#i still cant decide between them and its giving me an identity crisis. like the similarity IS the problem its why i cant choose

[josecariohca]

.

[trashquisitor-shirozora]

Hey! I saw your reply to that anon ask about mandalorian, and i gotta say i agree with your view. There is something different in season 3 that i couldnt really explain, but you managed to put it into words. The past seasons feel character driven, while this season is more plot driven.

Honestly, i didnt have high expectations, because the ending of season 2 feels conclusive, so i dont know what theyre going to do after that. And when they said that din wont be the main focus of season 3, i felt a bit sad about it haha. I was thinking that maybe we're gonna explore more of din's identity crisis or something like that. But uhhhh idk. I have thoughts and emotions that i cant put into words. I hope you understand what im saying here lmao

Y'know, in hindsight - and can I really say so when we still have an episode left of Season 3, a whole ass Season 4, and however many seasons left until the Disneyfied Thrawn Trilogy Movie? - I feel comfortable saying that Din's story should've ended in Season 2 and he never should've gotten the Darksaber. I also want to argue that he got the Darksaber because Favloni did have plans for him, specifically, until something (Ahsoka and the Thrawn Trilogy and a movie) happened that made them decide to pivot hard into propping up Bo-Katan, whitewashing and sanitizing her backstory, and giving her all of Din's possible storylines. I mean, what did she really do over a season that made her better than Din, who lost everything saving Grogu from Gideon and finding a Jedi who could take him in?

Din was left alone on the bridge of Gideon's cruiser with Bo-Katan and Koska. He is truly alone. Does he follow them back to Bo-Katan's fleet, a CotW among others who don't trust him and his covert? Does he start his search for the Armorer and survivors of Nevarro? Din showed his face to another living being. What does his crisis of faith look like? We saw a glimpse of that in TBOBF; he wasn't doing too hot and then he was banished from his covert and told hwo to atone for his sins. We could've had a multi-episode arc following his journey to Mandalore and visiting the history of Mandalore and its desecration by the Empire. We could have seen him waver in his faith, struggling between what he believed and what he experienced and all the ways they intersect and conflict. Din won the Darksaber in combat. He now holds an ancient Mandalorian Jedi weapon that the Mandalorian diaspora now say marks him as Mand'alor (or the best candidate for Mand'alor). Does he grow into this role using his experience and skills earned as a bounty hunter and his covert's provider, or does he choose to surrender it to somebody else because he never wanted and still does not want the power and authority that comes with the title? Does he ever see Grogu again? Is Grogu doing well? How will they reunite? Well, TBOBF answered all those questions and we just have to accept they're back together at the start of Season 3.

Thse are just some of so many potential character-driven and character-centric stories that I'm never seeing in canon now. He's been wallflowered, pushed into the background, Bo-Katan's newest and biggest supporter in her so-called redemption arc even though you wouldn't fucking know that her redemption arc maybe should've included some mention of what she fucking did in the Clone Wars and the fucking Season 3 logo features Din and Grogu front and center.

(A lot of newer merch I see at the Disney Store, Heroes & Villains, Her Universe, etc. now feature multiple Mandalorians and Mandalorian helmets, so maybe that was a giveaway that we are following more Mandalorians now... and I am still forever struggling to find decent Din Djarin merch that puts him front and center. Fuck me, I guess)

I truly wonder what kind of Season 3 we could've gotten if Favloni, Kennedy, and Disney decided not to MCU-fy Filoni's precious darlings, if we were allowed to follow Din the way we did in the first two seasons. You could bring him back to the covert without losing him to the crowd. You could have him cross paths with Bo-Katan again and have her play a more significant role in his journey(s) without taking all of the spotlight.

I did have high expectations after Season 2, Anon, but once TBOBF came out, i realized I was fucked. And, well. Here we are.

[b0rista]

i keep seeing dad!levi on the tl and i cant stop thinking abt him as a dad😩 can i request drabble/hc/fic of levi and his s/o adopting gabi and falco🥰 no thoughts. just dad!levi brainrot go brrrrt

— ADOPTIVE FATHER! LEVI HEADCANONS + FALCO & GABI. ♡︎

AUTHOR'S NOTES: gn! reader.

never would you have ever expected to take in a pair of children as your own. better yet, never would you have ever expected him to. while you knew his soft side all too well, everyone has their limits.

gabi and falco moving in with you and levi likely just,, happened. a temporary housing for them, considering they had nowhere else to go. seeing as though imprisonment for a second time was a bit of a reach, it was a minor debate within headquarters regarding what to do with the two. through careful consideration, your lover made a decision.

what better way to supervise them than in our own home?

of course, the thought conflicted you. the enemy, living with you? sure, they were barely teenagers, but that didn't make them any less capable of murdering you in your slumber.

knowing levi, though, that would never be the case. the man was already the world’s most calculating insomniac, lord knows he’d never let either of those kids out of his sight. especially not around you. 

nevertheless, your guys’ experience living with the remaining warriors of marley would be far more different than either of you would ever think to realize. 

ACTUAL HEADCANONS BELOW: ⇩︎

to your surpise, falco’s quite literally the sweetest pre-teen to ever roam the earth. of course, you’d only assumed it was all an act. that was,, until you genuinely caught him attempting to befriend levi's horse one morning. he was outside holding a fistful of grass, holding it out to the thing as if it were some sort of a beast. eventually, you joined him, and you showed him just how to handle it. and while the boy seemed skeptical at first, you saw that glimmer in his eyes the moment the horse allowed him to pet its mane. from the window, levi only watched.

speaking of levi's horse, that thing absolutely despises gabi. you're not quite sure why, but it does. you've literally had to run out and claw her hair out from between its teeth before— she's scReaminG, you'Re screaming, even the horse is screaming.

"why does this keep happening to me?!"

"this has happened befoRe?"

whenever either of the two children curse, levi's quick to correct them. despite having quite the foul mouth himself, he doesn't hesitate whenever he has to toss out a blunt "language."

^ at first, they were bitter. with time, though, they stopped swearing.

a key moment in time that helped develop you and falco's relationship was one afternoon where he was helping you out with yard work. somehow, his little crush on gabi came up, and the two of you got to talking about it. after giving him some genuine, appropriate advice for a kid with a crush, he really did start looking at you differently.

as for levi and gabi, those two bonded over intense, hilarious training. he found her punching the air in his backyard, and decided to drop in with a few sarcastic pointers. somehow, it ended in him kicking the poor girl around like a rag doll— not violently, he never hurt her. instead, he fended off each and every attack she fired at him, leaving her absolutely exhausted. she was tired out, and he was perfectly fine. imagine gabi, laying on the ground, tired as shiT, and levi, gently nudging the toe of his boot into her side:

"you can fight, but you're messy. if you ever stand a chance at surviving this war you started, i suggest you clean up your act."

cue gabi, glaring.

"if you care so much, then help me become better."

and so he did 🥺🥺 the two bond over levi practically coaching her, and as the days merge into weeks, she grows to actually respect levi, and maybe even look up to him.

basically, while you and falco live your cottagecore lives and bond over horses and apple picking, levi and gabi beat the everliving shit out of eachother in the backyard. it's a great balance.

for the first couple of nights, eating at the dinner table with those two was disgustingly awkward. it was utter silence, nothing more. however, one night, falco dropped his fork, and when he bent down to get it, he looked underneath the table for a milliseconD— there levi was, leaned down, stArinG at him. it was both hilarious and terrifying altogether, and falco ended up screeching and knocking his head into the table, hard.

"I WAS GETTING A F O R K-"

"and? gRemlin."

it surprised all of you, hearing gabi laugh. a genuine, real laugh. eventually, that turned into a conversation. and after that, you had conversations during every dinner. the development process was cruel, but worth it.

the kids help you prepare breakfast in the morning while levi downs his fourth cup of tea at the table, and it's always cute. because of you, falco knows how to make scrambled eggs! and also because of you, gabi knows how to prank somebody using an uncooked noodle. literally, she just places a piece of it between her teeth, pretend to crack her nose, and crunch. she made falco scReAm, and levi just looked at you like 🤨 bitch, tf are u teaching her

now, this was around three months into supervising them. one night, they were sitting alongside you on the sofa, and you were reading them a story. while falco was into it, gabi thought it was silly— still, though, she listened. eventually, they passed the hell out on either side of you. you drifted off, as well. when you woke up, you'd woken up to levi, his head rested onto your lap while his knees prop him up from the floor. by the looks of it, he wanted to be included.

whenever either of them step out of line, they earn a swift flick to the forehead from levi. it's a daily thing. gabi says something stupid, flick. falco slacks off during chores, flick. one time, gabi tried flicking him back, and it just started a flick war. you were done with all three of them.

both gabi and falco love telling you about marley's technology. you'd never heard of such things, and to know that they exist? shit, the look on your face is priceless. they absolutely adore getting a reaction out of you, and they often butt heads over who gets to tell you what. when they do, cue the overly aggressive forehead flicks from levi.

while levi told you not to, you couldn't help yourself. you showed them just how cool it is to use ODM gear. of course, they lost their shit, because holy hell that looks fun. your boyfriend, of course, caught you swinging from tree to tree while the two children gawked at you, and he gave you a stern talking to. before he did, though, that motherfucker joined you in the trees. again, the kids lost it.

"loOKATTHEMFALCOLOOKLOOK-"

"i'MloOokinG-"

eventually, they just think you guys are the coolest people they've ever come across. which stirs up one heLL of an identity crisis for gabi, because,, lol aren't y'all devils or sum?

[k-k-keroppi]

t ya’ll i was watching dr who speeches cause i needed a good cry, and i have a take (may or may not be hot idk). If every companion was immortal, they would all turn into the master, i think. 

under the cut, cause its a long boi

Like, the doctor and the master were best buddies, they did everything together, and even to the master, who obviously is also part of the species with the stars in their hands, the doctor could show the master so much more that the master could ever see on their own. So the master formed such an incredible bond to the doctor, and vice versa, but then the doctor left. They grew morals one day and left the master alone (except more complicated ik). And we’ve seen what happened to the doctor when they travel alone, with the whole time lord victorious, the laws of time are mine, i could be so much more thing.

And we’ve also seen what happens to the companions that he leaves behind, the ones that survive. Rose built a whole fucking time machine to drag herself along a dimension to get back to him, amy and rory give up everything so many times to travel with him, once you’re with the doctor its obviously so difficult to do anything else, because they’re so wonderful. 

The master is simultaneously the doctor and the companion in this situation. He has the same power as the doctor, and he uses it to chase the doctor across the fucking universe because they miss them.  The doctor made other friends to fill the hole left when each one leaves, the hole that was created the first time they left someone (the master), but the master never did. The master never traveled with anyone the way the doctor did, they never made another connection like they one they had with the doctor, and it drove them mad. 

they decided that if they can’t have their old relationship back, then an antagonistic relationship would have to do, fueled by the raging anger of being abandoned by the most important person in their lives. So the master hurts people and starts wars and burns planets just to see the doctor again because the doctor left them, the doctor left them alone and now if they have to hurt then everyone else has to hurt too. ‘time lord victorious’. 

but then with missy, the master changes a bit, and she’s sick of the stupid game they have to play, that she invented, she just wants the doctor back. Like with the cybermen in heaven sent (i think) she does all of that, all the death and war and corruption just to force the doctor to see that she isn’t his enemy, she isn’t different to him. she just desperately wants him back, and she’s not interested in the good or the bad of it anymore. And when he takes the bracelet, and tells her thank you, they have a conversation and there’s no malice in her voice, there isn’t any smugness. her aim was never to corrupt the doctor, she didn’t want to hurt him, she just wanted him to see her, properly. that they’re still compatible.

and then on the cyberfarm thing with not-saxon-john-simm, when the doctor does his speech asking her to stand with him there are tears in her eyes, because she desperately wants to. and she was going to! she shot her own previous regeneration just to make sure that she could stand with him with no consequences, they were both finally ready to abandon the stupid rules they had made up, and then she got shot for it. 

I can’t remember where, but i saw a post that said that the latest master’s anger was the anger of someone who  had been hurt by their own kindness, and i agree with that. I think that Missy finally wanted to be good, not because she believed in it, but because it would make the doctor happy, and that attempt to bridge the gap got her shot, and she lost the chance to be with him again. 

and then he regenerated, and he was not better, he was not good, he was so so angry, because if this is what kindness gets him what’s the fucking point, if kindness hurts this much why should i bother, who’s gonna make me!

so he goes back to being a dick, but even while he’s being a dick he’s still desperately missing the doctor, you can see it because he texts her! what villain who hates the hero decides to text their enemy like their best friends?! I can only imagine how conflicting it must have been for the master to text the doctor, to have a relationship with her again. It must have proved to him that the doctor could love him, that character wise it was in both of them to care about each other, but it was the outside that was the problem. the electromagnetic field of reputation that pushed them further apart while their hearts pulled them together (sorry for the prose). And you can see that he loves her, even without the destruction, even without all of that shit, (a good quote for that is the one on the Eiffel tower ‘when does this stop for you?’ ‘why would it stop, how else would i get your attention?’) because of one thing he does. all the other timelords dress in their traditional dress, the doctor doesn’t look like any of the other time lords except the master. Because the master, despite consistently mocking and ridiculing humans, repeatedly calling them the doctor’s ‘pets’, dresses like humans anyway, just like the doctor does. so either he does that to show the tiniest slither of kinship, even when their fighting his clothes scream ‘look look look, we’re the same’, or he does it because he’s jealous that the doctor spends so much time defending earth, she loves humans even though they hurt each other, even though they’re cruel and mean and spiteful, just like him, so he dresses like them too, because he’s jealous of the affection she gives them. even when they’re not on earth he dresses like that.

i saw another post that said with dhawan!master he was having an identity crisis for the first time, and i agree with that too. I think that missy’s kindness and readiness to join the doctor, as well as the relationship he had with her as o had shaken him, and proved that that the doctor could love him if he was just kinder, and he alternated soft and hard throughout the series. it was like he didn’t know what he was supposed to be, he couldn’t figure out the right answer, he was stuck between his anger and his loneliness. After so long of it simmering away, his need for the doctor has finally bubbled over, and he doesn’t know how to cope with it, because enemies isn’t enough anymore.  

Another thing i think was that I think the master is afraid of the doctor being better than him. they were always equals on Gallifrey, outcasts together, messing things up and bunking off school, always wrong but wrong together. but when the doctor left, all scared of fighting and afraid of killing when the master didn’t have concerns like that, i think it planted the seed that the doctor was better, the doctor was too good for he master. and over time that festered into anger and abandonment and insecurity and everything else, but with everything the master did to hurt the doctor, every planet he destroyed, it was just one more way to prove that the doctor was better. and so he was in so deep into this hero villain dynamic that he never wanted, but he can’t stop now, he cant stop running and making the doctor chase him, because if he stops then he’ll have to face what he’s done and there isn’t a way out, so he has to keep going. if he admits that he was wrong, he would have to ask the doctor for forgiveness and i don’t think the thought of being told, to his face, that the doctor can never forgive him, is one that sits lightly with the master. 

anyway, the point of that paragraph is that’s why he destroyed Gallifrey. he found out that the one person he made a real connection to, the most important person in his life, the person he has destroyed worlds just to see, wasn’t that same as him. It was conclusive, scientific proof that the doctor was actually, literally better than him. It was black and white proof of all the fears he’s had since the doctor left him, because before that point he could have been making it up. but then he saw that and it was all true, that doctor left him because t=he could never be as good. and not only does it ruin any hope of a relationship, it ruins the memories of their old one as well, because a friendship like that among equals an incredible connection, but a friendship like that with such a gaping hierarchy means pity. 

and not only did they ruin the relationship of both the past and the future, but they hurt her. Despite everything, the master loves the doctor, and its up to you whether you think that means romantically or wholly, but he loves her despite everything he’s done, and now he’s found out that they hurt her, they lied to her, exploited her, used her, and he wants them to hurt for it. He’s still so furious, and not even necessarily at her, but she is the only person he has who has ever really cared about how he feels. and now he doesn’t know if that was out of pity or love, and he’s angry at, for, and around her all at once, and he just needs the doctor back but he can’t get to her. he’s being pulled in about eighty different directions, as is the doctor, and he simultaneously wants to hurt her, look after her, ask for her help, protect her, forgive her, fight her, he’s so confused. 

Idk, I’m not saying the master is a good person, and I’m not saying the doctor is either, and I’m not saying that the doctor needs to forgive him, I’m just saying that i don’t think either of them really want to hurt each other, and somewhere down the line they both got confused and took wrong turns and couldn’t figure out how to get back to each other. And the doctor’s response was to keep walking her path and hope to find him again, and the masters response was the bulldoze the walls in between them. and, carrying on this metaphor, when the doctor felt bad for the walls he had destroyed and tried to rebuild them, the master took that completely the wrong way and his abandonment consumed him. kinda like Spinel.  

[genderfluidkevinday]

genderfluid kevin day headcanons bc i can do what i want and also i have the perfect url to spread my “please representation” propaganda. 

“how did you know?”

because in the quiet of nights when kevin is supposed to be asleep but he cant, not really, when his heart is still pounding from practice and every breath riko makes him terrified of being caught, he reads what he stole from the public library and it says sometimes people do not fit into the gender they were assigned and

because by sneaking searches on the internet when he can, kevin finds words. dangerous, un-raven-like words for how to love someone and how to be yourself. he finds words that mean you are not alone. 

because he wakes up one day and demands to be the queen of exy, to be seen as what he is. the best. more powerful than the king. (not entirely cisgender?)

because it feels right. 

because in the quiet between exy and family, kevin day has the time and the love to have the quiet understanding that this is who kevin day is. 

it’s kinda a shitty realization process to go through- kevin starts questioning in the ravens, then immediately goes “No TM !” and internalizes all those feelings 

kevin internalizes All the feelings, always ! compartmentalizing!

bisexuality? put it in a box!

gender identity? put it in a box!

feeling crushing inferiority? put it in a box!

mom died tragically? put it in a box!

ur dad isnt here? put it-

jesus fuck these headcanons were supposed to be happy and it got SO derailed 2 points in

anyways 

post canon, kevin starts to become more comfortable w every aspect of himself, and finally takes the time to have a gender crisis

and then, immediately, decides it was all ridiculous and he was actually a cisgender all along !

he does the dumb thing i did. which is spend about a month going “lmao i’m cis but i wish i wasn’t, i don’t need a gender!” while badly ignoring his gender crisis

it’s renee who finally helps kevin out a little

kevin, dumbass: pfft, gender is stupid, but i’m cis so whatever! renee, nb lesbian icon: are you sure? kevin, having a crisis:

renee actually sends kevin a bunch of links to pages that have lots of words, and “what gender are you” quizes, and dumb memes about being trans/nonbinary and it shouldn’t help as much as it does. 

renee is the first person kevin quietly texts at like, 2 am, and goes, “uh, can you use they, i think?”

her response is, obviously, “of course!”

so they’re like, pretty sure they’re not cis, but they bounce around labels for about a week before they end up settling on genderfluid. 

sometimes kevin day is a boy, with loud opinions and soft hands. sometimes kevin day is a girl, with messy hair and a bright smile. sometimes kevin day is neither, with clumsy limbs and determined eyes

(however- kevin day can always outclass any striker on a court.) 

it just feels right, in a way nothing else did. 

theyre like,,, super nervous about coming out, like, they can’t even come up with the courage to tell their dad they’re bi, how the fuck are they gonna end up telling anyone else? solution! don’t.

except kevin is becoming more comfortable with every aspect of themself, and being casually bisexual around the foxes (nicky makes one too many jokes about kevin’s “”hetero guy crush”” on jeremy and they end up snapping “bitch i’m bi there’s nothing hetero about it.” and nicky is immediately like !!!!!!!!!!!!!) (but thats another post)

so kevin, with the growing comfort that yes, you can be non-heterosexual and non-cisgender and still be fucking amazing at exy, they start to come out

it’s a slow process because when they tried to do it all at once, they got tongue tied and just walked away without saying anything. so they end up doing it individually. 

allison first (because renee can be there and give support AND bc allison is also A Trans), and kevin whispers, “so, I’m genderfluid.”

allison, casually: what are your pronouns? kevin: she/her. i’m a girl today. allison, with all the softness of someone who has been there: do you want me to do your makeup? kevin, with all the softness of someone who’s new to this: maybe one day.

after allison is andrew+neil, because they spend so much time together at night practice it’s inevitable it comes up

and by that i mean kevin screams halfway through night practice “THIS IS GENDERFLUIDPHOBIA” because andrew keeps blocking her shots. 

andrew flips her off.

neil asks if thats an actual term.

kevin says to fuck off and keep practicing.

next is wymack. 

oh boy. 

so kevin isn’t even sure how to be a good son- she has no idea how to go about being a good daughter. she has no clue how to be a good child. 

she doesn’t know if wymack even wants that.

but she goes to him after practice and he snaps, “what is it?” in a voice thats maybe a little less gruff than usual

and she says, “i’m genderfluid.”

he stares at her for a while.

she continues, “i’m a girl today, actually, and i just thought you should know.”

wymack asks, “you’ll tell me when it changes, right?”

kevin nods and leaves. 

its a start.

telling jean feels like a really big deal, but in hindsight its about fifteen minutes of bad puns that follow an awkwardly worded coming out. 

kevin: so like... guys right jean: yes? kevin: what if... i wasn’t one jean: are you trying to come out to me? kevin: is it working?

the rest of the monsters follows after that- aaron obviously doesnt understand, but he doesnt say anything rude. (he looks into it later). nicky, immediately, takes a supportive role.

nicky: I’M GONNA STAPLE A GENDERFLUID FLAG TO MY FACE THATS HOW MUCH I SUPPORT YOU kevin, softly: please don’t how would you play exy.

matt and dan get a less official coming out, because kevin isn’t sure how to be friends with them at all. but they manage a “so, i’m not a guy, actually, i’m genderfluid, and right now i don’t have a gender.”

dan gives them a set of pronoun bracelets for their birthday and matt gives them a book about the history of the nonbinary community and yeah, maybe this is how to be friends.

the baby foxes don’t get to find out. kevin doesn’t trust them as much, and isn’t ready to be... out out. 

kevin has absolutely no desire to change their name, at all.

kevin: why would i change my name i’m an ICON.

WAIT i lied,,, they change their middle name to kayleigh. 

the first time kevin gets invited to a girls night, she cries

its a surprise, which is hard to plan- girls nights are always on tuesdays, so they have to wait for a tuesday where kevin is free and feels like a girl

renee casually mentions that they have a history book that kevin might like, so she should come pick it up

and then in the dorm, dan and allison are setting up a movie and popcorn and renee is getting her nails painted. dan waves kevin over and tells her to pick a movie, allison tells her to pick out a nail polish, and renee actually does have a history book for her.

kevin finally accepts a make over from allison. 

she cries like five times that night and tries to brush it off as nothing but... kevin can finally exist in a space, and feel welcome, and also feel... wanted.

it’s a good feeling

kevin, wearing a crop top with the genderfluid flag on it, painting renee’s nails as they watch the trojans game: lmao can you imagine thinking i was cis? what was i thinking? i was so dumb lol.  renee, sweetly: no it was a perfectly normal reaction to being raised in a cisnormative society, and i’m very proud of you for figuring out that it wasn’t right for you kevin: dammit renee why do you have to be so kind and supportive just let me make jokes about my moron-ness in PEACE 

kevin day is the fucking QUEEN of exy !!!!!!! she’s better than you and you know it. 

each and every day kevin day hears misogonistic comments towards female exy players and each and every day kevin day wants to scream B I T C H in their face

he wanted to do this even before he figured out he was genderfluid bc kevin day drank respect women juice before realizing he was also drinking sometimes i am women juice

kevin actually 100% hates dresses a lot bc they can never find any that are a good texture and its Sensory Hell, and also you cant play exy in them?? what the fuck??? 

they end up liking crop tops and short shorts, and a few kinds of makeup, but skirts and dresses are dumb and itchy actually 

kevin goes on an impassioned rant about this at LEAST once a month

you know that really good feeling when you wake up one day and you realize you’re happier knowing who you are and maybe it’s rough and maybe it’s not perfect but you get to know who you are and your friends respect and love you for who you are and you start to realize you love knowing you too????????

yeah.

kevin day is genderfluid and this is my hill to die on thank you and good night

[han-and-kai]

get ready for some gay sadness

1st of all if ur reading this thank you for taking out the time to listen i just want someone to talk to but i feel like i burned all my friends out already and i dont want to bother them more

so uh let me explain i started watching One Day at a Time great show i love it

and uh ***spoilers*** Elena comes out as gay

and ya know, it’s sweet and nice but like it still makes me sad?

like i kinda was forcefully dragged out of the closet

my sister found my tumblr, the old one, and read everything

including the fact that i said i was pansexual

and i was brought into my mom’s room with my sister and they were like  we know you think you’re this way but it’s wrong and you can’t be that way this is why you need to pray and be close to allah,  so you don’t think dumb things

and yya know they didn’t care about how i felt or ask me why, they just rejected it straight away (ajh gosh i started crying)

and ya know i never really care what they say, but theres also a part of me that wishes they could accept me

later on towards the end of 2017 i was stressed and scared about college and my future and my family were just like upsetting me and i was just sad about everything to the point that i didn’t want to leave my room cuz i was afraid i was gonna jump out the window or grab a knife and do something i regret

my friend diane, i thank her to death for doing this for me, i asked her to tell the school counselor because i needed help, and i needed it then

so she did, and they told my parents that i was considering suicide

you think they’d come home and be like honey its okay 

but no it was that whole interrogation situation again

they sat me in their room and said i was making their lives harder

they actually thought i was faking to manipulate them, like a guilt trip, great right?

so i was just sitting there, crying, i couldn’t speak or anything, and i had to go write down everything i was feeling

some stuff was about college other stuff was about sexual and gender identity

and the school also told them i needed hospital clearance to go back to school

and they begrudgingly took me to a psychiatrist first, which wasnt helpful at all because they took us to someone we knew who was a pakistani muslim man and im like ???? i cant talk to him comfortably??

so that was already a bust

and then we went to the hospital ER, they took my blood, kept the needle in my arm the entire like 6 hours we were there

and this crisis specialist talked to me and translated for my parents

and now my dad knows too

like my dad is more strict than my mom

and he isn’t very subtle

he was reading quraan and told me that homosexuals got stones rained on them

fun, thanks for that dad

and its still an on going problem

but what scares me is

Monnie

god i love her so much but

my parents arent ever going to approve

like i just wish that a shred of hope is in them, that i might have a chance, but here i am crying in front of all of them and they dont even notice

they arent ever going to change themselves, it’s always going to be me having to fit their standards

but??? i cant change who i am?

like im pretty sure i was blessed enough to be healthy, god doesnt hate me cuz i have a girlfriend god doesnt hate me for having feelings

they always say stuff like “you know we love you”

and im just like please stop giving me false hope cuz i know whatever this love is its not for who i am right now it’s for who they think i can change into like the better version of me that they want but aren’t going to get

ive always had to pick and choose my battles with them, but this is one that’s going to keep going, and neither side is giving up

im slowly deteriorating tho i want to be strong and be like fuck you i like girls and boys and everyone in between and i dont care what you have to say god can decide what he does with me, so stay out of it

but i cant do that

im far too submissive what am i gonna do? if i fuck up i either get beat or everything taken away from me so far the plan “just deal with it until you can get out” is starting to fail 

like my options are

1) throw away college, leave, be whoever the fuck you want, get a job somewhere and live off of instant ramen

2) do what they say and after you get your degree be like ha fuck you im out (thats an extra 4 years in this hell of a house tho)

3) try and talk to them? (and probably fail so whats the point?)

idk what to do anymore im just sad and scared of what is going to happen i dont want to lose things and people that are important to me

sorry if i bummed u out

but thank you if you read this

i appreciate it

[flyingcookierambles]

forgot if i already talked about it but i guess i honestly didnt like wolf children/boy and the beast that much lol and i think i finally figured out why

ok so ill have my original post and short convo i had with this one guy and then write about my feelings after those two that provide some context.

ok real quick so wolf children and the boy and the beast are both from award winning anime director mamoru hosoda!

wolf children has a single mother with 2 kids who are werewolves/shifters since they can change whenever they want. she’s a widow because her husband was walking around the city in wolf form, scared ppl, and got killed by animal control in tokyo. she and her kids move out to the rural boonies on a small homestead where she farms and stuff so that her kids can have space to be their wolf forms and run around without fear.

the boy and the beast has a human child fall into the hidden magical parallel furry world and get raised by this beast/bear furry? i...forget what his adoptive dad’s species is lol, sorry its been a long time since ive seen the movie.

spoilers for the ending but. here.

wolf children - yuki, the daughter, decides to stay in the human world with her mom and go to high school. ame, the son, decides to live his life as a furry/wolf boy protecting the forests.

boy and the beast - adoptive father sacrifices himself for protag, fuses spirits/hearts/whatever with protag so that they’re not really separated even in death, then the protag and dad defeat the antagonist and the protag decides to stay in the human world with his human girlfriend.

soooo. yeah. the movie ends with the families splitting up and the two cultures of mundane humans and magical creatures separating forever.

(og post) original post from my kitsu:

“ok, so like after watching wolf children tonight, im left with a bunch of questions and, idk maybe i dont understand the ending, but like. what. i also have a copy of the boy and the beast and watched it a while go. and like. i feel like, out of his two movies, they were overall very good. however, the endings always leave me with a ton of questions and mixed feelings? is mamoru hosoda just going to be “that guy” for me? you know, “that guy.” like, he’s an ok dude but you have mixed feelings about him? is it still worth watching his other movies, the girl who leapt through time and summer wars, at this rate? idk???? edit: …. i realized i also borrowed mirai from the library, am i going to watch the whole thing and then be like. what.“

response to this one guy, pseudonym:

I didn’t like wolf children and while I overall enjoyed the boy and the beast I did feel it was lacking something. Give summer wars a go though as in my opinion it’s easily his best film, that said I haven’t seen Mirai.

my responses:

“ that’s interesting. hmm im trying to figure out what i didn’t like about his endings for these two movies and i think it might be the whole separation thing? but the weird thing was that i didn’t mind the family separation thing in maquia, another family drama oriented anime? so idk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ????? what about you?”

pseudomym:

“I haven’t seen Maquia. It’s been a while since I watched either film but I just remember Boy and the beast feeling generally a little uninspired and wolf children feeling hollow having nothing going on but cuteness and idealization of the mother character that I couldn’t get behind. It also fell into the annoying and well worn trap of insisting the daughter come to terms with her wolf side as necesary but the boy’s arc is to go reject his humanity and abandon his family to live in the woods as a young teen and the mother learning to accept his really stupid decision. Fuck that, thats a shtty life decision and it should be treated accordingly.”

my response:

i agree with some points! like, i get that the mother was a hardworking single mother who needed to give her kids some more freedom and also isolation in life to hide the whole werewolf secret, but when ame was just like “imma drop out of elementary school,” and hana was ok with it, i was just staring at the screen like “no, why are you letting him do this?” i feel like my issue with the boy and the beast was that ren decided that “humans and monsters need to live in their own world,” and left forever when i was thinking “no man, you can have both, work in the human world on weekdays and just go back to the monster world on weekends or something, you have basically nothing in the human world but this random girl you met and whatever the japanese version of the GED is.”

so. after thinking about it. literally for a few years. i realized. the reason i don’t like these movies, or at least their endings, since the premises sounds interesting enough for me to try them. is probably because im projecting my own weirdo complex identity issues on them. (own ramble lol) (other ramble on kitsu) (transracial tag on main) (racial imposter syndrome with NPR’s Code Switch) (all mixed up what do we call people of multiple backgrounds, also on NPR’s Code Switch)

so. as you can hopefully see. i. am currently in a pretty big identity/culture crisis. and. i think that the endings of these movies rubbed me the wrong way because their solution was to choose one over the other. like. there’s no room to try to make it work, to try and have a balance between the two worlds.

as mentioned above, in wolf children, why the heck not try to make it work? be a furry forest protector and still visit your mom because you’re in the same area. in fact, ame is literally the stupidest kid/literal elementary school drop out because, instead of trying to help the forest with actual laws and such because bc, its sad but let’s be real, capitalism and bulldozers can affect the forest more than one kid trying to larp as the big bad wolf of the forest. and you know how ame could’ve tried to protect the forest in a more substantial way? literally just. finding a balance between the human and magical werewolf/animal world and becoming a botanist/biologist/ecologist/forest ranger. someone who can bring some actual solutions to fixing issues in the forest with science. instead of like. “feeling the forest vibes” or whatever the heck was even happening there.

and then also as mentioned in the boy and the beast, protag-kun leaves behind all his childhood friends and the ppl who helped his adoptive dad raise him, practically his adoptive aunts and uncles, behind for a random girl he met, his birth dad and step family, and whatever a japanese GED is. like. again, why not try to make it work? have two cultures????

you dont have to choose one over the other!!

i’m sure that mamoru hosoda didn’t mean to be like. idk. insensitive to people of mixed races/cultures, etc., esp. since japan is not a very racially/culturally diverse place so he probably didn’t even have this mindset when making these movies, but the message in the movies’ endings that you have to pick one culture, country/world, family, etc., over the other because they’re just too incompatible is just. absolute bullshit. do i care that they’re werewolf and magic furry world culture? no, i think you can and should still try dude.

like. i have. a bunch of intersectional race/culture/adoption issues, but am i going to try to have some balance and learn about all of them and live with them? yeah????? do you realize how stupid it is to me to think about like. having to pick between cultures???? its just like. to me, picking one over the other would be like forcing me to stay with white americans or just like. go back to china. like the boy and the beast protag did or someshit????? like???? i can try to balance them??? tisn’t that the whole point of like. chinese american/ immigrant created mixed culture/experiences, esp. for ppl like me who are transracially adopted and have complex life experiences???? wtf??????

like. i would love to learn more about my birth country and all but im not going to be an absolute dumbass like the boy and beast protag and move to another world/country just because “its where i’m from” or “i have biological family there.” i cant speak the language, i’d leave all my friends and family oceans away, how the heck would i even live??

anyways TL;DR - as a person with some complex feelings about identity, and culture, and a person greatly interested in intersectionality due to my lived experiences, mamoru hosoda’s movies and their bullshit anti-intersectionality messages, again most likely unintentional but my brain read it as this, make me not like his movies.

[arplis]

Arplis - News: 50 of the Best Kindle Unlimited Books You Can Read in 2020

Are you ready for the best Kindle Unlimited Books 2020? Last year I gave you the worlds best advice when offering up 50 of the best Kindle Unlimited books to read in 2019. This year Im going to totally blow your mind by offering up another 50 of the best Kindle Unlimited Books for you to check out in the ding-dong new year.

If you werent privy to last years post and you dont want to waste time reading about books that are so last-decade, you can check this out to find out how Kindle Unlimited works. You can finally get the facts about Prime Reading vs Kindle Unlimited. Hell, Ill even pop in a handy-dandy guide to the difference between Kindle Unlimited and Audible.

If youre still not 100% pumped for Kindle Unlimited then why dont you check out this free 30-day trial and find out for your dang selfand this list of the best Kindle Unlimited books for 2020 will help get you started.

Descriptions have been pulled from Amazon.

Best Kindle Unlimited Books 2020: Romance

Love Unsolicited by Alexandra Warren

Everything in this world is for sale to the people who can afford it Joella Mason knows the difference between what she needs and what she wants. But when the line between the two becomes especially thin, she finds herself on a quest for something missing, not expecting that to come in the package of a sexy stranger with an even sexier proposition. They share a night. Desires are fulfilled. But at what price?

A Taste of Her Own Medicine by Tasha L. Harrison

Sonja Watts needs to re-enter the workforce after divorcing her husband of thirteen years. Taking the advice of her sister Birdie and her best friend Estelle, she signs up for a six-week course for entrepreneurs; hoping that she will learn everything she needs to know to build a business to support herself and her kids. On the first night of class, Sonja is able to ignore the fact that most of the students were younger than her by ten years or more. It was what she expected. But when the instructor walks in, she debates packing up her new twelve hundred dollar laptop and walking out. Sonja couldnt remember the last time she looked at a man with little more interest than she give a sturdy dining room table. She was just disinterested. But wow, did Atlas James grab her interest.

Christmas in the City by Bria Felicien

Zoe is trying to survive the holiday season without succumbing to winter gloom. By chance, she meets DeAndre, who approaches her with an offer she cant refuse.

Falling for a Knight by T Russ

While vacationing in Trinidad, world-renowned photographer Roman Knight unexpectedly acquires a new muse, Cynthia Tremaine. Their chemistry is off the charts and they cant resist giving into a night of passion together. Neither of them expected to see each other again after they parted waysbut fate seemed to have other plans.

With Your Permission by Stephanie Nicole Norris

As the CEO of Building Bridges LLC, Bri is driven by determination for success. However, while planning the wedding of one of Chicagos hottest couples, Bris focus is shifted when the strum of a nocturnal voice captures her attention. Being an empath has empowered her sense of compassion for others, so shes not only drawn to him because of his broken heart but also from a fierce attraction that sparks her interest and tap dances on a groove on her heart. Getting involved with someone whos not open to love may prove to be the most difficult road Bri has ever journeyed, but shes unable to stop herself from falling into an irresistible tango of love.

Best Kindle Unlimited Books 2020: Cookbooks

Instant Pot Cookbook @2020: 600 Foolproof Recipes For Beginners and Advanced Users by Matilda Armstrong

Do you want quick & easy solutions in the kitchen mastering your Instant Pot? Are you willing to have more free time while cooking delicious meals? Well, if the answer is yes, then thats why Im here for. To help you with achieving this, I focused on creating the one and only Instant Pot cookbook, for excellent results, with easy and effortless to cook recipes for anyone.

Meal Prep for Two: 8 Weekly Plans & 75 Recipes to Get Healthier Together by Casey Seiden

Convenience doesnt have to come with a cost to your wallet, health, or sanity! Now you can prepare delicious, nourishing dishes for two ahead of timeand savor them throughout the week, stress-free. Whether youre prepping food with a partner, family member, or roommate, Meal Prep for Two will help you build simple and balanced meals together.

#ISeafoodDifferently: 11 Of My Most Popular Recipes and The Stories Behind Them by Chef Kendric Smith

This recipe book is the first of many to come. Its my pleasure to share my cooking secrets with you!!

Bread Baking for Beginners: The Essential Guide to Baking Kneaded Breads, No-Knead Breads, and Enriched Breads by Bonnie Ohara

Baking a perfect loaf of bread is part science and part magic. Created from four simple ingredients of flour, yeast, water, and salt, breadmaking is one of the most difficult (and delicious) baking endeavors. Bread Baking for Beginners is a rare bread cookbook for true beginners to keep their bread baking on the rise.

The Baking Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum

The latest and most comprehensive baking book yet from best-selling author and diva of desserts Rose Levy Beranbaum and winner of the 2015 IACP Cookbook Award for Baking. Legendary baker Rose Levy Beranbaum is back with her most extensive bible yet. With all-new recipes for the best cakes, pies, tarts, cookies, candies, pastries, breads, and more, this magnum opus draws from Roses passion and expertise in every category of baking. As is to be expected from the woman whos been called the most meticulous cook who ever lived, each sumptuous recipe is truly foolproofwith detail-oriented instructions that eliminate guesswork, plan-aheads, ingenious tips, and highlights for success. From simple everyday crowd-pleasers (Coffee Crumb Cake Muffins, Gingersnaps, Gooseberry Crisp) to show-stopping stunners (Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse Tart, Mango Bango Cheesecake, White Christmas Peppermint Cake) to bakery-style pastries developed for the home kitchen (the famous French Kouign Amann), every recipe proves that delicious perfection is within reach for any baker.

Best Kindle Unlimited Books 2020: YA

True to Me by Kay Bratt

Quinn Maguire has a stable life, a fianc, and what she thinks is a clear vision for her future. All of that comes undone by her mothers deathbed confessionthe absentee father Quinn spent thirty years resenting is not her real father at all. With that one revealing whisper, Quinn embarks on a journey to Maui, her mothers childhood home, a storied paradise that holds the truth about her mothers past and all its secrets Quinn is determined to uncover.

Regretting You by Colleen Hoover

Morgan Grant and her sixteen-year-old daughter, Clara, would like nothing more than to be nothing alike. Morgan is determined to prevent her daughter from making the same mistakes she did. By getting pregnant and married way too young, Morgan put her own dreams on hold. Clara doesnt want to follow in her mothers footsteps. Her predictable mother doesnt have a spontaneous bone in her body. With warring personalities and conflicting goals, Morgan and Clara find it increasingly difficult to coexist. The only person who can bring peace to the household is ChrisMorgans husband, Claras father, and the family anchor. But that peace is shattered when Chris is involved in a tragic and questionable accident. The heartbreaking and long-lasting consequences will reach far beyond just Morgan and Clara.

The Will and the Wilds by Charlie N. Holmberg

Enna knows to fear the mystings that roam the wildwood near her home. When one tries to kill her to obtain an enchanted stone, Enna takes a huge risk: fighting back with a mysting of her own. Maekalluss help isnt free. His price? A kiss. One with the power to steal her soul. But their deal leaves Maekallus bound to the mortal realm, which begins eating him alive. Only Ennas kiss, given willingly, can save him from immediate destruction. Its a temporary salvation for Maekallus and a lingering doom for Enna. Part of her soul now burns bright inside Maekallus, making him feel for the first time.

Not My Type of Stranger by Prachi Gupta

Lakshya is living the playboy life and he LOVES it. He doesnt believe in love and has never failed to get a girl in his lifeuntil he meets Ridhima, the new girl next door. He prefers easy hook-ups, and shes definitely not his type. Shes totally uninterested in him and he cant stand it. Hell stop at nothing to win her. But Ridhima has a secret of her own which will make it remarkably more difficult for him to get close to her. What happens when Lakshya gets to know about the secret? Will they end up falling for one another? or Will she be the one to break his heart? A story about a bad boy falling for the good girl and not just any good girl, a hot sexy good girl with a big secret.

Girl at Heart by Kelly Oram

As the daughter of a successful Major League pitcher, Charlie Hastings has baseball in her blood. Unfortunately, being the only girl on her high school baseball team, Charlie has always been just one of the guys. When her best friend, and secret love of her life, asks another girl to the prom, Charlie is devastated. Shes tired of being overlooked by boys because shes not like other girls. Suffering a massive identity crisis, she decides to hang up her cleats and finally learn how to be a girl. But with only two weeks until the state championships, the Roosevelt High Ravens cant afford to lose their star catcher. Team captain Jace King makes her a deal: Dont quit the team, and hell help her become the girl shes so desperate to be. After all, hes got four sisters, one of whom happens to be a cheerleader. He knows a thing or two about girls. (And if he can win her heart in the process, all the better.)

Best Kindle Unlimited Books 2020: Science Fiction/Fantasy

The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaids Tale is a novel of such power that the reader will be unable to forget its images and its forecast. Set in the near future, it describes life in what was once the United States and is now called the Republic of Gilead, a monotheocracy that has reacted to social unrest and a sharply declining birthrate by reverting to, and going beyond, the repressive intolerance of the original Puritans. The regime takes the Book of Genesis absolutely at its word, with bizarre consequences for the women and men in its population.

1984 by George Orwell

In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin

When young Tenar is chosen as high priestess to the ancient and nameless Powers of the Earth, everything is taken away home, family, possessions, even her name. For she is now Arha, the Eaten One, guardian of the ominous Tombs of Atuan. While she is learning her way through the dark labyrinth, a young wizard, Ged, comes to steal the Tombs greatest hidden treasure, the Ring of Erreth-Akbe. But Ged also brings with him the light of magic, and together, he and Tenar escape from the darkness that has become her domain.

The Vine Witch by Luanne G. Smith

For centuries, the vineyards at Chteau Renard have depended on the talent of their vine witches, whose spells help create the world-renowned wine of the Chanceaux Valley. Then the skill of divining harvests fell into ruin when sorcire Elena Boureanu was blindsided by a curse. Now, after breaking the spell that confined her to the shallows of a marshland and weakened her magic, Elena is struggling to return to her former life. And the vineyard she was destined to inherit is now in the possession of a handsome stranger.

Wastelands: The New Apocalypse edited by John Joseph Adams featuring Carmen Maria Machado, Ken Liu & many more

In WASTELANDS: THE NEW APOCALYPSE, veteran anthology editor John Joseph Adams is once again our guide through the wastelands using his genre and editorial expertise to curate his finest collection of post-apocalyptic short fiction yet. Whether the end comes via nuclear war, pandemic, climate change, or cosmological disaster, these stories explore the extraordinary trials and tribulations of those who survive. Featuring never-before-published tales by: Veronica Roth, Hugh Howey, Jonathan Maberry, Seanan McGuire, Tananarive Due, Richard Kadrey, Scott Sigler, Elizabeth Bear, Tobias S. Buckell, Meg Elison, Greg van Eekhout, Wendy N. Wagner, Jeremiah Tolbert, and Violet Allenplus, recent reprints by: Carmen Maria Machado, Carrie Vaughn, Ken Liu, Paolo Bacigalupi, Kami Garcia, Charlie Jane Anders, Catherynne M. Valente, Jack Skillingstead, Sofia Samatar, Maureen F. McHugh, Nisi Shawl, Adam-Troy Castro, Dale Bailey, Susan Jane Bigelow, Corinne Duyvis, Shaenon K. Garrity, Nicole Kornher-Stace, Darcie Little Badger, Timothy Mudie, and Emma Osborne.

Best Kindle Unlimited Books 2020: General Fiction/Literary Fiction

Where the Story Starts by Imogen Clark

As single mother Leah struggles to get her children ready one morning, the doorbell rings. Standing on the doorstep of their terraced house in Whitley Bay is a well-dressed stranger, Clio, who feels an emotional tie to the house that she cant explain. The story should end there, but a long-buried secret is already on its way to the surface

The Overdue Life of Amy Byler by Kelly Harms

Overworked and underappreciated, single mom Amy Byler needs a break. So when the guilt-ridden husband who abandoned her shows up and offers to take care of their kids for the summer, she accepts his offer and escapes rural Pennsylvania for New York City. Usually grounded and mild mannered, Amy finally lets her hair down in the city that never sleeps. She discovers a life filled with culture, sophistication, andwith a little encouragement from her friendsa few blind dates. When one man in particular makes quick work of Amys heart, she risks losing herself completely in the unexpected escape, and as the summer comes to an end, Amy realizes too late that she must make an impossible decision: stay in this exciting new chapter of her life, or return to the life she left behind.

The Murmur of Bees by Sofa Segovia

From the day that old Nana Reja found a baby abandoned under a bridge, the life of a small Mexican town forever changed. Disfigured and covered in a blanket of bees, little Simonopio is for some locals the stuff of superstition, a child kissed by the devil. But he is welcomed by landowners Francisco and Beatriz Morales, who adopt him and care for him as if he were their own. As he grows up, Simonopio becomes a cause for wonder to the Morales family, because when the uncannily gifted child closes his eyes, he can see what no one else canvisions of all thats yet to come, both beautiful and dangerous. Followed by his protective swarm of bees and living to deliver his adoptive family from threatsboth human and those of natureSimonopios purpose in Linares will, in time, be divined.

One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow: A Novel by Olivia Hawker

Wyoming, 1876. For as long as they have lived on the frontier, the Bemis and Webber families have relied on each other. With no other settlers for miles, it is a matter of survival. But when Ernest Bemis finds his wife, Cora, in a compromising situation with their neighbor, he doesnt think of survival. In one impulsive moment, a man is dead, Ernest is off to prison, and the women left behind are divided by rage and remorse. Losing her husband to Coras indiscretion is another hardship for stoic Nettie Mae. But as a brutal Wyoming winter bears down, Cora and Nettie Mae have no choice but to come together as one familyto share the duties of working the land and raising their children. Theres Nettie Maes son, Clydeno longer a boy, but not yet a manwho must navigate the road to adulthood without a father to guide him, and Coras daughter, Beulah, who is as wild and untamable as her prairie home.

Halsey Street by Naima Coster

Penelope Grand has scrapped her failed career as an artist in Pittsburgh and moved back to Brooklyn to keep an eye on her ailing father. Shes accepted that her future wont be what shed dreamed, but now, as gentrification has completely reshaped her old neighborhood, even her past is unrecognizable. Old haunts have been razed, and wealthy white strangers have replaced every familiar face in Bed-Stuy. Even her mother, Mirella, has abandoned the family to reclaim her roots in the Dominican Republic. That took courage. Its also unforgivable.

Best Kindle Unlimited Books 2020: Biography and Memoir

If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood by Gregg Olsen

After more than a decade, when sisters Nikki, Sami, and Tori Knotek hear the word mom, it claws like an eagles talons, triggering memories that have been their secret since childhood. Until now. For years, behind the closed doors of their farmhouse in Raymond, Washington, their sadistic mother, Shelly, subjected her girls to unimaginable abuse, degradation, torture, and psychic terrors. Through it all, Nikki, Sami, and Tori developed a defiant bond that made them far less vulnerable than Shelly imagined. Even as others were drawn into their mothers dark and perverse web, the sisters found the strength and courage to escape an escalating nightmare that culminated in multiple murders.

The Boy Between Worlds: A Biography by Annejet van der Zijl

When they fell in love in 1928, Rika and Waldemar could not have been more different. She was a thirty-seven-year-old Dutch-born mother, estranged from her husband. He was her immigrant boarder, not yet twenty, and a wealthy Surinamese descendant of slaves. The child they have together, brown skinned and blue eyed, brings the couple great joy yet raises some eyebrows. Until the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands explodes their promising life. What unfolds is more than the astonishing story of a love that prevailed over convention. Its also the quest of a young boy. Through the cruelty of World War II, he will fight for a connection between his fathers South American birthplace and his mothers European traditions. Lost and displaced for much of his life, but with a legacy of resilience in his blood, he will struggle to find his place in the world.

The Pale-Faced Lie: A True Story by David Crow

Growing up on the Navajo Indian Reservation, David Crow and his three siblings idolized their dad. Tall, strong, smart, and brave, the self-taught Cherokee regaled his family with stories of his World War II feats. But as time passed, David discovered the other side of Thurston Crow, the ex-con with his own code of ethics that justified cruelty, violence, lieseven murder.

Prognosis: A Memoir of My Brain by Sarah Vallance

When Sarah Vallance is thrown from a horse and suffers a jarring blow to the head, she believes shes walked away unscathed. The next morning, things take a sharp turn as shes led from work to the emergency room. By the end of the week, a neurologist delivers a devastating prognosis: Sarah suffered a traumatic brain injury that has caused her IQ to plummet, with no hope of recovery. Her brain has irrevocably changed.

Born Survivors: Three Young Mothers and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage, Defiance, and Hope by Wendy Holden

The Nazis murdered their husbands but concentration camp prisoners Priska, Rachel, and Anka would not let evil take their unborn children tooa remarkable true story that will appeal to readers of The Lost and The Nazi Officers Wife, Born Survivors celebrates three mothers who defied death to give their children life.

Best Kindle Unlimited Books 2020: Business/Money

Girl On Fire: How to Choose Yourself, Burn the Rule Book, and Blaze Your Own Trail in Life and Business by Cara Alwill Leyba

Who would you be if you stopped following *their* rules? What would you create if you create if you had nothing holding you back? Now that women entrepreneurs are banding together in sisterhood and realizing the importance of collaboration over competition, its time to take things to the next level. Its time to rise up, together, and challenge the status quo. Its time to question the way things have been done in the past, to write our own rules, and do life and business OUR way.

Understanding Your Clients through Human Design: The Breakthrough Technology by Robin Winn MFT

Human Design is the next evolution after Myers-Briggs, the Enneagram, and other innovative profiling systems. Whether your field is psychotherapy, recovery, coaching, or healing arts, and whether your clients are individuals, couples, families, or business teams, Understanding Your Clients through Human Design will empower your work and call you to reconsider how you approach people.

The 60 Minute Startup: A Proven System to Start Your Business in 1 Hour a Day and Get Your First Paying Customers in 30 Days (or Less) by Ramesh Dontha

Over 543,000 new businesses are started every month. Most fail. Many never get a paying customer. Why? Because new entrepreneurs are told to start with why, take internet marketing courses, and spend hours doing market research. Do these time-intensive activities attract customers? Make sales? Create profit? No! If youre ready to finally start a profitable business and dump the bad business advice that keeps you confused, overwhelmed, and broke, The 60 Minute Startup is for you. This book gives you a proven system on how to start a business online in just one hour a day and get your first paying customers in one month (or less).

Buy Hold Sell: The Street SmartWay to Real Estate Wealthby Lou Brown

At the turn of the 19th century, billionaire Andrew Carnegie famously said that 90% of millionaires got their wealth by investing in real estate. And guess what? Most millionaires, and even the ultra-rich, would tell you that is still true. Spend a few minutes Googling the phrase should I invest in real estate and it will quickly become clear that real estate investing is a great idea. What isnt so clear, though, is how to get started! Thats what this book will show you. Lou Brown bought his first piece of real estate in 1976 and never stopped. Over the years hes experienced more lessons from the school of hard knocks than he can count and has built a tremendously profitable real estate portfolio. Along the way, Lou discovered that he had a knack for structuring win-win deals, plus creating contracts and paperwork that gave him a competitive edge over other investors. In 1987 he began teaching others his proprietary method of investing, including the unique, proven Buy-Hold-Sell system he created the subject of this book.

A Beginners Guide to the Stock Market: Everything You Need to Start Making Money Today by Matthew R. Kratter

This book will teach you everything that you need to know to start making money in the stock market today. Dont gamble with your hard-earned money. If you are going to make a lot of money, you need to know how the stock market really works. You need to avoid the pitfalls and costly mistakes that beginners make. And you need time-tested trading and investing strategies that actually work. This book gives you everything that you will need. Its a simple road map that anyone can follow.

Best Kindle Unlimited Books 2020: Graphic Novels

Akai Chapter 0 How To Become Strong by Anfernee Robinson

Akai is a young child with high hopes; bound in a society full of undiscovered powers; raised by Grandma in the Jex helps him develop a strong will. He will one day, begin a trial to Heavens Gate. The journey is a troubled one. The Black Orlov chain opens unparalleled events. Will Akai reach his Ultimate goal? Or will Akai bend fate forever?

Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes 30th Anniversary Edition by Neil Gaiman

New York Times best-selling author Neil Gaimans transcendent series THE SANDMAN is often hailed as the definitive Vertigo title and one of the finest achievements in graphic storytelling. Gaiman created an unforgettable tale of the forces that exist beyond life and death by weaving ancient mythology, folklore and fairy tales with his own distinct narrative vision. In PRELUDES & NOCTURNES, an occultist attempting to capture Death to bargain for eternal life traps her younger brother Dream instead. After his 70 year imprisonment and eventual escape, Dream, also known as Morpheus, goes on a quest for his lost objects of power. On his arduous journey Morpheus encounters Lucifer, John Constantine, and an all-powerful madman.

The Essential Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury by Bill Watterson

Bill Wattersons Calvin and Hobbes has been a worldwide favorite since its introduction in 1985. The strip follows the richly imaginative adventures of Calvin and his trusty tiger, Hobbes. Whether a poignant look at serious family issues or a round of time-travel (with the aid of a well-labeled cardboard box), Calvin and Hobbes will astound and delight you.

Fire Force Vol. 1 by Atsushi Ohkubo

The city of Tokyo is plagued by a deadly phenomenon: spontaneous human combustion! Luckily, a special team is there to quench the inferno: The Fire Force! The fire soldiers at Special Fire Cathedral 8 are about to get a unique addition. Enter Shinra, a boy who possesses the power to run at the speed of a rocket, leaving behind the famous devils footprints (and destroying his shoes in the process). Can Shinra and his cooleagues discover the source of this strange epidemic before the city burns to ashes?

Anne of Green Gables: A Graphic Novel by Mariah Marsden

The magic of L.M. Montgomerys treasured classic is reimagined in a whimsically-illustrated graphic novel adaptation perfect for newcomers and kindred spirits alike. When Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert decide to adopt an orphan who can help manage their family farm, they have no idea what delightful trouble awaits them. With flame-red hair and an unstoppable imagination, 11-year-old Anne Shirley takes Green Gables by storm. Annes misadventures bring a little romance to the lives of everyone she meets: her bosom friend, Diana Barry; the town gossip, Mrs. Lynde; and that infuriating tease, Gilbert Blythe. From triumphs and thrills to the depths of despair, Anne turns each everyday moment into something extraordinary.

Best Kindle Unlimited Books 2020: Mystery/Thriller/Suspense

When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara ONeal

Her sister has been dead for fifteen years when she sees her on the TV news Josie Bianci was killed years ago on a train during a terrorist attack. Gone forever. Its what her sister, Kit, an ER doctor in Santa Cruz, has always believed. Yet all it takes is a few heart-wrenching seconds to upend Kits world. Live coverage of a club fire in Auckland has captured the image of a woman stumbling through the smoke and debris. Her resemblance to Josie is unbelievable. And unmistakable. With it comes a flood of emotionsgrief, loss, and angerthat Kit finally has a chance to put to rest: by finding the sister whos been living a lie.

Uptown Thief by Aya de Len

Marisol Rivera barely survived being abused with nowhere to turn. So theres nothing she wont do to keep her Lower East Side womens health clinic open and give disadvantaged women new lives. Running an exclusive escort service for New York Citys rich and powerful 1 percent is the perfect way to bankroll her businessnot to mention the perfect cover for robbing corrupt CEOs. And when times get even tougher, pulling a heist on a mega-billionaire will secure the clinics futureand her gorgeous crewsfor good. . . Theres just one problem: Marisol didnt anticipate bad news even more dangerous than her curves.

Unspeakable Things by Jess Lourey

Cassie McDowells life in 1980s Minnesota seems perfectly wholesome. She lives on a farm, loves school, and has a crush on the nicest boy in class. Yes, there are her parents strange parties and their parade of deviant guests, but shes grown accustomed to them. All that changes when someone comes hunting in Lilydale. One by one, local boys go missing. One by one, they return changedviolent, moody, and withdrawn.

We Were Mothers: A Novel by Katie Sise

A scandalous revelation is about to devastate a picturesque town where the houses are immaculate and the neighborhoods are tightly knit. Devoted mother Cora OConnell has found the journal of her friend Laurels daughtera beautiful college student who lives next doorrevealing an illicit encounter. Hours later, Laurel makes a shattering discovery of her own: her daughter has vanished without a trace. Over the course of one weekend, the crises of two close families are about to trigger a chain reaction that will expose a far more disturbing web of secrets. Now everything is at stake as theyre forced to confront the lies they have told in order to survive.

In the Dark by Loreth Anne White

The promise of a luxury vacation at a secluded wilderness spa has brought together eight lucky guests. But nothing is what they were led to believe. As a fierce storm barrels down and all contact with the outside is cut off, the guests fear that its not a getaway. Its a trap. Each one has a secret. Each one has something to hide. And now, as darkness closes in, they all have something to fearincluding one another.

Best Kindle Unlimited Books 2020: Politics/Social Science

The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee dazzled readers with his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies in 2010. That achievement was evidently just a warm-up for his virtuoso performance in The Gene: An Intimate History, in which he braids science, history, and memoir into an epic with all the range and biblical thunder of Paradise Lost (The New York Times). In this biography Mukherjee brings to life the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices.

A River in Darkness: One Mans Escape from North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa

Half-Korean, half-Japanese, Masaji Ishikawa has spent his whole life feeling like a man without a country. This feeling only deepened when his family moved from Japan to North Korea when Ishikawa was just thirteen years old, and unwittingly became members of the lowest social caste. His father, himself a Korean national, was lured to the new Communist country by promises of abundant work, education for his children, and a higher station in society. But the reality of their new life was far from utopian. In this memoir translated from the original Japanese, Ishikawa candidly recounts his tumultuous upbringing and the brutal thirty-six years he spent living under a crushing totalitarian regime, as well as the challenges he faced repatriating to Japan after barely escaping North Korea with his life. A River in Darkness is not only a shocking portrait of life inside the country but a testament to the dignityand indomitable natureof the human spirit.

The Mueller Report by The Washington Post

Read the findings of the Special Counsels investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, complete with accompanying analysis by the Post reporters whove covered the story from the beginning.

War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence by Ronan Farrow

US foreign policy is undergoing a dire transformation, forever changing Americas place in the world. Institutions of diplomacy and development are bleeding out after deep budget cuts; the diplomats who make Americas deals and protect its citizens around the world are walking out in droves. Offices across the State Department sit empty, while abroad the military-industrial complex has assumed the work once undertaken by peacemakers. Were becoming a nation that shoots first and asks questions later. In an astonishing journey from the corridors of power in Washington, DC, to some of the most remote and dangerous places on earthAfghanistan, Somalia, and North Korea among themacclaimed investigative journalist Ronan Farrow illuminates one of the most consequential and poorly understood changes in American history. His firsthand experience as a former State Department official affords a personal look at some of the last standard bearers of traditional statecraft, including Richard Holbrooke, who made peace in Bosnia and died while trying to do so in Afghanistan.

Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service by Michael Bar-Zohar

For decades, Israels renowned security arm, the Mossad, has been widely recognized as the best intelligence service in the world. In Mossad, authors Michael Bar-Zohar and Nissim Mishal take us behind the closed curtain with riveting, eye-opening, boots-on-the-ground accounts of the most dangerous, most crucial missions in the agencys 60-year history. These are real Mission: Impossible true stories brimming with high-octane actionfrom the breathtaking capture of Nazi executioner Adolph Eichmann to the recent elimination of key Iranian nuclear scientists. Anyone who is fascinated by the world of international espionage, intelligence, and covert Black-Ops warfare will find Mossad electrifying reading.

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Three days with The Dice Man: I never wrote for money or fame’

His 1971 novel was a countercultural sensation, selling 2m copies. But the author has surrounded himself in mystery. Why?

When I read The Dice Man 15 years ago, I wanted to know who had written it, and why. It read more like an act of survival than a novel, but whether it was the authors survival or mine, I wasnt sure. I had stopped drinking alcohol and I was looking, simply, for another drug. The book made me high; it offered multiple universes, all of them safer than vodka.

The Dice Man is seemingly an autobiography, narrated by a bored, clever New York psychiatrist, Luke Rhinehart. He is a nerd run mad. He decides that, in pursuit of ultimate freedom or nihilism he will make decisions using dice. He offers the dice options, and they choose for him. The dice tell him to rape his neighbour, but he fails because she wants him. The dice make him tell his patients what he thinks of them (my favourite dice decision). It was a perfect novel: a fantasy of escape and, for me, a search for an absent and charismatic father.

The book was published in 1971, an era devoted to psychoanalysis (not the mocking of it), and it was not an instant success. But over the course of 45 years, it has become a famous book, with devoted fans. The Dice Man has sold more than 2m copies in multiple languages and is still in print.

Dicing became a minor craze. Richard Branson said The Dice Man had inspired him, although he used the dice for only 24 hours because it was too dangerous to carry on longer. The entrepreneur Jeremy King opened a series of London restaurants due to a dice decision. In 1999, a Loaded magazine writer, who described Rhinehart as the novelist of the century, took heroin after a dice decision, while his girlfriend performed in a strip club. In 2005, comedian Danny Wallace published a memoir, Yes Man, in which he travelled the world saying yes to everything, again loosely inspired by Rhinehart.

As his notoriety grew, journalists came to interview the Dice Man. But Luke Rhinehart does not exist: he is the pseudonym of a man called George Powers Cockcroft, who shielded his real identity from his readers for many years. There was no Dice Man in these interviews, but there was no one else, either. Cockcroft played his part as an avuncular blank who liked dicing and drinking, a sort of Robert Mitchum pastiche; and of Cockcroft, whom I increasingly found more interesting than Rhinehart, there was almost nothing.

Why write a perfect novel, give all the credit to a ghost, then never write its equal again? I have been emailing Cockcroft since 2002, when, in a frenzy of half-hearted self-destruction, I attempted to dice my way through a Conservative party conference in Brighton. It was for an article, and I sought his advice, which was friendly and encouraging. The choices I gave myself were timid would I order a hamburger or a steak? though I do remember pretending to be Jesus Christ in the restaurant of the Grand hotel. The article was not a success, and was never published. The appeal of the dice is: how much power will you give them? I gave them nothing, and they gave nothing in return.

I have tried to interview Cockcroft before. I even met him once, in a hotel bar in London 10 years ago. He looked large and alien amid the pale chintz of Kensington, wearing a stetson that almost reached the chandelier. Last year, around the publication of his most recent novel, Invasion, which is about a friendly and intelligent alien who comes to Earth and is bewildered by our stupidity, we had a telephone interview in which he claimed, at 84, to be multiple selves, describing himself as we. We he and I were on a conference call with his publicist, and I asked him where The Dice Man had come from. You must realise, he told me softly, his voice a little hoarse, I have always conceived of myself as being multiple having, you know, a dozen different selves, if not a thousand different selves, at any given moment. He sounded croaky and crotchety, and I didnt push him. Instead, I asked if I could come and stay with him in upstate New York.

***

George Cockcroft, I say for the tape recorder. Yes, he says. Here I am.

We are in a large white house in Canaan. The houses are widely spaced here, on hills around a pond of ice; there are spindly trees on the horizon. The house is warm, comfortable, shabby, with wind chimes on the terrace.

Cockcroft is very tall and lean, his face weather-beaten from years of sailing and working in the garden. It has a kind of luminous joy that is very childlike, unless he is weary. His voice is deep, hoarse and excitable. He is, in some ways, very conventional for a myth: he chops wood, drinks whiskey, eats chocolate biscuits, feeds the fire. When he wants something, he shouts for his wife, Ann. They have been married for 60 years and there is deep love between them. I can feel it all through the house.

Cockcroft at his home in Canaan, New York. Photograph: Reed Young for the Guardian

Slowly, he tells me the facts of his biography. He is warm, courteous and curious; at one point, when I mention I need money to buy a house, he offers, very seriously, to lend it to me. Sometimes he says he cant remember things. Sometimes he says he doesnt know why he does things. Sometimes he repeats that he has multiple selves, and cant access the one who has the answer to my question. (I begin to think he does this when he feels threatened; if it were habitual, wouldnt he they do it all the time?) Then he will give a sorrowful grin and we retreat: he to his study, to write or to answer emails from fans, I to the sofa to read a novel Ann wrote many years ago. Later, we try again.

Cockcroft grew up 30 miles away, in Albany. His grandfather was the chief justice of the supreme court of Vermont; his great-grandfather was the governor of Vermont; so the creator of The Dice Man was born to New England grandees. I ask about his family. My parents were both college graduates, he says, a curious first observation from a novelist who doesnt care about class. His father Donald was an electrical engineer, his mother Elizabeth went to Wellesley College. She was clever and expected cleverness from her two sons.

As a boy, he was shy and compliant, and began to use the dice at 16. He was a procrastinator: So I would make a list of things to do in a day and the dice would choose which one I did first. Then he began to use the dice to force myself to do things I was too shy to do. If the dice chose it, then somehow that made it possible.

He says he didnt have a single original thought in his adolescence. He went to his fathers school, again showing how little originality I had, and studied electrical engineering, like his father. I cant believe how naturally and easily I was conforming to everything, Cockcroft says. His younger brother James, an expert in South American politics, was a rebel; even today, his website describes him as author, lecturer, revolutionary. But I was a total conformist, he says. I was intellectually dead until I was 20.

He also studied psychology and English literature. He worked nights in a psychiatric hospital, and considered being a lawyer. (I long to meet a dice lawyer.) The dice chose Ann for him. He was driving home from the hospital and saw two nurses. He got out his dice. If it was odd, he told himself, he would offer them a lift. One of them was Ann.

She looked like Rita Hayworth, and he fell in love with her immediately, applying to Columbia University to be close to her in Brooklyn. They married in 1956 and had three sons: Corby, Powers and Christopher, who has paranoid schizophrenia and still lives with them. Cockcroft avoided the draft to Korea because he had varicose veins: I hate to think what would have happened if I had gone into the military, he says. (The dice soldier.) Instead, he taught English literature at a series of colleges in America and beyond.

With Ann in 1956, minutes after proposing to her. Photograph: courtesy of George Cockcroft

He says he has no idea why he began writing. He read outsiders, and men who railed against belonging: Tolstoy, Kafka, Hemingway. His first attempt at fiction was about a young boy who is locked up in a psychiatric institution because he thinks he is Jesus Christ. He abandoned it after 80 pages, but one chapter featured a psychiatrist called Dr Luke Rhinehart. He was a minor character, Cockcroft says, but there he was.

The year he began writing The Dice Man, 1965, there was a crisis in the marriage. He and Ann were living in Mexico with James and his family. Ann was pregnant with their youngest son, and developed hepatitis. She was very frightened for herself, for the baby, Cockcroft says. She felt isolated, and felt I was somehow closer to my brother than her. She came back from Mexico very resentful of me, and frightened in a way she had never been before.

He was reading Zen and Sufism, which he describes as attacks on the self. Somehow writing the book and reading these philosophies enabled me to be detached from any bad places I was in, to not be enmeshed in them. He wrote slowly, 50 pages a year for five years. His previous writing had been laboured and self-conscious, but this was different. As soon as I began writing The Dice Man, he says, I felt I had found my natural voice. I didnt think of it that way at the time, but the book is about what makes human beings unhappy and how they can escape.

He admits the writing was psychoanalysis, a way of understanding, and processing, his brief estrangement from Ann. The Dice Man involves some of the things I could do if I could free myself from Ann. But the book went way beyond that. There is, for instance, much adulterous sex.

Lukes wife in the book, Lil, funny, sexy, a good mother, is something like Ann. He admits that the children are based on my own children. But he couldnt go as far as Luke. My dicing has always been very limited, he says. I was wise enough to know that I didnt want to risk my marriage by giving options to things that might ruin the marriage. I never gave an option that would hurt people.

Upstairs, above his and Anns bed, there is a painting of two Georges one good, one bad by Ann. Her paintings fill the house. I wasnt consciously angry, Cockcroft says, of the trouble in their marriage. Sad is closer than angry. I never get very unhappy. Every year that goes by, you realise how unimportant everything is. I dont think Ive asked much of life since I wrote The Dice Man. I was ambitious then. Ive mellowed. Pretty soon Ill be a liquid lying on the ground.

Above the couples bed hangs a painting by Ann of two Georges one good, one bad. Photograph: Reed Young for the Guardian

Is Luke your repressed self, I ask. Because, for all his wit, Luke Rhinehart is a raging man, and George Cockcroft is not. But he wont answer the question. Remember, he says, there is no single you. So that is a question I would not answer. Later, he does go further. Luke is the hard, cold version of George, he says, then adds: What I have come to love about the Luke of the novel is his willingness to be a fool, his willingness to laugh at himself.

He shows me an excerpt from his diary, dated 10 June 1969, written in Mallorca: I must finish the Dice Man novel. I know that if I open the novel and begin to read it, I, and it, will live, and my desire to work on it and complete it will bloom again. I am the Dice Man in a way I am no one else. It is the idea which my life has created. I am not good for a second one. I am not a professional writer. I am without talent in any way. But the theory of the dice man, the ironic spirit of his life, grows as naturally in my rocky soil as do boulders here along the rocky coast of Mallorca.

Cockcroft came across the journal three or four months ago and was startled: he doesnt remember feeling that way. Later, in a restaurant by the frozen lake, I ask if the description of Luke that opens the novel is him: I am a large man, with big butchers hands, great oak thighs, rock-jawed head and massive, thick-lens glasses. Im 6ft 4in and weigh close to 230lbs; I look like Clark Kent.

Id have to look at it again, Cockcroft says. Physically, its not me. I made him a much bigger man. Hes overweight.

Luke is overweight? Ann says. I dont remember that.

Thats how I always picture him, he says.

Ann replies: I always picture him like you.

***

When Cockcroft was a child, there was a calamity. His father developed cancer in his 30s. He decided he wasnt going to put himself and his family through any more pain, he says, and he called up his doctor and said he was going to shoot himself and to come over and handle things, and he shot himself. Its the longest single sentence Cockcroft utters. He was eight or nine at the time. He cant remember exactly. He says his mother greeted him at the door after school and said, Father is dead. His only memory, after that, is, going out to the garage and not crying and wondering if I should cry. He was not close to his mother. She was a Vermont puritan, and not a naturally warm person. Did you ask her what happened to your father? No, he says, and for a moment I can hear the compliant boy. I mean no.

Do you forgive him? I admire him, he says wonderingly, as if the question is ridiculous. But it was a savage act of separation; his father didnt say goodbye.

Cockcroft says he remembers almost nothing of his life before his fathers death. He shows me fragments of an autobiography he has not finished, because he has not solved the problem of writing a narrative by multiple selves.

Was our childhood so traumatic we cant face it? he writes, in the third person. Our brother, Jim, thinks so. Jim is three years younger than we are and he remembers a cruel father that used to whip him with a belt. We dont have a single memory of being beaten with a belt. Jim is unrepressed, remembers a cruel father; we are repressed, remember nothing. Saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing. We have no painful memories pre-Dads death-day, nor any happy ones.

***

In 1969, while teaching in Mallorca, Cockcroft found a publisher for The Dice Man called Mike Franklin, and swiftly wrote the second half of the book. Franklin called it a near masterpiece and got a huge advance for the American edition.

It did badly in America, partly, Cockcroft thinks, because of a cover jacket featuring a naked woman lying on a bed. But it did better in Europe, particularly in England, Sweden, Denmark and now Spain, where it was for a time the most requested library book in Spanish universities.

No publisher asked for another novel, so he didnt write one. He fell into indolence; he was busy sailing and raising his children. Another example of my life of ambition, Cockcroft says, sarcastically. All through my 20s, I was fighting ambition. My mother had made me very ambitious to be successful at whatever I did, and I felt that was a sickness. I never wrote for money and I never consciously wrote for fame. The Dice Man was part of a lifelong process to get me to relax and enjoy things as they are, and not aspire to more than I have.

The film rights to The Dice Man were sold, and he wrote screenplays for a film that was never made. He and Ann travelled for years, often on boats; they smoked marijuana. He sank a catamaran in a storm in the Mediterranean, after Ann had prayed for three nights on deck while he apologised, precipitantly, for drowning their children. (They were picked up by a Scottish freighter 40 miles off the coast of Africa.)

The family settled in Canaan after following a Sufi cult to New York state. The Dice Man grew in fame, but Cockcroft didnt. He spent his money, and earned more. He discouraged any questions about his real self, and people rarely asked. They interviewed Luke Rhinehart and that was it, he says now. I wasnt being secretive so much as simply preferring to keep the two identities separate. Rhinehart allowed him to have a private life. Acquaintances in Canaan do not know he is the author of The Dice Man.

Cockcroft with his sons Powers (left) and Chris in 1972. Photograph: courtesy of George Cockcroft

He wrote books only when the mood, or the advance, came: White Wind, Black Rider; Whim; Long Voyage Back; The Book Of Est, a guidebook to a popular 70s cult; The Book Of The Die; and Naked Before The World, a novel alluded to in The Dice Man. Jesus Invades George is a very funny tale of George W Bush being possessed by Jesus Christ. He wrote The Search For The Dice Man, in which Luke ends up in a Japanese monastery, but it is the work of a sleeping writer: Luke barely appears and, when he does, he is a cipher.

In 2012, an email announcing his death was sent to 25 friends, apparently from Ann: It is our pleasure to inform you that Luke Rhinehart is dead. He very much wanted us to tell you this as soon as possible so you wouldnt be annoyed that he wasnt replying to your emails. But people were upset, and he later apologised for his thoughtlessness, blaming Luke. To pretend to die while sneakily lurking here and there in the darkest shadows is the lowest of the low. But we can expect no better from him.

Ask me about Invasion, he says now. He wants another roll; he is enjoying the attention. This latest book is full of his politics, which are the politics of Bernie Sanders; its tone is amused disgust, and it is very funny, if you can handle an alien protagonist who looks like a beachball, and whose beachball friend is called Molire.

I try to find a tactful way to ask him: do you mind that The Dice Man, your first book, is your best book? But my opinion doesnt bother him, because he cant agree. Right now, he says, using the multiple pronoun, we have no idea of the relative merits of our novels. At this moment, Invasion is liked very much by most of us, more than our previous books. Two years ago, we told people our favourite novel was Whim. After I finished writing Jesus Invades George, it was our favourite novel. If Invasion fails to sell, he says, he doesnt think it will bother him for more than a single afternoon.

At the end of my stay, I ask Cockcroft again about his father. He tells me he has nightmares about the garage attached to the house in which he grew up, in which he tried to weep after his fathers death. He has an image, he says hesitantly, too faint to be a memory, of a maid washing blood off the walls in the house, at the top of the stairs. I feel morbid, prodding him. He has already told me more than he has told any journalist, and he doesnt believe in cause and effect. He cannot see a connection between his fathers suicide and the creation of the Dice Man, so I stop.

But a few days later, after I have returned to England, he sends me an email. Last night I had a really remarkable dream, he writes, using the first person. For the first time in months, if not years, I was outside the house where my father committed suicide. I was walking over to our neighbours house, where contractors were arriving to do some sort of work that involved both the neighbours property and ours. I said with great confidence and authority in the direction of the contractors (not seen), I am George Cockcroft, the owner of this property. I think the subject line, in capital letters, is a joke at my expense. It says, Im CURED!

Invasion by Luke Rhinehart is published by Titan at 8.99.

Read more: http://bit.ly/2msMTKK

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