every time, but all this information is official canon) Michael’s reason for killing his family members is wanting the vocies talking to him to be quiet, because it’s agonizing. If you’ve ever had intrusive thoughts (stuff like “pull into oncoming traffic” or “break that and see what happens” and such that don’t actually compell or force you to do it at all, and are always things you as a person deeply do not want to do, but nevertheless are really annoying or distressing to hear in your head), imagine that cranked up to 1000, endless and constant, but from voices that seem to come from around you instead of in your head. Especially as a young child, with no understanding what is happening to you, this would be incredibly scary and distressing—doubly so when dismissed by your parents, whose sole job is supposed to be to love and protect you.

The voices say they’ll be quiet if Michael kills Judith, so Halloween night, he does. Important to note here Michael is recently six years old at the time, which developmental psych literally is not old enough to have a complete understanding what death itself is, let alone complex morality. You /cannot/ be evil at six, you simply don’t have a complex enough understanding of right and wrong or of consequence to /be/ evil. Also at this age, usually kids see death as a vague concept, but one that applies to people they don’t know only, not to them and their loved ones. In Halloween 1978, immediately after stabbing Judith, Michael looks away while he keeps doing it, and his breathing speeds up in a scared way. He barely looks at the body, and immediately goes down stairs to wait for his parents—probably for them to fix it—and does nothing to flee or hide what he’s done. He looks traumatized when they take his mask off. (Lots of little notes here like that Judith when she sees him seems annoyed but not very, and when he attacks her, tries to shield herself and call to him to stop, rather than fleeing or fighting back, which [appealing instead of fight or flight] is pretty exclusively something you only would use if attcked by someone you are on good terms with—I mean, Michael is six—if Judith had /tried/ to fight back, no way she would have died—so there’s less than nothing to indicate they had anything but a loving familial sibling relationship. But if I list all these I’m gonna launch into my six page Michael Myers meta so I will speed through the rest.)

Anyway! Sorry, I have many feelings. About...everything. Including Michael for sure. So, immediately after killing Judith, Michael stops talking. He also shows other psychosis and trauma readily recognized side effects, like catatonia, slowed movement. In Halloween 1978c Dr. Loomis claims he tried to treat Michael for eight years, then spent another seven trying to keep him locked up because he realized he was evil. This is a /blatant/ lie, as in film canon Loomis, by Michael’s review hearing I believe four months in? Six or less for sure, I believe it is four. Loomis has /already/ become convinced Michael is a demon in human form, faking his symptoms, and itching to kill again. The other doctors think Loomis is crazy, as does the other doctor who examines Michael, but they’re awful people so they let him stay Michael’s doctor anyway, even though they refuse to move him to Litchfield maximum security. By this time only a few months in, Loomis is canonically also threatening the six year old in his care and constantly telling him he is an evil being who wants to get out and terrorize again. (Also, I will die enraged the sentance Michael gets for killing Judith is to remain locked in solitary in a sanitorium for /15/ years, until he turns 21, at which point he will be tried as an adult for murder??? The fuck?? You CANNOT charge a 6 year old’s crime in adult court! ‘Tried as an adult’ is meant for like, when a 17 year old dismembers their family and eats them! It’s for particularly heinous crimes, committed by someone /very/ close to being legally an adult, and that /only/. The idea of waiting fifteen years to try someone as an adult for something done at age six is laughable and sick).

Okay this is already long, I get carried away rip. Uhhh, anyway, yeah. In Smith’s Grove, Michael is visited by mom and Laurie once, then never sees any of his family again, because his dad hates him and forbids the others—finds out because Laurie is four and talks that they went /one/ time, and physically beats four year old Laurie for mentioning his name until she trauma blocks out ever having had a brother. From then on, Michael spends /fifteen/ years and all the dest of his developmental stages of childhood in a sanitorium with Dr. Loomis—a man who on wild religious superstition grounds assumes by his own admission /on sight/ that Michael is evil, and no other human contact. According to canon, Michael spends at least four hours of /every/ day with Loomis, his /only/ human contact, who threatens him, promises to stop him, and endlessly barrages him with “You’re evil, you’re not human, you want to kill again, I /will/ stop you,” and nothing else. He also canonically keeps Michael overdosed on a type of antipsychotic that, while a fine drug if used normally, if overdosed can deeply worsen symptoms, and can cause permanent brain damage.

Honestly, if a six year old is exposed yo major trauma, none of their issues are explained, legitimized, or believed, and almost all of their developmental stage is spent with endless voices they don’t know the cause of suggesting murder and violence, one human being and authority figure telling them over and over and over for fifteen years with no other constant in their life or human contact period that they are a demon in human form who wants to kill and is /going/ to do so again...? How else was that story ever going to end? I’ve said it before, but that’s beyond conditioning; it’s lab growing a human child to one day walk out and murder Laurie Strode with a large kitchen knife.

I stand by Halloween is a greek tragedy more than a slasher, and Michael and Laurie are both victims. He’s the Asterios, she’s the Ariadne. Loomis the Minos, the real villain. (Or the Poseidon choose your poison).

Anyway, I 100% agree! If he had just gotten help from his parents, Judith would have never died. If he’d had good doctors, none of the events of 1978 would have come to pass, or anything after it. Loomis single-handedly causes the deaths in 1978 himself through years of cruelty, and bigoted bias towards a small child in his care who needed his help, not his abuse, but he chose to break as much as he possibly could despite his responsibilities as a doctor, an adult, and a human.

If you’re interested, I did a canon-deep-dive character study short story on Michael on AO3! Halloween is such a sad story but it’s fascinating. God, poor Michael and Laurie deserved so much better than they got. It’s a testament to Michael’s character that even after 15 years of Dr. Loomis, he really only kills his intented target(s) in search of quiet from the voices, and anyone who sees him/would be a threat, and not other people. Makes no attempt to kill any of the kids in Halloween 2018, and only kills Bob when he literally opens the door to his hiding spot and Michael is found and Bob becomes a threat to him. In H20, after Michael has had 20 years on his own, you get arguably the least brutal Michael, who intentionally passes on killing the mother and child, and the security guard he walks right past, because they don’t see him and thus he doesn’t /have/ to. Halloween II is less intentionally avoiding, but even then he still does the same multiple times too, like with the old lady making a sandwich, or the scene in the incubator room. Anyway he desevered better fuck Loomis all my homies hate Loomis.

#ask #anonymous #michael myers #halloween #halloween 1978 #halloween II #Halloween H20 #Halloween 2018 #note: Michael is written /very/ differenly in the different timelines. different writers took complrtely dofferent approaches to hin as a #person. and his motives. so unless I state otherwise I am always talking exclusively about the version of Michael from the H20. 2018. & DbD #timelines. since those are all largely the same character. unlike the 3-4 RZ and resusrection or the novelization etc #they’re seperate universes w different canons. i am only really interedted in core/OG canon and its offshoots #its /direct/ offshoots haha #laurie strode #sam loomis #Isolation (fic)#Isolation #meta #michael myers meta #long post #me: I am not gonna do the six page breakdown ima do an overview #me: doesn’t do the six pages but damn well doesn’t do the short version either #i can’t help it you found an intense passion topic

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1dsource · 4 years

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This list consists almost entirely of recent fics, so please show them some extra love and leave a kudos, and even a comment if you have the time. It’s important we also give the newer, unknown authors a chance so they keep having motivation to write more amazing stories for us all to read <3

loving you's a bloodsport by @rosesau l 106K l Royalty AU l Soulmates

harry is a bratty prince, louis is a guard who works in his palace, and niall is the only who's got his life in control.

as someone once said: this is not a love story, but love is in it. that is, love is just outside it, looking for a way to break in.

Fearless by @suspendrs I 97K I Childhood Friends I Famous/Not Famous

“You’re my best friend, Louis,” Harry says, barely above a whisper. Even if he was yelling, Louis wouldn’t be able to believe his ears. “And I know it’s been a while, but you’re still the person I consider my best friend,” Harry says.

Louis blinks, and then blinks again. “I honestly cannot say the same, Harry,” he says.

Or, Harry left home without a word after high school, and a lot can change in ten years.

Kill Me/ Heal Me @millionlittletings I 92K I Royalty I Dystopia

The kingdom of Scotland hasn't been in peace for decades now. In the heart of the country lies the rivalries, hate, and struggle of power. Amidst the chaos, five young men discover the meaning of life, friendship, love, hate, and heartbreak through their journey. Louis, who is struggling to find a place where he belongs. Niall, who will protect what belongs to him with his life. Zayn, who is learning to navigate through life. Liam, who knows when to use his heart and when to use the brain. Harry, who is set to kill anyone who will come into his way of finding the truth about his mother. From dealing with their personal issues to finding out the real culprit who changed the course of their lives, these five men are set to uncover the deepest and the darkest secrets of the kingdom.

adjudication @bottomlinsons I 75K I Royalty I Arranged Marriage

Harry's been engaged to Princess Charlotte of Ryde for as long as he can remember. He's come to know her, to love her, through the letters she's sent him over the past three years.

But when the wedding finally arrives, Harry quickly learns that nothing is as it seems. With his crown and country at stake, Harry must decide who to trust in this strange new land. And the sly Crown Prince of Ryde doesn't seem inclined to make things easy.

The Devil In My Brain by larryshares I 74K I Devil Harry

“Jesus Christ!” Louis yells as he jumps back in reaction to Harry once again popping up out of nowhere.

Harry doesn’t even flinch.

“Quite the opposite.” He jokes, holding out one of the drinks for Louis to take. A freshly sizzling vodka Red Bull; his favorite.

Louis’s initial reaction is the thought you remembered.

His rational brain says, “No thanks.”

“Louis.” Harry says it like a concerned parent, the tone of it matching the way his mum used to say Boo Bear, you have to eat your vegetables to grow up big and strong, and that ignites something feral within him.

“Satan.” He counters, same tone coupled with a glare and a pair of arms crossed over his chest.

Louis used to be good friends with Harry, until he woke up alone and immortal with no one to blame but The Devil himself.

Under your skin, Over the moon by @indiekissy I 35K I Royalty

If there was one thing Harry didn’t expect the day before his uni graduation, it was for his long lost grandmother to show up and tell him he’s actually a prince thats next in line to rule Genovia. He also didn’t expect to fall for his royal advisor, who happens to hate his guts. A Princess Diaries AU.

robbers and cowards @adoredontour I 33K I Enemies with Benefits

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d almost think that you’re enjoying yourself.”

The familiar voice immediately gets Louis’ blood boiling, shoulders tensing as he calmly spins around, trying not to draw any suspicion to the pair.

“You don’t know me at all,” Louis spits, managing to maintain the polite smile he’s been wearing all evening. “You’re just some asshole who always ruins my nights.”

“If I keep ruining your nights, why do you keep going home with me?” Harry asks, taking a sip from his own wine glass.

“I don’t go home with you by any choice of my own,” Louis says. “I think you’re annoying and I have no idea how I keep ending up in your bed.”

“You end up in my bed because you knock on my apartment door at two in the morning.”

Louis wants to punch the smirk right off of his face. “Maybe you should move,” is what he says instead.

or a modern day robin hood au where louis and harry (don’t really) hate each other but they hate greedy billionaires more

Strong Enough by @jacaranda-bloom I 20K I Exes to Lovers

“So…” Liam starts, and Louis instantly knows where this is going. He’s actually glad it’s Liam that's dragging the subject out from the shadows and into the light. Louis turns to face him, mirroring his position on the couch and nods, ready for him to continue. Liam takes a deep breath. “Have you spoken to Harry recently?”

Five years after Vertigo goes on hiatus, the band comes back together for a benefit concert. Can Louis and Harry work through their complicated past, or are some wounds too deep to be healed?

solid as a stone (when everything is gone) by @onlyforthebravee I 20K I ABO

“Why’d you take me with you?”

Louis startles at the question, the car almost swerving off the road in the process. He holds his breath as he waits for the twins to wake up and start wailing, but they don’t. They keep sleeping on peacefully, covered in the family blanket.

Harry’s looking at him with an unreadable expression.

Louis takes a minute, mulling it over. He answers quietly. “I hate to say it, but as much as we hate each other, I can’t bear to leave you alone to deal with this whole thing all by yourself.” and I wouldn’t be able to bear it if you died, he adds in his mind.

or, it's the zombie apocalypse and Louis is stuck with Harry, with whom he shares a complicated relationship.

once bitten and twice shy by @pinkcords I 19K I Christmas Fic

This time as his stomach rolls, there’s no doubt about it. He’s going to vomit. And if he does, it’ll be on Louis’ shoes, a nice little parting gift to go with the embarrassment he’s caused the both of them. “I’m gonna throw up,” he says just as Louis turns to look at him, blue eyes swimming with shock and confusion, and asks, “Is that true?”

Or, in a rush of bravery only senior year can bring, Harry confesses his feelings in a letter to his neighbor and best friend, Louis, only for the entire school to hear it and laugh him out of their small town in Wisconsin. Ten years later, Harry's a successful lawyer at Columbia Records, coming home for Christmas for the first time since he departed for college. He plans to work his way through the trip, eat his mom's cooking, and avoid everyone from his past for as long as possible. The only problem is best laid plans hardly ever go as intended.

Equals by onlythebravekat I 12K I 1970′s AU

Louis and his family work for the Styles and live on their property. Louis has dreams of traveling the world and never having to associate with Harry in any way.

The Boxer by heyidkyay I 4K I Uni AU

At the age of twelve Harry’s life is turned upside down. After a traumatic experience, he leaves school and finds comfort in boxing. Six years later and Harry finds himself facing some of his former demons.

Again, if you read, please remember to leave kudos and/or a comment so we keep motivating our lovely, talented writers and make them feel valued

#hlsource #hljournal #larry fanfiction #fics #larry #enemies to lovers #ficmp

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xxwritemeastoryxx · 3 years

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Untold Future Chapter 5

Uncovered Secrets

Author: xxwritemeastoryxx

Pairings: Elijah Mikaelson x OC

Word Count: 2.8K

Warnings: Nope. None that I can think of.

Author’s Note: Okay, I'll admit. For a minute there, I lost all muse for this story. I hated that I did and even had some moments while writing that I was having issues with getting it the way I wanted to. But I eventually got it done. I do hope you guys enjoy it!

Feedback gives me life and motivation for future things. ♥

<< Chapter 4 || Masterlist || Chapter 6 >>

From the moment that Elijah had broken into the warehouse, an eerie feeling came over him. The heaviness of the air had been something he had never once experienced before. May it have been that he had no idea what to expect once he entered it or if it was the fact that this is where Elizabeth had someone find the cure for her bite. He knew that if he could possibly find more answers, this is where he'd find them.

But upon first walking in, there was nothing in sight. There wasn't any indication that anyone had even been there. The echoing of his footsteps loud in his ears with each step he had taken. Even the slamming of the door behind him had echoed several times through the warehouse.

The further he walked into it, the more he had come up empty. Even in the darkness of it, he could see that the place had been cleared out. No doubt by the mystery partner that Elizabeth had been working with. But even if the equipment had been cleared out, he could still smell the scent of blood and burning flesh in the air.

The scorch marks on the floor had proved that something had been burned there. If it had been the bodies they used or the information they burned, Elijah would never know. The mystery of it all had him lost for words as he took in the rest of the warehouse.

The small office in the corner had caught his attention. The distance closed instantly when he sped over and reached his hand for the doorknob. It turned with ease and the creak with the door opening had been loud in the empty warehouse. But what Elijah found within it had surprised him.

It was the only space that had been untouched. No doubt this had been everything Elizabeth had within the building. The window that overlooked the place told him that she must have been there from time to time. May it have been to keep an eye on her potential captor or even to ensure that the cure she was working on had worked.

His eyes scanned the room. The pages of papers had been spread out about the desk along with the countertops underneath the window. It was a complete contrast as to how Elizabeth had left their room. It made him wonder if she even had time to pack this place up as she had with the compound.

The fridge beside the desk caught his attention next. While he could have started with the paperwork that was tossed about, there was something in him telling him to check the small fridge. Walking over to it, he crouched down before opening the door. What he found within it, didn’t disappoint him.

_____

Hope sat up quickly in her bed, finding herself in her room. The early morning light had come through the window, telling her it was morning. She quickly tossed the blanket off of her before running out of the room.

“Mom?” She called out as she walked out into the hallway. “Dad? Aunt Freya?” Her eyes looked around the place as she walked down the hall a little further.

Hope continued walking down the hall and watched as her parents walked out of Freya’s room. There was worry evident on their faces as they rounded the corner. There were already so many things they now needed to be worried about.

“Is everything alright?” Hayley asked as she came and knelt in front of Hope.

“Did Aunt Freya do the spell?” Hope asked as she looked back and forth between her parents.

Hayley shook her head. “No, not yet. We wouldn’t be able to do it until you go to bed tonight.”

“You can’t do it.” Hope quickly said, her attention solely on her mom. “Aunt Liz made me her loophole. If we do the spell, we won't be able to help her.” The words had come out quickly and it almost sounded like one jumbled mess.

Klaus and Hayley looked towards each other before looking back at Hope. “You saw her again?” Klaus asked, wanting to be sure he understood.

“Yes.” Hope quickly nodded her head. “I was able to talk to her. There was no one there with her and I was able to get inside there with her. She asked for us not to sever the link.”

Klaus sighed as he came and knelt down right beside Hayley and took his daughter’s hands. “We can’t let you see what she is being put through. Even if this was to help Liz, you don’t need to be traumatized by it.”

Hope shook her head before she looked at Hayley for a moment. “You said Aunt Liz and I needed each other. That we were each other’s loopholes to get into Aunt Freya’s spell. Aunt Liz knows I can help. I want to help her.” She looked over at Klaus. “Family is supposed to stick together, always and forever. Aunt Liz is family and she needs us.”

There was a part of Hayley that felt guilty. Hope was using the very words that Hayley would tell her as the years went by while Elizabeth was trying to find the cures. But this was different. Hope didn’t have to watch as people tormented the person they loved. It was something she witnessed with Jackson. While it had been brief, she couldn’t imagine letting Hope see what happens to Elizabeth.

“I don’t know Hope,” Hayley said as she looked between her and Klaus before setting her eyes on Hope. “Yes, Aunt Liz is our family and we will do everything that we can to make sure we get her back. But from what your dad told me last night,” Hayley shook her head. “I don’t know if you should. We don’t know if by the time you are asleep if she’d be available to talk. I don’t want you seeing things that could hurt you.”

Hope’s eyes filled with tears. The woman that Hope had grown close to during the course of her life was relying on her. Being Elizabeth’s loophole had made Hope feel like an important part of getting Elizabeth back to them. She didn’t like that her parents weren’t wanting her to help.

“As much as you don’t want her to, she’s going to help.” Veronica’s voice filled the air, causing the others to look towards her.

She had been upstairs listening to the whole thing from her room. It was only after Hope began arguing with her parents that she decided to make herself known.

A glare formed on Klaus’ face. “What my daughter does or doesn’t do is none of your concern. If it weren’t for Elizabeth you wouldn’t be staying here.”

Veronica huffed a laugh before she shook her head. “Believe it or not, I’m on your side. You can’t get any information from Jess. Visions or otherwise. And while I know your sister can handle herself in terms of witchcraft, I’m the only one who can get visions and actually tell you things. Like the fact that I’ve seen Hope helping and that link you are debating on severing, won't break.”

Klaus stood from his spot and walked over to Veronica. She stood her ground as he had done so. Her eyes never left his face as he came to a stop before her. She could see the anger in his eyes. The annoyance that she would say what Hope would or would not do. Like if Veronica was making the decisions when her parents should be the ones to give the final decision.

“Visions or no visions,” Klaus began. “Hope is not to be used as a key in returning Elizabeth to us. What she is experiencing will haunt her. No child should be subjected to that. I will do whatever it takes to ensure she is safe. Even if it means severing the link my brother’s soulmate has to my daughter.”

A huff passed Veronica’s lips. “Maybe you should see what they hold for this family if you don’t. Cause without Hope helping Elizabeth, this family is about to get a whole lot more problems coming.”

“You dare to threaten us?” Klaus asked, taking one more step closer to Veronica.

Irritated with the hybrid before her, Veronica brought her hand up quickly towards his head. While at first, Klaus had blocked her hand, Veronica grabbed a hold of his wrist and twisted it. Shock was written on Klaus’s face at her strength before Veronica placed her free hand on Klaus’s head.

Instantly Klaus’s mind was filled with the visions Veronica was showing him. Images of a life that had yet to come. A world where Hope was in danger. Where a serpent began showing up around New Orleans and how Hope was tied into it. The fall of Elijah in the process before being forced to leave each other. A moment later, Veronica pulled her hands away from him.

“I am not the threat.” She said, keeping her eyes on his. The worry now grows within him. “Jess has shown me a thing or two. Especially when it comes to visions. You sever that link, it won’t be just Elizabeth that we lose. This is the safest Hope will ever be.”

Klaus took in Veronica’s words before looking over at Hayley. She had now been holding Hope behind her in a protective stance. His eyes landed on his daughter, the way she looked between him and Veronica. And it was that look on her face that Klaus knew he would do everything in his power to keep the visions Veronica had shown him of a possible future from ever happening.

“We won’t sever the link.” Klaus said before walking back over to Hayley and Hope. Hayley shook her head, not wanting to agree with the decision Klaus was making. Klaus gave her a knowing look before tilting his head towards the room beside them. “We should talk. The three of us.”

Klaus intended to tell Hayley about the very visions that Veronica had shown him. The alternate reality was something that even he knew Hayley would never want to happen. But there was also the matter of speaking to Hope about what she’d be doing as a part of Elizabeth’s loophole. They were going to ensure that Hope didn’t see anything in the process.

_____

“I’m assuming you found something.” Rebekah watched as Elijah walked into the courtyard carrying a box.

“The cures,” Elijah said as he set the box down on the nearest table. “Elizabeth ensured there were multiples made.” His hand ran along the top of the box. “But there was nothing else of use in there. Everything had been cleared out, besides her office.”

“They went to lengths to ensure that they weren’t found there.” Rebekah noted as she took in her brother.

Elijah looked tired to her. The man hadn’t slept a wink since his nightmare the night before. And once he found the contract, that was the motivation to keep him up as he went through it. To find the warehouse that Elizabeth used kept him from any rest. And now, when he was met with nothing, he felt the weight of the last several hours weighing on him.

“They were thorough. Much in a way that I didn’t think was possible.” Elijah ran a hand along his face as he looked at the box for a moment before looking towards his sister. “Has Veronica returned?”

“I’m here,” Veronica said as she walked down the stairs, an envelope in hand. “I was told you wanted this.” She held the letter out to Elijah the moment she came to a stop in front of him.

Elijah eyed the letter for a moment before taking it from Veronica. “Besides her necklace and this, was there anything else she left you?”

A small frown formed on her lips as she shook her head. “We were the ones that got letters. Kai didn’t even get one.”

“How is he?” He asked. While Elijah may have not cared much for Malachai and his antics, he was Elizabeth’s best friend. The only person she had when everything else was taken from her.

“Sulking. And when he’s not doing that, he’s trying to figure out where they might have taken her.” Veronica said with a nod. “Showing him that letter, it’s got him angry.”

“About what?” Elijah asked as he raised a brow.

Veronica’s eyes moved from him to the letter. “Read it and you’ll see.”

Elijah and Rebekah looked at each other for a moment. Elijah then began to pull the paper out of the envelope. Elizabeth’s handwriting was visible on both sides of the page as he unfolded it.

Veronica,

Much like Jess, you knew this was coming. Maybe not in visions, but in some ways you knew. Jess has taught you well and I know that is going to come in handy when the time is right. Keep practicing while I’m gone. It is only when the time is right that Jess will be able to open up to you about things. Things that we both cannot speak of because of the contract I am now bound to. I hope that when you get this that you have met the Mikaelsons. That they’ve come home to the place that I’ve been trying to keep together for them.

I need you to do me a favor. Help them. Help the Mikaelsons with whatever they may need. I know Freya will be doing as much as she can, but with your help, they’ll be able to do more. The time that I am gone will hopefully go in a blink of an eye. But I know Elijah will have a harder time with this. So I need you to help make sure that he’ll be okay during this time. Priorities will be different between the siblings. I need you to show them why this is important. Because as siblings do, they’ll fight. They’ll want to go about things their own way. And you are one of the only people that can help with that. They can’t go to Jess. She’s been compelled and any questions would result in her death.

Help Kai too. We both know that he’s the one that will easily spiral with this. That’s not to say Elijah won’t do the same. But I know both of them. They won’t rest until I’m back with you guys. Make sure Kai doesn’t get into trouble for the next three years, maybe even longer. But I just need to be sure that while I am gone, that everyone will be safe. From what Jess has shown me, you guys will be. But there is this part of me that needs reassurance that you guys will be. If I have someone on the inside making sure they are okay, I’ll be okay.

I wish I could tell you everything. I wish I could tell you the details of it all. Everything that Jess has shown me. But I can't. Not for fear that you’ll drift off the path those visions have shown, but the fear of the unknown of what comes after. I just hope that when that time comes that things will be easier to handle. Not for me, but for them. For you.

I'm giving you the necklace that matches Hope’s. Keep it safe for me? I hated the thought of Jax taking it and me not seeing it again.

Elijah couldn’t explain it. But the moment he finished reading the letter, there was this sense of dread that filled him. The words in Elizabeth’s letter were preparations. Not for her absence. But for the possibility of what happens after they find her.

Elijah’s eyes shot up from the letter to Veronica’s. He could see the same look that he currently had in her eyes. That even she had put the pieces together from the letter. Elizabeth gave one clue to how long she would be. Even though it was instantly corrected with the words ‘maybe even longer’. And it was those words that made the dread fill Elijah and Veronica.

“Three years,” Veronica said with a nod.

“And what comes after is the question.” Elijah said as he folded the letter back up and tucked it back into the envelope before handing it back to her.

“Whatever it is, it’s got her afraid.” Veronica noted.

In the very briefest of moments, Elijah felt a sense of calm that mixed in with the dread that filled him. The calm wasn’t from him. Even in her weakened state, Elizabeth was trying to calm him down. And just as fast as it washed over him, it was gone.

<< Chapter 4 || Masterlist || Chapter 6 >>

Untold Future Tags: (Forgotten Alliance Sequel @mrs-jackson-kenner @chiefdirector @winchestert101 @ministark @mschellehitt @xanderling @thegirlwhowishedeveryonelived

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#The Originals #The Vampire Diaries #Forgotten Alliance #Untold Future #Elijah Mikaelson #Elijah Mikaelson x OC #Elijah Mikaelson Series #Elijah Mikaelson fanfics #Elijah Mikaelson fics #Elijah Mikaelson imagines #Elijah Mikaelson x Elizabeth #May Madness day 3 #May 3rd

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melodyalanaroster · 3 years

Text

To answer some Fanfic Questions...

So, this is my response to @broxklynn‘s post... I decided to make this its own post... So that It can be properly answered.

1. How and why did you start to write? Is there some kind of story behind it?

I started writing in general when I was in elementary school... Back when I just had a Platform 9 3/4 journal, not many friends, recess, and a desire to immerse myself in the world of Harry Potter. I enjoyed writing, and even joined the Writer’s Club in High School (but I eventually left to join Anime Club and Divergent Thinking Society). As for writing MCL fanfiction, I began writing Sam’s and Alana’s stories as early as when I first got into the fandom, back in 2013. Alana’s story started out as “A Fresh Start”, had a one shot called “When I Wake”, then turned into “Let The Dawn Be Broken”, and is now “The Melancholy Of Melody Alana Roster”. The final product barely has any hints of the first 3... In fact, Sam’s story, “Fighting Darkness”, has been completely debunked due to what I’ve decided to canonize in “The Melancholy Of Melody Alana Roster”. Writing MCL fanfiction has been a major help in distracting me from the depression that was caused by family issues, severe abuse, Stockholm Syndrome, my mom’s disease and her death, as well as working at several shitty jobs. Writing has helped me escape reality and keep myself sane enough to not be a black hole of hate, anger, and sadness to my friends and boyfriend.

2. What do you struggle the most with your writing?

There are 2 major things I struggle with... 1 is Timing. I often set deadlines for myself that I never meet and it makes me so frustrated that I miss them... There are currently things in my drafts that were meant to be “Holiday Specials” for Valentine’s Day and Halloween 2020 that are still unfinished... It makes me feel like I’m letting my readers down, when its more of me letting myself down... The other thing is Inspiration. Because I hate my job, I often think about Alana’s story in an effort to not be completely consumed by the fact that I do hate my work... Due to that, I often come up with ideas for my story that I think are FANTASTIC for my story... But, by the time I get home, I’m either in too much pain or too tired to write, or I’ve forgotten the ideas...

3. What is your favorite genre to write?

I love writing Romance with a bit of Slice of Life and a hint of Action/Adventure...

4. Slowburn or “Flame”/PWP?

Slow burn any day.

5. How do you overcome writer’s block?

If I absolutely can’t write... I work on other stuff I need to do... Typically, something around the house, or something online I need to do... I also look for cool stuff to add to wish lists... I’ll occasionally play videogames or read comic books... In an effort to subvert writer’s block, I like having multiple chapters in my drafts at once. If I’m not in the mood to work on one chapter, I can work on a different one.

6. What kind of thing you dislike the most, when reading a fanfiction? (for example: particular plot, grammar mistakes)

One thing that makes me upset (and it makes me madder when I do this) is misspelling... Especially when it looks like its almost blatant... You have autocorrect, USE IT! Or when a fanfic is so awful, yet the author acts like their work is a gift from god... I don’t mind a “bad” fanfiction... Hell, the concept of “My Immortal” is so bad that its hilarious... But Fifty Shades did a lot of damage and E.L. James acts like she’s bigger than Jesus... Seriously, she wrote Twilight fanfiction, changed some minor details and names, people who have no knowledge of BDSM ate it up, and she acts like she’s a “Sex and Relationship Guru”...

7. What’s the biggest issue for you, when writing a Beemoov fanfiction?

The biggest issue for me is finding out when to allow for Beemoov’s writing and placement to take place in my story. I don’t like a lot of the events of UL and LL, so I’m often finding myself in a position where I have to watch video playthroughs and go “Okay, how can I omit this character, but keep this scene?”. I’ve had to do that A LOT with Alexy and Rosalaya.... Although, to a certain extent, I’ll often cut their scenes out altogether. I really hate what Beemoov did to them. They were great characters in HSL, but became utter shit in UL and stayed shit in LL. To make up for Beemoov’s writing style, I’ve created my own characters, added in old characters (like Kentin and Armin), added in bits from the manga (like Viktor, Severina and their fathers), and gone off on my own storyline. The Melancholy Of Melody Alana Roster is close to MCL at times, but often veers off onto its own road.

8. Have you ever created a character based on person in real life? (celebrity, someone that you know, etc)

YES!!! A LOT of characters in my story are based on real people! Alana’s step-father, Nate Films, is closely based on Nathan Fillion. A lot of her family members are based on members of my own family, just changed a bit to fit the story. Lynne Roster, Alana’s mom, is what I had always dreamed my own mom would be... Hell, Alana’s cat, Sylvester, is based on my own childhood cat, Luna.

9. How do you feel about your own characters? Do you think of them as your babies or have rather love-hate relationship with them? (And, do you have favorite one?)

I love most of my characters. I do hate 3 in particular... But, you’re supposed to hate, or at least not respect, them... That’s why I poured my hatred into them... Those 3 are Carol, Kai and Azrael. Carol has aspects of my abuser in her. You’ll see more of her when I finally post the HSL related chapters... And understand what I mean... Kai is based on one of my real life cousins that I’ve not been happy with for years (the one who my bf has deemed “the family failure”). You mainly see him in the Cousin Mels chapters, and in the Christmas Special... Azrael is the one who is seen the most in the UL chapters, and she is a main adversary for Alana. She is the one who broke her the most, the one who ended Alana’s relationship with Nathaniel, the one who truly traumatized her. As for ones I love... The one I love the most is Alana... I know, she’s a reflection of me, so that’s kind of vain... But, she’s a part of me. When I do finish her story and am at the point where I need to say “Goodbye”, it will hurt....

10. Enemies-to-lovers or friends/bestfriends-to lovers?

Definitely friends/best friends to lovers. I also like toying with what happens when best friends turn to lovers, but circumstance parts them and one moves on...

11. Is it easy for you to get inside your character’s head? Can you empathize with them? Is there’s some similarities between you and your main character?

It is VERY easy for me to get into Alana’s head... Like I said in #9, she is a reflection of me. She looks and acts like how I’d like to in a lot of situations... Her life is more interesting, traumatized, and more well off than mine... But, she is still me in major ways...

12. Who has been the biggest supporter of your writing?

Definitely my boyfriend. He doesn’t really understand the game itself... But, he likes how happy it makes me and he respects how much of my heart, soul, blood, sweat and tears that I’ve poured into writing my story. He loves listening to me read passages from it to him while I’m working. He gives me advice and his opinion is highly valued... My family knows I’m writing a large story, and have seen some of the images that I’ve gotten commissioned, but they don’t really know or care about the game. They do respect the fact that I am writing. They love the fact that I’m slightly following in my mom’s footsteps in that regard (she wrote 3 books and several poems). My online friends have been very supportive as well! I’m constantly updating them on what I’ve worked on each day in my Discord Server and the words of encouragement always help.

13. How do you handle criticism?

Not well. Due to the abuse and family issues mentioned in #1, for a good amount of my life, I’ve gotten nothing but harsh criticism... So, now that I’m away from all that, at 26 years old, I’m just now getting to a point where I’m starting to take it better... But, I’ve got a long way to go.

14. Do you like giving your characters trauma? Why/why not?

I hate sounding like a sadist... But, I’m going to anyway, so fuck it... Yes. I have done awful things to Alana over the years. In A Fresh Start, she got sexually assaulted and ostracized. In When I Wake, she gets into a car crash, put into a coma, and in her dream state murdered by Francis in front of Nathaniel. In Let The Dawn Be Broken, the plan was for her to end a war. In “The Melancholy of Melody Alana Roster”, her childhood cat dies, her mom gets sick, she gets abused by Carol, her best friends get ripped away from her for a bit, she gets sent to a country halfway around the world alone, she gets assaulted and ultimately turned into a weapon of mass destruction.... I’ve even thought of killing her mom off at one point... But decided against it...

Now, granted, A Fresh Start and Let The Dawn Be Broken never saw completion, but happy endings were planned for them...

I do this, all while giving Alana happy endings in each story because “If Alana can go through utter hell and make it through, then so can I.”... I know, I’m “god” in that regard and I can control how Alana’s life is.... But, the fact that in my writing, she ends up standing tall, happy, with everything she wants, after everything she goes through does make me feel better....

15. Are you proud of yourself? When you look at first piece you wrote and compare it to the latest one?

Yes. If you look at A Fresh Start, you can tell it was written by someone fresh out of High School. There’s no real depth to it. Let The Dawn Be Broken isn’t much better... But, The Melancholy of Melody Alana Roster has become my magnum opus. It is the largest piece I have EVER written, and will probably remain the largest piece I write. I am very proud of what I have created... And when its last word is written, and I am ready to get it made for it’s place on my shelf, I will feel very bittersweet about it... That being said, my original plan for a sequel involving Nathaniel’s and Alana’s daughter, Aurora, has been discarded. I don’t believe Aurora could ever have as much of my heart that her parents do...

And there you have it! Some insight into my world, writing, and history!

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lils-writes-stuff · 4 years

Text

Seattle

spencer reid x reader

Summary: in a spree killer case in seattle, the reader is injured and meets up with an old friend.

warnings: normal criminal minds things, mentions of psychological torture and abuse

A/N: based on season 7 episode 17; also this part satisfies my dream of a grey’s anatomy x criminal minds crossover lol

Y/N sat in Hotch’s office, right leg shaking as she watched the man read over all the notes she had received over the last 4 months. His eyes scan over the words of each note, some being longer than the others.

Finally, he looked up after what felt like an eternity.

“How long has this been going on?” He asked her with a raised brow.

“The letters, or me and her?” Y/N asked back.

“Let’s start at the beginning then,” he said.

Y/N took a breath, “Okay, it started in my freshman year of college. Caroline took me under her wing and I trusted her. She was seven years older than me so she became like a big sister at first, but than she would try to get me to do things I wasn’t comfortable with doing. When I said no to doing these things she would get angry a-and hit me, so I started distancing myself from her.

When I gained new friends, I guess she became jealous and she would come over when they were there and just psychologically torture me and them. Yell at us, use the power of suggestion and hurt them, she’s really good at mind games and manipulating people. She would convince them it wasn’t her that hurt them, but them who told her to do it or that they fell and hurt themselves, and there was nothing I could do to stop her from hurting people I loved. She said if I told anyone she would hurt my family. So I never let myself have friends, she was the only one I talked to, and she would hit me and scream at me until I was nothing but a shell of who I was.” Y/N wiped the tears on her face that she didn’t even realize had fallen. “I’m- I’m sorry-”

“Y/N it’s alright, it’s a time in your life that was very traumatic,” Hotch said, letting her feel comfortable again after she felt embarrassed. “How did you get away?”

“In my junior year, I decided I wanted to stop people who wanted to hurt others, like how Caroline was doing to me, so my senior year I applied for the academy after I graduated. I guess she found out and then she disappeared, but she would send me notes just like this up until my 25th birthday.”

“That’s when she went to prison for assault,” Hotch said as he looked over the timeline Penelope had pieced together.

“Yeah,” Y/N said.

“What does the bird mean?” Hotch asked.

“I don’t know, she’s always liked it, I guess it’s her signature,” Y/N answered.

“Who all knows about her?”

“My mom, my best friend who lives in Seattle, Spencer, and Penelope,” Y/N said. “And of course you, now.”

“Alright, I don’t know what all I can do to help, but thank you for telling me Y/N,” Hotch said with a small smile which made Y/N feel better.

“Thank you, sir,” Y/N said and stood up to exit the room, wiping under her eyes to clear the mascara before she faced the music of those in the bullpen.

She walked down the four steps from Hotch’s office and reached the floor of the bullpen. Spencer looked up from his desk to see Y/N, his heart aching seeing the same tear-stained face from when she told him a couple of days before.

Spencer completely understood fully why she didn’t tell him about this. She didn’t know about his problem with Dilaudid until one night they were together on the plane a little while after she joined the team. The rest of the team was asleep but the two insomniacs were wide awake, talking quietly and getting to know each other better. That’s the night Y/N developed feelings for the boy wonder.

“Alright, what’s one of the hardest cases you worked?” Y/N asked in a whisper as she looked over at Spencer in his chair.

“Uh, for me personally, or just a genuinely hard case?”

“Both.”

“Well, I guess they go hand-in-hand,” Spencer began. “We-we were working these home invasion cases in Georgia, and we thought that the unsubs were more than one you know? Anyway, JJ and I went to one of the suspect’s home and I was kidnapped-”

“Spencer you don’t have to-” Y/N tried to tell him he didn’t have to tell her this, seeing that it was hard for him.

“No, no, I want to,” Spencer interrupted. He wanted to tell her because he trusted her. He continued to tell the story of how Tybyus Heinkel was all the unsubs in one, having a multiple personality disorder. How he was drugged and tortured for two days, and how he had a drug problem after too.

“Spencer, I’m so sorry,” Y/N said, reaching over and placing her hand on top of his.

“For what? You don’t have anything to be sorry for. Anyways, it’s over now, so what’s your hardest case?” Spencer said reassuring her, trying to turn the topic away from him.

“Well, from the ones I worked with before the BAU…”

“How’d it go?” Spencer asked as Y/N approached his desk.

“As well as it could have gone,” she said with a sad smile. She was glad that she finally told Hotch, knowing this was probably better than just keeping it to herself.

She sat down at her own desk and began to get back to work, but her mind couldn’t focus, the only thing she was able to think about being the last note she got.

--------

“Okay, Kevin, seriously, I got a meeting I gotta get to,” Derek said to Kevin while he stood outside of the round table room.

Y/N stood with Penelope, both of them watching with curiosity as Derek and Kevin talked. Well, Kevin talked while chasing Derek.

“Derek, please, come on, bro-- this is important,” Kevin pleaded as Derek walked into the room.

“Oh, this should be interesting,” Y/N said as she watched Penelope approach Derek.

“Um, hi, yeah what was that about?” Penelope asked, knowing that Drek and Kevin never just chit-chat together.

“Oh uh, he just wanted to talk,” Derek responded.

“About what?”

“Guy stuff.”

“Me?”

“Garcia,” Hotch said interrupting the two’s conversation. “Let’s get started.”

“Oh- yes, sorry, uh. Two couples were found shot, uh, to death in the Delridge neighborhood of Seattle, Washington,” Penelope said beginning the case. “The first was Mark Daniel and Ben priestly, they were found dead in their living room. The second was John and Heather Miller, they lived 4 miles away, and they were found last night dead in their hallway.”

“Their daughter found them?” JJ asked.

“Yeah, she had snuck out to see her boyfriend, when she got back, they were dead,” Penelope answered.

“Two double homicides must be rare in that area,” Rossi stated.

“What makes it weirder is that there was no sign of robbery or sexual assault,” Penelope said.

“The shooter used a 22,” Derek said looking up from the file.

“Shot them execution-style,” JJ said.

“He’s experienced enough to use a pillow as a silencer, “ Hotch added.

“Don’t wanna wake the neighbors,” Emily said.

“You know,” Spencer began turning to the screen with the crime scene photos on it. “These crimes seem to lack the emotionality that we typically see in personal cause homicides.”

“Most executions are criminal enterprise related,” Y/N said looking at Spencer next to her.

“But the probability of these couples being involved in the exact same illegal activity is kind of low,” Spencer countered.

“There’s no way these were random victims of opportunity,” Derek said looking over at Spencer.

“Garcia, no sign of forced entry?” Hotch asked the woman next to him.

“None that the authorities have found, no,” she responded.

“So it’s a home invasion,” Hotch said plainly.

“Or-” Y/N held her pen up- “the unsub is using a ruse,” she said pointing the pen at Hotch while she spoke.

“Either way, they’re calculating and dispassionate,” Rossi said.

“They have no appreciation to chenille throw pillows,” Penelope said looking at the pillows n the photos.

“Well, the violent and targeted nature of these crimes suggests that there could be more,” Derek said leaning forward on the table.

“Wheels up in thirty,” Hotch said dismissing everyone.

Everyone began to walk out of the room, and Y/N walked swiftly to catch up with Derek before he got to his office.

“Morgan,” she whispered loudly as she followed behind him.

“What’s up, Pretty girl?” Derek said turning around to look at Y/N.

“Was Kevin talking to you about him doing something extra special for Penelope? Maybe like a proposal?” Y/N asked with excitement.

Derek raised a brow in surprise, “How did you know that?”

“Well you two have never just ‘talked’, and he was over-explaining things with his hands. It’s also what my best friend’s boyfriend did with me before proposing to her,” Y/N explained.

“He did, but I don’t know if that’s even what Penelope wants,” Derek said, trying to give a reason as to why he avoided Kevin’s question earlier.

“I mean, I get it, you didn’t want to give him false hope, but you and I both know she’s going to try and find out what’s going on now, right?”

Derek laughed nodding, “Yeah, she probably will.”

---------------

“Alright, let’s go over victimology,” Hotch said, bringing the attention to him. “Each of the victims is a professional.”

“The domestic partners were lawyers and the millers worked at a tech company,” Rossi said looking at Hotch.

“But P.D. couldn’t find any overlap,” Emily added.

“Both couples were really enjoyed by their peers, neighborhood watch, volunteered in community groups, you name it,” Penelope said, her voice coming through the laptop speaker.

“This was a straight-up execution,” Y/N said looking at the file in her hand. “The kneeling on the ground, placing a pillow behind the head.”

“Seems ritualistic,” Hotch said.

“Or simply taking precautions,” Rossi argued.

“Some of the vics were shot in the leg,” Emily said, almost a question but more of an unknown statement.

“They probably were trying to defend themselves, and this was the only way our unsub could them to the floor,” Rossi said looking at Emily.

“Well, the scenes pretty clean, except what’s left on the floor and the pillows,” JJ said.

“Garcia, how are each of the couples’ financials?” Hotch asked the woman on the screen.

“Yo, I wish mine were this good,” she responded.

“What about the Millers’ daughter Abby?” Rossi asked.

“Yeah, she sneaks out to see her boyfriend, that seems oddly convenient,” Y/N said looking at Rossi in agreement.

“P.D. confirms her story, a neighbor saw her kissing her boyfriend in his backyard during the times of the kills,” Spencer said, taking the theory of the daughter being apart away.

“Romantic,” Y/N said with a chuckle at what the teenagers had been doing.

“You guys, something just happened,” Penelope said, bringing the attention to her frantic voice. “Another couple, the same area, shot to death in their house.”

“This is turning into a spree,” Derek said.

“Targeting potentially unrelated couple,” Emily added.

��And the time between the murders is accelerating,” Spencer said.

“Prentiss, you and JJ go talk to Abby. Dave and I will go to yesterday’s crime scene, Y/N you, Morgan and Reid go to the newest,” Hotch ordered.

--------------

Derek pulled into the driveway of the latest victims’ home. The three filed out of the car and met the detective outside the house.

“Hi, I’m Agent Morgan, this Dr. Spencer Reid, and Agent Y/L/N,” Derek said shaking the detective’s hand and introducing the two beside him.

“Nice to meet you guys, follow me,” the detective said, leading the three inside. “I mean, we get our occasional DWI, a few kids egging a house on Halloween, but people shot like this…looks like one of those cable shows.”

“Well again, there’s no sign of a break-in,” Derek said from his spot in the doorway.

Y/N left Spencer’s side and began to look around the room, inspecting the photos and paintings. Trying to get a sense of who this couple was.

“But all the windows were unlocked, so who knows?” The detective said, the question rhetorical.

Y/N then turned her head and looked at the blood spots on the floor. “They were killed right here?” She asked turning to the detective while she pointed to the spot.

“Yeah,” the detective responded.

“They still had their keys out,” Spencer said pointing out the keys that were laying on the ground.

“So they were caught off guard,” Derek said.

“The house is childproof,” Spencer said, noticing all the childproof items around the room.

“Yeah, it must have been a relative or neighbor’s kids,” the detective said.

“They didn’t have any kids?” Y/N asked, prompting the detective to shake his head in response.

Y/N and Derek followed Spencer as he wandered into the living room of the house. They looked at the table noticing the soda can sitting on the table.

“The unsub probably sat right here,” Derek said pointing the armchair beside him.

“Had a soda-” Spencer pointed to the can on the table- “we should pull the cans for prints.”

“The reading light is on still, the unsub was probably looking for something,” Y/N said after noticing the light was still on.

“But there aren’t any magazines or newspapers around, which means it’s important enough to take him out of killing mode,” Spencer said looking at Y/N.

“For someone on a spree, this unsub sure is patient,” Derek said.

“If he’s so patient what is it that he’s waiting for?” Spencer asked, looking between Derek and Y/N.

“Maybe the unsub though they had something he wanted, and when they didn’t, he killed them,” Y/N said as her eyes looked back to the spot where the couple was killed.

Once the three had finished in the house, they thanked the detective and headed out to the SUV. The damp air made Y/N pull her navy jacket around her tighter as the air gave her a chill.

“Y/N, doesn’t your best friend live here?” Spencer asked her as they got into the vehicle.

“Yeah, she’s a surgical resident at some hospital,” she answered as they pulled out of the driveway. “I would go visit her but I think she’s a little busy, as well and me.”

------------

“The Millers and the Gilberts both participated in our foster program, it’s a local joint venture we have with the community center,” the pastor said to Y/N and Spencer that sat across from him at his desk.

Hotch had sent the two to the church after they discovered that two of the couples attended the same one.

“That could be the same community center our first victims volunteered at,” Y/N said looking at Spencer who sat next to her.

“Well that explains why the homes were childproof,” Spencer said looking to Y/N. “They sometimes had kids in their custody.”

“Yeah but if they were foster parents, it would’ve come up when Garica checked their backgrounds,” Y/N said.

“What happens if you get a child who needs a home immediately but no foster families are available? Is there some sort of emergency list or something?” Spencer asked the pastor.

“ Yeah, they can take the kids for just for a night or a weekend, and -uh- both couples were on that list, too,” the pastor answered.

“We’re gonna need a copy of that list,” Y/N said to the pastor.

“We also need the names of anyone who would have had access to it,” Spencer added. “Our unsubs following that list,” he whispered to Y/N.

“Let me go get that list for you,” the pastor said before exiting the room.

“Thank you,” Y/N said.

The pastor returned a moment later with the list. Spencer and Y/N thanked him once again before they left the building.

“Our last couple had a baby in their possession two days ago,” Y/N said as she pointed to the name and date on the list.

“That sheds some light on the 22, that gun is easy to handle,” Spencer said as the two walked through the church courtyard.

“And it’s not very loud,” Y/N added, pocketing the list in her jacket.

“You know, add that to no forced entry, I don’t think the pillows were used to minimize sound, they were used to stay clean. Which means this unsub might be a woman,” Spencer said as his brain put the pieces of the puzzle together.

“She probably had a connection to the foster system,” Y/N said as she caught on the train Spencer was on.

“Or she simply wants a kid,” Spencer countered.

“But then why wouldn’t she just snatch one off the street?” Y/N said, her voice coming off defensive as the two stopped walking.

“This is a maternal desire, these couples took in babies. Maybe she lost her own or can’t conceive,” Spencer said.

“So she killed those people because when she got to their home, they didn’t have a child,” Y/N said, her theory she said back at the crime scene becoming true.

“She’ll keep killing until she finds one,” Spencer said as the two began to walk again.

----------

“We believe the unsub we’re looking for is a white female. Who, based upon the organizational level of the crimes, is in her late 30s to early 40s,” Hotch said.

“We also believe that something in the last few days has triggered her to think that killing was the only she was going to be able to obtain a child,” Emily explained.

“Consequently, the foster families that did not have a child in their care when she visited, became her victims,” Y/N added, her eyes looking over the officers in front of her.

“Because all these families recently had children in their homes, we believe our unsub is motivated by maternal desire,” Rossi said.

“Maternal desire is the profound emotional need to mother a baby, this stems from either a tragic loss of her own child or the inability to have one at all,” JJ explained.

“This unsub my also fantasize that someone else’s baby belongs to her, and this emotion feels beyond her control,” Spencer began as he stood up from his chair. “A woman who miscarries sometimes projects onto someone else’s baby and then sets out to take that child.”

“This may cause our unsub to do something drastic. Like commit a cesarean abduction or kidnap a random kid,” Derek said.

“The speed that the kills are occurring suggests that our unsub is frustrated and devolving,” Y/N added.

“This is causing her to go on a spree, which usually ends in a very high body count and suicide by cop,” JJ said.

“So we should look at anyone who was pregnant and suffering from postpartum psychosis,” Derek explained looking at the officer around.

“We also need to check those who worked for or had access to the local foster system,” Rossi added.

“Thank you, any questions?” Hotch asked looking at the officers.

Almost every officer in the room raised their hands. Hotch began to call on people and answer their questions, but Y/N was pulled away as her phone rang.

“Hey Penelope what’s up?” Y/N asked after she answered, walking away from the group.

“What were Derek and Kevin talking about yesterday, I know your nosey butt found out so tell me,” Penelope said, her voice gritting at the end of her sentence.

“I can’t do that Penelope, it’s not my place,” Y/N responded, not wanting to spoil the surprise.

“Ugh, fine I’m just gonna keep calling Derek till he answers,” Penelope then hung up the phone, making Y/N chuckle as she went back to the group.

After they had finished answering questions, the team separated and began to work on case details.

Y/N sat next to Spencer as he wrote something down while he formed the geographical profile, while Hotch talked to Penelope on the phone. She looked at Spencer, silently admiring his face, his upper lip tucked under his bottom as he focused on his writing.

“Another woman’s been shot,” the detective said, bringing Y/N back to reality. “Three blocks from here.”

“She has a fairly limited comfort zone,” Spencer said as he looked at the spot the woman was just shot at on the map.

“Alright, Reid, you and Y/N work the list, I’ll take Rossi and Prentiss with me,” Hotch said, quickly exiting the room.

“You know, you’re not gonna get any work done if you keep looking at me working,” Spencer said, feeling Y/N’s gaze on him as he sat working.

“It helps me think,” she responded. Spencer chuckled and continued to work.

-----------

“Okay, here’s the dealio and stay with me,” Penelope said over the phone. After Hotch, Rossi, and Emily visited the scene, they discovered that the woman that was shot had a baby. She was in the process of adopting him and they needed to find out the birth parents that were sealed by the state. “Ben, formerly known as Johnny, was born to Margaret Hallman.”

“Where is she now?” Hotch asked.

“Well, she should be at the Fallbrook women’s correctional facility, but she was released four days ago due to overcrowding,” Penelope answered.

“We thought it was a mental institution,” JJ said.

“But if she was released, why kill to get your own kid?” Rossi asked.

“Her maternal rights must have been terminated,” Spencer answered.

“Yeah, that happens when you have sex with one of your high school students two years ago,” Penelope said.

“Ew,” Y/N said out loud, the word just slipping out from astonishment and disgust.

“Uh-huh, his name is Thomas Brown, AKA Tommy Brown, and he is little Johnny’s baby daddy, like for real,” Penelope explained.

“Teacher love syndrome,” Hotch said.

“She gave birth to Tommy’s baby in jail, and then when Tommy’s mom refused to raise it, the baby was put in foster care.”

“Okay, so we were right, the baby did spend time in each of the victims’ homes,” Derek said.

“Oh, you betcha,” Penelope responded.

“That would explain the spree and the maternal desire,” Emily elaborated.

“She’s trying to put her family back together,” Y/N said.

“Garcia, we need the Browns’ address,” Hotch ordered to Penelope.

“On its way sir,” Penelope responded.

The team piled into the SUVs and made their way to the Browns’ residence. The tires came to screeching stop and they piled out of the vehicles and made their way inside.

“Please....please help!” A girl laying on the ground spoke.

“Female down,” Derek said passing her and heading into the next room.

Y/N and JJ kneeled beside her.

“We need an ambulance at 1986 Homer Street,” Hotch said into his wire. “Is Margret Hallman in the house?” He asked the girl.

Y/N and JJ began inspecting her injuries, seeing a gunshot wound in her back.

“No, she took Tommy,” the girl answered breathing heavily.

“Hey, you’re gonna be okay, sweetie,” Y/N said, hoping to comfort the girl on the ground.

“What’s your name?” JJ asked.

“Julie Parker,” she answered.

“Julie, do you know where they went?” Hotch asked her.

“No,” she cried. “It hurts.”

“Alright, hey, it’s gonna be okay,” Y/N comforted the girl.

“Let’s put this on it, okay,” JJ said, grabbing a rag and holding it against her back.

“Are you Tommy’s neighbor?” Hotch asked, continuing with his questions.

“Yes, Ms. Hallman had their baby with her, Tommy took all his stuff,” Julie explained, her voice trembling from the pain.

“The place is empty,” Emily said entering the room.

“It’s clear here too,” Derek said entering from the kitchen.

“We need to find all we can on Margret Hallman,” Y/N said looking at Hotch.

“There are probably other victims in her past,” Hotch agreed.

The sounds of sirens were heard allowing Julie to sigh in relief.

“JJ, stay with Julie until her parents get here, we’ll call Garcia and find out what we can about Ms. Hallman,” Hotch said, exiting the room with Derek, Emily, and Y/N.

“What you got baby girl,” Derek said answering the phone while they stood outside the browns house.

“Okay, Ms. Hallman had an exemplary record in jail,” Penelope explained.

“What was her interaction with the outside world like?” Y/N asked.

“Um- well, she had limited computer use, and she used all of that time searching for a… Johnny Lewis,” Penelope said, her voice questioning at the end.

“Her baby?” Derek asked.

“No,” Penelope began. “Johnny Lewis is one of her former students from Lake Forrest School. His parents charged her with molestation, and then they dropped the charges.”

“When was this?” Emily asked.

“Three years prior to meeting Tommy,” Penelope answered.

“So she had a baby with Tommy and names it after the first kid she molested,” Y/N said with astonishment.

“Yeah, and according to the prison’s hard drive, she wrote dozens of emails to this Johnny Lewis,” Penelope explained.

“Maybe Tommy’s a surrogate for him,” Emily said looking at Y/N beside her.

“Garcia, we need to talk to the Lewis’,” Hotch said.

“Mm, their phone is disconnected,” Penelope answered.

“What about an address?” Y/N asked.

“They’ve moved around a lot. Oh- wow, okay it’s like they’re off the grid.”

“Well, who lives in their old house now?” Derek asked. “Maybe they could help us get info.”

“Uh, it’s changed hands a lot. Oh, snap, crackle, and pop goes the lady weasel. You’ll never guess who bought it,” Penelope said.

“Ms. Hallman,” Y/N and Emily said together, having no surprise or question in their voices.

“Mm-hm, it was picked up by her sister a year ago, and then it was transferred to Maggie’s name yesterday,” Penelope explained.

“Send us the address?” Hotch asked.

“Already sent,” Penelope answered.

---------

The sun had just set as the team rolled up to Margaret Hallman’s house. Local police followed in cars behind them as they stopped in the street in front of the house.

Y/N, JJ, and Derek walked up to Hotch and Emily as they got out of the car.

“Take the front, Prentiss, and I will take the back,” Hotch said. The three nodded, taking their guns out.

The three walked up to the front of the house and watched as Tommy walked out, a gun in his hand.

“FBI, drop it!” Derek said when he noticed the gun in the teen’s hand.

He lifted the hand with no gun in it up, the other staying by his side. “Just-- Just move, move-- move back,” Tommy spoke with a scared voice.

“Tommy, drop the gun,” Y/N said, her own gun pointing at the boy.

“Just-- just get off our yard,” he answered, his hand motioning over the yard in front of him.

“You don’t want to do this,” JJ said with a stern, clear voice.

“You don’t know me,” Tommy said. “My--my girl and kid are in there-”

“She’s a predator, Tommy,” Derek tried to reason with him.

“No, she’s not an animal. We love each other,” Tommy tried to explain.

“No, Tommy this isn’t love,” Derek said.

“Tommy this is a woman who’s been taking advantage of you, she molested you,” Y/N tried to explain.

“No, I--I knew what I was doing,” Tommy replied.

“Did you know there was another kid exactly like you from another school?” JJ asked.

“Shut up!” Tommy exclaimed.

“You weren’t the first, Tommy,” Y/N said.

“No, no, They’re lying!” Maggie exclaimed as she walked out, pointing at Y/N and JJ.

“Tommy she wrote letters to him, too,” Derek explained.

“That’s not true,” Maggie said with a sickeningly sweet voice.

“And she’d tell him that everything happens for a reason,” Y/N added.

“Be quiet!”

“She said that he was the love of her life, that she loved to sneak out to see him,” Y/N continued.

“That’s it!”

“Tommy, she wrote that to another boy, who lived in this exact same house,” Derek said.

“What are they talking about?” Tommy asked looking at Maggie.

“She even named your son after him,” Y/N said.

“Answer me, damn it!” Tommy exclaimed looking at Maggie, who was covering her ears with her hands.

“Without you, my life would be empty, and that’s why nothing is going to keep us apart, and I mean nothing,” Maggie said.

Tommy then dropped the gun in his hand, not wanting to believe Maggie anymore.

Maggie then quickly grabbed the gun Tommy dropped and shot, hitting Y/N on her upper left arm.

“Ugh!” Y/N exclaimed as she grabbed her arm in pain, blood covering it. She looked up and saw Maggie herself lying down in pain. Hotch could be seen through the screen door of the house, gun still pointed at Maggie.

“Maggie!” Tommy exclaimed, falling to his knees next to her.

“Y/N are you okay?” JJ asked as she kneeled beside her.

“Yeah-- yeah, I think so, I might need to go get it looked at though,” Y/N said, looking at the wound on her arm.

“We need paramedics of the front porch, suspect it down and a federal agent has been wounded,” Hotch said into his wire.

---------

When Y/N arrived at the E.R. of the hospital with JJ, she was directed towards a bed before someone would be with her.

“Y/N?” A familiar voice said as they approached.

Y/N looked up from her wound that she was inspecting to see her best friend standing, holding a tablet in her hand.

“London!” Y/N said with excitement as her friend walked towards her. They hugged each other tightly, London avoiding the part of her arm that was hurt. “Oh, I’m sorry JJ, this is London, my best friend,” Y/N said introducing the two.

JJ shook London’s hand introducing herself.

“Hi I’m Dr. Wilson, I’ll be taking care of you today Mrs. Y/L/N,” a brunette doctor said approaching the three.

“Oh, Wilson, if you don’t mind, I’ll take this one, and it’s Agent Y/L/N,” London said, correcting her younger peer.

“Oh-- right sorry,” Dr. Wilson said before walking away timidly.

“I get to do that, she’s an intern,” London said, making Y/N and JJ laugh.

London began looking at the wound on Y/N’s arm, telling her it would need some stitches seeing that it was a clean entry and exit wound.

As Y/N and JJ sat while London patched up her arm, they chatted about life and all the things that were happening. Their attention was soon brought away from their chat as a frantic Spencer Reid entered the room.

“Is that him?” London asked, referring back to all the times Y/N told her about Spencer on the phone.

“Yeah,” she responded.

“You always had good taste,” London chuckled.

“Y/N, oh thank god you’re okay, all that Derek said was that you got shot, and didn’t explain--” Y/N cut him off.

“Spencer, I am fine,” she said with a reassuring smile.

“Oh, okay good,” he said with a sigh of relief.

“Spencer, I want you to meet someone, this is Dr. London Ryan, London this is Dr. Spencer Reid,” Y/N said introducing the two.

“London? As in your best friend London?” Spencer asked.

“Hi, Dr. Reid it’s nice to meet you, Y/N has told me so much about you,” she said, finishing up Y/N’s last stitch.

“Likewise,” he responded smiling at the doctor.

“Alright, you’re good to go Y/N, you’ll have to have those taken out in a couple of days,” London said before her attention was called away to another doctor.

“Ryan! Where are my post-ops?” A shorter, African American doctor in darker scrubs asked her as she approached.

“I finished them an hour ago, Dr. Bailey, they should be in the chart,” she told the doctor.

“London, I have to go, thank you so much, I will take care of my arm I promise,” Y/N said getting up from the bed.

“Whoa, you can’t just get up like that and go she has to discharge you,” Dr. Bailey said to Y/N, not wanting her student to be trampled on by a patient.

“I have, and she can, she’s a federal agent, she has to go catch serial killers,” London said to the other doctor.

“Bring me my post-ops,” Dr. Bailey said, pointing his finger at her before walking away.

“It was nice to meet you, London,” Spencer said and JJ agreed, before Y/N and London hugged, and the three agents left.

----------

“I will never understand this teacher-lover thing, I can barely deal with a grown man,” JJ said as her, Spencer, Y/N, Rossi, and Penelope walked towards the elevator of the office building.

“What’s interesting is if it had been a male teacher and a female student, he’d have gotten 20 years and none of this wouldn’t have happened,” Rossi said.

“She could get life plus 20 for all the murders she committed,” Y/N said.

“You know what’s funny if she wasn’t so pretty, she probably would have never been released in the first place,” Spencer said looking at Y/N beside him.

“What?” Penelope said confused.

“It’s true, unattractive female predators serve a longer prison sentence than their attractive counterparts,” Spencer explained.

“Wow that’s ridiculous,” Penelope said astonished.

“For real,” Y/N agreed.

“It’s primal, there’s a hierarchy to everything. Including sex offenders,” Spencer added.

“Okay, well, who’s ready to get breakfast?” JJ asked, seeing that they had flown in early that morning.

“Me,” Y/N said, Spencer and Rossi, giving thumbs up as they began to walk over to the elevator.

“I can’t, there’s something I gotta take care of,” Penelope said noticing Derek coming down the hallway.

“Have fun,” Y/N said knowingly.

Penelope smiled at her and walked over to Derek.

“What is it about?” Spencer asked as Y/N entered the elevator.

“Oh, Penelope and Kevin, but it’s not my place to tell though, so ask her later,” Y/N answered wanting to respect their privacy.

Y/N sighed as she entered Spencer’s apartment, the smell of him filling her nose.

“Spencer, I really don’t have to stay here until I get my stitches out, I will be fine,” she tried to protest, but secretly she wanted to stay.

“I don’t want you to rip them, or do anything that might get it infected,” Spencer said, taking his coat off then pulling Y/N’s off of her since her left arm was in a sling.

“Would a kiss get it infected?” She asked puckering her lips.

Spencer laughed and placed his lips on hers in a sweet kiss. She smiled as he pulled her over to the couch to cuddle.

Tag List (let me know if you want to be added!!):

@throughparisallthroughrome @word-scribbless @nintendumbfuck @confused-and-really-hungry @justine-en @andiebeaword @itsarayofsunshine @baby-i-am-fireproof @abitofeverythinggg @nanocoool @marceline-is-my-spirit-animal @fancyfaucet

#spencer reid #spencer reid imagine #criminal minds #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds meme #aaron hotchner #aaron hotch hotchner #derek morgan #derek morgan imagine

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julie1706 · 4 years

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Julie’s incredibly aesthetic incredibly autumny list of movies that she maybe recommends (part 2)

Oh sweet joy! It turns out that there are many more great, fantastic, cosy movies (and tv-series!) just absolutely perfect for autumn. By popular demand, I return with even MORE autumny recommendations, and this time, there might even be spell-checking. (Looking at you, “Silence of the Lamps”) (I won’t edit that, because that’s just funny.)

Thank you for reading the previous one, and I hope you’ll enjoy this one too! We have some GREAT ones coming up. I hope! Maybe! But what I believe will really perfect this second list, is the fact, that autumn is close to being at its peak right now, with it being October! Woohoo!

Pumpkins, Jack’o’lanterns, spooky movies, Halloween, tricks and treats, fog, rain, candles lit in the dark, delicious tea, and scarves, because the chill is back in the air! Amazing! The aesthetics are to die for!

I’m on a small break from university, and have actually been having some allowed free time, to do autumny stuff. By this I mean I can do autumny stuff with my family and friends, and not feel guilty, because this time I’m not procrastinating. Well, I’m a little behind on some books, but it’s not that bad. You’re allowed free time on breaks! They’re supposed to be mostly free time, anyone knows that. I refuse to be a good student on breaks!

This free time means that I have actually had time to watch some of these movies and tv-shows myself, and so I can feel a little better about recommending most of them, since I’ve actually seen them. Hehe. Still. I do have other, boring stuff to do, like reading for uni, emptying the dishwasher, cooking, vacuuming, etc., so there will be some of these I’m including, I have not watched, and those will be, again, backed by the power of optimism. Yay! Anyway! You’ve read enough not-halloween recommendationing, and is getting bored - Let’s get to it! (Also, these are still in random order, and I will put warnings at the end, again <3)

Coraline

I remember watching Coraline when it came out in theaters, years ago. I also remember that we had a little closet-thing in the wall, small and closed-up, but still very similar to the one she goes into, in the movie. Needless to say, this was not a favorite for little Julie, who was absolutely scared shit-less by this movie. I remember button-eyes, decaying puppets, and a very scary mom. Now, I have not watched the full movie since, but from bits and pieces through the years, I can wholeheartedly recommend this one. It’s stop-motion, the details are incredible, and wow, this movie is great. If you, like me, are no longer 9 years old, watch it! It’s wonderful, and surprisingly, very feel-good in the family aspect. A great movie!

Official synopsis:

An adventurous 11-year-old girl finds another world that is a strangely idealized version of her frustrating home, but it has sinister secrets.

//Warning: do not watch this, if you are around nine years old. It will absolutely traumatize you about small closets in old houses. If you are not nine years old, I think you’re good! Just the right amount of spookyness, I believe!

Sense and Sensibility

I watched this with a good friend in february, I think. So I’m not sure why I think this has to go on an autumny list, but I stand by it! Maybe it’s the beige and brown, beautiful clothing, the many shots of nature, and the relationships between these characters, that fits very well with the cold and chilling air, we find ourselves in, here in lovely October. I don’t know. Food for thought. But this is a great movie, and I really think you should try watching it under a blanket, with tea and a good friend. We didn’t know the story before we saw it, and it had us guessing! And there is a part my other friend Sif told me, always makes her dad cry, and I think that should be taken as a compliment to this movie! It’s great! Love, sisters, crisis and period drama (and great clothes), this movie has it all! (also - Emma Thompson!)

Official synopsis:

Rich Mr. Dashwood dies, leaving his second wife and her three daughters poor by the rules of inheritance. The two eldest daughters are the title opposites.

//Warning: It might make you cry. But I promise, it will be a good experience, in the end. It’s not scary, though.

Over the Garden Wall (animated series)

Well, this one, I’ve been dreading to add to my list. Now, you must not misunderstand, it’s not because I don’t like it. It’s because this series is so great, so weird, so beautifully drawn and made, that I’m afraid I could write a whole blog post dedicated only to Otgw, and still not feel that I have done it justice. It's just so good. It’s like the someone just decided one day, to make a series, that absolutely, perfectly encompasses autumn and halloween, and then did just that. The storyline is good, the art is good, the soundtrack is good. God, the soundtrack. I’ve also made sure to listen to this show’s soundtrack, since we left summer behind, and it’s just so good. There’s a reason tumblr went wild, when this show was first released. But since this is an AUTUMNY list, let me focus on those aspects. Big dark woods, scary noises in the dark, red and golden leaves, fantastical beings - this show has it all, and trust me, it WILL get you in the mood for autumn. I almost started puking leaves and pumpkins when I watched this with my friends, that’s how pumped it got me. This show has a special place in my heart, and if you promise not to tell all the other movies and shows on the list, I’ll admit something: this might be a favorite of mine. Maybe THE autumny favorite.

Official synopsis:

Two brothers find themselves lost in a mysterious land and try to find their way home.

Warning: May be a little spooky, but I have it on good authority from a friend that is a true scaredy-cat, with nerves of whipped cream, that’s it’s fine. She could handle it, watches it every year, and she’s fine. Good levels of scary.

Corpse Bride

Believe it or not, that same scaredy-cat of a friend, I just mentioned, actually instructed a musical, based on this story. Is she a horror-fan or not? I have no idea, but her show was so well-done, that it actually made me like this movie a bit better. I have seen it before, but she convinced me, by telling me the original story behind this movie, that it’s pretty great. And by association, this movie became pretty great, too. It’s been some years since I saw this, but it’s a pretty good halloween movie, I think. Dead people tormenting the living. Classic autumn stuff, I would say. And it’s pretty well-made, I think, stop-motion again! I like the aesthetic of a corpse bride, though you have to admit the actual thing is pretty sad. The premise is haunting and scary, but it’s more morose, melancholic and depressing, I think. Poor Emily. But a good movie! Sorry, maybe that wasn’t a very enticing description, but I promise, it will do you more good than bad, to watch it. And then go google the original story, the movie is based on!

Official synopsis:

When a shy groom practices his wedding vows in the inadvertent presence of a deceased young woman, she rises from the grave assuming he has married her.

//Oops, nearly forgot a warning! Warning: some people are dead, and therefore rotting a bit. If you’re squeamish, don’t watch. If you love sad love stories, definitely watch!

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Yeah, I’m not sure why this has to go on my Autumny List either, sorry. It just has to. I know it takes place over an entire year, but in my head, it jut fits very well with the whole magic, supernatural, foggy halloween times we find ourselves in. I mean, look at the cover! Maybe it’s the iconic scene, right before the troll is discovered in the girls’ bathroom (sorry, spoiler), with the floating jack’o’lanterns, and tables almost crashing undet the weight of candy and cakes, that convinced my brain, that this is a halloween movie. I don’t know. Just trust me on this, and watch the first Harry Potter movie. It’s pretty good.

Official synopsis:

An orphaned boy enrolls in a school of wizardry, where he learns the truth about himself, his family and the terrible evil that haunts the magical world.

//Warning: Nah, you’re good ;-)

Little Women (Important: 2019 edition)

Alright girls, we’re hopping genres again! This is another period-drama (sort of), about sisters, and wow, I cried to this. I bawled, I sobbed, I choked on snot, and was a little inconsolable, when I watched it with friends, at the cinema. One of the best experiences this year, and one of the greatest movies I have watched in a long time. I love everything about this movie: the family-bonds, the clothing, the many nature-shots, the developments of characters, (almost) all the characters, and just, wow. No good way to end that sentence, because I want to just keep describing all the good parts of this movie, because it's everything. It’s amazing, and yes, i’m exaggerating, but I can’t help it. I forgot to eat my popcorn or drink my water, when we watched this, that’s how mesmerized I was by this movie. I love Jo, I think I can empathize a lot with her, and if I could talk to her, if she was real, I would thank her for telling her story. This movie is great, you should watch it, because it makes you feel so warm inside.

Official synopsis:

Jo March reflects back and forth on her life, telling the beloved story of the March sisters - four young women, each determined to live life on her own terms.

//Warning: Might make you break down crying. But in a good way. Very cathartic, actually.

Alien

I watched this for the first time last year, when I decided I was going to watch the classic older horror movies, and not freak the fuck out. I mostly succeed. And this movie was a joy to watch. That’s maybe weird to say about an alien horror movie, but wow I just love Sigourney Weaver, and the aesthetics of this movie. The story is thrilling, and I really did not like most of the characters, I thought they were hysteric and annoying, but I still rooted for them. It’s a different kind of horror movie, that’s for sure! But when I watched it, I totally understood why it has become such a classic.

Official synopsis:

After a space merchant vessel receives an unknown transmission as a distress call, one of the crew is attacked by a mysterious life form and they soon realize that its life cycle has merely begun.

//Warning: Uh, yeah, Sif, this is not one for you. It’s gross and scary. Malin, I think you’ll like this one! Go ahead! Maybe we should see it together?

Edward Scissorhands

Haven’t seen this one! I want to, though. I think I’ve seen one scene, where this man accidentally pokes a water-bed, and younger me felt that was a very tragic thing, on more levels. Johnny Depp yet again, so it has to be good, right? I know this poor guy, Edward, has it rough, and was given some really not that practical hands. Man, he looks sad, huh? So maybe more sad than scary, yet again. Dont know! But I really do want to watch it. Winona Ryder is in this, too, so really, it’s a no-brainer!

Official synopsis:

An artificial man, who was incompletely constructed and has scissors for hands, leads a solitary life. Then one day, a suburban lady meets him and introduces him to her world.

//Warning: I don’t know? Maybe not that spooky? I think it’s more sad, to be honest.

Pride + Prejudice + Zombies

I mean, why the hell not - right? I love Jane Austen. I love Pride and Prejudice. And I really like halloween, so OF COURSE, I’m including this one. I’ve seen it, too. My friend Malin and I watched it a couple of years ago, and yeah, it’s good. It’s not high cinema, no, but I don’t need that. It was a fun, weird twist, and sometimes, that’s all you need. There is a very interesting scene with a corset, that was NOT in the book, and I think it really added something to this story. And Lily James. Whew. Great movie. Great for autumn. I will be watching this one again.

Official synopsis:

Five sisters in 19th century England must cope with the pressures to marry while protecting themselves from a growing population of zombies.

//Warning: I can’t really remember, but I think there’s some pretty gross scenes with zombies. Rotting flesh is NOT pretty. But just close your eyes for that, and you’ll be good!

The Haunting of Hill House

I first watched this series when i came out some time ago. I never finished it, I don’t think my heart was in it, but by no fault of the show. Now, that the same creator has made another show, which my mom and I are hooked by, and almost through, I think I’ll be returning to this one - it deserves another chance! A great old house, ghosts, family secrets and INCREDIBLE aesthetics, mean there must be something here! Also, I think it’s based on a novel by Shirley Jackson, and it’s supposed to a classic horror novel, and Stephen King tweeted that he liked it, so yeah, it’s promising! The series I’m watching with my mom is spooky, but tumblr says the Haunting of Hill House is supposed to be much more spooky, terrifying, even, and I really want to find out if that’s true!

Official synopsis:

Flashing between past and present, a fractured family confronts haunting memories of their old home and the terrifying events that drove them from it.

//Warning: Very Scary! Faint of heart - Beware! Just enjoy this beautiful gif of Nell dancing by herself, and move on <3

Psycho

Another old classic! Woo! Have not watched, but really, I feel like that’s almost a crime by now. I HAVE to watch it. Soon, I’m planning to. Sadly, It’s old, and I grew up with the internet, so I’ve been spoiled oh so dreadfully, and knows all the bloody details and plottwists of this oldie but goldie. But I still want to watch it! It must be a classic for a reason - right? Also, I’ve never seen the full version of the famous shower scene, and that’s just embarrassing. Shame on me.

Official synopsis:

A Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run, and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.

//Warning: It’s a horror classic! It’s gotta be scary. Then again, it DID come out in 1960. Be careful about this one! Sorry, I have no idea, have never watched it.

Hannibal (the TV series)

It’s gross, it’s scary, it’s aesthetic, there is a danish elegant man eating people in snowy Baltimore, and you really shouldn’t pay him to be your psychiatrist. Hannibal! I first watched this as a young, edgy teenager, and all the blood and gore didn't get to me at all - I just enjoyed the cat-and-mouse game between Will Graham, our main character, very mentally unstable, and a dog-lover, and Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a renowned psychiatrist, elegant, high-society - and also, he talks like a mixture of the bible and an old greek sonet. What I'm trying to get at is that this show is weird. Good weird. But also, now no longer an edgy teenager myself, it’s really gross. A man’s leg is cut off and served to himself. That’s gross. I didn’t like that, and I definitely covered my eyes. Other than that, it’s a very vivid show, with great focus on presentation and symbolism. I would love for someone to analyse each episode, because there's so much attention to detail. It’s honestly impressive. And after having watched many, many shows about crime and murders, I must say, this show has THE most buckwild, creative, never seen before ways of killing people. How the hell do you come up with a murderer using people’s different skin colors to make a mural? I don’t know. It’s disgusting, but man is it different. I’m halfway through season two, and there is a lot to unpack! Also, have to mention, very homoerotic - that’s a plus. Don’t think I could’ve stomached all the blood, otherwise. I hate blood, and wow is there blood in this show.

Official synopsis:

Explores the early relationship between renowned psychiatrist, Hannibal Lecter, and his patient, a young FBI criminal profiler, who is haunted by his ability to empathize with serial killers.

//Warning: Yeah. You read how many times I wrote ‘gross’. Just trust me on this one, it’s gross. It’s good, but maybe don’t watch it. You don’t need to introduce your brain to this.

The Haunting of Bly Manor

Ooh boy. Ooooh boy. This series is very good. VERY good. I’m watching it with my mom right now, I think we’re at episode 7, and wow are we hooked. It’s spooky, it’s haunting, it’s thrilling, it’s mysterious, and wow is it scary. We both agreed to go together, the first night we watched this, and our dog had to be taken out on his night-walk. She didn’t want to go alone, and i didn’t want to stay back at the house, alone. So we went together, and I was so freaked out that I nearly peed my pants, when some kids screamed in our neighborhood. It’s so very much what I want a ghost-story to be, but it’s also a lot more, and much greater for it. I love all the characters, they’re all so well-rounded, and most of them are good. The big manor is spooky, and the woods surrounding it are foggy and dark, and yes, this is really a great series for autumn and halloween. It’s the second series made by Mike Flanagan. There are some similarities between the two shows, and surprisingly, some of the same actors! I think that’s very interesting, and it also made me very confused, as I watched the first episodes of the Haunting of Bly Manor, and could not, for the life of me, figure out where the hell I had seen these people before. It made it even more eerie in a way, and I appreciate that. I love this show, and I think I’ll be very sad when we’re through with it. I guess the natural thing to do, will be to follow up with Flanagan’s previous horror series, The Haunting of Hill House! Also, there’s lesbians in this one. Very nice. I appreciate that. Also, surprisingly - I love the children! They’re so cool and brave, and it would be very nice if especially Flora could go with me, the next time I’m going to a haunted house. Such a badass.

Official synopsis:

After an au pair’s tragic death, Henry hires a young American nanny to care for his orphaned niece and nephew who reside at Bly Manor with the chef Owen, groundskeeper Jamie and housekeeper, Mrs. Grose.

Warning: It’s spooky. It’s the perfect halloween series, so of course it’s very spooky! This gif I chose is spooky, and I promise the show itself is worse. But if you can handle dead people creepily staring in the background, and maybe has someone to watch it with, I think you’ll be fine!

Alright! We made it! Another spooky, aesthetic, autumny list, for us to enjoy this crispy season! Woohoo! Also, I’m sorry if there’s any spelling mistakes or whatelse, I hope you enjoyed reading anyway! Thank you! Now go drink some tea and relax, you’ve earned it. I recently tried chili-tea, and damn, that’s another recommendation from me! It was amazing!

Hope you have a great Halloween, it’s close now. Watch out for the cold weather, remember to bundle up, and don’t let the impending darkness get you down. Light some candles! And also, watch some of these spooky tv-series and movies with your family and friends! And have a great fall! <3

Love, Julie

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otp-armada · 4 years

Text

"Bellarke doesn't make sense," they say. They say because Clarke hasn't done anything that resembles romantic gestures toward Bellamy.

Conceding to march to her possible death in exchange for Roan sparing Bellamy's life. Obstinately fighting against Bellamy's stubborn wishes to remain outside the Ark while Praimfaya burns to the world to ashes. Shattering her soul by choosing 100 people to live and writing his name on the list, because he must survive. She can't have it any other way. Relinquishing 50 of those spots to Azgeda when Bellamy is captured and threatened, and Roan calls her bluff. Desperation driving her to the extreme to ensure the survival of the human race, yet unable to kill Bellamy to keep the bunker closed and the grounders from possibly killing Skaikru. Leaving the guaranteed safety of the fort to stay by Bellamy's side on the brink of global cataclysm. The bittersweet yet soft head and heart exchange she prompted. The hesitation in her last remark before imploring him to hurry.

4x13 ends six years and seven days post-Praimfaya with Clarke radioing Bellamy on the Ring. An activity she performs daily for six years. In any six years of my adult life, my only daily consistencies have been limited to breathing, eating, and sleeping. This girl is devoted enough to send her equivalent of love letters into the emptiness of space for 2,199 days. Season 5 opens with her trying to survive by herself in an apocalyptic wasteland. She spends her journey narrating to him her unvarnished struggles during the most traumatic experience of her young life to date. Her despondency. Her loneliness. Her agony. Her desperation. Her small victories. Her discovered treasures. Her determination. Her doubt. Her guilt. Her defeat. Her morbid self-reflection. Her relief and contentment. Her happiness. Her admission of missing him. She shares all of it with only him. Only he is permitted to know her to this depth. Not any of her other people on the Ring. Not any of her people in the bunker, a group including her mother. Not a spiritual communion to the great, big love of her life Lxa, situated on her throne in the high heavens and waiting for her trophy wife, for Clarke to stay connected to her dearly departed. Isn't that the sort of behavior that might occur by a bereft widow?

After finding an oasis to rest and call home, even after discovering a companion to build a life with, she continues with her radio calls. It doesn't matter that he never received her communications. The importance of the gesture- the intimacy of sharing her life and thoughts with him while he was gone- remains the same. The magnitude of her devotion to him made clearer through the absence of a single responding utterance.

She lovingly tells Madi stories of Bellamy as her hero. Gazing warmly, hopefully up at the stars as if she longs for her vision to cut through an endless pitch-black sky and find dark curls and freckled constellations from thousands of miles away.

"Bellarke doesn't make sense," they say. They say because post-Praimfaya ended with an established B/E.

As Clarke looks up at the stars, questioning if she'll see Bellamy again, we transition to our first glimpse of Bellamy after six years, forlornly looking down on Earth to the very spot of green where he is unaware of who is yearning for him to return to her. Contrary to Clarke, who is covered in warm firelight when thinking of him, he is colored in cold, muted greys and blue, no speck of warm hue. (The rhyming scheme was unintentional, but hey, I'm going with it.) Behind him, his family is sparring, but he's distant from them. He's trapped within this tin can, his arms folded, his body taut, not facing the view on the other side of the glass, but still enraptured by the sight of his home below.

We see what changes to the characters and their dynamics have taken place until, at long last, we uproariously cheer as Bellamy & Co. find a way to return to Earth, the sole event we've been anticipating for eleven months, to the point we could feel it at our fingertips, jittery and tingly. Bellarke reunion!! He's going to know she's alive! Yes! Finally!! Break out the champagne! We're celebrating, dammit! It's going to be so damn emotional! Authors start crafting mental fanfics. People are bouncing off the walls like bright, errant fireworks, unable to sit still. I can't believe it's finally happening...what do you think it's going to be like? Will he run to her? Will he be stunned and speechless? Will they sob uncontrollably?!? They'll be clutching the life out of each other! Another Bellarke hug!! The very best hug!!! They're never going to let the other out of their sight again! He's going to meet Madi! Mom, dad, and adopted preteen make three!!! There's no way they're not getting together after this!! He just got her back after six years of thinking she was dead!! The reunion's not going to happen this episode, but maybe next week, when do you think? You mean we have to wait seven days before----

B e c h o.

We stood on the precipice of what we agonized and crawled through for eleven excruciating months, only for an anvil to drop, and our heads to be clubbed. Our bodies fell through the floor, descending lower and lower with immense haste, to take up residence in the seventh circle of hell.

Do you think the framing of these events wasn't intentional?

Do you think the powers that be behind the creation of that calamitous bombshell for our protagonist, intended for us to root for B/E?

By us, I'm not restricting the effect of the blow to Bellarke shippers. The entire audience, casual and fandom alike, shippers and non-shippers, was meant to await this reunion. We were all meant to feel devastated by this revelation.

If they didn't want to invoke in us feelings of support for B/E at their inception, how in the name of all things holy is a purported B/E endgame your conclusion?

"B/E doesn't make any sense," they say, "when last we saw them, she was his enemy. Nothing more, nothing less."

Do I think their pre-Praimfaya status as antagonists rendered it impossible for B/E to have a convincing love story or sexual relationship?

I think, if Jason were so inclined, we could have gotten flashback Ring rendezvous of secret trysts between Bellamy and a googly-eyed, blonde-wig-wearing broomstick designated Clarke 2.0. So no, I don't consider B/E a deviation inherently outside the realm of romantic possibility. Jason is an artist, and this show is his canvas. He can give life to almost any whim he'd like in his work of fiction. Not only that, but B/E is also hardly the first pairing in this series modeled by the enemies-to-lovers trope.

"Bellarke doesn't make sense, they'd say, "absent any concrete evidence alluding to a romantic relationship." "Seven years running, and not a trace of romantic love," they'd conclude.

Remind me, what was B/E's sublime prologue into coupling up again?

Furiously choking the life out of an enemy in a fit of rage two episodes before revealing her as his new girlfriend evidently can be considered by some an adequate precursor to a sensational romantic relationship. But endangering Earthkru's lives by risking the wrath of two societies in refusing to let Clarke die, pumping her heart for her to stay alive while begging her to fight so she can come back to him, cannot be.

Either this show is quite the oddity, or it’s fandom's periodic knee-jerk, ass-backwards, charming zeal at play.

The lack of rising development is all the more reason why B/E's grand unveiling demanded perfection. Instead, our first insight into their union is overshadowed by Clarke and the impending Bellarke reunion. B/E isn't central enough to the narrative to warrant focus that would put to rest any discord of illegitimacy. But you know which pair of the two is concentrated on for seven seasons now? Three guesses...

But don't despair. Fandom has decreed, by its own appraisal, the shorthand of kissing and sex has rectified the discrepancy of a complete absence of pertinent on-screen development.

"It's not ideal storytelling," they say, "to exclude B/E's development. But The 100 has historically been a plot-driven, fast-paced, contained drama. It has always evaded expanding on character dynamics to fans' satisfaction.”

The writers have done more to present Josephine and Gabriel as soulmates with less airtime than B/E ever had in total. They don't lack the skill or time to fortify B/E in anyone's mind as the central romance. Jason made a conscious choice not to. Why would he? Does he think the endgame love story of the show's deuteragonist doesn't merit attention to detail by the writing? Or does it seem more likely, it was never his intention for B/E to cross the finish line?

And, for a plot-driven, fast-paced, contained drama, they sure have an awful knack for finding the time to showcase Clarke's kicked puppy reactions to an embracing B/E. We've had three thus far. One for science, one for emphasis, and one to say, "Do you people get it now?"

"Bellarke doesn't make any sense," they say, "if they wanted each other, they'd have gotten together by now."

A long time ago, someone stated, "Lovers are supposed to do that you know and if they don’t do that it means their relationship isn’t romantic if sexual intercourse isn’t added."

And to that, I posed the question, "Where exactly is it written that "if a pairing is not made canon by season [insert arbitrarily chosen number here], it will never be made canon, period?" Was I just absent from fandom class that day and skipped to the lesson on slow-burn ships?" We are going into the final season, and I stand by this question today as I did then. Bellarke could refrain from physical expressions of love and candid confessions to season 17, and their journey could continue to exemplify a love story. Because the absence of either one doesn't preclude two people from falling in love. Nor does the inclusion of either one necessitate two people falling in love.

"Bellarke doesn't make any sense," they say. They say because Bellamy is her dearly beloved, but platonic, best friend.

Well, you've got me there. I'm stumped. How can it be possible for friendship and romantic love to behave as anything but mutually exclusive concepts? It's not as if friendship can be contorted to serve as a foundation for love.

The cornerstones of strong friendships include trust, care, support, devotion, and many other features of a similar nature. Love- deep and genuine love, that is- involves frequent kissing and passionate, vigorous sex. The wilder the display, the stronger the pairing. The dozens of couples, love interests, and sexual liaisons before B/E who have kissed and had sex before dying must not have first consulted the manual for proper protocol.

And the inverse? Once two people fall in love, they cannot fall back to say, a familial connection. No, no, no. Such a regression would be the work of a tragic, reprehensible flaw in the cogs of the universe. Speak nothing of it.

"It doesn't make sense for B/E to break up," they say, "when B/E has stayed together for two seasons sans any indication Bellamy loves Clarke more than Echo, enough to want to leave his loving girlfriend."

How many times has Bellamy tried and failed to honor his commitment to Echo? How many weak attempts are met with a corresponding scene of Bellamy shifting his attention to the girl he tells himself to get over?

Echo leaves for Shallow Valley, his focus immediately turns onto persuading Clarke not to leave his side. He symbolically chooses Echo in the fireside scene by touching her sword. Yet, he looks at his girlfriend for the first time since their separation with the most aloof expression unsuitable for the occasion. No hope to be found anywhere. They share a brief reunion hug, no time for intimacy. He is reunited with Clarke and casts a nervous glance at Echo when bombarded with Clarke's appreciative gaze. Still no time for intimacy between B/E before a decade-long nap, but time can be carved out for a warm, flirty Bellarke reconciliation, complete with intensive heart eyes. No inspired, emotionally wrought, double sunlit embraces for B/E. If Bellamy is going to look out of a window at his future home, he'll either be by himself or snuggling Clarke into his side. There's no place for Echo in the lock of his arms anymore, only room for flanking him in the way loyal lieutenants tend to do. His girlfriend glances over at him as their exploratory team roughly plummets to new territory, and he does the same at Clarke. B/E reconnects lakeside, him asking for a swim with her and leaning into her arms at a campfire. He sits by her side on a swing set, amidst talk of moving their people into an abandoned village. And it's all well and good for B/E, right? They're presenting the front of a happy, unified couple.

Until...Clarke walks away behind his sight, and he leaves Echo's side to seek Clarke's missing presence where the flirting and warm gazes and near confessions are kicked into overdrive. He calls Echo to hear his latest discovery, then proceeds to ignore the hell out of her, communicating exclusively to his co-leader. He stares wistfully at Clarke dancing with her new flavor of the night, cannot stop doing so even while excoriating Echo for her stoicism, expressing his frustration at her inability to fulfill his emotional needs.

He recommits to Echo, as Clarke is kidnapped and her body is stolen, with nary a transition, suggesting we are meant to link the two incidents together. For all his resolve to face the future with Echo, he spends the whole of the next episode with a wary eye on Clarke, to the point that he is the first to realize Clarke is not herself. In the ensuing arc ranging from 6x05 to 6x11, approximately half of the season, what was B/E, again? Was that a thing concurrently happening with Bellamy's Operation: Save My Clarke? Because I seem to be able to recall only Bellarke goodness. Oh, my mistake, there was the consoling hug which, oddly enough, did nothing to soothe him. As evidenced by his choice to grieve alone. No girlfriend he wanted close by for comfort, knowing clear as day she couldn't provide it if she tried. Not with who he just lost.

B/E gets another brief reunion hug, the majority of which is spent with him peering at Clarke. The show saw that hug and raised us an Austenesque-quality counterpart that would do Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy proud.

"B/E endgame is the only sensible outcome," they say, "they love each other so much."

I don't contend they don't love each other. But we are shown two people determined but incapable of snuffing their deep-rooted feelings out of noble propriety, and most importantly, out of needless fear of unrequited love. And another two people who sought- and failed- to keep grasping the wisps of a gentle relationship slipping out of their hands since they left their comfortable space bubble. For anyone in this conundrum to be happy, the only natural course of action is for the latter to call it quits. The writing has been on the wall for too long.

Maybe a single Bellarke scene plucked out of the lineup can be interpreted on its own as platonic buddies being platonic buddies. But when all those individual moments are woven together, what forms is an ornate tapestry with a pattern so vivid, any inane rhetoric involving a hint of the word "platonic" is little more than ludicrous anti drivel transparently cooked up by those wishing a different endgame.

I hope you've enjoyed my second long-winded rant, @sometimesrosy, @jeanie205, @travllingbunny. One born of a teaching moment in which I learn for the umpteenth time it's best to steer clear of Twitter.

#the 100 #bellarke #b/e #c/b/e #my post

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donnerpartyofone · 3 years

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Do you ever miss the "presence" that media used to have like when you were a kid? I don't think it's nostalgia, I think the internet really did something to that way people cognize media. It is the digitization effect? I just remember being deeply affected by even shitty comics and weird movies, like you could *feel* the world the author was trying to make. Do you know what I mean? This this just getting old?

(i’m turning 40 in a couple weeks for the uninitiated) i know what you mean and i also think that what you’re pointing out has really complex strains. materially speaking, digitization certainly has a de-texturizing effect, distorting or losing the original tooth and tone of things. but maybe you meant the way in which the internet has made many once-obscure things almost ubiquitous, eliminating the personal quest you used to have to make to find certain things, and the way that flavored their effect on you. i don’t think this is a simple matter of popularity reducing a thing’s coolness, either; i think that when you have an abundance of information about something before you experience it, from many un-distinguished sources, it degrades your ability to receive it properly. obviously there are “spoilers” to be worried about, but i would suggest that in general, if you find out about something on your own, in the context of your own life, you are much more capable of forming an intimate bond with it, to feel deeply repulsed, surprised, alienated or attracted. as you said, it’s like the “world” of the creator contacts your own world with less dilution and desaturation than if you just find it on some sterile streaming platform where all the metadata is right there in front of you, and it’s been re-presented through some modern marketing scheme or whatever.

here’s three random stories for you to make of what you will:

- when i was like 8 or so, my very wholesome babysitter took me with her to visit some hesher kids she was friends with, who seemed to be crashing out in a house where the parents were gone. while she was talking with a girlfriend, i wandered into a room where a bunch of teenage boys were watching a video they rented. nobody saw me come in in time to watch the whole trailer for CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD complete with the drill through the head gag, and the entire beginning of EVIL DEAD up to the very end of the still-shocking tree rape sequence. it just about ruined my life. actually, this experience is probably completely responsible for how i turned out!

- when my family first got cable as my mom was dying, i used to race home from school to see if i could tune in to scrambled signals from the “spice channel” or any of the other verbotten pay channels. instead of warped snatches of soft core porn, i happened upon a movie unlike anything i’d ever seen. first of all, it came in with the image upside-down and solarized. it was shockingly gory and borderline pornographic, and also, somehow very funny and deeply tragic at the same time. i couldn’t piece together the plot at all from the ~10-15 minute bits of it that i was able to catch at a time, but it seemed pretty surreal. i had no way of figuring out what it was; i couldn’t let my parents catch me watching it, and i didn’t even know what channel this was supposed to be anyway. like five years later at college, our school’s “nihilism club” (don’t ask) booked the campus theater to show a movie that turned out to be the one that had reached out to me from beyond the veil--michele soavi’s CEMETERY MAN, which remains one of my favorite movies of all time. i’m sure i would love it however i found it, but the way i encountered it gave it a unique power for sure.

- a friend of mine, who was a VHS & 80s horror fanatic, was deeply traumatized by the first digitally remastered release of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. with so many of the grungier sequences cleaned up, he could see e.g. robert englund mugging broadly as he sliced off his own fingers with his glove. my friend insisted that the digital revolution had “ruined” one of his favorite movies, and i was like...but you’re just saying that you prefer a version where you can’t see things as well. the remastering didn’t like re-author robert englund’s iconic performance, it just turns out that maybe you didn’t actually like it as much as you thought you did? not that i don’t love the warm glow of an old vhs tape, but i thought this was a peculiar problem to have.

if anyone has similar personal stories they would like to tell, i would welcome them.

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the-everqueen · 4 years

Text

why i disliked “the traitor baru cormorant”

so...recently i read Seth Dickinson’s The Traitor Baru Cormorant. i bought it thinking, Cool, an insightful fantasy series for me to get into while i wait to hear whether i passed my qualifying exams! i have some time before the semester starts!

and then i absolutely hated it and spent every minute cataloguing what i thought Dickinson got wrong.

...uh, if you want to get the tl;dr of the liveblog i gave the gf, here’s the top three reasons i disliked this book:

1) not a fan of the “strong female character” trope

yes, Baru doesn’t sling around a sword or shoot arrows better than Anyone In The Whole World. but Dickinson IMMEDIATELY tells us (not shows, tells) that she’s good at math, she’s clever at picking apart strategic scenarios, she’s a savant. (tbh, i don’t love how he shows this, either, with the standard child-prodigy-who-catches-the-attention-of-a-powerful-adult trope.) in Dickinson’s crafted world, her math skills aren’t entirely unusual: women (for...some reason?) are stereotyped as being good at calculations, despite also being aligned with hysteria and too many emotions. this bothers me more than it’s probably supposed to, because the sexism in this novel doesn’t really seem to follow an internal logic. i guess it’s so we can have a woman as the protagonist? also...hoo boy...her “savant” characterization bothers me because...she’s heavily coded as South East Asian (...maaaybe Philippines or Native Hawaii, but as i’ll get to later, Dickinson doesn’t make a huge distinction). uh...model minority stereotypes anyone? yes, within the text, plenty of people associated with the Empire comment that it’s impressive someone of her background got into a position of power so young. at the same time, i’m sure that sounds familiar to so many Asian-identified people! the constant tightrope of being expected to perform to a certain (white, Western) standard while also being Othered. mostly this bothers me because Baru is also characterized as...a sellout for the Empire. sure, her stated goal is to undo the Empire from within, but [MAJOR SPOILERS] in the end it appears that her actual goal was to attain enough power that the Empire would let her be a benevolent dictator over her home island? and it’s only after a major PERSONAL betrayal that she revises this plan? [END SPOILERS] Baru also assimilates without much pain or sacrifice. she hardly ever thinks about her parents or her childhood home. she willingly strips herself of cultural signifiers and adapts to Empire norms (apart from being a closeted lesbian, which...yeah, i’ll get to that, too). and it’s not that Dickinson doesn’t TRY to make her a nuanced character, but...to me, it feels so painfully obvious that this is not his experience. it feels almost...voyeuristic.

...much like his descriptions of wlw desire!

2) we get it, you read Foucault

the categories of sexual deviance are based entirely on a Western Victorian-era medical discourse around non-heterosexual forms of desire, but Dickinson ignores the network of sociocultural, religious, and historical contexts that contributed to that specific kind of discourse. he uses the terms “tribadism” and “sodomy” but those ideas CANNOT EXIST outside a Euro-American Christian context. yes, a huge part of the 19th century involved the pathologization of sexual and romantic desire (or lack thereof). but that in turn goes back to a history of medicine that relied on the “scientific method” as a means of studying and dissecting the human body--and that method in itself is a product of Enlightenment thinking. Theorist Sylvia Wynter (whomst everyone should read, imho) discusses how the Enlightenment attempted to make the Human (represented by a cisgender, heteronormative, white man) an agent of the State economy. every categorization of so-called deviance goes back to white supremacist attempts to define themselves as ‘human’ against a nonwhite, non-Christian Other. and IN TURN that was ultimately founded on anti-Black, anti-Indigenous racism. at this point it’s a meme in academic circles to mention Foucault, because so many scholars don’t go any further in engaging with his ideas or acknowledge their limits. but SERIOUSLY. Dickinson crafts the Masquerade as this psuedo-scientific empire that’s furthering erasure of native cultures, but...where did these ideas come from? who created them? what was the justification that gave them power? [MINOR SPOILER] blaming the Empire’s ideology on a handful of people behind the Mask who crafted this entire system makes me...uncomfortable, to say the least. part of what gives imperialism its power is that a lot of ordinary people buy in to its ideas, because it aligns with dominant belief systems or gives them some sense of advantage.

also speaking of cultural erasure...

3) culture is more than set dressing

again, to reiterate: Baru does NOT think back to her childhood home for longer than a couple passing sentences at various points in the narrative. but even though the early chapters literally take place on her home island, i don’t get a sense of...lived experience. this is true of ALL of the fantasy analogues Dickinson has created in his Empire. i felt uncomfortably aware of the real world counterparts that Dickinson was drawing inspiration from. at the same time...there are basically no details to really breathe life into these various fantasy cultures. i HATE the trope of “fantasy Asia” or “fantasy Africa” or “fantasy Middle East” that’s rampant among white male sff writers. Dickinson does not get points from me for basically just expanding that to “fantasy South East Asia,” “fantasy Mongolia,” “fantasy South America,” and... “fantasy Africa,” plus some European cultures crammed in there. he’s VERY OBVIOUSLY drawing on those languages for names, but otherwise there’s no real sense of their religious practices, the nuances of their cultures, the differences between those cultures (besides physiological, which...oh god). part of that is probably supposed to be justified by “well, the Empire just erased it!!!” but that’s not an excuse imho.

also...in making the Empire the ultimate signifier of the evils of imperialism...Dickinson kind of leans into the “noble savage” stereotype. Baru’s home island is portrayed as this idyllic environment where no one is shamed for who they love and gender doesn’t determine destiny and there are no major conflicts. (there is a minor nod to some infighting, but this is mostly a “weakness” that the Masquerade uses as an excuse to obliterate a whole tribe.) Dickinson justifies young Baru’s immediate assimilation as her attempt to figure out the Masquerade’s power from within, but given that the Masquerade presumably killed one of her dads and her mom maybe advocates a guerilla resistance...it’s weird that Baru basically abandons her family without a second thought. yeah, i get that she’s a kid when the Masquerade takes over the island, but...that’s still a hugely traumatic experience! the layers of trauma and conditioning and violence that go into this level of colonization are almost entirely externalized.

(later it’s implied that Baru might qualify as a psychopath, and tbh that feels like an excuse for why we haven’t gotten any sense of her inner world, not to mention kind of offensive.)

this isn’t exhaustive but...

it’s not that i don’t think white people shouldn’t ever address POC experiences in their books. just...if your entire trilogy is going to revolve around IMPERIALISM IS BAD, ACTUALLY, maybe you should contribute to the discourse that Black, Brown, and Indigenous authors have already done. reading this book made me so, so angry. i did not feel represented! i felt like i was being talked down to, both on a critical theory level AND on a craft level. there are SO MANY books by actual BIPOC and minority authors that have done this better. N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy and her current Cities series. Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti trilogy. Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House remains one of the more powerful novels i’ve read on how The System Is Out To Destroy You, That Is The Point. (Bardugo is non-practicing Spanish and Moroccan Jewish on one side of her family, and her character Alex is mixed and comes from a Jewish background!)

...

there’s not really a point to this. i get a lot of people have raved about this book. good for them. if that’s you, no judgment. i’m not trying to argue IF YOU LIKED THIS YOU ARE PROBLEMATIC. i’m just kind of enraged that a white dude wrote about a Brown lesbian under a colonial empire and that THIS Brown lesbian under a colonial empire couldn’t even get behind the representation. also kind of annoyed that it’s the Empire of Masks and Dickinson either hasn’t read Fanon or didn’t see fit to slip in a Fanon reference, which like. missed opportunity.

#meta #book review #maybe y'all can get enjoyment from my rage #also i don't want to publish this on like. goodreads.#i'm not out to destroy Seth Dickinson personally #i know this was a highly reviewed book #i just...hated it #and i figured putting the rage on my blog is less harmful #than leaving a one star review #while also maybe giving someone the insight #for why they might not want to read this #the traitor baru cormorant #the masked empire

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allthebest20 · 3 years

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Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi

8/10. A joy to read and a great debut novel. I think the author has even better work ahead of her. The characters are complex and unique, and the book explores modernity, pain, and generational spirituality in a very readable style. I couldn’t help but make assumptions about the author as I read the book: definitely Nigerian, definitely a cook, definitely spent time in London and Canada, definitely queer, definitely raised in the Church, but also definitely spiritual. The authenticity with which she writes, especially in regards to being queer in the modern world and the cultures of different places, is what makes this book great. The story dances between the gruesome details of reality in the twenty-first century and romanticized views of youth and love. It raises a lot of questions in me about the international class system, wealth, and privilege.

The only real complaint that I have is around one of the main plot points: the rape of Kehinde when she is 12. While this is a turning point in all their lives, I feel as though it is also simultaneously underappreciated, as if the author choose this event simply because it was one of the worst things she could think of. I think this is a common pit fall for authors. A lot of traumatic things happen to this family: Kambi, the mother, is very mental ill, Banji, the twin’s beloved father, is murdered, Taiye, the queer twin, struggles with her own mental health. Yet, the rape is regarded as the primary Bad Thing and all the other traumatic events are hardly discussed. I appreciate how the author takes some time, maybe 1 chapter, to discuss Kehinde’s relationship to sex and her body. Yet, Kehinde’s life seems to be mostly unaffected by this event, except in the way she punishes her family with her silence. She is in a healthy relationship. She does not abuse alcohol or drugs. She has a successful career. Ultimately, it’s not a book about overcoming childhood sexual abuse. It’s a book about mending a family after years of pain, resentment, distance, and silence. I almost feel as though the book could have been stronger if it focused more on the effects of Banji’s death and Kambi’s violence and depression on the twins. Ultimately, though, sexual abuse is just a thing that happens to a lot of kids, and perhaps it serves a purpose to write a book where it happens, it’s horrible, but it doesn’t need to be put under a magnifying glass. It just reverberates.

This book could have been about a lot of things. When I picked it off the shelf at the library, I barely read the entire description, immediately caught by the spiritual nature of Kambi’s being and the brief mention of “reckless hedonism.” I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Taiye was a lesbian, and I saw a lot of myself in her: the serial string of intense relationships, always slated to go nowhere, the indulgence in food and weed and dancing and occasionally other drugs, the loneliness and missing family but not being able to connect with them, the exploration of religion and spirituality and non-monogamy, seeing and feeling things you don’t know are real. I feel like a lot of modern young adults live like Taiye does, unsure what to look for except comfort. I love how the author mentioned the chaotic draw of dating apps. I love how Taiye is a stoner. I love how Taiye loves organic butter and fair trade chocolate and cooking extravagant meals for anyone who will eat it. I LOVE how the author includes recipes for what Taiye is cooking. Although I probably won’t use those recipes, I did want to cook what Taiye was cooking, and it reads just like my brain reads when I am absorbed in a culinary project. This book could have been more about what it means to be a lesbian, but it only barely describes her formative romantic and sexual experiences. The author details the first time Taiye calls her self gay out loud and has queer sex, but this is long after she has had gay feelings and gay experiences. The author does not explore Taiye’s inner turmoil, and it is unclear if Taiye struggles at all with her sexuality in the long term.

I also like how the book explores mental illness. It doesn’t shy away from both the good and the bad parts. It doesn’t shame medication use. It explores the spiritual powers of those who’s brains work differently. Kambi’s voice explores suicide in an interesting way: both from the frequent pull of the voices, asking Kambi to escape the pain of living, and Kambi’s own knowledge that she wants to remain here with her family. Although I have perhaps 0 hard examples of mental illness being spiritual, I still want to believe that those who hear voices, who see things, who feel things, are connected to the spiritual in a way that those who live entirely in reality are not. This book explores one such case. I also found it interesting how Taiye inherits some of Kambi’s crazy (struggles to speak as a young child, depressed, sleep walks) and some of Kambi’s magic (draws people to her, sees and hears beyond). This make Taiye feel closer to her mom as she ages, while Kehinde remains unsure. This book could have been more about generational mental illness and the pain and distance it causes, but instead the author focuses on the magic of it all. It asks, quietly, if the girls should be mad at their mother, can they be mad at her? From the outside, Kehinde knows that Kambi is respoinsible for the scar on Taiye’s face, but yet we, the audience, know that Kambi had to do this to prevent Taiye from killing the rapist, Uncle Earnest. Does Kehinde know this? How can she understand? In a family, we have no choice but to forgive and let live if we cannot understand, or else remain alienated. This is the underlying message of the book.

The book has a complicated timeline: the main story line follows the events of a six month period in which the three main characters are united again in Lagos, after over a decade apart. Slowly, in tangents, the three characters’ backstory is explained.

The book features a few key locations:

Nigeria (specifically Abeokuta, where Kambirinachi is born, Ife, where she spends her youth, and Lagos, where she raises her family),

London (where the twins were born and where Taiye lived for 9 years during and after university),

and Canada (Kehinde lives in Montreal since attending university there and Taiye lives in Halifax after London).

I’ve never been to Nigeria or London, but I love the way the author writes the dialogue and the characters from each place. I cannot say if they are accurate, but they have a clear and unique voice, not homogeneous but also representative of those place-based qualities that unite an area. The characters give me a glimpse into what it feels like to be Nigerian abroad vs. Nigerian at home. She rarely writes about interpersonal incidents of racism: the characters are mostly well liked, treated nicely by the people in their life, given opportunities. I think that contributes to the feeling of romanticism in the story. Racism is discussed on a more systematic level: they have problems at the airport, Taiye learns about the history of racism in Canada. As someone who has been to Canada, knows about the history of Canada, and lives very close to Canada, I enjoyed hearing about Taiye learning about Canada’s dark side, something that is so rarely discussed by the general public. However, for those of us who are interested, the evidence is everywhere. The history is just waiting to be explored by anyone who is interested in looking just slightly beyond the state-issued textbooks. I thought the way the author wrote about Canada was really authentic, which convinces me that the way she writes about London and Nigeria must also be accurate. What it must be like to be Ekwuyasi, so intimately familiar with places so far apart.

There was one line in the book that really stuck with me: as Taiye is traveling home, she passes through the busy streets of Lagos, crowded with street children, and she is reminded of her privilege in a very visual way, something she doesn’t get in Canada or London. This is the view the West wants us to have of Africa: a whole continent made of dirty huts and begging children on busy urban roads. Yes, poverty looks different in Nigeria than it does in Canada, but that doesn’t mean that everyone in Nigeria is somehow poorer. In fact, this family has a beautiful compound and a trust fund. Despite having a trust fund, Taiye still makes decisions on a strict budget and denies herself luxuries to save money, the way I do. I don’t really know a lot of people with trust funds, so I can’t tell if this is an international thing or if there are American kids who act like this. It kind of annoyed me when Taiye wrote to the culinary program saying she didn’t have enough to pay for the program, when in reality she just didn’t want to dip into her trust fund. I don’t know if there were limited spots/funds available for people who couldn’t afford to pay full price, but I hate when rich people forget what it means to actually not have money. Being cheap and being poor are two different things, often way more opposing than people think. Rich people are often the ones who know how to exploit the system to get what they want for less, while the poor are left with less connections and less time to work it.

Still, I refrain from delivering too harsh judgement on Taiye. I do not know the size of the trust fund. I know their family home was a gift, so perhaps the fund is to be saved for medical emergencies and property taxes. I’m not sure how insurance or taxes work in Nigeria, although I know the government is very unstable. How did they pay for international university? Did that come from the trust fund? The whole plot line has me thinking a lot about wealth and class on an international level. While I grew up comfortably, I often felt like my family was poor because of how rich everyone in our town was. I wonder what it would have been like to grow up in a compound and see homeless children often, but also ingest international media that cast your entire country as poor and to know your government is unstable.

All in all, the book touches on many of the central issues of modern life While it only brushes the surfaces of these topics, it had me thinking for days and wanting to know more. Perhaps I will search out an some Nigerian autobiographies / memoirs in the future.

#book #fiction #francesca ekwuyasi #butter honey pig bread #cooking #nigeria #lagos #canada #london #halifax #twins #queer #family #spiritual #religion #wealth #class #mental illness #mental health

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