#laurie's the bear commentary

[itsjaywalkers]

OKAY SO i watched 3 eps of the bear so far and i'm LOVING it, i literally can feel my brain chemistry being altered as i watch

anyways i will be liveblogging the whole thing just for ino <3 for now i will say that carmy is a wet rag of a man and i Need him, every time richie opens his mouth my mind goes straight to tarte tatin barty, and sydney is my fav and i'm in love with her

(also this show has already punched me in the gut too many times in only 3 eps, i just know it's gonna destroy me emotionally, also i can't stop thinking about michael's letter to carmy I NEED HIM TO FIND IT ALREADY I'M TOO NOSY FOR THIS SHIT)

[renaultphile]

TC tag game

Thank you for the questions and for tagging me @spudodell.

Rules: Answer the questions and tag other TC fans!

1. "He would not fucking say that" only they did and it's canon. When/who?

Ralph to Laurie in the ‘break-up’ scene, as soon as Laurie starts asserting himself:

"Don't waste time, Spud. It's childish to start an argument about whether we love each other, the moment I go and sit on the other side of the room”

What a horrible thing to say!  Run like the wind, Laurie!

2. Did they kiss in the study? Yes/no + why you are 100% correct about this.

First let’s take a moment to appreciate Spudodell's recent spot of a stealth kiss (can you re-blog that one too, I couldn't find it!) at the beginning of the ‘break-up’ scene when Laurie comes through the door, which to me is absolutely definitive and ground-breaking (not in a good way for me, but still….brilliant detective work!)

On the kiss, I am in the ‘no kiss’ camp, but it is not possible to be definitive.  I feel that Mary plays a lot with echoes, parallels, and contrasts, and for me ultimately I feel the lack of a kiss is meant to be a contrast to other moments in the book, not an echo. 

But what has exercised me more recently is, kiss or no kiss (but especially if there was a kiss), this scene in chapter two really gives me the creeps.  I have been reading around the topic for some schoolboy Ralph fics and Alec/Ralph (watch this space on that one), and it has become ever more clear (Alec Waugh’s commentary ‘Public School Life’ being the best reference on this) that Prefects really were like Gods.  He points out that prefects had almost as much power as but even less accountability than teachers due to the ‘no-snitch rule’.  You can see it in the discussion of Hazell and his confessions, and how contemptuous the schoolboys are of him for 'confessing' (or in modern terms, reporting an inappropriate relationship).

In some ways, a kiss could explain quite a lot about Laurie’s behaviour and attitudes to Ralph in the book.  But to be brutally honest, I’ve had enough of creepy behaviour in men being disguised as ‘romantic’ in heterosexual romances (Mr Rochester, anyone?) and the thought of encountering it in a gay context in such a beloved book is just too much to bear.

So, no kiss for me!  He was still behaving pretty weirdly but that’s understandable in the circumstances.

3. Mandatory question about Ralph's alleged tattoos.

I’m sold on the fic that has him get a tattoo of his sunken ship.  Love the co-ordinates of Dunkirk idea though!  But I think Lux’s one is more realistic.  My reading of that being that he got drunk and wanted to fit in so he got a load of random not-very-good-ones.

4. 53 vs 59 edition: quote a line or paragraph that is better in the edition you like the least.

I favour the ’59 edition, as I broadly feel the cuts make it read better.  But there is one exception.  When Laurie is daydreaming about swimming with Charles, Mary cuts this line:

“Take off your things and jump in."

Apparently skinny-dipping was a step too far for the US audience!  Scandalous!

5. Which TC character would feel right at home here on tumblr dot com?

Bunny but not in a good way.

6. Tag yourself at Alec's birthday party.

I’m Laurie as in sitting in the corner checking out the books.  Not as in going on a rescue mission with some drunken guy.

7. Post a TC meme.

Sorry I couldn’t find the source of this – not exactly a meme but it made me laugh!

8. Easy to talk about who deserved better. Who deserved worse?

Not that I know what happened to them, but Andrew’s relatives who tried as hard as they could to ruin his life, as if his parents dying wasn't bad enough.

9. You can break the fourth wall (at any point in the novel) and say a single sentence to our protagonist, Laurie Odell. What do you say?

I would tell him not to let Dave bully him into leaving Andrew without seeing him.  Because he knows with every fibre of his being that Andrew would not want that.

10. What's a question you have about TC? One you haven't found an answer for yet.

Too many to say.  It’s the unknown unknowns that really get me.

Tagging @gayskogul @telltaleangelina @jeork @alovelywaytospendanevening @black-bentley and anyone else who wants to play and would like to raise their head above the parapet!!

[princesssarisa]

More "Little Women" thoughts: Beth March and ableism (warning: very long)

@littlewomenchannel, @thatscarletflycatcher, @joandfriedrich

A few days ago, I was looking for articles about ableism in 19th century literature (because some of us casually do that sort of thing) when I came across this review of Little Women. It's a sad review: the author writes that Little Women was her favorite childhood book, but now, as an adult, she can't enjoy it anymore, because she's come to recognize the "ableism" of the portrayal of Beth's illness and death. As a chronically ill person herself, she used to enjoy identifying with Beth and looked to her as a role model. But now she realizes that this probably fed her own internalized ableism and taught her to suppress her feelings about her illness, because of the way Beth is admired for never complaining while she's sick. She also objects to the fact that Beth (a) has no ambitions or dreams for the future, as if sick people "aren't allowed" to have them, (b) is portrayed as "too good and pure for this earth," and (c) is used as "inspiration porn" to teach Jo and the other sisters to be better people.

I've written in the past about how much I dislike most of the commentary I've read about Beth's character. Without a doubt, critics tend to view her in ableist ways. But only in the past year, with this review as the culmination, have I considered that maybe her portrayal in the book itself is ableist. While I'm not chronically ill, I relate to Beth for different reasons, and I wish I could argue that her portrayal isn't ableist at all: not only for my own sake, but so the above reviewer could enjoy her former favorite book again. But that's impossible to argue. Still, I'd like to take some time to look at Beth's portrayal, through the lens of disability, illness, and premature death in fiction, and the complexities of how it handles those issues.

There's no denying that the book uses Beth's illnesses as a device to inspire growth in the other characters. In Part I, her scarlet fever is written chiefly as an ordeal for Meg, Jo, and Amy, which serves their coming-of-age journeys, and in Part II, her final illness and death once again serve the others' development. Namely by teaching Jo to be kinder and more patient, by reviving Jo's writing career as she works through her grief by turning back to her pen, and by finally bringing Amy and Laurie together as a couple. Of course using a sick or disabled character's suffering and death mainly to serve the healthy, able-bodied characters' personal growth is an ableist tradition, just like the "women in the refrigerator" trope (sacrificing female characters for male characters' development) is sexist.

There's also the fact that Beth is admired, both by Jo and by Louisa May Alcott's narrator voice, for being patient and uncomplaining throughout most of her sickness (though not through all of it– more on that below), rarely even asking for help or care, and "trying not to be a trouble" even as she nears death. Of course we should question the old tradition of glorifying people, especially women and girls, who efface themselves for others and who never complain no matter how much they suffer. Whether their suffering is illness, abuse, poverty, or anything else, the old-fashioned model of "bearing it cheerfully" should definitely be questioned. A chronically ill person should be allowed to fully express their pain and anger. And Beth's real-life model, Louisa May Alcott's sister Elizabeth "Lizzie" Alcott, was angry about her fatal illness – allegedly she became prone to uncontrollable rages in her painful last year of life, which her sister left out of Beth's decline to give her a more socially acceptable "good Christian death." The pressure to never complain, to "try not to be a trouble," and to be a role model of bravery for friends and family is a burden that no sick or disabled person needs! Yet as the above book review made clear, Beth's portrayal can potentially put that pressure on a sick or disabled reader. Just because it was common and accepted in the 19th century to portray illness and death this way doesn't make it any less ableist than it would be from a modern author.

Yet Beth's storyline is more than just a string of ableist 19th century illness tropes. To view it that way requires ignoring its context, both in Alcott's personal life and in the literature of her era.

First of all, there's the fact that Beth is based on a real person, Alcott's beloved sister. She's an idealized portrait, but she's still based in truth. Alcott didn't create a sickly fictional character just to kill off for the sake of the other characters' growth; Beth becomes chronically ill because Lizzie became chronically ill, and she dies because Lizzie died. By idealizing her as Beth and by portraying her life and death as inspiring her family and friends to become better people, Alcott meant to pay tribute to her sister – and maybe it also filled a need within her to find some meaning in her sister's suffering and in such a terrible, unfair loss. Of course just because Alcott loved her sister doesn't mean she couldn't have been ableist toward her, and just because she meant Beth's portrayal as a tribute doesn't mean it can't include problematic tropes. But the context is important to remember.

Besides, while Beth might seem like a figure of old-fashioned, syrupy sentimentality by modern writing standards, I would argue that compared to similar sweet, doomed female characters in other books of the same era, her portrayal is fairly progressive.

19th century fiction is full of angelic young girls, either children or teenage maidens, who, after short lives of gentle, selfless piety, waste patiently away from a drawn-out illness, and then die a "good Christian death," leaving their loved ones to become better people by their example. Two others I know besides Beth, and whom Alcott knew too, are Helen Burns in Jane Eyre and Evangeline "Little Eva" St. Clare in Uncle Tom's Cabin. (Anyone who calls Beth's death "the most maudlin death in 19th century literature" hasn't read Eva's!) Another famous example would probably be Charles Dickens' Little Nell from The Old Curiosity Shop, but I haven't read that book yet. Fairly often these characters seem to have been written as tributes to young girls in the authors' own families who had died: for example, Charlotte Brontë based Helen Burns on her sister Maria, while Dickens based Little Nell on his teenage sister-in-law Mary Hogarth. In some ways Beth is a classic example of this trope: that I'll grant. But I would argue that she's a complex example. I sincerely think Alcott set out to portray her as less of a romanticized paragon who exists to inspire others and more of a real human being than earlier authors' doomed angel-girls.

Beth is framed as a co-protagonist with her three sisters, not as a supporting character like Helen Burns or Eva St. Clare. This gets lost in the adaptations that focus more exclusively on Jo, but the book is called Little Women and not Jo for a reason. In Part I, despite idealizing her more than the other sisters and sometimes holding her up as their role model, Alcott still makes a point to say that Beth was "not an angel but a very human little girl." Just like her sisters, she dislikes tedious chores. She can be irresponsible, namely when her pet bird dies after she forgets to feed him for days. She can be moody, though it tends to manifest as tears or headaches instead of the angry snapping her sisters indulge in. And she has one big "burden" that she actively struggles with: her overwhelming shyness. She isn't a static character who inspires growth in others without needing to grow herself. Even though her flaws are minor, the idea that Alcott meant her to be a symbol of perfect goodness, too pure for this earth, doesn't ring true.

Her illnesses are also portrayed with a degree of harsh realism that sets her apart from the saintly dying girls in other books. The tuberculosis that kills both Helen Burns and Eva St. Clare is just a slow, gentle weakening with occasional coughs. But Beth's scarlet fever is frightening, both for her sisters and for herself, and her final illness, although vaguely described, is emphatically painful. Her body becomes a "prison-house of pain," as Jo writes, and her formerly calm, uncomplaining demeanor crumbles in a "rebellious" period of physical and emotional torment, horrible for her family to watch. This was clearly the phase when in real life, Lizzie Alcott became prone to fits of rage and dependent on drugs to manage both her pain and her moods; even though Little Women cuts those uglier details, we still feel the tumult, which isn't negated by the fact that it eventually passes and Beth's last days are peaceful.

More importantly, even though Alcott admires Beth for rarely complaining, she still allows her to be miserable about her condition, and the journey of coming to terms with it is Beth's own journey, not just her family's. Helen Burns and Eva St. Clare both serenely embrace death and look forward to heaven. But Beth? She's distraught to have her happy life cut short. True, she tries to resign herself and hide her sadness from her family, but it's clear that she's deeply depressed, and in two different scenes she breaks down crying in Jo's arms (first in bed, before she admits the reason why, and later at the beach after her reveal that she knows she's doomed). Only gradually, over the course of a year and after the above-mentioned period of anguished "rebellion," does she find inner peace, partly thanks to her religious faith, but thanks even more to the loving care and support her family gives her. She's not just a brave role model who makes peace with her fate all alone.

Now, about her lack of dreams and ambitions... This is entirely personal, but never once have I viewed this aspect of Beth's character as Louisa May Alcott "not allowing her" to dream and aspire the way her sisters do. I've always seen it as just a part of her personality, probably taken straight from Lizzie Alcott. Of course I don't know if this is true or not: for all I know, Lizzie did have grand plans for her future which her failing health shattered, and Louisa just chose to give Beth no ambitions to make her a better foil to Jo and/or to make her death less cruel. But why assume that? It's more than possible that even if Lizzie had been healthy and lived long, she really would have been content to stay with her parents until they died, then gone to live with one of her sisters afterward, and chosen to devote her life to taking care of her family.

This is probably a good time to discuss why I relate to Beth. I've written about it before, but it's important, and it explains why I've never viewed her a just a cardboard saint, nor viewed the portrayal of her illness and death as just "inspiration porn."

Even before she becomes chronically ill, Beth is different, and not just by being angelic. "She lived in a happy world of her own," Alcott writes in Part I, "only venturing out to met the few whom she trusted and loved." As late as age fourteen, she still plays with dolls, treats them as if they were alive, and has imaginary friends. She's also been homeschooled, because her social anxiety made the classroom unbearable for her; Alcott describes her shyness as "her infirmity," implying that it's not just a character flaw, but a disability. She never wants to get married, and not only does she have no worldly ambitions, she never even wants to leave her parents' house. Her fondest wish is to "stay at home safe with Father and Mother" forever – a wish that comes true in the saddest possible way, as she dies without ever having left the nest. Yet she's not just a childlike figure, as she has high emotional intelligence from a young age, and she even composes her own music to play on the piano. From a modern perspective, it's easy to read her as neurodivergent, and it seems more than likely that Lizzie Alcott would be diagnosed as neurodivergent if she lived today. As an autistic person, I see so much of myself in Beth... and that includes her lack of ambition. Leave the safety and familiarity of home? Live far from my family, the only people who really understand me? Go out into the big, unknown, anxiety-causing world? Give up my comfortable daily routine to make massive life changes? Not me, unless I have no choice!

This is why, when I first read the book, I found it beautiful that this odd, shy, sickly homebody of a girl, so easy to overlook or dismiss, is ultimately so adored and admired. Even though she doesn't sparkle in society, or defy gender norms, or have grand ambitions, or win any man's romantic love, and even though she dies so young and would probably have never "achieved" much or lived a "normal" life anyway, she's still valuable. Her kindness, her selflessness, and the love she gives to others are enough. Her low self-esteem ("stupid little Beth") and her regret for not doing more with her life are proven wrong, as during her sickness her family and friends reveal just how much she means to them, and even after her death she still makes a positive impact, as her sisters resolve to follow her example of selfless kindness and as she inspires Jo's writing. Of course it's not her job to inspire them, but is it really so problematic that she does?

Still, I've struggled with one possibly ableist aspect of Beth's characterization: the fact that, when she confesses to Jo that she knows she's dying, she suggests that "it was never intended that I should live long." Because she's never had any desire to leave her parents' home and live a "normal" adult life, she reluctantly views her impending death as "for the best." At least it's only Beth herself who says this and not Alcott's narrator voice or any other character; but unfortunately, no one argues against it either. I'd like to think that this speech only voices Beth's low self-esteem (possibly her own internalized albleism), which her family's love, care, and gratitude toward her refute. But the possibility stands that Alcott did rationalize Lizzie's death by thinking she wouldn't have been suited to a long life because she never quite "grew up," and that she expected us to view Beth's death in the same way.

Last spring, I had my first real health crisis since early childhood. For reasons I still don't fully know (probably genetics combined with weight gain and anxiety from two years of living in a pandemic), my blood pressure went dangerously high, and I spent two days in the hospital and still have to take stabilizing pills. In my hospital bed, afraid for my life, I found myself thinking "Maybe I'm like Beth. Maybe I'm not meant to live long. I've never held a full-time job, I can't even drive, socializing is hard, I still depend on my parents and I don't know what I'll do when they're gone, I'm oversensitive, and I feel so much younger than I am. I want to live, but maybe I'm just not suited to this world." Of course that was irrational, fear-based thinking. But it showed me that I have some internalized ableism, and that Beth's view of herself as destined to die young because she's different... doesn't exactly make it better. Just like her self-effacing patience and her role of serving her sisters' character development fed the internalized ableism of the linked review's author. While it hasn't made me dislike Beth or Little Women, it did force me to view her storyline as more of a "problematic fave" than I did before.

At any rate, though, I think the book's portrayal of Beth is much less ableist than most commentary written about her. From critics who insist that she is a symbol of perfect, ethereal goodness that can't survive on earth, to those who wholeheartedly agree that she dies because she's "unable to grow up," to those who view her sisters' admiration for her as inherently anti-feminist, I've read more bad remarks about Beth than I can stand! The worst is when so-called feminist critics conflate Beth's frail health both with her home-centered life and with her gender presentation, and think they're being progressive by saying, for example, "She's killed by her traditional femininity, which makes her too weak to survive," or "She has to die because her life has no meaning outside the home and a modern woman's life needs more meaning than that." Comments like those will always make me angry, but I don't blame Alcott's writing for them. I don't think those were the messages she meant to send.

So what conclusion should I draw from all this? Well, for one thing, I have to admit that Beth's storyline is a "problematic fave" for a disabled or chronically ill reader. I can't claim it's free from ableism and I understand why there's backlash against it. But I won't join fully in the backlash just yet. Alcott's use, and arguable subversion, of ableist tropes in Beth's characterization is complex. I think it's a topic that deserves to be discussed and explored, not used as a reason for readers who relate to Beth to dismiss Little Women altogether.

[rainparadefromhell]

i still see people misinterpreting lexi's commentary on jock culture calling it homophobic and outing nate. today i responded to a person claiming the same thing in a yt comment that explains it better (i didn't mean to make it an essay but oh well). i already made a post about this but bear with me. this expands on my thoughts about the whole character as well. here's the whole comment.

Lexi didn't out Nate. The irony of that part of the play flew over your head. Lexi was making fun of the stereotypical macho jock and toxic masculinity, pointing out the irony in how they behave with one another while at the same time being offended that someone might think they're gay, even having ethan say that the girl that's playing Maddy calling them gay is fucked up (and then Nate just proves her right telling Cassie later on that it was homophobic, but him being so offended and terrified of being called gay isn't, oh okay Nate). Nate wasn't targeted, the idea of an american jock was and Nate was the center of it because he's the team captain.

Lexi, albeit accidentally, read Nate completely. He overcompensates for his sexuality with what he thinks a man should be (or rather how he sees his dad perform masculinity- with violence, coldness, blackmail and cruelty). He let those traits consume his whole identity due to his trauma. Yes, feeling like everyone is laughing at you is horrible but they weren't laughing at what Nate assumed they were laughing at. He accidentally faced his biggest fear, which is standing out from the norm (in his mind literally the crowd at that moment, if you will) and not fitting his idea of a man. The show tries to paint a picture as to why our trauma, our burdens that we carry since childhood, some we've created for ourselves, have such an impact on our lives and identities later on and why it is SO important to confront them, instead of giving into them.

It sucks what happened to him when he was a kid and it sucks what happened to him at the play but Nate Jacobs is not a child anymore. He is a grown sociopath, abusing everyone around him if he doesn't get what he wants. Understanding why someone is the way they are because of past trauma should not cloud our judgement of the person he is today and I for one, will never ever feel bad for him.

---

i understand having empathy for a character but do not let yourself accidentally be fooled by this show. it is about flawed people (almost everyone else in the show) and it is about horrible people (cal, nate, laurie..) it is about WHY people are the way they are. that's why we get povs in each episode. it is more about character study than an "actual" plot (and i personally love it for that reason exactly). it is about behavioral cause and effect, parental neglect, ptsp and so much more than you feeling bad about an abuser.

[coffee-n-bagels-comic-universe]

Inside Jokes and References in the Full Bios

Mainly for @spacelizardtrashboys and @kuruumiya

Also: Any time strikethrough text is used it's because it's meant to be secret information, for example on the small bios any time 'Lucifarian' truly isn't their last name their is strikethrough test after saying that it's not their real name. This is to say that no matter what is written or if it's strikethrough text or not, it is there for a reason.

Damien - Bio In-Jokes and References:

The Quote for him refers back to his 'King of Hell' gimmick, as does his middle name, Rex means king.

He's protective, like a dad, but also way too overprotective over the gimmicks for the girls. He's an old, old school guy so he enjoys card games with the boys.

He's supposed to sound like a young Hugh Laurie, mainly because if I heard a young Hugh Laurie say Damien's bio quote I wouldn't be able to take him seriously.

His main finisher (Seventh Circle) refers back to (a) him being the king of hell and (b) the seventh circle is for violence, and well, he's a wrestler, that's a pretty violent job.

He calls fans both 'peasants' and his 'loyal subjects' because he's like an asshole-ish king who'd quickly be dethroned if they rebelled.

Vickie - Bio In-Jokes and References:

The Quote for her refers back to her gimmick along with the old saying 'pride comes before the fall'.

She's called 'Victoria' because of both (a) it meaning victory and (b) the fact that Queen Victoria ruled back when Britain had an empire, then the empire fell (as in pride [Vickie] before a fall)

Both Her and Damien are born in August and are the only two to share a birth month as they are Father and Daughter (non-kayfabe, as in they share DNA)

She's raised Christian as back when she was growing up England was a lot more Christian than when she became an adult so she got lax in her beliefs

Her personality is supposed to make her come across as a vain, rich, arse of a person, yet deep down she's still redeemable, she's got a long way to go before she actually redeems herself though

She's the type of person who makes sure EVERY little detail of her matches and promos are PERFECT to the point that she will control what other people do or say, down to the moment it's said/done and the way it's said/done

She only likes the other D.O.D (Daughters of Darkness) members because she has only made enemies in the short while they've been in the company, she especially dislikes George 'The Animal' Steele because of his very messy style going against her 'everything should be perfect' views

She's the leader, the brain and the mouth because of her control over the group, if she let them have more control, there might be less arguments about her amount of control

Her named moves are also references to both her gimmick and other things. Beheader is named because of the Tudor monarchs of England having kind of a thing for killing people in this way (ex. Henry VIII).

Lineage Ender is named that because if she ever botches that one specific move (it'll make sense in context/ she does it during a training scene) it could end either her own Lineage or the person she's doing it to.

Lion's den is called that because she traps them in a near-inescapable crucifix pin, and normally if someone goes into a den of Lions, they aren't escaping in one piece.

Family Pride is named that because not only is her gimmick the sin of pride, but she's got pride in her family and she's her dad's 'pride and joy' because she's his only child.

Wish for this (her main finishing move) is called that because it's an inside joke of "you're gonna 'wish for this' to be over soon"

As she's Damien's blood daughter, a 'prodigal son' joke seemed somewhat appropriate.

Billie - Bio In-Jokes and References:

Her quote is a reference to the Guerreros and the whole 'Latin lover' trope

She was born in February because of Valentine's day, hence why her birthday is two days before the 14th

She's 1/2 Cuban (just in general - both Mexican and Cuban culture is interesting to me) But she's 1/2 Cuban in case I ever need to write for Razor Ramon, I can get away with making the joke of 'my Cuban accent's better than yours'.

Her casual style is 'Suggestive' because how else is Lust supposed to dress.

She dislikes Hulk Hogan because she finds him incredibly annoying and she dislikes Jesse Ventura because she dislikes his fashion choices.

I imagine her uncle Hugo looks like Luis Guzman and her dad's like Raul Julia. Try to imagine those two wrestling as a luchador tag team.

Her mother was basically a valet to her dad, which was usually Billie's role before she was part of the D.O.D.

Her move name references are all song references: Love me Tender - Elvis' song of the same name, Personal Aphrodite - a reference to / joke on 'Personal Jesus', Sexual Healing - Marvin Gaye's song of the same name.

Also, I hope to eventually use the joke 'The Babe, the babe with the power,' 'What power?' 'Power of voodoo' 'Who do?' 'You do' 'Do what?' 'Remind me of the babe' because of one of her commentary nicknames being 'The Babe'

P.G - Bio In-Jokes and References:

Her quote is in reference to her being greed and (right at the start of the story) her thoughts on money actually being able to buy her happiness

her surname 'Voronin' means crow, and well, crows like shiny things, like money

she wears 'fancy but simple' clothing because if she bought designer clothes she'd be in debt, but she still wants to look like she has more money than everyone else

she's cowardly in a Jimmy Hart way, she'll piss someone off during a promo and run away once she feels like she's in danger

she's a showman because she's more show than work, meaning she works exceptionally quick matches.

Her moves are basically jokes on the fact that she is greed, such as Gold-digger and Diamond Ring. However, Money Maker is also a joke on the fact that it's a facebuster and usually an actor's face is called their 'money maker'

She hates Hulk Hogan and Sgt slaughter because of how patriotic they are

Kirby - Bio In-Jokes and References:

Her quote is a reference to (a) the fact that she's Gluttony, (b) her being the only one who wears a mask constantly and (c) her basically being the group's scare tactic against people who think they can push them around.

I am planning on eventually making her a part of the machines, maybe as a valet, maybe as a wrestler, not 100% sure as of right now

Her mother is the Norwegian-Scottish one and her father is the Irish-Welsh one

She is the tallest (not the heaviest, that's Damien) but she's still 9 inches shorter than André.

She's willing to bleed hardway, but hates blading

She hates Big John Studd because of his disrespect, she hates Hulk Hogan because she thinks he's obnoxiously 'American', she dislikes Lord Alfred Hayes and Dynamite Kid because they are so insistent on calling her '1/4 Icelandic' whenever she talks about being 1/4 Norwegian. She hates Brutus Beefcake because he's just 'so, so much' energy-wise.

She's always been tall, always shorter than André though, she was 5'6" when she was 12, which is still taller than Sam, P.G and Eli.

Kirby's the best at using folk tales and mythology references in her promos and still keeping them dark and scary.

Her speaking voice is Jessica Hynes, but I imagine her singing voice (which will be important later) to be that of Deee-lite's Lady Miss Kier. On that note, I will be putting up a post on this part of the fic's canon.

Feeding Frenzy is meant to look similar to Roddy's wild punches, hence the 'frenzy' part of the name.

Organ grinder is named because it's meant to look really hard (like she's putting all her force and weight into it) as if she's grinding her opponents organs

Hungry for Blood is an in-joke of during her toughest matches she seems hungry to give the fans the sight of blood

Consummation is a joke of 'the match will soon be over, the match will soon be concluded, or consummated' not the sex-based meaning of that word.

Number of the beast, which is 666, is a reference to the 619, and is a modified 619 basically.

Vampire's Bite is a reference to her sitout jawbreaker looking like she could possibly bite someone's neck, like a vampire, as she performs the move

I didn't want to call her chops, chops, so I made a joke of 'oh it's chopping, like a butcher's knife'

Overfeeding is another basic gluttony reference. Cheshire Grin is a facelock-based joke. Let Them Eat Cake is a butt=cake joke

The ogress is a thinly-veiled way of the commentary team calling her ugly, because why else would she be the only one in a mask

Holly - Bio In-Jokes and References:

Her quote is written that way because I always wanted her to sound like she comes from New Jersey

She's very cuddly towards the rest of the D.O.D and thus gets called a teddy bear by the others

She's Pansexual because she doesn't care what your gender is, she loves people just being themselves

She's the only ginger because I've never seen a ginger wrestler from New Jersey

She was raised Catholic but lost her faith upon realising how bad gay people are treated by the church (Holly literally just goes "Y'all it is 1984, how are y'all gonna reject people based on who they love?")

Holly's very much the person who'll ask permission to cut a promo on someone but won't tell them how harsh she's going to be

She's the group's mom friend (mum friend?)

Before she started travelling with another member of the group (Holly travels with Sam a lot) she would accidentally no-show events

She does accidentally give incredibly stiff shots

Holly likes Gorilla Monsoon because their friendship is very much a weird pseudo-dad-daughter friendship, so basically, she's using him as her new dad

Her voice is Angie Harmon because I think Harmon sounds like a badass from New Jersey

Naptime, Dirt Nap and Lullaby are jokes of 'I'm gonna knock you out'

Eli - Bio In-Jokes and References:

Her quote is a joke of 'this is why she doesn't do a lot of promos'

She's the most likely to be on one of those 'too hot for TV' blooper reels from her promos

Both she and Sam hate people taller than them

Sam - Bio In-Jokes and References:

Her quote is a reference to the fact that her tattoos are her 'masterpiece'

she dresses athletically because she's always ready for a fight, especially because she's usually the one picking fights

She likes Lou because he's like a crazy uncle to her and she likes George Steele because, unlike Vickie, she likes the wild man side of his gimmick

She's voiced by Melissa Etheridge because she's still feminine but is the most masculine sounding

[critic-corner]

13 Contemporary Rom-Com Novels That You’ll (Probably) Love

Even though this is a mainly fashion and film blog, I do like to consider this a platform where I get to share my thoughts and opinions on anything of interest properly and well, reading is a big passion of mine. Even though I do talk about it on Instagram a little but, for whatever reason I don't on this blog.

Many of my reader friends ask me for recommendations, so I took this as an opportunity to create some book-related lists even though it's a little hard to do that because lists are never-ending. Anyway, I'll try. Also, don’t worry it’s not gonna turn into a book blog, it’ll just be a small segment of my entire blog.

You can click on the book title to get your own copy!

One Day In December

Laurie is pretty sure love at first sight doesn't exist anywhere but the movies. But then, through a misted-up bus window one snowy December day, she sees a man who she knows instantly is the one. Their eyes meet, there's a moment of pure magic... and then her bus drives away. Certain they're fated to find each other again, Laurie spends a year scanning every bus stop and cafe in London for him. But she doesn't find him, not when it matters anyway. Instead they "reunite" at a Christmas party, when her best friend Sarah giddily introduces her new boyfriend to Laurie. It's Jack, the man from the bus. It would be. What follows for Laurie, Sarah and Jack is ten years of friendship, heartbreak, missed opportunities, roads not taken, and destinies reconsidered.

I have never understood the love at first sight trope but because this story travels for ten years where the characters get to know each other intimately, it worked out perfectly. My favorite part about the book was how you will see these characters grow and make important life decisions. By the end, I was so emotionally invested that I was sad when the book ended.

This is definitely one of my favorite contemporary novels. I have been recommending to all of my friends, even the ones that don’t read that often. If you are a rom-com fan, get this book because it’ll simply warm your heart.

You can get your copy on Amazon - paperback or kindle.

The Royal We

American Rebecca Porter was never one for fairy tales. Her twin sister, Lacey, has always been the romantic who fantasized about glamour and fame. Yet it's Bex who seeks adventure at Oxford and finds herself living down the hall from Prince Nicholas, Great Britain's future king. And when Bex can't resist falling for Nick, the person behind the prince, it propels her into a world she did not expect to inhabit, under a spotlight she is not prepared to face. Dating Nick immerses Bex in ritzy society, dazzling ski trips, and dinners at Kensington Palace with him and his charming, troublesome brother, Freddie. But the relationship also comes with unimaginable baggage: hysterical tabloids, Nick's sparkling and far more suitable ex-girlfriends, and a royal family whose private life is much thornier and more tragic than anyone on the outside knows. The pressures are almost too much to bear, as Bex struggles to reconcile the man she loves with the monarch he's fated to become. Now, on the eve of the wedding of the century, Bex is faced with whether everything she's sacrificed for love-her career, her home, her family, maybe even herself-will have been for nothing.

If you know me, you’d know that I’m a royal family nerd. So, when I came to know about this book last year, I was all over it because it seemed like a perfect escape. And while I was expecting it to be all cheesy, I was surprised by how realistic it seemed. Yes, it has been heavily influenced by the Kate-William romance, but that only added to the thrill of it. If you want a nice royal romance which also seems relatable, this is definitely the way to go!

You can get your copy on Amazon.

This Love Story Will Self-Destruct

Meet Eve. She’s a dreamer, a feeler, a careening well of sensitivities who can’t quite keep her feet on the ground, or steer clear of trouble. She’s a laugher, a crier, a quirky and quick-witted bleeding-heart-worrier. Meet Ben. He’s an engineer, an expert at leveling floors who likes order, structure, and straight lines. He doesn’t opine, he doesn’t ruminate, he doesn’t simmer until he boils over. So naturally, when the two first cross paths, sparks don’t exactly fly. But then they meet again. And again. And then, finally, they find themselves with a deep yet fragile connection that will change the course of their relationship—possibly forever.

This book was been marketed as When Harry Met Sally reimagined and I couldn’t disagree more. Apart from the fact that the two characters meet time and again, there isn’t much else relating this story with the movie and that’s not a bad thing. I just don’t want you guys to shocked like I was. Rom-coms have a fluffy, carefree vibe to them and technically, it has those aspects, but there is an underlying sadness to the story because of the female character (with whom I surprisingly found myself relating with, by the way).

I am that person who prefers character-driven stories over plot-driven ones and while this book doesn’t really fall in either of those categories, I fell in love with the two main leads. It’s been months since I read this book and they still casually pop up in my head every now and then, and I constantly find myself talking about them like they are real people. If you are a fan of emotionally-driven romantic novels, you might like this one.

You can get your copy on Amazon - paperback or kindle.

Unmarriageable

In this one-of-a-kind retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in modern-day Pakistan, Alys Binat has sworn never to marry—until an encounter with one Mr. Darsee at a wedding makes her reconsider.

One thing to always keep in mind before reading a retelling is that you cannot expect it to be amazing. At most, it can be great. I’m saying this because the ghost of the original and the eventual comparison will always be lingering over the book which will definitely hinder the reading experience. So, just go into it expecting a nice time, and not hoping to find your all-time favorite (if you do, then obviously that’s great).

Coming to Unmarriageable, the original premise of Pride & Prejudice fits perfectly on a Pakistani back-drop, or just any desi family. And while I was expecting to fall in love with the romance, I ended up enjoying the social commentary that Soniah Kamal did and that was probably because of how similar Indian people are. All in all, it was not the best Pride & Prejudice re-tellings (I think I’m yet to find that), but I sure as hell had a fun time reading it.

You can get your copy on Amazon.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine. Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

This is one contemporary novel that has managed to step out that genre and successfully enter the literary talks. I have been hearing about this book for over a year and absolutely fell in love with it. If you are not the best in social situations and have a hard time navigating through them, you might like it very much. The story is told entirely through her point of view so it was very interesting to see this lonely person find her way to life (albeit unknowingly). What surprised me was just how funny the novel was. This can easily become one of your favorites!

Also, I have to appreciate the cover designer of this novel. There are two covers and both of them are genuinely so amazing!

You can get your copy on Amazon.

Always Never Yours

17-year-old Megan Harper is about due for her next sweeping romance. It's inevitable—each of her relationships starts with the perfect guy and ends with him falling in love... with someone else. But instead of feeling sorry for herself, Megan focuses on pursuing her next fling, directing theater, and fulfilling her dream college's acting requirement in the smallest role possible. So when she’s cast as Juliet (yes, that Juliet) in her high school’s production, it’s a complete nightmare. Megan’s not an actress, and she’s used to being upstaged—both in and out of the theater. Then she meets Owen Okita, an aspiring playwright inspired by Rosaline from Shakespeare's R+J. A character who, like Megan, knows a thing or two about short-lived relationships. Megan agrees to help Owen with his play in exchange for help catching the eye of a sexy stagehand/potential new boyfriend. Yet Megan finds herself growing closer to Owen, and wonders if he could be the Romeo she never expected.

I was going into the novel fully expecting it to be cheesy or even cringey and got out surprisingly loving it’s realistic portrayal of human emotions. My favorite part was the female character and her straight-forward way of thinking, even though it sometimes prevented her from becoming vulnerable. If you are a Shakespeare nerd, I guarantee that you’ll have a ball reading this one.

You can get your copy on Amazon - paperback or kindle.

The Sun Is Also A Star

Natasha: I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won’t be my story. Daniel: I’ve always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store—for both of us. The Universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?

Another book that I expected to dislike but surprisingly didn’t. I hate insta-love stories, but weirdly enough this one seemed convincing to me. The characters were likable and do keep in mind that the demographic the novel was trying to reach was young adult and it worked perfectly for that in my opinion. One particularly great thing about the writing-style is the fantastic use of different POVs (point-of-view). If you've ever wondered about the life of those strangers that you only meet for 10 minutes or cross on the street, then I think you’ll particularly enjoy this one.

You can get your copy on Amazon.

My Oxford Year

Set amidst the breathtaking beauty of Oxford, this sparkling debut novel tells the unforgettable story about a determined young woman eager to make her mark in the world and the handsome man who introduces her to an incredible love that will irrevocably alter her future—perfect for fans of JoJo Moyes and Nicholas Sparks.

I went into this book expecting just another rom-com, my bad. I should have paid more attention to the fact that they mentioned Nicholas Sparks on the back cover and you should too because otherwise the second half will completely take you by surprise. This book has all the elements of a giddy romance - Oxford, with it’s Harry Potter-esque interiors, English poetry and amazing fleshed out characters. It will also (probably) break your heart, so keep the tissues close by.

You can get your copy on Amazon - paperback or kindle.

Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating

Hazel Camille Bradford knows she’s a lot to take—and frankly, most men aren’t up to the challenge. If her army of pets and thrill for the absurd don’t send them running, her lack of filter means she’ll say exactly the wrong thing in a delicate moment. Their loss. She’s a good soul in search of honest fun. Josh Im has known Hazel since college, where her zany playfulness proved completely incompatible with his mellow restraint. From the first night they met—when she gracelessly threw up on his shoes—to when she sent him an unintelligible email while in a post-surgical haze, Josh has always thought of Hazel more as a spectacle than a peer. But now, ten years later, after a cheating girlfriend has turned his life upside down, going out with Hazel is a breath of fresh air. Not that Josh and Hazel date. At least, not each other. Because setting each other up on progressively terrible double blind dates means there’s nothing between them...right?

This is my second Christina Lauren novel and well, I had a ball reading it just as you’re supposed to with any of their novels. This one, in particular, stands out because not only is it well written but the characters felt oddly realistic. The first chapter did feel like the book will probably filled with all kinds of tropes because the female character is so fashionably eccentric but thankfully, non of that happened. It’ll make for an amazing weekend read!

You can get your copy on Amazon - paperback or kindle.

Vision In White

Childhood friends Mackensie, Parker, Laurel and Emmaline have formed a very successful wedding planning business together but, despite helping thousands of happy couples to organise the biggest day of their lives, all four women are unlucky in love. Photographer Mackensie Elliot has suffered a tough childhood and has a bad relationship with her mother, which makes her wary of commitment. But when she meets Carter Maguire, she can't stop herself falling for him, although his ex-girlfriend is prepared to play dirty to keep him. Mackensie soon realizes she has to put her past demons to rest in order to find lasting love...

This is first of the four in the Bride Quartet series and while I would literally suggest all four of them, just give this one a try first. There are a lot of things I like about this book, the main being the sisterhood that is majorly present in the entire series. Secondly, even though the female character has a dysfunctional family that leads her to being kinda sorta commitment-phobic, I like the relationship showcased is so healthy. Normally, in romantic books, there’s a lot of miscommunication to drive the plot ahead but this book works a nice example of how to showcase a healthy couple even if one of them (or both of them) are fighting internal battles. It’s a perfect cozy read!

You can get your copy on Amazon - paperback or kindle.

Practice Makes Perfect

Payton Kendall and J.D. Jameson are lawyers who know the meaning of objection. A feminist to the bone, Payton has fought hard to succeed in a profession dominated by men. Born wealthy, privileged, and cocky, J.D. has fought hard to ignore her. Face-to-face, they're perfectly civil. They have to be. For eight years they have kept a safe distance and tolerated each other as coworkers for one reason: to make partner at the firm. But all bets are off when they're asked to join forces on a major case. Though apprehensive at first, they begin to appreciate each other's dedication to the law— and the sparks between them quickly turn into attraction. But the increasingly hot connection does not last long when they discover that only one of them will be named partner. Now it's an all-out war. And the battle between the sexes is bound to make these lawyers hot under the collar...

This is one of the best workplace romances that I have come across and would highly recommend to everyone interested in that genre. It is a little cliche but it’s not trope-heavy which is definitely a plus. It has the right amount of heat and character development that a good fluffy contemporary demands. It’s just nice, fun ride!

You can get your copy on Amazon.

By The Book

An English professor struggling for tenure discovers that her ex-fiancé has just become the president of her college—and her new boss—in this whip-smart modern retelling of Jane Austen’s classic Persuasion.

If you couldn’t tell by now, I’m a sucker for Jane Austen re-tellings and unlike Unmarriageable, I really liked this one a lot. As I mentioned above, you can’t have your expectations with re-tellings high, but even if you expect some genuinely nice exploration of relationships (like Austen used to do, among other things), but in a modern setting then I think you will really like it. The fact that it’s completely from the female character’s point of view, makes the writing a lot more intimate. Give it a read, you may like it.

You can get your copy on Amazon.

The Upside of Unrequited

Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love—she’s lived through it twenty-six times. She crushes hard and crushes often, but always in secret. Because no matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can’t stomach the idea of rejection. So she’s careful. Fat girls always have to be careful. Then a cute new girl enters Cassie’s orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly’s cynical twin is a lovesick mess. Meanwhile, Molly’s totally not dying of loneliness—except for the part where she is. Luckily, Cassie’s new girlfriend comes with a cute hipster-boy sidekick. Will is funny and flirtatious and just might be perfect crush material. Maybe more than crush material. And if Molly can win him over, she’ll get her first kiss and she’ll get her twin back. There’s only one problem: Molly’s coworker Reid. He’s an awkward Tolkien superfan with a season pass to the Ren Faire, and there’s absolutely no way Molly could fall for him. Right?

Even though personally, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the book because I just didn’t find it engaging enough, I do know that a lot of you out there might love. Not only does it have wonderful LGBTQ+ representation, but there aren’t a lot of book written about introverted young girls who love romance but have zero first-hand experience with it. I liked that it was fairly realistic and the characters were fleshed out. I’d say give it a try, you never know, may find yourself in Molly.

You can get your copy on Amazon.

[teablogging]

Gilmore Girls Reading List

Here is the list I will attempt to get through. I don’t think I will follow it in order but I will definitely number the book commentaries.

1.       1984 by George Orwell

2.       Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

3.       Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

4.       The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

5.       An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

6.       Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

7.       Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

8.       The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

9.       The Archidamian War by Donald Kagan

10.   The Art of Fiction by Henry James

11.   The Art of War by Sun Tzu

12.   As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

13.   Atonement by Ian McEwan

14.   Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy

15.   The Awakening by Kate Chopin

16.   Babe by Dick King-Smith

17.   Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi

18.   Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie

19.   Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

20.   The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

21.   Beloved by Toni Morrison

22.   Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney

23.   The Bhagava Gita

24.   The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy

25.   Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel

26.   A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy

27.   Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

28.   Brick Lane by Monica Ali

29.   Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner

30.   Candide by Voltaire

31.   The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer

32.   Carrie by Stephen King

33.   Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

34.   The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

35.   Charlotte's Web by E. B. White

36.   The Children's Hour by Lillian Hellman

37.   Christine by Stephen King

38.   A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

39.   A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

40.   The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse

41.   The Collected Stories by Eudora Welty

42.   A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare

43.   Complete Novels by Dawn Powell

44.   The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton

45.   Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker

46.   A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

47.   The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

48.   Cousin Bette by Honore de Balzac

49.   Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

50.   The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber

51.   The Crucible by Arthur Miller

52.   Cujo by Stephen King

53.   The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

54.   Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende

55.   David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D

56.   David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

57.   The Da Vinci -Code by Dan Brown

58.   Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol

59.   Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

60.   Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

61.   Deenie by Judy Blume

62.   The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson

63.   The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx

64.   The Divine Comedy by Dante

65.   The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells

66.   Don Quixote by Cervantes

67.   Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv

68.   Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

69.   Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe

70.   Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook

71.   The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

72.   Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn

73.   Eloise by Kay Thompson

74.   Emily the Strange by Roger Reger

75.   Emma by Jane Austen

76.   Empire Falls by Richard Russo

77.   Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol

78.   Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

79.   Ethics by Spinoza

80.   Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves

81.   Eva Luna by Isabel Allende

82.   Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

83.   Extravagance by Gary Krist

84.   Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

85.   Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore

86.   The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan

87.   Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser

88.   Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

89.   The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien

90.   Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein

91.   The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

92.   Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce

93.   Fletch by Gregory McDonald

94.   Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

95.   The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem

96.   The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

97.   Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

98.   Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger

99.   Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers

100.   Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut

101.   Gender Trouble by Judith Butler

102.   George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg

103.   Gidget by Fredrick Kohner

104.   Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

105.   The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels

106.   The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo

107.   The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

108.   Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky

109.   Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

110.   The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford

111.   The Gospel According to Judy Bloom

112.   The Graduate by Charles Webb

113.   The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

114.   The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

115.   Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

116.   The Group by Mary McCarthy

117.   Hamlet by William Shakespeare

118.   Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling

119.   Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling

120.   A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

121.   Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

122.   Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry

123.   Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare

124.   Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare

125.   Henry V by William Shakespeare

126.   High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

127.   The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon

128.   Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris

129.   The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton

130.   House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III

131.   The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

132.   How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer

133.   How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss

134.   How the Light Gets In by M. J. Hyland

135.   Howl by Allen Ginsberg

136.   The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

137.   The Iliad by Homer

138.   I'm With the Band by Pamela des Barres

139.   In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

140.   Inferno by Dante

141.   Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee

142.   Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy

143.   It Takes a Village by Hillary Rodham Clinton

144.   Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

145.   The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

146.   Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

147.   The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain

148.   The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

149.   Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito

150.   The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander

151.   Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain

152.   The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

153.   Lady Chatterleys' Lover by D. H. Lawrence

154.   The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal

155.   Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

156.   The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield

157.   Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis

158.   Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

159.   Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken

160.   Life of Pi by Yann Martel

161.   Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

162.   The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway

163.   The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen

164.   Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

165.   Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton

166.   Lord of the Flies by William Golding

167.   The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson

168.   The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

169.   The Love Story by Erich Segal

170.   Macbeth by William Shakespeare

171.   Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

172.   The Manticore by Robertson Davies

173.   Marathon Man by William Goldman

174.   The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

175.   Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir

176.   Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman

177.   Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

178.   The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer

179.   Mencken's Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken

180.   The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare

181.   The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

182.   Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

183.   The Miracle Worker by William Gibson

184.   Moby Dick by Herman Melville

185.   The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin

186.   Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor

187.   A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman

188.   Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret

189.   A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars

190.   A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

191.   Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

192.   Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall

193.   My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It's Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh

194.   My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken

195.   My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest

196.   Myra Waldo's Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo

197.   My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

198.   The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer

199.   The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

200.   The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

201.   The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin

202.   Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen

203.   New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson

204.   The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay

205.   Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich

206.   Night by Elie Wiesel

207.   Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

208.   The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan

209.   Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell

210.   Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski

211.   Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

212.   Old School by Tobias Wolff

213.   On the Road by Jack Kerouac

214.   One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

215.   One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

216.   The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan

217.   Oracle Night by Paul Auster

218.   Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

219.   Othello by Shakespeare

220.   Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

221.   The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan

222.   Out of Africa by Isac Dineson

223.   The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

224.   A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

225.   The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan

226.   The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

227.   Peyton Place by Grace Metalious

228.   The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

229.   Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington

230.   Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi

231.   Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain

232.   The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby

233.   The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker

234.   The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche

235.   The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill by Ron Suskind

236.   Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

237.   Property by Valerie Martin

238.   Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon

239.   Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

240.   Quattrocento by James Mckean

241.   A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall

242.   Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers

243.   The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

244.   The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham

245.   Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi

246.   Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

247.   Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin

248.   The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

249.   Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman

250.   The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien

251.   R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton

252.   Rita Hayworth by Stephen King

253.   Robert's Rules of Order by Henry Robert

254.   Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton

255.   Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

256.   A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

257.   A Room with a View by E. M. Forster

258.   Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin

259.   The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition

260.   Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi

261.   Sanctuary by William Faulkner

262.   Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford

263.   Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James

264.   The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum

265.   The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

266.   Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand

267.   The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

268.   The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

269.   Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman

270.   Selected Hotels of Europe

271.   Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell

272.   Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

273.   A Separate Peace by John Knowles

274.   Several Biographies of Winston Churchill

275.   Sexus by Henry Miller

276.   The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

277.   Shane by Jack Shaefer

278.   The Shining by Stephen King

279.   Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

280.   S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton

281.   Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut

282.   Small Island by Andrea Levy

283.   Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway

284.   Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers

285.   Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore

286.   The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht

287.   Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos

288.   The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker

289.   Songbook by Nick Hornby

290.   The Sonnets by William Shakespeare

291.   Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

292.   Sophie's Choice by William Styron

293.   The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

294.   Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov

295.   Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

296.   The Story of My Life by Helen Keller

297.   A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams

298.   Stuart Little by E. B. White

299.   Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

300.   Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

301.   Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett

302.   Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber

303.   A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

304.   Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

305.   Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry

306.   Time and Again by Jack Finney

307.   The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

308.   To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway

309.   To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

310.   The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare

311.   A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

312.   The Trial by Franz Kafka

313.   The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson

314.   Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett

315.   Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

316.   Ulysses by James Joyce

317.   The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath

318.   Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

319.   Unless by Carol Shields

320.   Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

321.   The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers

322.   Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

323.   Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard

324.   The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

325.   Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

326.   Walden by Henry David Thoreau

327.   Walt Disney's Bambi by Felix Salten

328.   War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

329.   We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker

330.   What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles

331.   What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell

332.   When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka

333.   Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson

334.   Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee

335.   Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire

336.   The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum

337.   Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

338.   The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

339.   The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Wish me luck!!

[mykidsgay]

“This Is How It Always Is:” A Novel About Family, Trans Kids, and the Tough Decisions Along the Way

By Grace Manger

This Is How It Always Is, a novel by author Laurie Frankel that is based on her own family, takes the reader across a decade in time and as far away as a remote village in Thailand to tell the story of a transgender child* and her family’s efforts to accept, protect, and celebrate her.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t the storyline that most intrigued me before picking up this book—it was the title. At first, the title read as a nonsensical jumble of the plainest words in the English language: this is how it always is. As a writer myself, I know that titles can add so much to the work as a whole, which is exactly why I was so excited to dive in and find out what Laurie Frankel meant by proclaiming that “this is how it always is.”

The book centers on a large family of seven living in Madison, Wisconsin. There’s Penn (an author), Rosie (a physician), and their five children: Roo, Ben, twins Rigel and Orion, and their youngest, Poppy. When Poppy was born (which is when this story begins), doctors originally determined her to be male, and her parents gave her the name Claude. The novel first takes us through the early years of Poppy’s life, portraying her as intelligent and emotionally mature beyond her years. Then, a series of events unfold through the pages that bring us to the novel’s first turning point: Poppy proclaims that she is a girl, and her whole family scrambles to understand as best they can. Soon, they end up moving the whole family from the conservative Midwest to progressive Seattle in an attempt to give Poppy a fresh start and—hopefully—find a more progressive community. There, they wrestle with the same myriad of questions every parent of a trans kid knows all too well: Should they tell anyone that Poppy is transgender? Will they care? Ultimately deciding that their child’s genitals are no one’s business, Rosie and Penn decide to keep the information in the family.

One of the things I loved most about the novel is that readers have a front row seat to observe the characters learning lessons through their own journeys—lessons that readers can easily extract from the page and use in their own lives. In fact, the title that I so desperately wanted to uncover the meaning of turned out to be a lesson learned over and over again throughout the novel: whenever Rosie and Penn found themselves forced to make a decision on behalf of Poppy—Should they let her wear a dress to school? Should they let her change her name and pronouns? Should they move to a more liberal city?—they reminded themselves that, as parents, they are constantly navigating difficult decisions and can’t always know whether they’re making the right one or not. In a pivotal scene between Rosie and Penn about making decisions about their child’s future, Penn concludes:

“As parents, we make a thousand decisions a year with life-altering impact whose implications our kids couldn’t possibly get their heads around. That’s our job. That’s what parenting is. We decided to move across the country via some insane calculus that concluded Poppy being safer outweighed Roo being crankier because Ben might be happier and Orion and Rigel were a wash. We had no idea if it would work. We had no idea if it was the best thing. We researched. We thought about it. We discussed. And we made the best guess we could with the information we had on behalf of our children whose lives we thus changed indelibly forever.”

In parenthood, this is how it always is: you do what you think is best for your child, what you think will help them be happy and whole, and then support them if things go awry. Yes, having a trans kid can feel painfully scary and unfamiliar—but so is being a parent to any kid, even though some specific challenges may look different. “This is how it always is” is meant to remind parents of trans kids everywhere to keep unconditional love and compassion at the forefront of their journey.

It’s important to note that the book does not shy away from difficult conversations and painful topics, including the trauma of being outed, transphobic language, and vivid descriptions of violence against trans people. For that reason, I am hesitant to recommend this book to trans people themselves as it may trigger past trauma. However, I also think that embarking on a journey alongside Poppy’s parents could be really educational for other parents of trans kids out there! Rosie and Penn cycle through such a long list of emotions—everything from fear, to grief, to anxiety, to celebration—yet their fierce love for their child remains clear. Bearing witness to their intensely complicated process is an intimate and profound experience for us as readers, but one that is probably best saved for those who have the most to learn from these twists and turns: parents themselves.

Parenting a trans kid often brings a steep learning curve—suddenly you need to learn everything you can about something you’ve maybe never thought about before, all while making sure your child is safe and happy. This Is How It Always Is would be an excellent addition to these parents’ toolkits, as it unapologetically shows the triumphs and screw-ups that can happen along the way, and reminds parents everywhere to keep communication open and love at the forefront of everything you do.

*Additional commentary on the character of Poppy & identity that includes spoilers*

While much of this book is a beautiful demonstration of what it means to be a part of a family, and how to fight like hell for your kid’s happiness, that doesn’t mean Rosie and Penn don’t stumble along the way. Their major flaw for the majority of the story is thinking of their child’s identity on a strict binary, where Poppy is on one end and Claude is on the other, and her choosing one over the other will be true for the rest of her life. By the end of the story, though, I found Poppy’s identity to be very much in flux, and seeming to be heading towards a non-binary identity more than anything else. For example, when asked if she is a boy or a girl, Poppy responds with a simple “No.” Rosie and Penn, too, begin to imagine a “middle way” for Poppy, imagining a future where their 10-year-old doesn’t have to decide between medically transitioning to be Poppy or being painfully unhappy as a boy. Rather, they start to imagine a world that can “learn to love a person with a beard who goes by ‘she’ and wears a skirt” (Frankel 237). I was somewhat surprised to see all other reviews and articles about the book referring to Poppy as a trans girl, as the story’s ending is so unclear regarding Poppy’s gender identity. Perhaps the story’s ending is a lesson, too; about being comfortable with uncertainty, and allowing children time and space to walk their own path and come to their own conclusions about their own gender identity.

***

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[itsjaywalkers]

guys i thought no other ep of the bear could give me as much anxiety as s1 e7 did but i just watched s2 e6 and . boy was i WRONG

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Character Names in Eleutherophobia

Since I’ve had a few people ask me about the character names in Eleutherophobia, I figured I’d run down the whole list.  These names are approximately in order of appearance in my various fics.  To be clear: this is not crossover fiction.  These are supposed to be nods to these characters, not the characters themselves.  Bearing that in mind, in approximate order of appearance:

Day the Earth Stood Still

Essa 412: a yeerkanization of “Boy 412,” the main character of the Septimus Heap series.  In my opinion, the second best treatment of the impact of war on children ever written into a modern fantasy series.

Leslie Burke: the deuteragonist of Bridge to Terabithia.  The character always reminded me of a younger Rachel, so I chose to give the name to the bearer of Rachel’s death.

Anne Shirley: the main character of Anne of Green Gables, who often goes underestimated for the extent to which she is a tough, complex, socially awkward heroine written in 1908.

George Little: the younger brother of the title character of Stuart Little.  Mostly named because I wanted to give David a last name that implied cowardice without being ridiculously obvious about it.

Lost World

[Steve] Carlsberg: the not-quite-antagonist of Welcome to Night Vale.

Akira 

Dr. Miranda Franklin: named for Miranda of Dr. Franklin’s Island.  Kind of a pun on my part: the plot of that book involves one of the main characters involuntarily turning into an anaconda. 

Jennifer Murdley: titular character of Jennifer Murdley’s Toad, one of the books in Bruce Coville’s Magic Shop series who learns the very hard way to love herself. 

Mrs. [Hannah] Gruen: Nancy Drew’s housekeeper.

THX 1138

Joey Costello: the deuteragonist of Tangerine, a story about two boys who have very different sets of troubles with their respective older brothers. 

Dr. Pendanski: one of the incompetent counselors from Holes by Louis Sachar.

Jodi O’Shea: far and away my most pointed literary allusion.  Jodi is a minor character in The Host by Stephenie Meyer, a book which I love (except for the extremely problematic ending, but I’ll get back to that). The Host is essentially a love story between a yeerk (Wanda) and a human (Ian) whose entire plot is driven by consent negotiations.  It’s about Wanda and Ian wishing they could be together but knowing they never will because they can’t be without violating the right to consent of the yeerk’s host, Melanie.  Melanie, meanwhile, is in love with a different guy... Who can’t be with her either without violating Wanda’s right to consent.

[SPOILER WARNING] Eventually Ian resolves this love quadrangle by putting Wanda inside a human (“Pet,” and don’t get me started on that name) who has been a controller for so long that she has forgotten how to exert her own conscious will.  Wanda and Ian presumably do the horizontal tango using that host instead, AND THIS IS TREATED AS A HAPPY ENDING.  Jodi O’Shea also meets the same fate as Pet: Jodi has forgotten how to feed herself or move on her own, so her own husband decides that they should just put her yeerk, Sunny, back in her head.  Sunny claims that Jodi is brain-dead... But Sunny is also strongly motivated to lie.  (There are also implications that Jodi’s husband becomes romantically involved with Sunny instead, a plot which is so horrifying it deserves its own blog post.)  Most importantly, all the main characters are really happy that these poor hosts are vegetables.  There is an entire subpopulation of humans who have become entirely dependent on their alien slave masters for survival... and this fact is treated as the solution to all the characters’ problems.  It’s celebrated.  And, yeah, both THX 1138 and Ghost in the Shell contain some pretty pointed commentary from me on why I find this ending to be so deeply unfortunate.  [END SPOILERS]

Ghost in the Shell

Mary Lennox: the main character of The Secret Garden, the first book without pictures I ever read on my own. 

Rose Rita: main character of The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring, and arguably one of the first genderqueer characters to make it into a children’s fantasy novel.

Margaret White: the antagonist of Stephen King’s novel Carrie, obsessed with preserving the innocence (and thus the dependent ignorance) of her teenage daughter.

Sophie Hatter: main character of Howl’s Moving Castle, who does in fact make her own clothes.

[Mr.] Broxholm: the titular alien from My Teacher Flunked the Planet by Bruce Coville, one of the most awesome and profound children’s sci-fi novels I have ever read.

Anita Psammead: a nod to The Five Children and It by E. Nesbitt, one of the first ever fantasy novels written for children. 

Miss Zarves: the teacher from Sideways Stories from Wayside School who doesn’t exist, because she was accidentally assigned to teach on a floor that was never built.

Nikto 770: nod to the code phrase in Day the Earth Stood Still (the original movie, not my fic).

Kit Rodriguez: the deuteragonist of the Young Wizards series, known for his passion and tendency to care deeply for others.

Aristotle “Ari” [Mendoza]: main character of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.

Dante [Quintana]: main character of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.

Gabriel “G.T.” Stoop: the main character’s mentor in Hope Was Here.

Elijah Springfield: a teen detective from the Veritas Project series.

Lydia [Bennett]: supporting character from Pride and Prejudice.

Nick Adams: a recurring Ernest Hemingway character.

T.J. Avery: next door neighbor to the Logan family in Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry.

Cecily Tallis: the narrator’s older sister (and unwitting victim) in Atonement by Ian McEwan. 

Maybeth Tillerman: one of the main characters in Homecoming by Cynthia Voight, a book that critics like to describe as “the anti-Boxcar Children” for its unflinchingly realistic portrayal of childhood homelessness.

June Boatwright: one of the protagonist’s mentors in The Secret Life of Bees.

Caitlin Somers: a Judy Blume character from Summer Sisters.

Alex Morales: main character of The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer.

Cooper-Trebond: shortening of “Alanna Cooper of Trebond” the name of the main character of Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness series.

Jesse Hauptman: the protagonist’s stepdaughter and mentee in the Mercy Thompson series.

Timmy Dugan: lesser-known real name of WWII comic book hero Dum Dum Dugan, sidekick to Nick Fury and Howling Commando as part of the Marvel universe. 

Luke Castellan and Chris Rodriguez: two of the supporting characters from Percy Jackson and the Olympians.  I wouldn’t say that Luke Castellan is the first meatsuit I ever fell in love with (despite him being basically a voluntary controller and also a human dumpster fire), but I would say that he made my tendency to care too much about meatsuits in general about 1000 times worse.

“Cornelius”: okay, this one is in fact a crossover—that’s meant to be Tyler Durden, main character of Chuck Palahnuick’s Fight Club. He’s a schizophrenic, lonely guy who goes to support groups for various traumas that he never actually survived (usually under the fake name Cornelius) because that’s the only way he knows how to connect to people. 

Odette: the protagonist of Swan Lake and several subsequent adaptations, including Mercedes Lackey’s awesome The Black Swan.

Rod Allbright: another character from My Teacher is an Alien, because I love that series. 

Officer Nice: a nod to the song of the same name by Vio-Lence, one of my few non-literary allusions.

Gerald “Jerry” Cruncher: a guy who works as a porter (and remover of bodies) in of A Tale of Two Cities. 

Paul Edgecombe: main character of The Green Mile, a deeply conflicted prison guard who gets cast as Pontius Pilate in a modern-day gospel retelling.

Kate Malone: narrator of Laurie Halse Anderson’s amazingly powerful novel Catalyst.

Mae Tuck: matriarch of the titular immortal clan from Tuck Everlasting.

Annie Hughes: one of the main characters from The Iron Giant.

Kirsten Larson: one of the first characters from the American Girl series, an immigrant from Sweden who struggles to acclimate to the United States.

Adah Price: one of the co-narrators of The Poisonwood Bible, a disabled polymath who loves palindromes and puzzles.

Iris Chase: a society lady and heiress from The Blind Assassin, which chronicles family dysfunction and its unique impact on women over several generations. 

Dawn Schafer: part of the enormous rotating cast of protagonists from The Babysitters’ Club series, and one of my favorite characters as a kid.

Henry Case: main character of the genre-creating cyberpunk novel Neuromancer.

Parvana Weera: a tough, outgoing young woman whose struggle to keep her family safe during the American invasion of her home in Afghanistan forms the main plot of The Breadwinner.

Raven Madison: main character of Vampire Kisses, who spends a little too much time in her intense fantasy worlds and not quite enough connected to reality. 

Mr. [Bob] Grey: pseudonym used by the creature also known as Pennywise the Clown and simply “It” in several of Stephen King’s novels.

Ms. [Mary] Logan: mother of the main character in Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, because I love that book.

Karana Nicoleño: although Karana, the main character of Island of the Blue Dolphins, doesn’t technically have a last name, her tribe is historically referred to as the Nicoleño.

Total Recall 

Vicky Austin: main character of A Ring of Endless Light, a book about coming to terms with dying—and about the many complex shades of victim blaming that can occur in light of unquantifiable tragedy.

Samuel Cornick: roommate to the eponymous Mercy Thompson of the bestselling Patricia Briggs series, a werewolf-doctor who continuously struggles to find meaning in an excessively long life and one of my favorite characters of all time.

The Thing from Another World

Seth Clearwater: a minor character in Eclipse, one of the youngest werewolves of the Quileute pack.

Captain William Nasland: one of the more obscure characters to hold the title Captain America; retconned into the role following Steve Rogers’s “death” in 1945.  Acts as both a hero and a villain because he has a well-intentioned but also closed-minded idea of what Captain America should be. 

Allison Chapman: main character of Sharing Sam, K.A. Applegate’s lesser-known novel about teenage basketball geeks who back their way into understanding the life, the universe, and everything.

Simon Grace: one of the main characters of the Spiderwick Chronicles.

Giselle Villard: one of the main characters from the Mystic comic book series who is awesome, tough... and more than a little power-hungry.

As far as I can tell, that’s it for the character names in Eleutherophobia.  I mentioned here why Marco’s last name is Alvarez and Cassie’s is Day in my series.  There are a few dozen other allusions as well (Tom and Bonnie bastardizing the “tears in the rain” speech from Blade Runner, Cassie quoting the epigraph from Home of the Brave, several nods to Remnants and Everworld and The One and Only Ivan, Marco making jokes about Lost World and Alien) and obviously all my fic titles are from classic sci-fi movies while all my song nods are The Best of 1990—2000, but as far as I know that’s it for allusions. If there are any that I missed, or that you’re still wondering about, let me know and I’ll happily clarify.

[shoveanavocadoupmyass]

♬

SEND ME A ♬ JUST FUCKING DO IT.

*RUBS MY GRUBBY LITTLE HANDS TOGETHER.* LET’S GO MOTHERFUCKER. 

THE TRUTH/THE END Reefer Madness “When danger’s near, exploit their fear. The end will justify the means.” 

I couldn’t find a combination of the two on YouTube, so those are two separate links above!

KAY so Reefer Madness is a stupid ass musical (the whole thing is on YouTube btw ur welcome), but it’s got this surprisingly real commentary on mobbing and fear mongering? 

It focuses on “reefer” (obviously, because that’s what the original movie was about and it’s fuckin’ in the title) and it deals with “loss of innocence” and shit. It follows the story of JIMMY AND MARY, two super classic Christian-American teens and their descent to sin by way of REEFER! 

The Lecturer’s (Alan Cumming’s) whole schtick is, like, he’s literally giving a seminar to parents like yOU WOULDN’T WANT THIS TO HAPPEN TO YOUR CHILDREN, WOULD YOU? And then ridiculous things happen to Jimmy and Mary and the other potheads. They swear and have a lot of sex and Sally literally sells her baby so she can buy weed at one point? 

TAKE A LOOK AT THESE LYRICS FROM THE OPENING NUMBER, THOUGH, FAM: 

“Creeping like a communist, it’s knocking at our doors. Turning all our children into hooligans and whores. Voraciously devouring the way things are today, savagely deflowering the good ol’ U.S.A.It’s Reefer Madness, Reefer Madness” 

“Stealthy as a socialist, it slithers up our shoresTurning all our children into hooligans and whores!This smoking bowl of evil bears the choking stench of sin!It burrows like a weevil under tender Christian skin!”

Man, just watch the whole musical. Also fuckin’ Zack and Cody’s dad plays Jesus at one point so obviously if you’re not sold already, that’ll get you. 

ANY WAY this is more of a connection with America than it is with Alfred, even though that’s...kind of a moot point. I think it makes sense? But if you’re like “what the fuck is wrong w u” I’ll try and explain more but HOO. 

ASTONISHING Little Women“I may be small, but I’ve got giant plans to shine as brightly as the sun.” 

SO - I linked that to a video of Sutton Foster singing it for some random TV show because the actual recording has this VERY SPECIFIC bit right at the beginning that’s like “WHY THE FUCK DID LAURIE PROPOSE TO ME THAT ASSHOLE WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE BROS” which has no relevance to why I picked this for Alfred, because…Alfred is not Jo March and does not have the same problems as her. But if you want a better recording, here’s the OBC Cast with the weird beginning bit. 

This one is definitely more Alfred in his earlier years, like when he’s still with Arthur, kind of coming into himself kind of of song. Pre-War of Independence. You got me. 

That’s it. So in depth. Exploring his character. Damn shit. 

SUPERBOY AND THE INVISIBLE GIRL Next to Normal “He’s your hero, forever your son. He’s not here! I am here!” 

Okay, so I’m including this one because you’re MapleTea trash and this song gives me major Canada @ England, feat. America as Superboy vibes? Plus Aaron Tveit as Alfred F. Jones yes please god bless. 

Next to Normal is lit. It deals with a lot of shit that’s not really touched by musical theatre, it’s main theme being mental illness (specifically Bipolar Disorder). It follows the stories of the Goodman’s. Diana, the mother figure, is dealing with severe mental illness after suffering through the death of her son, Gabe (Superboy), who died in a car crash when he was a baby. Gabe presents as a regular character and functioning member of the family (who has aged as usual as well) and it’s revealed at the end of the first number that he’s not real when she tries to present him with a birthday cake and Dan sings “he’s not here.” In the song Catch Me I’m Falling it’s revealed that Natalie, the invisible girl, was born essentially to replace Gabe. 

Diana: “We had Natalie to…and I know she knows. I couldn’t hold her in the hospital. I couldn’t let myself hold her.” Dr. Madden: “That’s the first time you’ve mentioned Natalie in weeks of therapy.” Natalie: “She’s not there.” 

It’s a lot more involved than that…but…we will be here for HOURS. So just. MapleTea. And Alfred. Yeah. 

WORD OF YOUR BODY Spring Awakening. “O, I’m gonna be wounded. O, I’m gonna be your wound. O, I’m gonna bruise you. O, you’re gonna be my bruise”

Before I say anything I want to put in a fucking shout out to the Deaf Wests version of the REPRISE to this number (heads up there’s a fair amount of dialogue beforehand which I think is worth watching, BUT if you ain’t into it, the song starts around 2:27). This is the obligatory Allan @ Alfred/Alfred @ Allan number, and the reprise probably make more sense to refer to since, rather than a scene between Wendla and Melchior, it’s a scene between Ernst and Hanschen, who are our token gays! Also the smooches are really good and made me swoon so 10/10 recommend just watching for those if I’m honest. 

I originally linked the Melchior/Wendla version just because the audio is better, and I’m really only interested in the chorus anyway (which is what I quoted above) which is in both versions? Every other part of each other versions aren’t really what I was looking for since they’re very character specific and I find that the Ernst/Hanschen dynamic and the Melchior/Wendla dynamic don’t really represent Allan and Alfred. THAT BEING SAID, Hanschen’s character...is really good, and he looks a bit and acts a bit like Alfred. So. SO. 

ANYWAY. 

The chorus was the only thing I could find that I thought…encapsulated…what I think their relationship is? They don’t fit into the usual lovey dovey bullshit songs like Delovely and friggin’ Falling Slowly. And, like, referring to their relationship as some kind of wound or a bruise is...aesthetic as fuck. 

PUTTIN’ ON THE RITZ Fred Astaire “High hats and arrowed collars, white spats and lots of dollars. Spending every dime for a wonderful time!” 

*SHRUGS* 

HERE’S AN HONOURABLE MENTION FOR AN ALLAN AND ALFRED SONG ALSO LMFAO. 

[squipitme-blog]

The Walking Dead Is No Match for Its Eagle-eyed Fans

If you have a couple of hours and a few brain cells to kill, I highly recommend going spelunking in the deep well of online commentary on The Walking Dead. From fan fiction to nitpicking the set to challenging plausibility to porn, there’s quite literally everything to sate a curious (Walking) Dead-head.

There’s even one fan theory that is “an idea from a Batman theory mixed with Shutter Island.” It explains that, ultimately, Rick is actually in a mental hospital, with Laurie, Michonne and Andrea as nurses, the Governor and Negan as doctors, Shane as the general practitioner who committed Rick for kidnapping two children, Judith and Carl, and the whole rest of the cast rotating as fellow patients. Why a fan theory would ignore the entire concept of the apocalypse that’s garnered the show cult status is a mystery. Also, forget Batman — that happened in Season 6, Episode 17 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Regardless, here’s a cherry-picked selection from the World Wide Web of geeking out on The Walking Dead. Enjoy at your own risk of never watching the show the same way again.

Let’s talk about the blood

OK, this one is something that has personally bothered me, and I’ve been waiting for the perfect moment to bitch about it. So, there was an iconic moment in Season 1 — perhaps one of the moments that solidified the show’s status as serious as fuq — when Glenn and Rick throw on some tarps and slather themselves in zombie goo, hands and organs so that they can walk among the dead undetected. Luckily, they pull off their smelly scheme in a nerve-wracking scene, and a new defense tactic in the Walking Dead universe was born.

So, it makes sense that in the very successful spinoff series Fear the Walking Dead (which centers on a different group in California at the start of the outbreak but operates within the same confines of TWD), they use the same strategy to walk among the dead. What bothers me is that they go from rubbing on a pretty disturbing amount of blood and guts to just a couple of hand smears on a shirt. This seems to be because the character always trying to go on a zombie jog in FTWD is pretty boy Nick, and it makes sense that the showrunners don’t want his adventurous ass always looking like Swamp Thing. But it just takes you out of it, in my opinion, that we’ve gone from Rick and Glenn wearing the the contents of two adult humans to Nick just sporting a little zombie blush.

Can zombies stop and smell the roses?

Which leads us to the next point fans pointed out online: What’s this nonsense about the walkers somehow being able to smell? We’ve seen all manner of deformed, decaying walkers, from solitary heads still gnawing on the ground to zombies missing parts of their faces, like the pet zombies Michonne kept as protection when we first met her in Season 3. The zombies are not supposed to be sentient, and they clearly don’t have any feeling, so why is their sense of smell so keen that they can sniff out their prey, differentiating between live humans and fellow zombies by scent?

This also helpfully leads us to another great crowd-sourced point: The zombies have gotten dumber as we’ve gone on. This could have a legitimate explanation, which is that at this point, the remaining zombies have been rotting for a long time, making them slower and dumber. But it’s still worth noting that in the first episode, the little zombie girl that Rick sees not only picks up her dropped teddy bear — suggesting far more motor skills and a kind of consciousness that we don’t get from present day TWD zombies (or even FTWD zombies, for that matter) — but also starts to run at Rick, which is a far cry from the post-drug-and-alcohol bender kind of stumble we see the zombies do now.

Fans also pointed out that throughout the gang’s time in Atlanta, zombies could throw things to break glass and climb fences. A possible explanation is that the producers didn’t have a complete idea of how every aspect of the show would operate yet, which plenty of shows do (for example, Carrie talks to the camera in Season 1 of Sex and the City but she stops doing it by midseason, showing that they quickly realized this was silly AF). It probably became clear that Rick et al. would have had a rough time surviving this long against those wily Season 1 zombies.

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Let’s get nitpicky

My favorite kinds of TWD fan comments comb the show for aesthetic deviations from the narrative. For example, people were really pissed that the prison lawn was mowed in Season 3.

Honestly, this one is fair. When our ragtag gang stumbled onto the prison, it had been months since the walkers took over the world, and everyone is just trying to find a turtle to cook or a gun to shoot. They’re definitely not finding the time or gas to hop on a John Deere for a joyride. Internet sleuths actually found out that the show pays its location’s owners to go without lawn upkeep for three weeks prior to shooting. Clearly, someone dropped the ball on this one.

More: Bring It, Negan! The Walking Dead May Have Just Revealed Its Secret Weapon

The Herbie the Love Bug of TWD

I also can’t help but giggle at the magic Hyundai Tucson fans noticed in Season 2 (which some fans and critics started referencing as a character). The vehicle model was from 2012, but in the show’s timeline, it’s supposed to be 2010. This is clearly an ad placement that was a production oversight — or maybe the showrunners were severely underestimating their fans back in Season 2.

What about this most recent season?

Boy, have fans stayed the course in their obsessive hunt for mistakes and plot holes. Since the 2017 premiere of the second half of Season 7, fans have already pointed out two huge errors that can’t be unseen.

In “Rock in the Road,” as Rick and his Alexandria angels dejectedly exit the Hilltop’s mansion only to be met by Hilltop residents wanting to join their fight, the camera pans over our heroes standing on what is supposed to be a southern plantation’s porch, with the front door wide open. The careful eye will notice that the mansion is no Georgia gem after all — there’s a paper mural faking an interior.

http://i.imgur.com/JY8Fkzs.mp4

But worse of all, in the very next episode, “New Best Friends,” fans spotted a plane in the background as Rick stares out from a trash mountain over the world’s wasteland — clearly, no place that planes are flying around anymore.

The paper background is kind of funny, but the plane is kind of sad because it could have easily been edited out. But who knows — maybe the showrunners were actually hinting at a new crew of NASA engineers who survived and are going to save the day in Season 8 by sending everyone up to Mars! Maybe every plot hole and misstep is leading up to some grand plot twist we can’t even imagine! I’m just waiting for someone to explain whether or not Dwight/Negan’s wife’s name is Sherry or Honey, because they use both.

Also, props to Eugene for this epic gag in last Sunday’s episode. He’s chomping on a pickle while he apologizes to Dwight for biting his crotch last season. Well played, D, well played.

Source : sheknows

https://squipitme.com/2017/04/10/walking-dead-no-match-eagle-eyed-fans/

[itsjaywalkers]

ep 7 is making me feel so very stressed like my anxiety is going absolutely crazy just watching this shit

[itsjaywalkers]

syd and carmy guys !!!!!! SYD AND CARMY !!!!!!

[itsjaywalkers]

just finished s1 of the bear and i can’t stop crying

[itsjaywalkers]

omg finally a flashback with michael.. i’m so intrigued by him.. or by what i know about him so far