#also heather is the best protagonist

[blackchantilly]

Thinking about this today. 🙃

[birlwrites]

my brain says you have enough wips my heart says lily-centric gen megafic in which she kills voldemort with the help of marlene, dorcas, and professor mcgonagall

[actual-goblinking]

I need to talk about the way NPMD broke a cardinal trope of musical theater and then subverted expectations and put the trope into play in another way.

For those not in the know, there’s a whole thing in musical theater about women with lower singing ranges (usually altos) being the characters that get shit on by the narrative/ end up being ‘bad’.

Examples include:

•eponine (Les Miserables)

•Mariah Reynolds (Hamilton)

•Anna of Cleeves in Six (I know she’s not shit on exactly, she got the best deal out of all the queens, but her entire ‘thing’ in history is being the ‘ugly’ one and she has the lowest range in the musical)

•Chris (Carrie the musical)

•I’m hesitant to include it, but Mrs. Lovett or Lucy from Sweeney Todd verses Johanna

I’m sure there’s more, but those are the ones I thought of at the moment. Also yes, this trope also extends to men in musical theater as well, if you were wondering.

Anyway, the musical flips the script by having the female alto character be the most holy, goody too shoes. In fact, in Nightmare time, they call her holier than thou. She’s the ‘good girl’, the innocent one. In a non contemporary musical, she would be our ingenue. But Grace has a beautiful alto voice that she lends to the soundtrack wonderfully.

But she ends up being one of the true villains of NPMD, killing Max, burying the body, stealing a cops gun and breaking several laws and eventually using the summoning book for evil. To defeat evil, she becomes evil, a path she seems to already have walked down by how ready she was to bury a goddamn body.

In fact, Steph also ends up being the inverse of this trope. She starts out the musical as the quintessential ‘bad girly’ in every sitcom. She smokes, she drinks, she curses. If she was in a 99’s sitcom she’d be a Full House very special episode. But she’s the mezzo soprano female lead, the one who we traditionally root for.

(Heather Macnamera, the Heather most audiences root for has the highest notes of the 3)

But then she comes back around and helps defeat Max, becomes our main protagonist and gets a happy ending.

[aq2003]

I find the decision to write the first Doctor as sort of cartoonishly bigoted in the episode with Twelve fascinating, because it shifts the blame for the racism, sexism etc present in early Doctor Who from the writers and producers to the *character*. It wasn’t the Doctor who wrote limited character arcs for female characters in comparison to male ones, and it wasn’t the Doctor who decided to use yellow-face for the characters in some episodes - that was the writers and production team. Y’know, real people. People whose legacy the current writers and producers of the show - who have also largely been white men, just like their predecessors - owe their jobs to.

And the persistent problem with continuing to sideline and tokenise the characters of some of the female companions and characters of colour in the service of centring the doctor as the (until recently) white male protagonist - that continued for most of the modern reboot in some form. Some of the elements of that were even new innovations under the modern writers (looking at you Moffat but you are not the only offender.) I mean, we’re talking about the portrayal of One as the past’s ambassador for sexism in iirc the exact same episode where Chris Chibnall reversed the previous episode’s ending of Bill surviving with Heather and re-buried the lesbians by sending Bill directly to the ‘your soul is canonically dead’ zone.

I absolutely can’t speak for the whole of the first Doctor’s tenure because I’ve only seen about 2/3 of his surviving episodes, but from the episodes I have seen, he didn’t even talk like that. There was a very big problem with that run of the show, but it was a different problem to the one the episode with One and Twelve is describing. One was weird as hell, but he was much less overtly hostile, wished much less bodily harm on minority groups and even dipped into less microaggressions and dogwhistles than most older white British people do now. That isn’t to say One’s behaviour in Old Who was something to aim for, it’s to say that a lot of the improvement in the attitude of white people in Britain over the last half-century has been performative at best, imaginary at worst, a lot of our dogwhistles are new and especially alarming for that reason - and it comforts white people to imagine that the racism and sexism of the past was overt and vulgar and unlike theirs, and that their bigotry by comparison is lesser and better and therefore doesn’t need further work; that now people affected by it just need to learn to live with it, because you’re lucky we’re not like our grandparents.

But that excuse doesn’t really work if (tw racism, anti-blackness, Islamophobia, death) some sects of British society talk more positively about drowning immigrants in the English Channel than they did 100 years ago, does it?

That excuse doesn’t work if your grandparents were actually quite a lot like you.

I live in the UK, about half the people I know watched the special with Twelve and One, and considering that vanishingly few modern viewers have seen or remember the first Doctor or any early Old Who, there was this odd awkward relief from most of the white people I watched the episode with, like they’d been absolved from Britain’s historical and current racism by the burning of an effigy. Like that bigotry coming from One’s mouth was a reassurance that this country’s bigotry had always been as cartoonish and ineffectual and easy to see as the lines Chris Chibnall and his colleagues wrote for One; that white people living in the UK now are fundamentally different than they were; and by watching Bill and One’s (still white) successor refuse his cartoonishly awful worldview, white Brits had somehow cleansed themselves and buried the past completely.

But the vast majority of the racism, bigotry, sexism in the original run of Doctor Who and still present in various forms in the show now did not actually take the form of nice clear, simple statements of bigoted beliefs from the characters’ mouths - it was in the writing. The way characters and especially cultures were portrayed. The yellow-face in one of Two’s story arcs really stuck in my mind, but the way Old Who handled nonwhite cultures in general was often horrific. The first Doctor was often perfectly polite, but women and characters of colour were sidelined and (even in instances when it was clearly accidental) dangerously misrepresented throughout the show in ways that persist well into the post-2000 reboot, because the sexism and racism wasn’t in the character.

The sexism and racism was in the writers’ room.

I don’t have any sentimental attachment to Old Who, I was born about a decade after it ended, but deflecting the cultural problems in the BBC that persist to this day onto one of the show’s characters, by having him express an easily-digestible form of bigotry much less dangerous and insidious than the one that was actually present in the early show, feels like a dangerous form of scapegoating.

Something I think would have meant much, much more would have been an apology *outside of the show* from the BBC and the show’s current writers for the wide variety of sincerely-held bigotries that were actually present in the first run of the show, and a public acknowledgement of the pervasive, insidious forms those bigotries actually often took in the show’s writing - and also an acknowledgement of the show’s continuing shortfalls in its handling of race and gender over the last twenty years - because that would have been much more productively challenging for viewers of the show (more or less the whole of the British public at some point in their lives) to have to consider. Which I have to assume is why they went down the reassuring ‘the first Doctor has died for our sins’ route instead.

This is just my two cents, I am also white and British so please take this perspective with a grain of salt.

Mm. I don’t know. This country loves letting ourselves off too easily, and the writing of One in that episode feels the like easiest and for that reason least effective way of reckoning with the way we were in the 1900s. Don’t worry everyone, at the turn of the millennium both the show and the country of Britain were reborn without sin!

this is such a good writeup anon. i don't have a lot to add - just that im asian-american and a lot of what you said aligns with rhetoric i've also seen in the states - that being this sense that racism is just something of the past rather than a fundamental, systemic issue that the country was built on. and yeah one thing that really struck me while watching twice upon a time was how one's bigotry was always framed as a joke. bill straight up says to twelve "i hope we laugh about it for 20 years" or whatever and it just reeks of "To Our White Audience: be not afraid. you're not racist like the 1st doctor who lived far into the past. see? the one black character knows we're not racist now. please give yourselves a pat on the back". and like, it's not funny to any people of color that might be watching. it's just prioritizing the comfort of white people. and it's pretty terrible that moffat (he wrote the episode, chibnall just wrote thirteen's first lines. but also i know chibnall took nuwho into its least progressive era so...) felt like he had a right to make light of this stuff when he has committed some pretty egregious crimes in his tenure himself

[wetcatspellcaster]

I saw you respond that you a very much not an SJM fan 😅 fair enough but I did want to ask what books/series you did like or would recommend that are of a fantasy/romantasy vibe!

lmfao, i am destined to become known for my parasocial enmity with the wingspan lady on this hellsite.

I don't read stuff with the same vibe as SJM all that often anymore. I used to read a lot of paranormal romance but the heteronormativity of SJM clones was upsetting me, so I've turned more towards the romance genre or just straight up fanfic these days.

So these recommendations might not be the perfect overlap but-!

Books with Fey Romances that are good

Holly Black, for all your fey needs. Tithe is the OG (and if you like sad men with white hair, have I got a blorbo for you!) but The Cruel Prince is her most popular series, that most people have read. The Darkest Part of the Forest is also an amazing standalone novel with a bit more creepiness than the other two. Not very explicit sex.

Olivia Atwater's Half A Soul and Ten Thousand Stitches are regency romance novels with fey associations, the first book is about a girl under a fairy curse and the second is about a fairy himbo trying his best at being a fairy godmother. No sex, that I can remember.

Heather Fawcett's Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Fairies. I've talked about this book a lot. If you like my fanfic, you will like this book, because this book was written for Me specifically. Not very explicit sex.

The Falconer series by Elizabeth May. This is the closest in this list to what SJM writes, only this is. um. better. Much sex, but also just... 'what if we started an apocalypse together, and the guilt meant I was scared to touch you, but we've got nothing else to live for now so why shouldn't I just do it?'

Fantasy Books with Good Romance

T Kingfisher's Swordheart and Nettle & Bone - both standalone novels. Swordheart is just Howl x Sophie dynamics, if Howl was a martial class, and also. A sword. Some sexiness.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik (if we count the love interests as both the hot sexy wizard man AND the protagonist's gal pal). Some sexiness.

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. If you like your immortal/mortal romances, this is a pretty stellar read tbh. Some sexiness.

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan. This is such a fun book just generally but the slowburn of a 7 year high school romance sent me a little feral actually. Some sexiness.

Daevabad trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty. Now, this one is a little bit evil bc its an epic fantasy trilogy that is quite dense, and the romance is amazing but it takes a WHILE. *I* can write an evil slowburn, but there is nothing more evil than what happened in these books bc everyone is so fucking repressed. Alternatively, The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by the same author, which cut to the chase a lot quicker, romance-wise.

Fantasy Books that are 😌😌 sexy 😌😌

The Dark Days Club by Alison Goodman. This is my favourite paranormal romance I've read in recent years, and they don't even have sex but I'm putting it here because um. they did. to me. That's what happens when you write a regency romance where if a woman takes of a man's coat they have 37 horny thoughts about it in real time. Imagine if Darcy and Elizabeth for P&P were also fighting demons at the same time as falling in love (not metaphorically. literal demons.)

Mating the Huntress by Talia Hibbert. Talia Hibbert's books in general fucking slap but I wish she'd written more paranormal romance than just this ONE story bc um. This was. um. Good.✌️

A Marvellous Light and A Restless Truth by Freya Marske. Freya Marske is also a popular fanfic author, and it shows with the way she writes sex.

That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon by Kimberly Lemming. This author is the one who went briefly viral bc she accidentally has a book cover with Astarion on it lmao. This book was the first in that series, and unfortunately it wasn't for me (dragon shifter porn, I did *not* know going in) but the sex was really, really well-written, if that's something you could be into.

[ninja-muse]

So yeah, that happened… (Not as bad as it looks, though. The top half is books I own and read this month, not books I've acquired.)

November has been a month of highs and lows for me. Mostly lows, if I'm being honest. The US election kicked my brain back to 2020 for a couple days and I don't think I've really reset yet. (It's taken me three years and counting to reset from 2020 itself so I'm not surprised.) For any American reading this, I'm still very saddened for you and I wish there was something I could do beyond listening and sympathizing. I wish the world was a better place to live in.

And speaking of 2020 mode, I haven't been writing. I was at a crossroads at the end of October with a difficult scene, and even though I've fixed it so it's better, I still haven't continued. It's hard for me to write cheery, upbeat things when I'm scared and angry, and work's getting busier for the holidays, and both Bake Offs I follow were airing and that just seemed more important. At least this time, it's definitely writer's block rather than a terror of traumatizing people by writing diversely. (2020 was fun, y'all.)

And I also didn't write for five days because my mom and sister and I went to Disneyland. This was, of course, the high of the month! It was good to spend that time together, and do the rides and the whole experience, and see Disneyland as an adult. I'm especially glad we went when we did because I don't think I'm ever going to visit the States again.

It was also a fairly lukewarm reading month for me, which I don't think it helping the mental stuff. The best book I read was intense and heavy, a few of the others also dealt with dark stuff, and pretty much everything was "fine". No new favourites, though I've added the rest of Claudia Gray's Austenian mysteries to my TBR and I'm still thoroughly enjoying the Lady Trent novels. A couple of the other books (the Clarke, the Stearns) were ones I was hyped for but which didn't live up to expectations.

That said, for all that it's my lowest ranked book, The Price of the Stars was surprisingly fun. It's completely mindless, cliched space opera that reads like an off-brand Star Wars novel and I'm sure I'll have just as much fun with the sequel (also on my physical TBR). But I also recognize that the writing's on par with mediocre fanfiction or cult 1980s B-movies.

Books and otherwise, here's hoping for a better December.

And now, as always, here’s my list of everything I read this month, in the rough order of how glad I was to have read them.

Submerged - Hillel Levin

A journalist dives into a 1990s murder case—the disappearance, the first suspect, the second investigation, the innocent man in jail, the family secrets…

8.5/10

warning: grooming, molestation, rape, victim blaming, failures of the justice system

reading copy

The Murder of Mr. Wickham - Claudia Gray

The Darcys, the Tilneys, and sundry other friends and relations are attending the Knightleys’ house party when Mr. Wickham (uninvited) is killed. The murderer’s still in the house but everyone had motive.

7/10

major autistic character

warning: homophobia

off my TBR

The Empress Letters - Linda Rogers

A mother in the 1920s writes her life story in a series of letters to the daughter she’s searching for in China.

7/10

🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (bisexual), Jewish protagonist, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (sapphic, gay), Jewish secondary characters, Chinese secondary characters, 🇨🇦,

warning: death of parent, sexual exposure, adult-teen relationship, anti-Chinese racism, fetal remains, homophobia

off my TBR

The Voyage of the Basilisk - Marie Brennan

To create a taxonomy of dragons, Isabella Camherst takes a voyage around the world—but as always, she runs afoul of politics, social mores, and other perils.

7/10

Middle Eastern-coded secondary character, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character (third gender), Polynesian secondary characters

library book

The Secret History of Audrey James - Heather Marshall

In 1938 Berlin, piano student Audrey steps into danger when her Jewish hosts are arrested and she must turn housekeeper to Nazis to protect her best friend. In 2010, Kate takes a job at a hotel to restart her life after tragedy—and must convince Audrey, the owner, to let her stay.

7/10

🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (sapphic), major Jewish secondary characters, secondary character with partial leg paralysis and a cane, 🇨🇦

warning: antisemitism, murder, police brutality, misogyny and sexism

library book

The Wood at Midwinter - Susanna Clarke

A young woman enters a midwinter wood alone and encounters a fox, a crow, and a bargain.

6.5/10

library ebook

Under a New and Brilliant Sky - R.E. Stearns

Elys, on the run from Republic authorities, is brought to Alyansa to fix a failure in their city’s AI. But the Republic knows where to find her, and she can’t quite trust that the Alyansans will keep her safe.

6/10

🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (sapphic), protagonist with auditory processing disorder, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character (trans woman), brown-skinned secondary characters

warning: xenophobia, colonialism

digital reading copy/won

Paris Daillencourt Is About to Crumble - Alexis Hall

Paris isn’t really sure why he’s on Bake Expectations and he definitely isn’t sure how he feels about the contestant he keeps flirting with, if you can call it flirting, oh god, how do you relationship when anxiety?

7/10

🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (gay), protagonist with anxiety disorder, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (gay, sapphic), major Bangladeshi Muslim character, fat secondary character, Bangladeshi Muslim secondary characters, Chinese-British secondary character

warning: realistically depicts anxiety disorder and panic attacks

library ebook

Rivers of London Vol. 12: Stray Cat Blues - Ben Aaronovitch and Andrew Cartmel with José María Beroy (Illustrator)

Abigail and the foxes are “hired” by a cat-woman to break her fellow hybrids out of a brothel. Easy, right? Out in December.

7/10

wajor Black British characters, disabled secondary character

warning: sex trafficking

purchased/off my TBR

The Price of the Stars - Debra Doyle and James D. MacDonald

When Beka’s politician mother is assassinated, her father gives her his warship in exchange for her tracking the assassins down. Cue a pan-galactic adventure!

6/10

warning: sexual assault, gun violence

off my TBR

Currently reading

The Stardust Grail - Yume Kitasei

Maya’s put her thieving past aside to pursue academia, but when a chance to find the legendary stardust grail (and save her friend’s species) falls into her lap, she can’t help but be tempted—even if Earth wants to use it to save itself.

protagonist with Japanese heritage, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (achillean, nonbinary, alternate gender system)

library book

Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century - Richard Taruskin

A history of early written European music, in its social and political contexts.

The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle

Victorian detective stories

disabled POV character (limb injury), occasional Indian secondary characters

warning: racism, colonialism

Monthly total: 10 Yearly total: 116 Queer books: 4 Authors of colour: 0 Books by women: 6.5 Authors outside the binary: 0 Canadian authors: 2 Classics: 0 Off the TBR shelves: 4 Books hauled: 5 ARCs acquired: 2 ARCs unhauled: 2 DNFs: 0

January February March April May June July August September October

[cloudyskiiees]

have you guys watched the good place? if you have oh boy do i have the total drama au for you.

more under the cut in case ppl haven’t seen the good place! (watch it with no spoilers it’s one of the best shows of all time, it’s on netflix!)

(the characters and relationships in the actual show do not line up with the placements of the tdi characters, sue me! they fit better this way :))

noah takes on eleanor’s role as the protagonist. he wakes up in “the good place” and realizes quickly “aw fuck i’m not supposed to be here” and goes a little mental about it for a while!!

heather is michael, because it makes sense in my head okay. she’s very excited to have to new way of torturing humans, and is angry as hell when she fails over and over again because noah keeps figuring out it’s actually the bad place. she’s even more mad when she eventually learns to care about the humans LOL

sierra is janet, making sense as the all knowing entity of the universe. the main sierra is a “good place” sierra, but there’s many different versions of her. she develops real feelings everytime she gets rebooted along with the neighborhood!

courtney is chidi, when she was alive she was a very good lawyer. she knows her stuff about morals and ethics and is the one to usually end up teaching and helping the others how to be good people (not to say she doenst have her own stuff wrong just like everyone else!)

alejandro is more of tahani, in which on earth he appeared to be a very good and generous person, but he’s also kinda a vain asshole. he has a lot of family problems and was raised in competition with his brother, but he’s also usually the first person noah goes to when he realizes he’s screwed since he knows he doesn’t belong.

gwen is jason! she’s definitely not nearly as stupid as he is, but i see her plot as needing to hide herself working well somehow. she wasn’t a terrible person but she wasn’t great either, and taking one look around she knows she definitely doesn’t belong there either. her and noah are both happy and horrified when they discover each other!

anyways this is definitely alenoah because i see them having the relationship that eleanor and chidi have because i want it. I WANT IT.

the first time noah figures out it’s the bad place, the first thing he can think of to write to give him any clue on what’s going on when his memory is rebooted, is “find alejandro”

and in parallel later in the show when alejandro gets his memory rebooted, because he spent his whole life trying to find some meaning in whatever his life was, where he seemed to have everything but nothing at all, and he writes to himself, “there is no meaning. but noah is the meaning.” like please i’m on the floor do you guys see my vision

anyways go watch the good place and then go watch total drama island i love tv shows so much

[doodle-do-wop]

Lowkey you aren’t a good person

I was gonna ignore this because I highkey don't give a fuck babes✌️🤪😂😂😂😂 Do you see any flying monkeys carrying my fucks to give because I sure don't. Elphaba do you see the monkeys?!🙊

like Okay???? whatever??? say this off of anon so I can ignore you better

I'm not for everyone babes and I don't promote myself to be but also like you're just some sleemo wearing sunglasses with zero guts to say it to my face like a real person. If you're gonna make a statement, stand on business don't crawl to my ask box you roach

I don't have to 'prove' that I'm a good person to pests. Cause unlike you who spends time on anon saying nonsense I've got friends I adore and can brainrot with while showing them this lame anon ask and laughing. I'm living my best life, you're gathering dust in an inbox, we are not the same

lmao like what were you even expecting? Omggggg!!! 🤩🤩🤩✨thx for noticing XD, 💖i like, would've never guessed ✌️🤪😘

get outta here dog

what gave it away?:

liking keeper of the lost cities (full of red flags right there, total bad person behavior🚩)

reading (ugh how scandalous, we should go back to illiteracy)

drawing (HARD PASS! who even needs art am i right guys?)

drawing hot guys to feed the fandoms im in (how dare I, one with a knack for creating scrumptious looking guys feed a fandom art!!! the audacity!!! (dont worry yall I swear I'm working on gethen))

being funny (comedy isnt even real)

supporting my friends (come on heather chandler get it together)

listening to music (RED FLAG!!)

liking Percy Jackson and the Olympians (ugh a MALE protagonist?!)

liking Gallagher Girls (ugh a FEMALE protagonist?!)

supporting Alina Lavanza (women aren't allowed hobbies such as being hot, sexy, power hungry, or singing)

dancing (tsk tsk tsk)

saying Sophie's birthday is August 16 (she's clearly a resses pieces rising moon star!)

wearing shoes (HARLOT!!)

not wearing shoes (WENCH)

burping (THE HORRORS!!!!)

I had my fun but for realsies now: LMAOOOO GIRL BE FFR WHO DO YOU EVEN THINK YOU ARE 🤣🤣😚 stay mad girly poo

[fandom-march-madness]

PROPAGANDA

"Lisa frankenstein is the best horror movie because it is a rejection of societal trends in movies. In romcom or teen girl movies, Girls must change their appearance, they must become "hot" they have to abandon their hobbies, desert their friends, and change their clothes and wear makeup in order to be desired by society. See Heather's which was released near the time when Lisa Frankenstein is set. In Lisa Frankenstein, Lisa rejects this. She doesn't change who she is and solely becomes more confident in her essence, similar to how a male protagonist will in a teen boy movie. She takes the hand of the man who sexually assaulted by using his hand to grope her breast and forcing her hand on his penis after she drank alcohol that was spiked. Her abusive step mother gets killed by her boyfriend. This is apparent by the way she constantly puts her down, below her own daughter, and how she constantly invalidates Lisa's trauma. Speaking of which, Lisa's sister, Taffy is also a stereotype breaker, as she is the popular girl, and her step sister, both of which are common roles for a mean girl stereotype to fill, but the relationship between the two are wholesome. Taffy lends Lisa her clothes and let's her use her (albeit sparky) tanning bed, and Lisa is there to comfort her after her moms death. Taffy also knows her sister is a freak, and still cares and loves her all the same. Lisas boyfriend on the other hand is another can of worms. Her boyfriend, also known as the Creature, is a bachelor who died in the 19th century and gets resurrected by a mystical lightning storm. He represents the good, and is given the place of a traditional female lead, where he gets a glow up by using other characters body parts to complete his own. He completely and wholly represents the trans community, as a big part of the movie is his getting a phalliosplasty. The love that he and Lisa have is so beautiful and purely teenage love, so much so, that is transcends death. Lisa Frankenstein is a great movie because it truly is an empowering movie, and will be seen in the same way we see Jennifers Body today."

[thetypedwriter]

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Fairies

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries Book Review by Heather Fawcett

This book was very, very cozy. 

Even though there were some objectively dark moments, like fairies getting skewered by tree branches like kabobs, most of the book was a feel-good easy read. 

The novel surrounds the life of the scholastic grump, one Emily Wilde. Instead of focusing on things not worth her time, like fashion, keeping her hair tidy, decorating, or even relationships—both platonic and romantic—Emily’s main obsession are fairies, so much so that she’s dedicated her life to researching them. 

If you think that Emily is sad and bereft with this kind of lifestyle, you are wrong. She is perfectly content, thank you very much, to be out doing field work, writing in her journal, or working on her encyclopaedia by her lonesome (which she prefers). 

She has one last kind of fae to research, the remote Fair Folk in Hrafnsvik, a tiny village in Norway where the landscape is icy and the people are even icier.

As Emily begins her investigations into the landscape around Hrafnsvik, she finds herself stymied by her lack of social skills and accidentally offending the rustic townspeople who don’t understand the mousy researcher that is hunkering down in their home.

Stubborn and deciding that she doesn’t need help, Emily perseveres until she is rudely interrupted by her academic rival from Cambrdige, the beautiful and insufferable Wendall Bambleby.

While scorning him left and right, Emily is secretly relieved to have her one and only friend join her in such an unwelcoming place, scholastic competitor or not. 

With Bambleby by her side, Emily starts to delve into the secrets of the Hidden Ones, finding along the way that opening up to people, making friendships, and relying on others is just as important and fulfilling as finishing her encyclopaedia, and is, in fact, necessary in order to achieve and succeed with reaching her dreams. 

While this book had plenty of action, humor, and heartwarming moments, I feel like I’ve summed it up quite well in just a few short paragraphs.

The relationship between Emily and Bambleby is endearing, one that leaves you either in laughter or with a smile every time they interact. 

All the characters in the novel were very charming. I found myself forgetting which townsperson was who, Thora versus Lilja versus Margaret, but I genuinely don’t think it made that much of a difference. 

One of the best parts about this book was how fun and easy it was to read while also having substance and moments of genuine intrigue and thoughtfulness.

Emily’s steadfastness when it comes to her research is a refreshing take on a female protagonist, especially when dealing with fairies. 

The scholastic lens in which you read through the novel offers good insight into folklore as a whole, but also lends a refreshing narrative of a female character that cares more about her academic pursuits than romance with a fairy prince. 

Speaking of, while the romance in this book is very light, that isn’t to say that it’s shallow. Instead the relationship between Bambleby and Emily is so light and fluffy that I couldn’t even tell if there was something stirring between them until the later half of the book, largely in part because Emily’s whole character doesn’t center around her feelings for Bambleby. 

Emily’s journey of learning to lean on and open up to people was also very enchanting. The progression aligned well with her character and also to the events around her.

This sounds simple in theory, but I feel like authors often struggle to give characters arcs and to have them also make sense in the context of the plot. 

While Heather Fawcett has already written the sequel, Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands, and while I greatly enjoyed this book, I strongly feel no need to read the sequel. 

Emily and her journey came to a satisfying end that doesn’t leave me itching for more. She completed her self-discovery, finished her encyclopaedia, realized her faults, and became better as a person. 

The only cliffhanger that remained is the status of her relationship with Bambleby, but oddly I find myself okay with that because in my heart’s canon, I know they would end up together, squabbling over Emily’s choice of fashion (or lack thereof). 

Normally when I find a book I enjoy, I desire to devour everything and anything the world has to offer to me. In this strange case, I am content to close the book on Emily Wilde and her love of fairies forever, encasing it amber without adding in a potentially not-as-good sequel. 

Recommendation: A great summer read to bask in while suntanning by the pool. You will languish in the heat as you read about the frigid temperatures Emily has to go through while conducting research.

It's a light and easy read that will fill you up with contentment and satisfaction (while teaching you more about fairies than you even deigned to know). 

Score: 7/10

[gamerninja15]

Well, I always wanted to do this so here you go! A Drawn to Life x Deltarune crossover that I personally call, Creationrune! This au of Drawn to Life is a bit different from its predecessor and Deltarune. Instead of being an alternative Universe of DTL entirely, it is an alternative future AU that takes place 5 years after the events of Drawn to Life The Next Chapter, all of the characters are now young adults and must now team up with a creature that Mike has thought to have long been dead since his awakening from his coma. And now let's meet our protagonists! Mike: I decided to make him the main character for many reasons, the references he gives to Frisk and Kris (despite coming before them), and how he visited a world that is made out of artificial characters made or based on humans or objects. He returns to the Raposa realm after 5 years since it was seemingly destroyed and slowly learns of what happened after his awakening. The Shadows have returned and taken over, leaving the realm in pure darkness, it is now called The Shadow Realm, and can only be accessed via a drawn picture of the land of the Shadow Realm in the book of Imagination, allowing any human to enter it at any time. His outfit represents his memories of the Hero that the Creator would create to destroy the Shadows. Aly: Now let's introduce a character from the most recent game, Two Realms! She was already established to be Mike's closest and best friend in Two Realms so I wanted to implement that in Creationrune, she is an artist and really loves to draw, so her Shadow Realm outfit represents that desire fully.

Rehtaeh: Now here is what you have all been waiting for, the Ralsei of Creationrune! I decided to give Heather the Ralsei role due to the similarities that they both had, they both are copies of real people and seemingly know more than they let on, so it wasn't too hard to figure out which DTL character would receive the Ralsei role. Also fun fact, the name Rethaeh is actually Heather spelled backwards!

[intersexbookclub]

2023-12-22 Across the Green Grass Fields

For our December book, we read YA portal fantasy novella *Across the Green Grass Fields *by perisex author Seanan McGuire. Elizabeth nominated the book after seeing this review of the book by intersex author JS Fields, who was also a sensitivity reader for the book.

Overall impressions

Elizabeth was stoked for a book with quality intersex-at-puberty representation that was also refreshingly pleasant to read!

vic read the first half, and liked how the book asks you to think about how to parent intersex kids, as well questions about agency and children. Also the book is really sweet; it is warm and caring.

Bnuuy was upset that the book did not take an unambiguous anti-bullying stance, and failed to hold its protagonist Regan accountable for her role in ostracizing her friend Heather when Heather was insufficiently girly.

Vo felt it was very heavy hitting at the beginning, but the book only sort of returned to it. There’s all these scenes where Regan doesn't feel like one of the other girls, and then in the Hooflands she's able to become herself.

Michelle’s view as an author was that from a craft perspective, the ending felt rushed [SPOILERS] xe would have liked to see her meet her centaur family again, see the anti-monarchist revolution that Regan incited. [/SPOILERS]

Intersex analysis

A totally incommensurate amount of intersex representation is intersex-at-birth stories, even though tons of intersex variations become evident at puberty. While Regan’s AIS was known from birth, she doesn’t start to show physical differences until puberty, and her parents don’t tell her until then.

A big reason many of us liked this book was how it delivered on conveying the social & psychological aspects of being intersex at puberty. The author is perisex and perisex authors tend to over-focus on the anatomical aspects and fail at depicting the social/psychological parts. 

The horror that Regan experiences at realizing she is intersex and her terror of transgressing gender roles was something many of us could relate to. Many of us spoke up about our personal experiences going through atypical puberties and getting picked on for it. In the sharing of personal stories, many of us pointed out how our parents added to the shaming. Regan’s parents, while very imperfect, at least did not ruthlessly double down on gender presentation like so many of our parents did!

Many of us were excited to see intersex representation that is *literally anything other than ambiguous genitals*! This book was not fetishy in a way that is very rare to see from a perisex author, and felt like a good example of how a perisex author can do intersex representation well. 

This book does an excellent job prompting the reader to think about how to best parent an intersex child. The parents of the protagonist are depicted as kind of bumbling but good-intentioned and fail in some key ways that lead to Regan running away. It invites the reader to think about what they should do differently.

Parenting Intersex Kids

We spent a good hour talking about the decisions made by Regan’s parents and how they set her up for failure. Her parents made the decisions not to tell Regan she had AIS until she noticed she was different, which gave us the impression they saw the AIS as a negative they needed to shield her from.

Bnuuy pointed out the parents, before telling Regan she had AIS, should have first established that “hey you don’t have to experience things like everyone else”. Regan had anxiety about not starting puberty, and the parents focused instead on revealing she was intersex. vic pointed out they gave a different answer than what she had actually asked.

vic was concerned that the parents didn’t sit Regan down and explain that the world HATES intersex people and those who don’t conform and so you need to be careful about who you tell. Vo agreed that if you don’t set people up for the realities of the situation they will be facing, you’re setting them up to fail. 

Bnuuy pointed out how the parents called Regan a “perfect girl”, when what they needed to do was deconstruct that. Vo asked what they would do if down the line Regan stopped being a “perfect girl”. We discussed how the language of “perfect girl” conveys that we measure people by how good they are as a girl/woman, and that teaching your kid they need to be perfect to be loved is messed up. 

Michelle pointed out there was a nice moment of implied trans solidarity when Regan’s parents told her that “if you say you’re a girl then you’re a girl”. 

Elizabeth pointed out the parents didn’t encourage Regan to support non-conformity, to have her play in non-stereotypic ways. They also seemed way too happy to accept Regan saying she was okay with the situation rather than keeping Regan home from school the next day to process it.

Bnuuy pointed out they could have made Regan apologize to Heather, and was disappointed the mother did not make that happen. Even if Regan didn’t know she was intersex at the time, the parents did know, and should have been able to connect that letting bullying happen would eventually lead to Regan being bullied.

We did note that Regan’s parents protected Regan from surgery as an infant and were supportive of her bodily autonomy. This is important! But it was great to see parents held to a higher bar than whether or not you subject your child to unnecessary and irreversible cosmetic surgery as a child.

Book summary (mild spoilers)

The book has two distinct parts: it starts in our world, centring on protagonist Regan as she enters adolescence. She has embraced social conformity, even though it has led to shun her friend Heather after a mutual friend (Laurel) decides that Heather is gross for wanting to play with a snake. 

When Regan’s parents tell her she AIS at age 10, it triggers a series of events that involve Laurel shunning Regan for having AIS and Regan running away through a portal. 

Once through the portal, Regan arrives in the Hooflands, a world of centaurs. She is adopted by a family group of unicorn ranchers, who nurture her and give her actual agency. She is expected to be the harbinger of some sort of social upset, which she refuses to participate in. Instead, she grows up with her family for five years before she finally feels ready to play her role as a hero. 

What we liked about the book

The intersex representation (see above!), it was very normalizing without any awkward fourth-wall breaks to infodump on the reader

The story is sweet and warm, while also remembering that “kids are not little sugary robots that are happy all the time” (per vic)

In the Hooflands, Regan is given agency and grows as a person; the implicit message is that autonomy and agency are necessary for children to grow.

A few of us were just happy to have horses 🐴

Anti-monarchist plot yesssss

What we didn’t like

The ending. Regan never gets to say goodbye to her adopted family nor see the revolution she instigates. The book ends with her returning to our world, getting ready to enter her bioparents’ house, so we never see her reunite with her bioparents. 

This also means that the first part of the book (events that lead to her running away) and the second part of the book (the Hooflands) never really come together. We all agreed that the book didn’t do enough to resolve or return to the first part of the book, leaving the story feeling incomplete.

There were POV/narrator changes that multiple people found confusing; it was unclear when it was Regan’s thoughts vs an omniscient narrator.

Regan is a coward and a bully. She grows as a character but never really makes things right with her friend Heather. That Regan doesn’t reflect on how she was a bully nor properly redeemed was particularly upsetting to Bnuuy, who found it difficult to sympathize with Regan after she participated in the ostracism of Heather.

Mixed feelings

Some of us preferred the first part of the book, others preferred the Hooflands part.

A few people were surprised Regan was the main character, given how badly she’d behaved at the start, and assumed Heather would be the main character

Not everybody could empathize with Regan, that social ostracisation is something young girls understand they need to avoid at all costs. Some of us felt that although Regan’s behaviour was bad it was understandable. That children don’t have fully developed moral compasses and shouldn’t be judged by adult standards. Michelle recommended “Cat’s eye” by Margaret Atwood for capturing issues of girlhood in greater detail than this book did.

Other thoughts on the book

Most of us related to Heather, who did nothing wrong and was arbitrarily ostracized. Many of us shared stories of being bullied as children & adolescents and how for many of us it happened without any clear inciting event or reason.

A few of us saw Regan’s friendship with Chicory as sapphic or queerplatonic

Michelle pointed out there’s a possible reading of the book where the Hooflands weren’t real - that Regan had dissociated for years and only at the end of the book snapped out of. This is not what the book seemed to be going for, but it was an interesting thing to consider.

Overall assessment: the intersex representation was lauded by all of the intersex people in the call as an example of how a perisex author can do justice to intersex representation. However, the bullying subplot was a notable weakness, given its lack of resolution in the ending. Bullying is a serious issue that has lifelong effects, and intersex people are vulnerable to bullying, so we would have liked a clear moral message on this front.

[samaeljigoku]

001: silent hill and 003: for Helen from clock tower?

Favorite character: Walter, Maria and Heather are probably my top 3.

Least Favorite character: Andrew from SH4 deserved to be a rotting ghost forever. Dr. Kaufmann in SH1 / 0, Alex's parents from Homecoming. I don't hate them as characters, but I find Dahlia and Leonard Wolf to be unforgivable.

Favourite ships (canon or non-canon): Harry x Cybil should've been more of a thing. Harry x Lisa, Henry x Walter, Henry x Eileen, Anne x Murphy from Downpour. Cynthia x Walter is a dark and troubled but interesting one, potentially.

Not a romantic ship, but I like the idea of Heather and Valtiel as a human-monster team. He should've gotten a magical girl outfit too.

Character I would be best friends with: I think Harry, Heather, Angela, and Lisa would all make amazing friends. Maybe Anne and Maria. Eddie also seems like he would be a fun person to hang out with in better circumstances, tbh.

A random thought: I've always thought there should be a Native American protagonist in SH. The series dips into Native American mythology, but it's never explored beyond vague historical pieces, which I think is a shame.

An unpopular opinion: I love the Western games. The concepts for Homecoming and DP were perfect fits, just executed in a mixed, flawed way. I also liked The Short Message, but it had some similar problems.

I also hate the way SH2 characters are discussed compared to other games? There is far more nuance to James than being a wife-hating monster. He's not a saint, but he's not a demon either. He has a lot of flaws and sympathetic qualities too. And the way the female cast is discussed by fans is sometimes so depressing and disappointing, especially for a fairly progressive series like SH. (Not that those fans have actually played the games, but still.)

Most badass character: Minmo the cat. :3 No, jk. I think the fact that Henry can wield an axe and fight through a serial killer's dreamscape while sleep-deprived is impressive. Heather and Cybil of course go here. Lisa's strength is under-rated too. She seemingly fought against that nurse parasite for a long time, and was able to take down Kaufmann even while possessed by it.

Pairing I am not a fan of: Any human being with Stanley Coleman. In-canon, Kaufmann and Lisa. She deserves better and I wish someone had gotten her away from him.

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): The victims in SH4, and their relevance to Walter Sullivan. It's fairly vital info that gets left out. If you didn't read the extra material, the game would never tell you that Cynthia and Jasper actually DID have ties to Walter or the cult, even if small ones, before his killing spree. The game also poorly explains Jimmy Stone's relevance, who was Walter's first victim.

Favourite friendship: Well, not friendships per se, but I've always loved the banter with Heather and Douglas or Vincent. Or the bond between Alessa and Claudia, maybe the truest friendship of the series.

------------ Helen from Clock Tower:

How I feel about this character: Under-rated!

My non-romantic OTP for this character: I guess it would have to be Jennifer? Not sure of anyone else.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I know this is a result of localization, but she shares a name with the Maxwell family in Ghost Head, and I think it would be interesting if there were some connection there. It would tie the games together more closely!

[finalgirlminamurray]

quick mini reviews of various other books i've read this year:

the eyes are the best part by monika kim. this was pretty good. i read it a couple weeks ago and flew through it in one day (do not use my ability to read quickly + amount of time i sometimes have to do it as any sort of average metric). i like a good complex female protagonist and the gorier parts are appropriately both gross and satisfying. what surprised me about this one is that it's mostly a fairly realistic family drama, but those parts are very well-done and compelling. the main character's relationship with her family and the complicated dynamics among them feel very real in a way that doesn't necessarily have to be drawn from life (i do read the acknowledgements, and i appreciated the author thanking her mom and saying she's nothing like the main characters' mother. not everything female and minority authors write is autobiographical, you know...) i'd recommend it. i don't think the gore is too bad if you're bad at handling that stuff but then again my perspective on that is a little skewed.

fantasticland by mike bockoven. this was one of the books i was most excited to read while waiting for my library's copy to come back in and it did not disappoint. most intense episode of defunctland ever. basic premise is that the employees of a fictional florida theme park (not intended to be an analogue for any real ones; disney world and universal studios both still exist in this setting) get trapped inside the grounds when a major hurricane hits and end up going full lord of the flies within a few weeks. the story is told through a series of interviews with each chapter presented as a survivor of the incident giving their account to the in-universe author of a book about it. i really liked this one. reading the back cover seems to build up expectations of a much more sensational story than it actually is; it ends up a lot more realistic-feeling than i expected, with the characters genuinely feeling a lot like real people (mostly teenagers and college students) all trying to process the situation they were just in. there's some ambiguously-supernatural stuff in a couple chapters, and if there's one thing i don't think worked it's that the book is maybe not quite long enough to give a feel of how things spiraled out of control as fast as they did. (i was expecting more of a gradual buildup, i guess.) most of what happened seems to be the fault of one guy immediately forming his faction into a violent gang of every-man-for-himself marauders, but i think that's also disturbingly realistic for the kind of masculinity-idolizing guy who's a little too eager for a real apocalypse to happen. also recommended, i feel like this one slipped under the radar a bit.

bunny by mona awad. going backwards a little to stuff i read over the summer, this was on my tbr for a while because it gets a lot of circulation. i liked it more than i was expecting, since "grad school/mfa hell" is kind of its own genre at this point with all the expected cliches associated with it. lot of reviews comparing it to heathers and mean girls and while i would lean more towards the vibe of the former i'm surprised none of them brought up the secret history, even though that's the go-to "dark academia" book. it's more explicitly supernatural-horror themed but i think it's a worthy successor if you want more in that vein focused on female characters. and if the term "dark academia" hasn't lost all meaning at this point. it's a quick read and i thought it was worthwhile but it's probably not for everyone - again, it's a highly specific subgenre and people are as likely to be annoyed by that as to like it. speaking of which...

hangsaman by shirley jackson. this is what bunny actually reminded me the most of, although probably because i ended up reading it right after hangsaman and was already primed to think about it. of the three jackson novels i've read i would have an absolutely impossible time picking a favorite, but this is probably the most underappreciated. (i do still need to read her actually underappreciated work like the road through the wall and the sundial.) fiction doesn't have to be relatable for you to appreciate it of course but i also felt like this was the closest thing i've read to an actual reflection of my first-year college experience. mostly due to me also being a reclusive introvert who didn't talk to anybody. so maybe not that much like my college experience overall but also natalie waite is literally me. when it counts. anyway this was really good. my last thought is that i was fully expecting tony to be revealed to be imaginary at some point but she never is, at least not explicitly, so maybe that's why i was still surprised by a certain twist in bunny.

the collector by john fowles. oh man this book. almost certainly the scariest or at least most effective horror novel i've read so far this year. if you want a story about a serial killer (or, at least by what's implied by the ending, the beginning of one) that really makes you feel for the victim as a real person in a horrifying situation this is it. what gets me about this one is that the situation objectively isn't as horrifying as others that try to do the same thing - she isn't being tortured or sexually assaulted or confined in unpleasant conditions, she's just being kept in an isolated house and not allowed to leave. i think most stories like this would invite some sympathy with the antagonist because of their psychology just making them really detached from reality, especially since we do get his pov first and last, but by the end of the book you will absolutely loathe him. the complete lack of empathy or ability to see his captive as a human being. especially since we very much do get to see her as one. funnily enough i was thinking about how some of the sections from her pov when she's just remembering stuff about her life from before she was kidnapped are the kind of thing i would find pretty uninteresting in a different book but here it adds to the effectiveness. there's some interesting themes here about the intersection of class and gender politics that were very much intentional too. will probably write more about this one in separate posts because it's the kind of book that stays with you.

haunted by chuck palahniuk. of his novels i’d only read fight club before this year so i picked this out of my current workplace’s more extensive collection and had a really good time with it. well maybe not wholly a “good” time because some of the stories in it are a lot but it was an excellent read. since it’s both a novel and a collection of short stories it might be hard to review as a whole so i might end up making more posts about this one too. some parts would definitely require some extensive trigger warnings before recommending but i think it all works really well for what it’s doing. there’s a good mix of the disturbing and the absurd here; i like when authors use this format to fully indulge all their weirder ideas. the first story “guts” really sets the tone here; palahniuk has said that whenever he reads this one live at least some audience members end up fainting and i don’t know if that’s from the content or them holding their breath at the start as instructed but i was certainly squirming in my seat reading it. fun stuff.

carmilla by j. sheridan le fanu. rounding things out i followed up this year’s dracula reread with another vampire classic. this one’s a novella and a pretty short read; i had picked up a new edition at the bookstore last month with a postmodernist introduction by carmen maria machado, whose works i read back in college and generally liked a lot. not sure how much this adds to the text of the novella, positing it as a real historical document edited and censored by le fanu, but then again i was reading the book for the first time and not primarily there for the intro. overall it feels like a dreamy and slightly surreal dry run for most of the vampire tropes that would become enshrined by dracula 25 years later. not that it isn’t good on its own, though. it’s insane how openly gay this is for the time; i know that close affection between women wasn’t necessarily read as romantic back then but like. at one point laura briefly wonders if carmilla is a man in disguise, which she thinks would actually make their intimacy more understandable. you can make an argument for gay subtext in parts of dracula but this isn’t even subtext it’s just right out in the open. i loved it to be clear although it does kind of run out of steam towards the end. you can really see the influence this had on dracula which feels like it earns its ending more thanks to having more time to establish the characters and build up the threat of its villain. it’s still highly recommended reading if you’re interested in the origin of a lot of vampire fiction staples. and lesbian vampires of course

that’s about enough for one post but i will forever continue updating on the books i read. reading is so fun everyone should do it

[blueikeproductions]

The main OCs of my Heathers AU!

From the bottom left to right onwards:

Kara Sweeney: Ram’s kid sister. A bit bratty but a good kid. Knows her brother is gay and keeps his secret, so long as Ram pays her in Crunch bars. On good terms with Veronica, Martha, Braverman and Sputnik, but likes to tease Kurt.

Charlie Chandler: Red Heather’s baby sister. Shares Red’s smug attitude and superiority complex, though she mostly is just copying her sister as a phase. Likes stealing Red’s scrunchies and is typically wearing them on her wrists, hair and ankles. When at the funeral, Veronica overheard Charlie say to Heather’s corpse it was HER time now, which made Veronica concerned, doubly so when Charlie looked at Veronica and gave her a thumbs up. Adores Veronica and views her as her big sister. Likes to mess with JD and has kicked him in the shin more than once.

Sacha “Specs” Silverman: Part of Veronica’s geeky friend group. His nickname comes from the 3D glasses he’s constantly worn since kindergarten. A huge Star Wars and anime fan, extremely loyal to his friends, and a whiz at computers and electronics. He was the leader of the AV club and delegated Braverman and Jamie tasks suited to their skills. He and MacNamara shared a mutual romantic interest but never dated. Specs became the first tragic murder at Sherwood, being tricked into coming on the roof of the school thinking he was meeting MacNamara, but instead was pushed off the roof by a petty Chandler.

Dan Braverman: The main protagonist among the OC cast. Originally born and raised in Hawkins, Indiana, he came to Sherwood when his stepfather got a better job in Ohio. A cheerful, easy going type who doesn’t let high school cliques and stigmas bother him and happily goes to the beat of his own drum. He (along with Tracey, Cheryl, Specs and JD) is naturally viewed as a threat to the Heathers because he can easily make friends with those from other cliques (Tracey from the stoner faction was the first “non geek” friend he made when he moved into town), and the cliques being divided gives the Heathers their authority. Has an interest in comic art and is usually found reading ALF, Transformers or Disney Ducks comics or drawing comics. Braverman is JD’s best friend, and if we’re being honest, his only friend at the start. The two became close friends during Sophomore year at Hawkins High, and after dealing with a problem involving the Upside Down, Dan unexpectedly moved away leaving JD feeling betrayed. Two years later out of sheer luck, the two boys reunited at Sherwood, Ohio, with new challenges putting their friendship to the test.

Bud Dean Sr.: Jason’s grandfather. His only remaining immediate family after Jocelyn and later Bud died. He came to Sherwood to repossess his late son’s assets taken by police when it was learned Bud Jr’s company was committing fraud. Among the assets Sr. wanted to collect was Jason, and like Bud Jr., only really viewed the boy as property and a tax benefit. Bud Sr. also plans to restart the family company, and groom JD to take over, something JD doesn’t want anything to do with, having finally escaped that nightmare. He comes to the Braverman house unexpectedly one day to pick up his “free loading” grandson, and earns the immediate ire of Cassandra Braverman, Dan’s mother

Elliot “Sputnik” Silverman: Spec’s twin brother. Gained his nickname for his admiration of space exploration. While Specs was older and immature at times, Sputnik was the youngest and the more mature one of the two; however, Sputnik lacked confidence, making him an easy target of bullies. His primary tormentors in high school were Kurt’s group, which all the more stung because Sputnik and Kurt used to be great friends when they were younger. Usually relying on Specs, Veronica, Tracey, Dan or JD to protect him, Sputnik’s world was destroyed when his beloved twin died. Sunk into a near endless depression, and wanting to die, he practically tried to make Kurt punch him so hard he’d succumb to it. Kurt, who had since been changing his ways because of Dan, JD and Specs, instead comically cried uncontrollably which then caused a confused Sputnik to start crying. The two reconcile over grief of their past and losing a loved sibling, and mend their friendship then and there.

Jocelyn Heron-Dean: JD’s late mother. A shy, meek person who is kind and caring to her loved ones but struggles with social situations. She had trouble making friends, but in middle school she met Cassandra, Dan and Liam’s future mother, and the two became fast friends. Jocelyn seemed attracted to those with wild/aggressive personalities, a boon when it came to Casey, but a curse when she became smitten with the rich and good looking Bud Dean, who was in the same class as the girls. Come senior year of high school, Jocelyn was talked into eloping with Bud, leaving town to take over his dad’s construction business. Reluctantly, Jocelyn does so, and never saw Casey again. Nine months later and against Bud’s desire for an abortion, she had Jason. Their relationship soured over time, with the stress of constant moving, Bud’s true, cruel nature becoming more apparent, with Jason being the only bright spot in her life at that point, but even that couldn’t last as her mental health deteriorated. Once again, forced between two rough paths, Jocelyn accepts suicide as her only means of escape, reluctantly leaving Jason with Bud. Prior to this, when Jason was still a baby, she considered divorce and getting in touch with Cassandra somehow so she and Jason could stay with her. She would learn through an old acquaintance that Casey was having her own struggles as a recently single mom with a baby boy of her own, and didn’t want to pile on with her own problems, feeling ashamed she left Casey behind in the first place.

Cassandra “Casey” Braverman: Spunky, loud, and a bit chaotic, but stern and commanding when it matters. A big kid at heart, which makes her one of the very few adults in Sherwood to be sympathetic to Veronica and the others’ problems when they’re brought to her attention. In her teen years, she had a wild streak and was part of rough n’ tumble local biker gang, always looking for a thrill. Her first husband was a man called Clay, who resembled a more fit version of Dan with a handlebar mustache. Dan was not a planned baby (and really neither was Liam later), as Dan was the result of a drunk fling out of wedlock. Casey rolled with it, and figured a kid would be an interesting adventure. She and Jocelyn would become good friends in middle school, Casey made the first move to Jocelyn’s surprise, and were inseparable. She would often drag the shy Jocelyn into crazy adventures, the two having a blast together once Jocelyn loosened up during one. The one thing they disagreed on was Bud Dean: Casey hated him and Jocelyn loved him. They had a fight about it senior year that saw Jocelyn choose Bud, and saw Casey hurt, but for her friend’s sake accept her decision. After Jocelyn ran away, Casey suffered her second major loss in Clay, who died in a horrific motorcycle accident just after Dan was born. After parting ways with her biker friends in Hawkins, Indiana, she worked odd jobs there until she met and fell in love with Roland Braverman, a mostly mild mannered young man who fell for her spunky nature. 16 years later, she gave birth to her second child Liam, and a year after, she met Jocelyn’s son Jason who she happily took in when he needed a place to stay.

Liam Braverman: Dan’s baby half brother. The two share a room and Dan tends to watch over him the most. Martha, Veronica, JD and Kurt have assisted in one form or another in taking care of him, but while Liam loves his big brother the most, he took an interest in JD to the point his first words wound up being “Jay-Jay.”

Cheryl Rodgers: One of the popular kids, though she doesn’t view herself as such, and like Braverman, chats with whoever she pleases with which annoys the Heathers. She’s sweet but tragically dim, not realizing when those like Thrash or Green Heather take advantage of her for their own means. Cheryl hates Heather Chandler, and often Red has to make Green or Gold talk to Cheryl to get her to do something Red wants. She’s part of the cheerleaders and very athletic and very limber which makes her popular with boys. She has something of a male harem kink and has a romantic interest in most of her male classmates, but deep down just wants a sweet, smart guy who respects and cherishes her. Despite this, she has an unhealthy obsession with Thrash and Throttle, the biggest and hunkiest guys on the football team… as well as the most aggressive and cruel. She’s on friendly terms with Veronica and Braverman’s group, and joins them on adventures occasionally.

Roland Braverman: Dan’s stepfather. Mild mannered and kind, but is quick to anger when he gets really stressed out, and has a habit of shouting about what’s bothering him. Is the complete opposite of his wife, and the two will butt heads over matters, but they deeply love each other and find a compromise to a given problem. They’re pry the most stable couple in Sherwood, and are fairly open minded about things the other parents like Ram’s tend not to be. He loves his stepson and son to bits, and works hard to make a good future for them, but his work unfortunately consumes a lot of his time so he’s not around as much since they moved to Sherwood.

Toby Throttle: A cold, quiet, highly perceptive and intelligent type. A member of the football team. Comes from one of the rich families of Sherwood like the Heathers and Ram. While he has everything, he’s cruel and blunt and always seems unhappy, indulging in bullying out of a sick desire to feel something. Throttle appears to hate everyone, even his own parents and little brother, with the only one he seems to care about is his best friend and other half Thrash, and even then that’s peculiar because Throttle particularly hates low income people. He’s the counterpart to the loud, boisterous, simpleminded Kurt, and the one who took him in under his wing come high school.

Terrance Thrash: Arrogant, moody, dim, and violently aggressive. Part of the football team. The stock 70’s-80’s teen movie bully. He’s the middle child of a large low income family and tends to be ignored, freeing him to do as he pleases. Like Throttle, he loves to bully his classmates, and throw his weight around. He truly has peaked in high school, with what could be charitably called his best years behind him already. He’s Heather Chandler’s on again off again boyfriend, and while they mostly use each other for sex, there DOES seem to be genuine love between them ala Pete and Peg from Goof Troop. Between the two boys, Thrash does all of the talking, and is often pointed in the right direction by Red/Green Heather or Throttle to stir up trouble. He’s the counterpart to the marginally more intelligent (by comparison) and thoughtful Ram, taking under his wing come high school. He has a disdain for gays, fat chicks and nerds, though he’s thankfully stupid enough to not realize Kurt and Ram are (secretly) gay.

Kelly Kelly: Kurt Kelly’s older sister. A kind, chatty girl who was very popular and loved, who Kurt admired when he was little. Kelly was the one who helped nurture Kurt’s nerdy and sporty interests, along being the only one at the time who was aware Kurt was more into boys and tried helping him understand those feelings. Tragically, she died in a plane crash along with their mother, with it being suggested Kurt’s fall to bullying and his comical behavior was partly him still grieving over his sister. It took JD beating Kurt up to protect Braverman, Spec’s death and Sputnik’s own despair for Kurt to properly move on and return to his true self.

[linkspooky]

what are your favorite scary movies?

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT

This is the most predictable response for top found footage movies list, but some things are popular because they're good. Blair Witch shows wat is good about found footage as a medium because you get to follow these college students who just act like regular people deteriorate in real-time. There's no narrative behind it like a normal story. You just see them wander around trapped in the woods with no end in sight.

The scare doesn't just come from the monster that may or may not be there lingering just out of sight, but your concern for the characters that you have spent long enough time to grow attached to. It's distressing to see their distress. There are some horror movies that scare because they make you dread the inevitable fate of the characters, you wish for their survival but you know it's not happening so you just watch hope get slowly peeled away from the characters. The scariest quote of the movie is just one girl giving into her despair as she's lost in the woods.

Heather Donahue : Everything had to be my way. And this is where we've ended up and it's all because of me that we're here now - hungry, cold, and hunted. I love you mom, dad. I am so sorry. What is that? I'm scared to close my eyes, I'm scared to open them! We're gonna die out here!

"I'm scared to close my eyes, I'm scared to open them" is just such an emotional statement to make.

PSYCHO

The shower scene in Psycho literally changed cinema permanently, and is probably one of the most scary thoughts that a film maker has preyed upon that someone can just bust in when you are traditionally naked and vulnerable like that

Psycho is far scarier however for the reasons underneath the surface of the film. This video analysis does a good job of eplaining what made me love Psycho.

Psycho is famous for doing the protagonist switch, the movie starts out as a typical thriller about a woman who stole money to elope with the man she's having an affair with until she stops in a strange motel on the side of the road. What makes the shower scene so shocking itself is because Janet Leigh who played Marion was a big name star at the time. No one was expecting her to get killed halfway through the movie, and no one was expecting the movie to turn into a horror in the first place.

The way the protagonist changes, from Marion to Norma, just goes to show the foiling between the two of them as illustrated by the above picture. Marion smiles like this at the beginning of the movie when she believes she has gotten away with her crime. Marion begins the film as an ordinary, slightly put-down woman who succesfully bamboozles all the men in her life and makes her escape because practically none of the men expected such deceptfulness in such a tame woman.

Norman at the end of the film smiles like that while the "mother" personality speaks in his head, informing the audience of her plan to play innocent to try to deceive the detectives that have arrested Norman.

At that moment the two of them display the term uncanny in its true Freudian sense.

"For Freud, fear comes from a natural progression of phantasy, so that the uncanny is not just the familiar turned unfamiliar but also the childish wish turned monstrous. It is Marion's quest for fantasy and respectability by running away and marrying her lover, that leads her to the Bates MOtel, where she encounters Norman a manifestation of respectability turned pathological."

The uncanny is the connection between Marion and Norman that manifests here, the same way an unseeming woman can flip around and turn money, the unseeming man she meets in the hotel can turn out to be her killer.

CARRIE

The single best Stephen King Novel, Carrie simply tells the story of a girl who snaps, but it tells it so well. There are a lot of ideas in play in Carrie, including the inhuman actions of bullying itself and how it's perpetrated by everyone in Carrie's life just making the collective decision just not to treat her as a person basically no reason.

The pointless cruelty of what happens to Carrie. The logic of Carrie having to be bullied, because she's ugly, because she's socially awkward, because in the book she's fat and pimply. Also, the hidden underlying reason for all of Carrie's strange behavior at high school being that she's relentlessly abused at home, and that not a single person in school cares or shows empathy for her. They've all just made the collective decision to either ignore what's happening to her, or take part in that cruelty.

This is what makes the pig's blood falling on her at the prom such an effective scene, because o the pointlessness of that cruelty. Carrie was finally having a moment of feeling like a normal girl, and several bullies had to go out of their way to kill a pig and set up that prank just to humiliate her further. They also thought there'd be no real consequence afterwards, they just get to keep beating down on their bullying victim for the satisfaction fo it.

Carrie is also a character that blurs the line between victim and perpetrator. She is both the monster of the story and the main character. It's like if the creature of the black lagoon was a teenage girl. The moment where she snaps the audience feels far more for her than they do the innocent children she's massacring, which is kind of the whole point of the story to blur the line between how much of Carrie's rampage was her own fault and her own fault, and how much of it was caused by the way people around her treated her.

TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE

There's so much themes and meaning in a movie that basically got famous for a guy wearing a leather mask who chases a woman around with a chainsaw.

The whole movie takes place in what's basically a post-apocalyptic landscape, even though it's just the declining rural America.

"Hooper's apocalyptic landscape is ... a desert wasteland of dissolution where once vibrant myth is desiccated. The ideas and iconography of Cooper, Bret Harte and Francis Parkman are now transmogrified into yards of dying cattle, abandoned gasoline stations, defiled graveyards, crumbling mansions, and a ramshackle farmhouse of psychotic killers. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre [is] ... recognizable as a statement about the dead end of American experience." Charon Charett."

This is what American Gothic looks like. It's a man chasing you around with a chainsaw.

Leatherface and his family are victims of capitalism, and the dry, dusty desert and the ruins of an old farmhouse the main characters spend most of the movie journeying through are the wreckage left behind by American capitalism. The movie is basically about the cannibalism of capitalism, using slaughterhouses as a metaphor and treating human lives as callously as the way the animals marched into slaughterhouses to be killed and made into meat is treated. Their house parodies a typical wholesome farm home, but everyone inside of it are murderous monster.

The themes of the exploitation of women in this movie are so strong too, especially the ways their bodies are both sexualized in brutalized not only in horror movies but in society at large are also right on point. There's the reason that the ending scene to Texas Chainsaw Massacre is so legendary and it's because despite representing the "final girl trope" Sally Hardesty, chased, terrorized, tortured over the course of the movie does escape but her experience has completely mentally broken her.