#about brenda

[ofallingstar]

List of books I read in 2023

Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James

Women Talking by Miriam Toews

L'homme semence by Violette Ailhaud

Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

On Magic & The Occult by W.B. Yeats

Faithful Place by Tana French

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe

Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996 by Seamus Heaney

The Love Object by Edna O'Brien

Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Night by Elie Wiesel

In Between the Sheets by Ian McEwan

The Lost Days by Rob Reger & Jessica Gruner

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Parallax by Sinéad Morrissey

The Woman in the Strongbox by Maureen O'Hagan

Diaries, 1910-1923 by Franz Kafka

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

Walking to Martha's Vineyard by Franz Wright

A Tale for the Time Being Ruth Ozeki

Mouthful of Forevers by Clementine von Radics

Wasteland by Francesca Lia Block

The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

Find Me by André Aciman

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

The Grace Year by Kim Ligget

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

Psycho by Robert Bloch

Classic Tales Of Vampires And Shapeshifters by Tig Thomas

Love Devours: Tales of Monstrous Adoration by Sarah Diemer

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Putney by Sofka Zinovieff

The Woman in Me by Britney Spears

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

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

The Maid by Nita Prose

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Deep by Rivers Solomon

You can follow me or add me as a friend on Goodreads.

[out-of-the-blue-comic]

Look, other people DID show up for his birthday party this time!

Happy Birthday, Nicky!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎂

(Oh and uh Sonic too, of course, Happy 33rd anniversary!)

[brat-pack-it-up-boys]

Ponyboy that was then this is now headcanons

• I’m a big believer in ponyboy continuing to dye his hair blonde after windrixville for sentimentality (also I fuck with the character design aspect)

• so his hairs died blond but it’s also grown out, its the late 1960s and greased hair is becoming even less of a thing than it was before, so his hair is choppily cut above his shoulders and it has the worst grown at roots

• he is the KING of hand me downs, more so than in the outsiders because he fits into more of the clothes that darry and soda actually saved, soda’s flannels, pants, shirts, Darry’s old jackets, he owns his shoes and that it

• okay this one goes more into the au where sodapop is drafted and killed in the Vietnam war because it technically lines up with the twttin timeline. But ponyboy would wear soda’s dog tags literally every day

• more reckless than he was in the outsiders, partially because he’s grown up and partially because of his friends and the people he surrounds himself with

• his friendgroup basically consist of the remainder of the gang, curly and Angela, mark, scout, and two bits sister Brenda I guess

• on the topic of Brenda, ponyboy basically reacreats his and Johnnys relationship with dally with her, they’re so siblings you don’t understand, the brother and sister ever

• very unpopular in school, not in a way of getting bullied but in the way of a lot of kids in his grade being scared of him

“that Curtis kid who helped kill someone”

• the beef Bryon has him is entirely one sided to the point that Ponyboy doesn’t even realize it exists

• despite not having the best reputation he’s finally grown into his looks and if it weren’t for the events of the first book he would be pulling

• Him and Cathy start dating a little bit after twttin, Cathy had been at boarding school during the entirety of the first book so she didn’t have the same stigma against him that the other kids at school

• he actually gets pretty into the Beatles after he starts dating Cathy because they’re her favorite band, he likes the please please me album

• he also adopts M&M into his little gang with Brenda (pushing my M&M and Brenda as best friends agenda)

• in the end all that really means is that he helps M&M with kids picking on him (his reputation from the whole bob incident makes him pretty intimidating), M&M and Brenda also get to tag along on some of Pony and Cathy’s dates to the movies

• honestly I could talk about him and Cathy for hours but as the youngest him dating her and realizing how much she has to do as the oldest makes him gain more of understanding for darry

• also him and Cathy’s song is definitely Do you want to know a secret

@izaacs-notdeadyet because you mentioned you wanted to hear them, sorry it took me thousand years to actually get around to posting this

[person4924]

why did this take so long i need to die

[zer0brainc3lls]

Do I like brenderesa in the movies or books? Not rlly

But when I’m reading newtmas fanfiction if I don’t get my lesbian side plot I will RIOT.

[justkillingthyme]

My Brenda AL Dress-Up Outfit Redesign

[blaithnne]

A man so similar to his canon counterpart that I worried I wouldn’t have enough to say about him to fill the space I had left on his sheet, it’s Bradford! Semi-related note - I think I’m going to change FOWL’s official pallete to be monochromatic, without the inclusion of the red. I think it fits Bradfords order and logic themeing, and means I can give other characters red clothing without worrying I’m accidentally FOWL coding them lmao. OH, and all the FOWL agents have bird themed codenames, because SHUSH already stole the numbers idea Bradford wanted, and he likes birds.

Meet the Cast!

╰┈➤ Canon ☄. *. ⋆

→ Scrooge McDuff → Matilda McDuff → Hortense McDuff → Qalhata Duiker → Ludwig Von Druska → Goldie O'Gilt → Bentina Beakley → LÙ Huifen (pre-caseflies) → LÙ Huifen (post-casefiles)

╰┈➤ OCs ☄. *. ⋆

→ Lucrais NicRiada

.ೃ࿐

[fernhelm]

people who are afraid of fem sirius are the weakest links in this fandom

[rhondafromhr]

Ok I know Brenda wearing Max’s letterman in Workin’ Boys was just costume budget but hear me out: just like Miss Holloway and Wilbur Cross, they’re fated to fight to the death in every timeline (the exception being the NPMD timeline bc the nerds pulled that prank and interfered before it could happen) and each wins about half the time. In the timelines where Brenda wins, she takes the letterman as a prize assumes his position as the ruler of Hatchetfield High. She doesn’t really care enough to dictate who’s a nerd and who’s cool and whether people can date each other, so things are a lot more chill. Also in the Brenda wins timelines Grace is super into her bc she just senses that she had something to do with Max’s disappearance and that intrigues her.

[brendathedoodler]

“I’m not the only one sitting on secrets.”

“…”

“It seems much is still unsaid. I didn’t want to imply there was any division”

Another adventure swap au comic edit, this time from this post! These are really fun to do.

[lovemybluebully]

I have devised something devious in my lab and I'm taking it out on Wade bc I'm in a lee Wade mood at the moment.

We all know and love the "which spot is worse?" trope. Very evil, very flustering. But I raise you "which spot do you like more?" Because both of these assholes would rather die than admit they like being tickled. They're both very dramatic like that. It's always shit like "I dont hate it" or "Oh I love it when you put your hands on me peanut" and never explicitly saying they enjoy it. So being forced to admit they not only like it, but have a favorite spot? Combustion.

Wade loves to go back and forth with his ler. And the teasing itself rarely gets to him bc he loves the back and forth banter. But he's very good at worming his way out of things with misdirection and his unique brand of absurdity. He can easily get away with avoiding questions by answering a different question or making a sex joke and its so natural no one is ever the wiser.

So logan has him pinned, hes going back and forth between two spots, let's say sides and hips, and while hes thrashing around logan asks "which one do you like more" and Wade has no difficulty saying his hips are worse. But Logan doesnt take that as an answer, thats not what he asked now is it? Logan darts back down to drill at his hips, and repeats the question. This throws Wade for a loop, he feels the need to double down. He makes and innuendo, "That doesnt answer my question." and hands dart back up to claw at his sides. He makes a flirty joke, "Cute but not what I asked for." Hands zip down to his hips again. Now he can't say it, he's backed himself into a corner he doesn't want to say it but he can't wriggle his way out like usual. He's getting himself all worked up, frantically trying to find a way out of it but all hes doing is flustering himself because like hell is he choosing. Mind Games Mcgee has stunlocked himself and he's losing his mind. Wade spirals into thinking about which spot he actually likes more until he finally cracks and just shouts ears, and he thinks that's the end of it, but no. Logan is on the power trip of his life.

"Ears what bub, what about them?" Hes switched gears now, gently tracing the shells of both his ears now and he can actually feel them burning, Wade is whining through his giggles and squirming, Logan can't help but smirk "Are you sure, youre not just saying that to get out of this are you?" And Wade actually almost said he wasn't sure because his brain is That Fried. Logan asks again. "What spot do you like more" and Wade finally caves. When he's finally recovered and brain back online he immediately brags about how he never really answered the original question, (sides or hips) because he has learned nothing. And Logan is more than happy to give him another reminder.

Wow this ended up long, but I needed to put Wade in a jar and shake him like a bug. Hope you enjoyed this one

-Spider anon 🕷

[ofallingstar]

List of books I read this year

The Summer Children by Dot Hutchison

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

Kink: Stories by R.O. Kwon

Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle by Vladimir Nabokov

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

The Vanishing Season by Dot Hutchison

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin

Nana by Émile Zola

Poesía completa by Alejandra Pizarnik

Hija de la fortuna by Isabel Allende

The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes by Seamus Heaney

The Complete Fairy Tales by Oscar Wilde

The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe

The Dalkey Archive by Flann O'Brien

The Likeness by Tana French

The Gathering by Anne Enright

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

The Plague by Albert Camus

Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski

Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen

Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Dale

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Água Viva by Clarice Lispector

Graveyard Clay: Cré na Cille by Máirtín Ó Cadhain

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis

New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001 by Czeslaw Milosz

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

Close Range: Brokeback Mountain and Other Stories by Annie Proulx

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

Lunch Poems by Frank O'Hara

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

As Normal as Possible: Negotiating Sexuality and Gender in Mainland China and Hong Kong by Yau Ching

The Black Phone by Joe Hill

The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis

Firelight of a Different Colour: The Life and Times of Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing by Nigel Collett

The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin

Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963 by Susan Sontag

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis

How Now, Butterfly?: A Memoir of Murder, Survival and Transformation by Charity Lee

Santa by Federico Gamboa

Farewell My Concubine by Lilian Lee

Villette by Charlotte Brontë

Tales from Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

Temprada de huracanes by Fernanda Melchor

The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell

The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror by Joyce Carol Oates

The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Kissing Carrion by Gemma Files

The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis

Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche

Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities by Flora Rheta Schreiber

The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin

Columbine by Dave Cullen

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

Eva Luna by Isabel Allende

Posion for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Díaz

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations by Rainer Maria Rilke

You can follow me or add me as a friend on Goodreads.

[murdermysterymagic]

Who would have thought it would be a 1950s detective show to display such an accurate depiction of girlhood 🎀

[casscainmainly]

CASS PLATONIC SOULMATE!?? people would say steph and i totally see it but like, stephcass shipper over here soo... yeah! any thoughts xo?

Honestly I'm not sure!! Canon-wise Steph is definitely the platonic soulmate, but only because they refuse to make it romantic. Excluding her (because I'm holding out on a very small hope they will confirm StephCass), I don't actually think Cass has many close friends.

We've seen her friendships with Clayface in Tynion's 'Tec run (which was great, but very much contained in that run), and Big Barda in BoP (not long/entrenched enough yet). Otherwise she has very few close friends outside of the Batfam, which has always been kinda sad but very much in character.

'Cause Clayface/Big Barda (and Steph, Tim, Jean-Paul, Duke, Harper etc.) are either people in a team with her or a Bat-associate. I think she's not great at maintaining relationships when it's not directly in front of her, which makes sense because she was never taught how to do so. Most of her foundational relationships in Batgirl (2000) required the other person (thinking particularly Steph and Babs) to put in a lot of effort, and they very easily fell apart.

The one exception is Brenda, who (besides Steph) was the first person Cass consciously formed a relationship with, and who is very important to her journey of self-discovery. But that didn't last either :(.

So in short I don't really think she has a platonic soulmate, because most of her friends are either Batfam or extremely short-term and limited to one run. Crossing my fingers that Brombal's new run introduces more long-lasting Cass friends!

[the-spaced-out-ace]

lautski teen beach movie au when (this is not the first time i have fantasized about this and it won't be the last)

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

favourite twdg villain?

I'm a fond enjoyer of the St. John's as villains. I don't know if they're my favorite just because they're only in one episode, but I love the concept of this family almost immediately jumping into cannibalism toward the start of the outbreak, dealing in human flesh to bandits, and casually feeding this group their friend's legs.

Like... what the hell was this family like before the outbreak that all three of them were like, "Hey now listen... nothing should go to waste, the dead are eating people so why shouldn't we? We gotta survive and in our defense, we only target those who were gonna die anyway... like y'all."

Dude, Mark was shot in this shoulder with an arrow. He wasn't going to die from that injury. It's so fucked that these seemingly friendly people took the group into their home and then fed them Mark's legs.

If we take the idea that everyone is infected and have the capacity within themselves to become walkers, to become monsters, then the St. John's were infected long before the outbreak, y'know? Not literally, but something was wrong with them and the outbreak just further spread that infection and changed them.

But again, are they my favorite? I dunno if I can say that since I have a lot more appreciation for Lily now. Yeah, some of her writing gets a little wonky in ep3 of TFS when she goes on her monologues and shit, but y'know what? I'm into it.

You have to remember who we're talking about and the fact that she's the antagonist; Lily isn't some anti-hero in TFS who secretly has a heart of gold that's brought to light because she reunited with Clementine... she's a fucked up woman who did fucked up things in the name of survival. She's full of rot now. She sees kidnapping children and turning them into soldiers to protect her home as a means to an end, but she doesn't actually give a shit about the people she's taking. They aren't people to her, they're as the episode title suggests, toys in her game. The only one she sees as a person is Clementine, and while that makes her hesitate at first, she sees Clementine's a prize to bring back.

She remembers what happened in S1; her father had a heart attack and as she tried to save him, Kenny smashed his face in with a saltlick and then expected Lily to just stand up and help him get back to his family because "he did what he had to, he made the hard choice." Yes, Larry was a piece of shit. No one liked him, and you can even question Lily on him and she'll tell you that he has a lot of pain. Yes, it makes him an asshole, but he's still her dad and he's all she has. I mean... the simplification is daddy issues, but in all seriousness, I don't doubt for a second that many of Lily's issues stem from Larry being a shitty father to her.

Then everyone thought she was losing it when she insisted there was a traitor in the group, which she was right about, but she was unstable. She was unwell, but how do you help someone like that when you don't have training to go about it? Then Lily ends up killing either Carley or Doug and the group turns on her, and either she's left behind or she steals the van and runs away.

Then we don't know what the hell happened to her until we see her again in TFS, but like... a lone woman with decay festering inside of her joining the delta? Exposing her to their methods? I mean, what else did she have to lose? She had nothing, she lost everything, and she has a lot of issues. Survival is easy when you're numb, when you don't care about the individual; they're all just cogs churning to make the system run, and if a piece doesn't cooperate, you get rid of it and find a new one.

Plus I think there's something to say about Lily not wanting to be perceived as weak again. That whole display she put on in the cells? Telling the story of what happened to Minerva and Sophie? I get the criticism that it feels like Lily did a 180 between episodes but like... yeah dude, because it's a performance. It's not just her and Clementine anymore. It's a display of power and authority. She's playing the part and thriving in it as she ensures everyone else is terrified of her.

But then when Clementine and AJ get the upper hand? Again, she's not afraid to play up the pleading to earn enough sympathy to spare her- hell, just to let their guard down enough to strike and get the upper hand again. I mean, she's got nothing else to lose, right? If she doesn't go for it, she'll be killed and sure, you can kill her anyway but at least she tried.

Honestly, I look at Lily in TFS and still see that scared little girl playing the tough bitch, just like Carley said in S1. It's just now escalated from "tough bitch" to a downright vile person. She's so... lost? I suppose? Lost within herself and the monstrous means she's taken to survive.

I get the criticisms of how she was used in TFS, but for me, it's like when people complain about Minerva not getting the redemption arc she supposedly should've gotten, y'know? There's no saving her. Lily was never on our side, and there was no getting her on our side. She wasn't ever going to redeem herself. Even if you spare her and she drifts away on her raft, can someone like her actually find redemption? Or will she just find another group that'll feed into her rot?

Truly, I say let her be horrid. Let her be the piece of shit villain with a few fleeting moments of humanity. Let her drown in the blood she's spilled.