#mayhem has me feeling like she's gone back a few years as an artist

[overthemoonwithme]

Midnights is giving me Lover/Rep vibes but with a more sophisticated aesthetic

[mrsfrecklesmarauders]

The Magical Word of JKR

In this post, I want to point out all the inconsistencies of the world that JKR has created. Some of us had been worshiping her for so long. But JKR made mistakes, not only outside her world, but inside.

Owls for muggleborns. Sending a letter through an owl seems to be something common in The Wizarding World. But why do children with a muggle background need to go back in time and use them when they could use a phone? Why can't students use any muggle technology? I know wizards are anti muggle and magic does not allow these devices to function at Hogwarts, but why not?

Drunk portraits. How could portraits get drunk? Did artists paint vessels and digestive systems for them too? How can they bleed? They are portraits with voices and personality based on real people yeah. But they are not alive. They don’t bleed or get drunk.

The trace. Wizards under 17 aren’t supposed to do magic outside Hogwarts. But The Ministry doesn’t seem to control this by which wand did it. But by location. Since Dobby did magic in the Chamber of Secrets, and they blamed Harry for it. So, what happens with pureblood kids? They are allowed to use magic outside school because their families are supposed to, so they wouldn’t trace them. So it seems unfair for muggleborns not to be able to practice magic. Since they are the only members of their family that would do it.

Hogwarts being the only school. There is only one school in all Britain for magical people. Yet there seems to be very few students when there should be a lot. And it doesn’t make sense that Hogwarts is the only choice. Or Hogwarts, or homeschooling.

I don’t understand the population of Magical Folks. It seems little because most of the wizarding families are known. There are only 28 pureblood famous families. They even practise inbreeding, they are all related. But why is that, if the wizard gene is dominant? There are more half bloods and muggleborns than squibs. So the magical population should be as large as the muggle one, even more.

Hogwarts Houses are cool. But the way kids are sorted doesn’t make sense. They get sorted when they are eleven. Seems pretty young to me to form traits and criteria that might change as they grow. Also, let’s say 100 kids enter Hogwarts one year. They won’t be sorted equally 25/25/25/25. Because according to personalities and traits, there could be 60 Gryffindors and 10 Ravenclaws, and 4 Slyhterins, and 25 Hufflepuffs. What if one year, there are no Slytherins for example?

Also, sharing a dorm, common room and classes with people from your same house (same personality and traits) seems boring and unhealthy. Having friends with different personalities, traits and beliefs should help you grow and mature. Sometimes friendships are built between two opposite people. And separating houses, forces students to just hang out with people from their houses, not others.

Love potions. These are the wizarding equivalent of drugs. Think about it. Forcing someone to show love for you is very much like drugging someone and forcing them to do stuff against their will. Love potions can permit things like raping. Something that happened to Tom Sr. by Merope. It is horrible. Yet the wizarding world permits their selling and consumption without a problem. And what’s worse, they teach how to brew it in school to children! A potion like that shouldn’t be allowed or taught.

Azkaban being the only punishment. It seems whether you are a dangerous criminal like a mass murderer or just someone that stole something once, you get the same punishment. Azkaban. An inhumane place where dementors live, and make prisoners go insane, live their worst nightmares or suck their soul. Even characters who were under the imperius curse like Stanley Shunpike. Or even The Marauders would’ve gone to Azkaban if their animagus secret was discovered. No matter what your crime is, always the worst punishment: Azkaban.

Wizards hiding from muggles. The Statue of Secrecy in the Wizarding World seems to be important. But I may ask, how can wizards hide from muggles if they don’t know anything about them? Pureblood Wizards don’t have a clue how muggles live, behave, dress, talk. Not even Arthur Weasley who works in that Department. Yet they want to be unnoticed by muggles? For example, each time a wizard dresses like a muggle they do it wrong, using colorful clothes. Wouldn’t it be suspicious? Like even Vernon sees people in cloaks in book 1, celebrating. Also, if there are a lot of muggleborns, shouldn’t more muggles know about wizards?

It is totally inhumane to just obliviate muggles each time they see something. That spell should have some consequences in their brains. Like for example, Hermione’s parents must’ve had mayhem after their minds were modified.

Memories in pensieves are not supposed to be accurate. Memories are from our point of view. From the perspective of people who lived that memory. When Harry sees Snape’s memories or Bob Ogden’s memories, they seem to be clear. Harry can see Bob and Snape in those memories when they should be seen through their eyes, they are their memories. How could Snape remember himself, see himself. You get my point? Also, memories are subjective, not objective. We remember what impacted us the most, we forget about details we don’t care about. There are feelings involved.

Not having another education after Hogwarts. You graduate from Hogwarts at eighteen. Eighteen! And you're supposed to have figured out what you want to do for the rest of your life. Why aren’t there Wizard Universities? Wizards only have 7 years of education and that’s all. Nothing before, nothing after (unless you’re muggleborn). Seems that the wizard community doesn’t care about education that much. With only seven years of education, are you suddenly prepared for the rest of your life? I don’t think so.

Adding to the last point, wizards only teach about magic. What about math, wouldn’t they need it to count their money, or take care of their finances? What about English, spelling, grammar? Not every kid had the privilege to be homeschooled by their parents before. What about Sex Ed? I think it is important for teens that age to be careful with their sex lives.

Quidditch being the only sport in the wizarding world. Quidditch is cool, I get it. But it is not for everyone. Seems that if you want to be a sports person in the wizarding world, you only have that option. Either you like Quidditch or nothing.Shouldn’t there be other sports? In the muggle world we have tons: football, basquet, tennis, swimming, running, etc.

Love protection is not common. Lily sacrificed herself for Harry. She died for him and that love protection saved his life. Why is Harry the only one to experience it? Is it because of the prophecy? I mean Lily is not the only one who has sacrificed herself for love. Not in the story, not in History. Then why aren’t there more people with lighting scars walking around?

Why don’t wizards cure things with magic like eyesight? They have a potion that grows bones back. But they cannot cure Harry’s eyesight? And don’t say that it is because eyes are connected to the soul, that’s a lame excuse. In the muggle world, eyesight can be cured with surgery.

Hogwarts Express. Yeah, we all wanted to ride the train to Hogwarts. It is part of the experience right? But what if you live in Scotland already? Why bother traveling to London to King Cross Station to take a train if you already live there? It seems like a waste of time. Is there a provided transport for kids who live in Scotland? What about those who don't live in London? What if Scotland is nearer to them than King Cross?

Ghosts. They shouldn’t exist. It is not very well explained how you become a ghost. But it doesn’t make sense that they exist and yet many characters died and didn’t become one.

Discrimination against magical creatures. We know how magical creatures are seen in the Wizarding World. Discrimination exists. But the problem is that Jkr never does anything to fix this.Not with werewolves, not with half giants, surely not with house-elves. The only issue that the war solved was the discrimination against muggleborns.

And house-elves liking their slavery is problematic. It is saying that slavery is right as long as the victim accepts it. She created S.P.E.W and never properly addressed the issue.

The Forbidden Forest is dangerous, yet students have detention there. Dumbledore says at the beginning of each year that the Forest is out of bounds. So why would you send students to detention there, Dumbles? Also, building a school near a forest full of dangerous beasts: werewolves, acromantulas, centaurs, seems kind of risky for children. Not every child obeys the rules. Look at the Marauders spending every full moon there.

How did Hagrid come to be? Hagrid is half giant. Meaning that his father is human, his mother is a giant… Ehemm… Excuse me, but how do you have sex with a giant? That’s physically impossible. How does Hagrid exist?

Male veelas? We are only introduced to female veelas in the Wizarding World. Veelas are these beautiful women that men feel attracted to, they seem in trance by their beauty, and they are not responsible for their actions. It seems to me that JKR is saying that men should not be accountable for their actions when they see a pretty girl, because it is her fault? Pretty feminist, JKR. Also, veelas are dangerous creatures. How do humans procreate with them and have half veelas or a quarter of a veela? Are there male veelas too?

Teachers not having spouses or kids. It is a stupid stereotype that teachers are sad non social people, who are only teaching because they don’t have a choice. Like they are allowed to have social lives, date, get married and have children, right? Name one Hogwarts teacher who is married with kids. They all seem pretty single. And I get it, being single is not a bad thing. But all of them being single just because they are teachers in a boarding school? Just because it was convenient to the author? Only McGonagall married once, but her husband died a few years after.

Abusive teachers. Speaking of teachers, why would Hogwarts allow incompetent teachers that are abusive (Snape), and or are dangerous for kids. None DADA teacher had teaching experience before. And since there is no further education than Hogwarts, how do teachers get prepared for the job? Teaching is not about knowing a lot of stuff about the subject, but knowing how to treat children.

Muggle vs Wizard music. What is the difference between muggle and wizard music? I never understood that. Is it the fact that wizards play music with magic? If so, why would instruments exist? Why would they play instruments? If anyone can make a spell to produce music, then anyone can be a musician. The only difference that I find is that wizard music has wizard related lyrics. Which is a stupid difference. Wizards could write songs about muggles. Muggles could write songs about wizards.

Secret Keeper. The Fidelius Charm should be a spell to hide yourself from others if you are in danger. Period. There shouldn’t be such a thing as a secret keeper. Why? Why would someone else need to know the place you are hiding? James and Lily shouldn’t have trusted anyone with their location. Not even Sirius. Not even someone they trusted, because Sirius or anyone could’ve died and passed the secret to the others. Like, it doesn’t make any sense. And also, how could Bill and Arthur be their own secret keepers but not James and Lily?

Magical therapists. Healers seem to cure physical maladies or illness pretty fine, but what about mental health? And I am not talking about mental problems because of magic. Like Frank, Alice, Lockheart whose minds were affected by spells. I’m talking about mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, adhd, ptsd, trauma etc. Don’t tell me wizards don’t suffer that. What about Remus, Sirius, Harry? Who treats these things in the wizarding world?

Time Turner. Only exists for the plot. Otherwise it is useless, stupid and confusing. Time traveling confuses the mind. Also, we don’t exactly know how it works. Is it a domino effect? Do the things you do back in time affect the present? They should. Or does it create different timelines, like it is said in Cursed Child? Also, why not use time turners for important situations? For example, save important people from dying, go back to check events of a crime and see if they are true.

Veritaserum. Wizards have a truth potion and they won’t use it. They should use it on trials to take the truth out of criminals, to see if the accusants are innocent or not. They should’ve used it on each member of the Order to find out who the spy was. They should’ve used it to discover who was the Slytherin heir when the Chamber was opened. They should’ve used it on Harry when he came back from the Graveyard to prove Voldemort was back. Why would that shit exist anyway?

Incest families. Pureblood families, or at least some of them are supposed to practise inbreeding. But if you look at the Black Family Tree, the only Black-Black marriage is between Orion and Walburga. Just one. And even if this was the case, shouldn’t this inbreeding have consequences? I don’t know if it’s the magical gene or what but The Blacks and Malfoys seem pretty fine.

If you know more and you want to add them, feel free to do so. This is a critique to improve this word and fandom ourselves. Even JKR's world is cool and wonderful, it is full of flaws that we need to speak about.

[harryskalechips]

Hung up high in the gallery

A/N Hello I am back with an angsty story! I would like to call out an anon who gave me this idea! Sadly I made it turn into a depressing one-shot LMAO Anyways, please enjoy!

Harry and Jeff decide to spend their Friday night at a mysterious art opening. Harry starts to realize though that maybe these photos have a deeper meaning than he originally thought. 

Word count 2350

“Look, dude, I know you’re busy on Friday nights writing music and all but why won’t you come to an art opening with me? Glenne is feeling sick and I was invited to go.” Jeff suggests as he talks to Harry through the phone. Harry was just laying on his couch, watching an old episode of friends.

“I mean… yeah, sure. I’m not doing much anyway.”

“Really? Wow, never thought it would be this easy to pull you out of your house.”

“Funny.” Harry sarcastically laughs as he finally sits up on his couch so he can make his way into his bedroom.

“Okay, how about I text you the address and we meet up? Let’s say at 6:30.”

“Wait, Jeff, what are we supposed to wear?” The thing about Harry is that he can go to events every night and they can all be the same ones but he wouldn’t know what to wear to an art opening.

“Wear whatever you want,” Jeff replies. He didn’t know who was the artist they were going to see but since he knew the gallery owner, he was automatically invited to these things.

~

Harry’s eyes light up a bit as he catches Jeff exiting out of his car. Doing the same, he meets his friend in the middle of the entrance right before they enter the building. “I can’t believe I’m your date tonight.” Harry teases as he hugs his best friend.

“Yeah, thanks, babe.” Jeff laughs along.

As they stepped inside, they noticed that they were at an art opening for a new photographer. Photographs of different colours and moods were framed on the white walls with a spotlight on each. They were beautiful and nonetheless carried a story each individually.

The boys were separated a bit throughout the night as Jeff was pulled into conversations with his father’s old pals. Harry entertained some guests who were driven to get to know him because of his fame. A glass of champagne and another, a few appetizers here and there and Harry was now completely bored.

He walked around by himself throughout the gallery. He didn’t want to pull Jeff out of his social circle nor did he want to stick around next to him like a regular date. The weird thing about this art opening was the artist.

They never presented themselves during the introduction of the night nor was their name plastered anywhere. It was kind of suspicious, Harry thought to himself. Maybe they’ll present themselves at the end of the night or something? He didn’t even realize he was entering a new hallway that led to an enclosed room. A couple smiles at him as they walk out leaving him to look around the room with a new set of pictures.

He was the only man in the room as he heard the soft music and conversation going on in the main hall. Looking around, he quickly notices how each picture around the room starts to lose colour until it’s just black and grey.  What were these photos even about?

Starting at the right side of the room, he looks at the first photo with the most colour. It was a picture of a lot of flowers. It was a bit messy too but he started to notice that the flowers looked familiar. It kind of clicked when he realized that each flower he had a shirt of. Weird really, how the photo yelled at him. The title of the picture was just called Colourful. It was a basic name for a picture that showed so much mayhem. So much excitement.

He carried on through the range of photos, there were only ten but he took all his time in the world observing each one. How each photo gave him flashbacks. Specifically flashbacks of his time in New York.

During his time in One Direction around 2014, he lived in New York a bit. He bought himself a decent-sized penthouse and explored a bit during his time off. Went to every cliché place in the city, went to too many fancy events and fashion shows. Probably dated a lot of models too but he knew they were all flings anyway. It was because he met one girl at this coffee shop near his place.

Her name was Y/N. She loved photography probably as much as this artist right now. She had dreams in a busy city. She was still in university but despite both of their busy schedules, they managed to date for a whole year. He was so in love with her.

As Harry noticed he was eyeing the third photograph for too long, he started to wonder if this was her art opening. But how could that be possible anyways? Last time he remembered she wasn’t making much off her passion. She was becoming pessimistic with all the unlimited rejection New York City had to offer her. It would make his mind go crazy if she flew across America to start her career here. He knew she was damn well talented but he doesn’t think he can handle that idea if it were true.

If another person would observe these photos, they would call these pictures beautiful and deep but in reality, the artist knew that they wouldn’t understand anything from this specific collection. No one should. Yes, art is subjective and can be interpreted in many ways but no one would ever realize that the arrangement of photos showed the artist’s journey...in love.

Harry walks back to the second photo before moving on in the line, noticing that each specific detail seems to make him uncomfortable. After the random pictures of flowers, the next photo showed coffee beans sprinkled with glitter on a table? The mood? Energized. Childlike. The name? Addicted. The third photo showed a pair of stereotypical chelsea boots laying recklessly on a carpet with popcorn all over the floor. The mood? Unknown. The name? Comfortable. The fourth photo displayed a flame in a forest all alone with stars above. The mood? Intimate. The name? Ignited. The fifth photo, however, was different from the other four as the colour was the most saturated than the rest. A very big difference that catches a person’s attention. How he thought the colour was decreasing throughout each photo but now this proves him wrong. It was a picture of a girl’s hand in a man’s hair. The mood? Sexual. The name? S. S? Harry makes a face of confusion. The artist clearly took a photo while she was receiving oral pleasure. Harry thought to himself. This artist has to be a girl. The title… she has to be referring to sex.

 The next 5 photos, however, took a turn as they showed a depressing mood. They slowly turned to black and white. The sixth photo was a bunch of shoes on one side of a sidewalk all facing one way. The seventh photo showed a glass wine with a goldfish inside with a little hole with water pouring out. The eighth photo showed the fourth picture but the trees no longer had leaves. The stars were gone and the flame has diminished. The ninth photo showed a simple white bed with the title Miss. The last photo was a picture of the artist’s neck. Oh, she is a girl. It was a picture of her holding a necklace with her fist covering the charm but you see Harry took his time to stare at the photo longer. In between her digits, was a sight of a ring. A ring he knew too well. A ring he gave to Y/N. The title? In love.

“Hi! Would you like to come to the main presentation room now? The photographer will be introducing herself.” Harry turns himself immediately to catch the girl who interrupted his thought process.

“Y/N.” He mumbles as he stands still, completely in shock. So she was here.

“Oh, Harry! It’s so nice to see you again. I-uh I didn’t realize you would be here tonight?” She smiles warmly as she tries to cover up her stutter. She was all dolled up. Her hair was curled nicely. She was wearing a simple white flowy dress with sparkly heels.  She walks towards him and gives him a good hug.

“So, you’re the artist huh?” He tries to make his heart stop beating fast. It’s been five years, why is he acting unstable?

“That was actually supposed to be a secret but yeah, I am.” She smiles sweetly as she looks around the room he’s been standing in. “Oh, were you looking at this collection?” She crosses her arms and looks around the room of pictures. So, her photos in this collection weren’t exactly groundbreaking like the rest but she wanted to showcase this one too because it made her who she is.

“Yeah, it’s beautiful work Y/N.”

“Thank you.”

“Can you explain the whole story?” Harry bit his cheek a bit as he carefully watched her. He wanted her to admit that these photos were somehow about him. How could it not be? The photo of the flowers, his Chelsea boots, the model’s hair in between her thighs, the sidewalk… that had to be the paparazzi. The rest of the photos were metaphors except for the last one because he couldn’t understand it. In love? Why was it the last photo after all the depressing ones? Why was it black and white?

“Of these photos?” She laughs in shock. “I can’t. You need to interpret them.” She looks back at him and takes a big swallow.

“Well correct me if I’m wrong but these photos seem to be about us.” The mood Y/N brought along with her suddenly fell. She somehow forgot she had to introduce herself to the rest of her visitors as she stood in front of a man who changed her life.

“Why do you say that?” She doesn’t even try to correct him! Harry smirks to himself as he watches her fidget.

“I was there throughout each step of our relationship. Also this last photo,” He walks closer towards it and points at her fingers. “That ring, I bought it in a vintage shop in Paris in 2013. I gave it to you the first fight we had.” She glares at him for a few seconds before speaking out.

“Yeah.” She gives up and lets out an exhale. “You’re right. This collection is about us.” Harry couldn’t even properly listen to her as he stared coldly at her bare neck.

“Wow, can’t believe you dedicated a whole collection for our story.” He laughs and walks towards the fifth photo. Y/N stands silently, just watching him “You’re really clever. The title is S. We all know that meant sex.” He laughs out loud as he looks at her. Was it obvious he was trying to not talk about the depressing side of their love story? How this whole collection showed why their love stood no chance against his fame.

“The title S. actually doesn’t stand for sex.” She shakes her head and smirks. “It stands for Styles.” Now that made his laugh disappear. He realized that there was no way he can find humour in this whole collection because the truth is what happened between them was sad. It was sad to the point, he had to force himself to forget about her. How was that possible! Ever since New York. Track 8 on HS1.

“Oh.”

“Wondering about the colour difference?” She takes a seat on the lonely beach and offers him to sit beside her. He takes a seat without looking at her. He only looks at the picture of the paparazzi. He knew they were the reason. The reason he grew overprotective of her. The reason that he knew so well of what broke them apart.

“Yeah.”

“Many people won’t understand what’s going on this whole series. They think that the colour is probably my love that slowly drains out.” She pauses a bit and looks behind her to make sure no one can hear her. “But the truth is, the colour represents my fear. In the beginning when I first met you. I was scared to get to know you more. My head was in a party of different emotions. Different voices in my head. Just ultimate chaos, you know? But that slowly disappeared as I fell in love with you. That picture,” She points at the fourth one with the fire pit. “You ignited something in me. I felt reassurance that you would take care of me and love me the same way but as the fifth photo shows, all that fear came back rushing into me as we spent our first night sleeping together. I guess you can say S. does mean sex but I named it after you because when you were asleep in my sheets that night all I can think about is your name and who you truly are.”

“If you noticed, the colour is strongly decreasing for the rest of the photos. You know, despite the most hurtful part of our relationship that was so exhausting and stressful, I was still in love with you. I no longer had fear. I was no longer scared to admit to everyone that I was in love with you even though all this sad metaphorical shit represents us. I guess the last photo shows that I am in love with you even everything we went through. You get the vibe right?” She tearfully smiles at Harry as she notices he’s already looking at her.

“I’m sorry about what happened between us.” he takes a hold of her hand looks at her.

“It’s okay, it’s been five years. I’m okay now.” She laughs it off but he still knows her like the back of his hand. He knew there had to be something still there in between him but what happens if that’s a lie and it’s all in his head?

Something inside Harry that he kept buried in his heart began to grow pressure. It felt like his heart was actually aching like it was about to explode. What happens if I’m not? What happens if I tell you right now I’m still in love with you! “Yeah, five years. I’m okay now too.” He lies.

[hvnc]

( nadia hilker / cis woc ) HANA FISCHER is 24 years old and is a POST GRAD at thales university. SHE is majoring in MODERN LANGUAGES and is known for being THE ENIGMATIC as SHE can be CALCULATING and TALENTED as well as PHLEGMATIC and BRUTAL. every time i see her, she reminds me of SUNGLASSES WORN INDOORS, NAIL POLISH TO MATCH A MOOD, THE SOUND OF METRONOME. ( chels / 33 / she ; her / cst )

CRIES it has been a minute since i’ve done the intro thing, but here goes...

trigger warnings: drowning/death ; drugs i’m sure ; violence probably, car accident/death yes.

basic stats and fun stuff ;;

name: hana fischer-capone. [ the engimatic ] 

 age: 24.

major: modern languages.

sign: taurus.

mbti: infj

religion: catholic. [ yeah i know...it might seem like bs but she does take it seriously only if the topic is touched, despite her ungodly antics ] i never said she wasn’t a walking contradiction to herself simply because her mood convinces her something is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.

sexual orientation: bisexual. strong female preference.

romantic orientation: demi/aromantic spectrum.

hogwarts house: slytherin. [ with hufflepuff tendencies ]

favorite song: bittersweet symphony.

clubs: debate vp . clubs ‘unknown’. [ past riot club member ]

sports: equestrian league ; on-court tennis ; ballet/dance.

fun extra ‘habits’: roller derby, poker, illegal street racing.

family: wolfe fischer [ drug & audi imports. alive ] ; nicola capone [ artist. alive ] ; otto fischer-capone [ deceased age 2 ]

steven: family friends/acquaintances from a young age.

growing up ;;

hana was born in berlin germany on april 28th, and was raised there solidly until the age of ten.  summer & holiday vacations were spent between a few family homes, residing in annecy, amalfi, bruges.

languages in the home included german, italian and french. she did not learn english until traveling abroad began at the age of ten.

she was an only child for the first three years of her life, and then her little brother otto was born. he died at the age of two by drowning in the small child’s pool in the yard. hana witnessed this. she remembers this event and does not speak about it or the circumstances surrounding it. [ feel free to ask me though i’d be more than happy to explain if your muse is interested in insight/knowledge about this; ie friend connections she might have confided to. ]

from that point on, as an only child, hana was spoiled in mostly gentle ways. she had everything she needed and wanted, was pampered by her mother and prized by her father. she hated both of those things and fought tirelessly for her own freedom to the point where, when she’s around her parents it’s hard to tell if she’s the parent or if they are. when hana is home she seemingly runs the house, in a sense...she does so as she has been groomed from an early age to take over ‘family-work’. the good thing in this sense of being in control is that hana turned out just and responsible, rarely abusing her pull over her family or her voice over her family.

at the age of twelve wolfe and nicola moved with hana stateside and settled in portland, maine, where her father worked with every string he could pull that would earn him the right to the capone family name he had married into. despite nicola wishing for a quiet and peaceful family home, the property of hana’s maine home harbored tunnels and a boat house that allowed wolfe to make problems disappear quietly and often with his young daughter well in ‘the know’. this granted him a massive network of connections with justified fear in his presence. and for hana...a sense of legacy she has yet to decide upon. some days it means freedom and power, other days...it means a chain around her neck and clipped wings. nicola keeps her cheek turned in the other direction and devoted her time doting on their only daughter. but with such work came intense isolation. though hana’s childhood property was as equipped to entertain her as a private summer camp might, she was often left to her own devices while enjoying artful and elite activities. this led her to pick up a habit of fleeing or calling her own shots, forming her own antics, such as bringing home her father’s rival colleague’s sons when her bed craved company. the more security cameras on the property caught, the better.

she reveled the summers spent flying back to germany, home to the culture she missed. she would spend her time on the waters of annecy or listlessly trailing her fingertips through cherry wine poolside in italy, but eventually, as all things with hana, the glass would be tipped to shatter on the marble and she would once again flee for the sake of herself; delving into the cultures she found herself immersed in frequently in the surrounding areas.

university bound ;;

she attended Gisela Gymnasium as a child in Munich before moving to the US solidly. she was privately tutored at home through her travels.

for the duration of her high school education, hana attended Choate Rosemary Hall.

she was invited to oxford and princeton. hana adamantly refused invitation to anything her father pushed for, ie yale. her mother pushed her towards juilliard but that too was shunned by hana. oxford invitation would have sent her out of the states and away from her family. pursuing her love for modern languages, hana chose to accept a year at oxford, in order to advance her studies in english,  and then she was princeton-bound.

when she then transferred to state-side to princeton. she completed her sophomore year, but havoc within Princeton’s Riot Society that hana was a member of, resulted in her quiet transfer.

redacted information ;;

the summer before sophomore year hana drove her audi off of a princeton bridge as a final challenge to gain entrance into the riot club. the passenger and fellow running-mate with her was killed. due to the society’s influence and connections it was written off as an accident due to brake failure. hana became a member after that night and was one of 3 voted into ruling member status six months later for the upcoming year. she sometimes suffers from light sensitivity as a result of her head hitting her window.

as a ruling member, and as a challenge to underclassman wishing to join the following year, hana gifted the nominations with trinkets packed with cocaine without their knowledge. as a show of their trust in her and the society hana asked they keep these trinkets on themselves at all times. she then prompted a drug search on the university and those who did not follow her one room by keeping the trinket on their persons, rooms were searched and they were eliminated from the society process with academic consequences. for those who did as she asked and carried the drugs, her sniffed out but ignored by the canines. this was to show the reach and power of the society and to prove what the society was capable of protecting their members from.

connection ideas ;;

dealing: hana is not a big user herself, IF ever, it would be rare that she uses, however, naturally that is because she likes cleanly passing product to those who know she carries and receives shipments through her family. she’s not the type to pass all over campus and at parties, it’s more elite and private than that. she will always have cocaine within her grasp, ritalin, adderall to pass off quickly and quietly. she will not look at someone fondly if asked for drugs she considers trash like heroine or meth or cannabis. she won’t knock anyone for it, it’s none of her business nor does she care, but she might simply pretend she didn’t hear or see them at all. think of her as the cool big sister in this department i guess or a bad influence, both probably.??

spoiled, rich, elitist…and cultured?: hana was raised very cultured to western europe so if your bb frequented places such as germany, italy, france, austria or switzerland, on holidays, long summer months spent on yachts or in vineyards, museums and the like, they may know her that way. so connections with long-time friends thick with spoiled elitist trash summers…is basically her aesthetic. if someone speaks other languages she’ll likely want private conversations that soothe the ‘homesick’ feeling. she’s majoring modern languages and also just native german herself.

from around: hana is one of those people in the lives of those she knows, who is just always around, not in hovering sense ever she is far to reclusive in her own rights for that, but…that girl they met when their parents shipped them off, that girl they met again years later and remembered, in a sense of consistency, there and then gone, but always sort of …there.

family friends: her dad is a rich piece of shit tbh working organized crime, her mother is an angel that’s just too sweet for someone a little salty like hana to stomach for long, so maybe family parties were held and they met that way, maybe they both hated the parties and had no one else to talk to but each other, and hated that more, or maybe it became almost a sibling relationship and banter happens, as well as,…hana having someone to call first when she’s gone and done something her father would be proud of them both, while her mother sinks into the family’s catholic church to pray over both of their sorry asses. (crimes likely for this connection: basic street crimes, drugs, interrogation if it comes down to a problematic person needing to be dealt with, basic mayhem on a whim.)

confidant: likely the first person hana goes to if there is ever a problem she is having, even for just a talk or advice as a friend, no big deal mostly, but this person is likely someone she looks up to greatly as a mentor over her, someone who’s more the first to know things about her, truths about her, and the on-goings in her life.

know your worth: all in all she might not be impressed with someone. she knows what she wants and where she’s going, this can be a negative connection where she just does not see them belonging anywhere near her, but that doesn’t mean that can’t develop into something else. bc it should!! this could be a connection where she’s more likely to push someone to the brink or challenge someone harder if they need a push, negative or positive. either she’s amused by someone’s failures because they’re proving her right, or she really does want to see someone succeed. 

these are just ‘themed starting points’, seriously hmu with ‘familial, rival, platonic, ex, etc’ and i will run with it.

a little about me CHELS ;;

i’m a capricorn

and a slytherin...

honestly this might say enough, whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing..i’m not sure tbh. 

[toffeebuzz]

Virginia Woolf In The Flesh

Before she started out her day's paintings Virginia Woolf started out to put in writing painstakingly yet in a beautiful old skool script in her diary. 'Madness isn't a proper sitting-down affair like a dinner or high tea. Its black wonder, in all its wonderful electricity and kingdoms (the 'arthritic' nation, the 'counter-efficient' state, the 'frame double's' state), the onset and expedition into growing older, all are written at the body and in the mind of the creative. I am located in the centre of it. I am the key that unlocks its history. I recognise even if I am traumatic I need to be dependable to my soul's progress by means of letting matters move. Skill comes with the potential of the 'floodgates' of every emotional curve beginning up and liberating me  Custom Made Jewellery Instead of hitting your head against the ambitious of all formidables, the brick wall which you appear/I seem to effortlessly cling to will cave in with consummate ease and we will go beyond the ones astonishing limitations of what we once occupied. All I feel is iciness behind me, draping itself like a cool shroud over me, shutting out the white light, swirls, cloud-bursts of air as heavy as moss draining me of electricity, leaving me to ask myself that marked query of all marked questions, has my time come, is it my flip, is my time up? I am aware of the time of day. It is nearly time for my afternoon stroll. Faces joined to bodies tough at paintings in fields peer out at me with image-perfect clarity.

I do not know them, they do now not in shape or belong in my global so I cross by myself merry way and pretend I do not see them. Or is it almost time for my commonplace nap or to have a touch light supper with Leonard and speak about Hogarth Press, its cumulative progress and the writers he's currently printing.

I climb hills with fashion, sucked into this new earth with each step.

When I feel maximum now not of the flesh is whilst a spell of insanity comes upon me. All round me the universe will become a ghostly sphere. Stars are unfailing witnesses to the elements of my hallucinations. As I write this in surprisingly solitary confinement, in my room, I can see crystals of light evaporate in iciness rain outdoor my window. Look, appearance, pressing with an index finger into the center of the flushed salmon-red of the palm of my proper-hand as though I am investigating stigmata, I am working example that even depression can raise you. Why is it constantly the impoverished, the most inclined citizens of our environment, what that unflinching symbol of loss way to us, what's it about the lives of Outsiders that communicate to us?

Head touching sky, feet touching floor, inhaling a lungful of the wholesome nation-state air (it feels as if it's far sliding through me, the fruity richness of my organs, my blue veins) those are some of my maximum precious moments. Where might I be without you? All around me are the immortal heights of nature. To rest, I have the throne of a tree to lean in opposition to and the sky, even the scenery of the land is poetic. What could I do with jewels, pink rubies, glowing sapphires, gold whilst these days I've visible shades of the sector via a pair of ultra-modern eyes? When you are older, you are extra forgiving, stronger, surprised at your voluntary spontaneity to grin and interact with different 'artists' whilst you are at your great at public gatherings.

Is the world really so full of life, so vibrant that it may hurt, cause you to weep, sob uncontrollably, can it draw a feint line of subterfuge among your sacred contract with your god and a maximum herbal innovative present this is additionally applicable, compelling and particular? Here I am, hiking up my skirts, dust on my shoes, my hair plastered in an unladylike fashion against my forehead, taking part in exerting myself, finding pleasure in it, my limbs trembling, the 'woman of the manor', balanced the previous day precariously between the hell of mental contamination and the everlasting damnation of all of it. With the closing vestiges of my adolescence all but eliminated, who was left in charge for my fragile nation of thoughts. Mental infection had me once rigidly on fire and right here I turned into a infant again in my secret garden.

Walking, despite the fact that it changed into a width of a thread of our cottage, regarded to make stronger my spirit from the internal out. I even have learned to endure solitude (it has me hooked); even the silence has not misplaced its diamond-shine. So I suffer inside the silence that usually seems to navigate its way to satisfy me in minuscule explosions in my presence and I did not presume that infertility changed into a fierce punishment or that it became a lesson in hide. It was an earthquake imparting me quiet torment earlier than it have become an uninvited visitor sequestered to the attic. It turned into only a misunderstanding poured between my cells and platelets. Perhaps even the social discord of religious interference become melded to my bones, sinew and flesh and no longer just the organic.

In a few ways there is nonetheless 'the subdued woman' about me, no Goth, no siren am I with flaming lips. I sense I actually have risen to the occasion brilliantly, as eternity has wanted me to by way of making a stunning profession of it. As I write this leaves are falling like natural drifts of snow and at some point I recognise this diary may be held up for eternity, like such a lot of others before my time, earlier than my us of a, to public scrutiny. Newspaper hounds, students and pundits will claim 'it', my diaries and excerpts from them literature. They will say Virginia Woolf became a girl in advance of her time. If there is a worthy truth to that statement I am positive I shall not recognise of it in my own lifetime.

She's usually lived like this with the winters of loneliness. She referred to as it 'perfection', 'bliss and the art of survival is discovered in an artist's innovative expression', 'a natural habitat for a lady writing fiction', 'I am an artist and all writers are artists and all artists are writers', 'I discover such a lot of things useful inside the cold consolation of my rituals before I sit down all the way down to work. The ritual of creating, of living, of the invincibility of routine and silence, that internal area which you are maximum conscious of'.

In her thoughts's eyes she tells herself to close her eyes, to agree with the voice of her regulate-ego and the entirety it's far telling her. It is telling her, selling her, her invisible doppelganger's visions until she ought to even feel it in her heart. She become now not tethered to whatever inside the fabric international. 'The handiest ownership that I came into this international with and am leaving this international with is that this bodily body.' She had advised her sister, Vanessa, who had been her most ardent partner at some stage in their adolescence and formative years. She lived in books and without them she could be dead, loveless and in their fundamental training that they had given her she noticed pix of the wisdom she might at some point come to own.

'Write this down. Write this down. Make notes.' She tells herself. Her hands are numb due to the fact she has been writing for goodbye. She had no longer even been conscious that the light were failing until she regarded up and there was a knock at her door. 'Virginia, if I failed to recognise any higher I could be inclined to suppose which you wanted to be held up from your work, with some day's relaxation in mattress from catching a chilly on this drafty room.' Her husband walked across the room and stood in the back of her.

'You can not examine it yet Leonard. When it's geared up, then I'll display you.' Virginia raised a clenched fist to her mouth and coughed.

'Aren't you tired yet? It is nearly time for dinner. Are you feeling hungry? I'm famished.

Maybe you can devour a little something? You're searching so pale and thin. Would you want some warm milk before you burst off to mattress later?'

'Don't fuss so. You understand I hate it.'

'Did you take your walk these days? I didn't hear you return and say you'll be off.'

'I didn't want to disturb you, that is all. You had been working.'

'My dearest Virginia continually amazes me. You realize you would not have intruded.'

'I am so not worthy of you. I worship you; you realize that, don't you?' I'm a mess, is what Virginia honestly wanted to mention.

How do you positioned up with me? How do you neglect? How are you able to stand me after I can not nod off, once I come upon furniture within the midnight, while you attain out for me beside you to your bed and you just hit air? Was I now not made to be a wife, to be obedient however I created this countrified mayhem and this chaos that when charmed me now shames me and the simplest way for me to preserve my head above water is to write?

'Do you leave out the city, the ones scenes, that crowd?'

Yes, yes, yes she wanted to scream, a primal scream, as an alternative she shook her head.

Although it is cold and she or he has pulled a shawl over her knees under the table, even though it is raining and she has closed the window, lit the lamp, although there are leftovers for supper, a chilly meat pie from lunch awaiting her, her tea inside the pot with its joyful tea comfortable has gone cold, she can not prevent. She can not make sense of all of it yet. To her it appears a futile exercising but she continues to write down unabatedly within the silence of her room. Far faraway from the world around, the farming network, livestock grazing in the fields, seed planted in a single season and now being harvested in some other, she wrote approximately fable coming to an result in relationships, the exploding suns in a demise marriage, a countryside framed through the solar, she distilled the cold traces of the anatomies of its sturdy population.

It became late however she knew she could now not be disturbed. The residence was rapid asleep. She sat at her desk and commenced with a rippling ribbon of idea.

'Writers are generally voyagers with clean perceptions, readability of imaginative and prescient whilst confronted with the parallel world, factors of the darkest parts of humanity. We maintain every different up with the rites of public scrutiny; tell ourselves grievance will be the dying people (what does that mean to the maximum green). I want to drown. I need that revel in. The revel in of being pressured to sacrifice that loveliness of the haunting sport of connecting truths to the flesh presser who's on the center of you. No 1/2-lifestyles lived for me. Give me a guide for being fragile, a guide in order to educate me how to react to a husband's expectations so I can disable and accurate all of the information effortlessly on these cold traces.

Still the past nourishes me even if I fail to strip reality from my desires. I actually have a voice and the thriller of that sustains me. Let me magazine and study the whole lot and so I understand I will triumph due to the fact when you consider that childhood I had been an apt scholar pouring its know-how into a distillate, standing at the brink with stars in my eyes. If it become a bleak early life, if it left you with grit, the memory of the ghost of potatoes pushed to the side of your plate. If you feel darkness in moments of being, in case you feel the lack of your ego, it diminishing, that the most effective possession you'll go away this international with is your physical body, then that is a adventure you have to stay dependable to, to its development.

When I do not eat, once I do not sleep there's an intelligence this is given substance inside the madness. There's a cause for the entirety under the sun. Emancipation always leads to conversation although it is on the other side of the world. The question I ask myself most often these days is, what are different writers thinking, examining here, what do their soul's appear to be, what's the most poetic/emotive thing to return from their background and what's maximum sacred factor to them and about the facts they are giving me via their literary world? We're sitting on millions of years of introduction right here. Of recuperation, artwork, earth, sky, heritage, diamonds, rage, literature, imaginative and prescient, feminism, summer season. There's a writer born every second. Most of all we want every other.'

'Good morning, middle of the night, hour of blue.'

She wrote approximately the seriousness of traumas, casualties, triumphs, laughter, ghoulish vampires of boys with forked tongues who could not keep their wanton palms to themselves, off their underage, faded, virginal victims who typically found themselves misplaced in those most tragic of circumstances (nearly to the factor of making themselves sick by means of throwing fits and hysterics) - the lack of the age of their innocence. So Woolf forgot about her planet and when it shattered at her feet.

And so I come to the woman inside the water, the sinner. But however are not all of us sinners?

Virginia Woolf inside the flesh, that death of the drowning vacationer. Her mind cells turned into the cemented atonement of useless moths. Deaths that can be accounted for. Physical our bodies that can not be lively away, mended best souls torn from the fabric. Absolutely nothing escaped Virginia. The glory of love (she had that white wedding, the present of affection, she knew it, she knew of it, defended it graciously, she was no failure. I am that failure). Nothing escaped her passionate seeing eyes, her liberty, and her meditations on nature. Her platelets, mitochondria and bilateral symmetry no greater. Only the grit, the brick walls, the mysterious interiors of the mansions of her work remained. Left behind. Granite. Diaries left at the back of for apprentices. Her instinct, breath and vitality has left this damned for an eternity to hell corpse. What does she need to do with the parenting competencies of my remote manic depressive father and my stylish and bloodless mom, my cool mental illness that wanted a room of its personal to coexist with my brother's cigarette smoke, his fatherhood, and his triumph where I had failed after which I voyaged inwards?

River Ouse captivated me. I am a girl who writes. Virginia Woolf became a woman who turned into a spouse, and Vita Sackville-West's lover (love letters among the 2 girls have been determined in Woolf's correspondence) and a female who wrote. My ordinary madness became a thing of splendor to me. Me an empty vessel who discovered bright stars in girls, of their husbands and youngsters, in plants in a vase, within the fabric of the universe at night time. I am Orlando. I am Lady Lazarus. I have lived vicariously via Hiroshima, Jean Rhys the demimonde and artist's model and the feminist Sylvia Plath's cutting-edged authentic words signalling warning, speaking threads of know-how, and protest poetry. I had to recognize the London scene, Ted Hughes, Assia Wevill, and the kid from that union, Shura. I'm afraid of modernism. It's not modernism that is taking up the world. It's girl writing. The interpretations of an internal existence, innerness, marriage, creativity and madness. Vita and Virginia sitting in a tree. K-I-s-s-I-n-g. Don't 'appearance' at me. Look at 'me'. Our intimacy is some thing unique. Your skin is a cloth I ought to drown in. I can do with out religion but I cannot do with out you. You have given me the best shape of artwork, and this is proposal. How can I ever pay off you?

[inhumansforever]

Royals #8 review

spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers

The secrets of the Sky Spears are finally revealed as The Royals fight for their lives caught in the deadly Snarkwar.  Superstar artist, Javier Rodriguez, joins the creative team alongside fellow illustrator,  Kevin Libranda, colorist, Jose Villarrubia and writer Al Ewing.  Cosmic mayhem and a supervising romance ensues.   Full recap and review following the jump.

The alien Snarks are embroiled in a civil war and the would-be king, Prince Hyinar, has come to NovaHala with their ‘Quantum Foam’ device aiming to utilize its technology to steal as many Inhuman powers as needed to return home and win the war.  Most of The Royals and their Universal Inhuman colleagues have been captured, their powers stolen and supplanted into Snark soldiers.  To keep these powers, however, the original hosts must be kept alive so that the Snarks can periodically return to recharge.  

Outside of the city, Medusa, Maximus, Noh-Varr and the Queens of The Universal Inhumans have come to inspect the Sky Spear that has mysteriously come to the Centurion World.  Maximus had formed a hypothesis about what these Sky Spears might be and how they may work; a hypothesis that he tested by taking control of Quenn Oola’s telekinetic powers and using them to pick up Noh-Varr and throw him into the structure of the spear.  

The Kree and Inhumans are distantly related, both products of manipulated evolution by way of Primagen.  This particular spear is not attuned to Noh-Varr physiology, but the similarities are close enough to facilitate an interface wherein the spear ‘reads’ what Noh-Varr is and conversely Noh was able to experience the process and ‘see’ it for himself.  

Noh’s vision is a kaleidoscope of Jack Kirby-style cosmic wildness.  The mammoth Progenitor creating and refining the Sky Spears, hurdling them through space to precise destinations.   The experience is terribly painful for Noh-Varr, yet he survives.  He falls from the spear and Maximus catches him, bringing him back to report.  Noh casts off his bitter anger toward Maximus in order to share with Medusa all that he has learned.  

The Spear is a diagnostic tool, a means of assessing and evaluating the knowledge and powers of Inhuman subjects.  Its ability to control minds is a byproduct of its function for collecting cognitive data; likewise its augmentation of Inhuman powers is also a product of it testing the upper limits of said powers.  The spear is an antenna, collecting this data and sending it back from which it came.  Furthermore, there is no means of autonomous propulsion to these devises… they are literal spears that have been thrown with tremendous strength so to traverse the galaxies and strike planets with pinpoint accuracy.  

Before Medusa and the others can take stock of what Noh-Varr has learned they are suddenly attacked by Hyinar and his empowered Snark warriors.  

Maximus is momentarily able to fend off the attack, utilizing the various powers of the Universal Inhuman Queens.  Yet one of the empowered-Snarks has ‘borrowed’ the abilities of Swain and her empathic abilities once more acts to cancel out Maximus’ mind-control.  

Meanwhile, within the Snark command ship, Gorgon has been robbed of his Inhuman gifts and rendered into a human-like form.  Held in chains, he reflects back to the early days of his recovery from a devastating wound that had left him paralyzed.  He recalls his old friend, Karnak, and the philosopher’s cold effort to offer him comfort.  Karnak is unlike the rest of The Royal Family.  He has never gone through Terrigenesis and his abilities are a result of ardent study, practice, and training.  

Confined to a wheelchair, Gorgon took no solace from Karnak’s words; he didn’t have his life to live over and cannot dedicatee himself to training and refining new skills.  What Karnak had attempt to relay to Gorgon did not resonate at the time, but now, in recollection, begins to make sense.  Karnak’s outlook is one of absolute nihilism: everything is nothing, it is all meaningless… and yet determination can allow one to exploit the great flaw of meaninglessness that exists in all things.  

The recollection seems to inspire Gorgon, cause him to realize that he is much more than simply a vessel for his powers.  Karnak can shatter stone solely by way of his determination, surely Gorgon can do the same to a mere metal chain.  Besides, the Inhumans of Attilan possess enhanced strength to begin with… and Gorgon has been doing a lot of working out.    

Summoning all of his strength, Gorgon pulls on the chain, stretching it taught so that it is only as strong as its weakest link.  He exploits this weakness, the link cracks and the chain snaps.  In the same motion, Gorgon snatches the Snark scientist who had been standing nearby, constricting his hand about the alien’s throat and forcing him to free the others.  

Moments later, the cloaking device aboard the Snark craft is disengaged and it lands nearby the Sky Spear.  Gorgon and his colleagues come pouring out to attack.  They no longer posses their powers, but are unwilling to go down without a fight.  

Flint peels off admit the battle, internet on a rash and desperate plan.  He makes it to the Sky Spear and lays his hands on it.   Once more this particular spear has not been calibrated to terrestrial Inhumans, but the physiognomic similarities are close enough that it effects Flint.  

The power-amplifying properties of the Sky Spear overwhelms the Snark technology that has robed Flint of his powers.  He regains his abilities and uses them to lift up a giant chunk of rock, reforming it into spiked slab.   Perhaps the Sky Spear’s influence has rendered Flint more cold-blooded or perhaps the direness of the situation has left him more violent than normal.  Whatever the case, Flint slams down the spiked slab, killing Prince Hyinar and his Snark soldiers.  

The battle is over.  With the Snarks dead, the Inhumans slowly regain their powers.  Crystal expresses concern over Flint, how the exposure to the Sky Spear might have effected him.  She would like to have him checked out in a medical facility on NovaHala, but that isn't an option.  Displeased with how Maximus had taken over their minds, The Universal Queens have demanded The Royals leave NovaHala immediately.  

Yet it was not all for naught.  Noh-Varr’s interface with The Sky Spear has enabled him to reserve navigate the trajectory of the spear.  He can guide them from where it had come and bring the Royals to location of the mysterious Progenitors.  

Before they leave, Medusa takes Gorgon aside.  Quite bluntly, she asks how long he has had romantic feelings for her.  Apparently she has noticed the way he looks at her, the love and desire in his eyes.  Embarrassed, slightly ashamed, Gorgon reluctantly answers her question.  He has loved her for years, yet buried the feeling because she was his queen and his friend’s wife.  He apologizes for it and promises to continue to keep these feelings suppressed.  Yet Medusa sees no need for him to do so.  She is dying, her end is inevitable and rapidly approaching; and they are on a mission that more likely than not will result in all of their demise.  There is no longer time nor need for the foolishness of pushing away feelings and desires.  She takes Gorgon in her arms and the two share a passionate kiss… much to the surprise of Crystal and the others.  

And it is with this unexpected turn of events that the issue comes to an end with he promise of continuation in the next installment.  

I had found the previous issue to be a bit on the short end in terms of action and unveiling the mysterious of the plot.  This issue, meanwhile, more than makes up for it with a great deal of action and a super interesting revelation about what exactly the Sky Spears are.  

The Spears are essentially probes… alien instruments of examination designed to accrue data and transmit it back to the Progenitors.  They assess information on Inhuman subjects, any beings shaped and mutated by way of derivatives of Primagen.   We have been led to believe that The Inhuman were the product of experiments conducted by The Kree, yet now it is revealed that The Kree themselves may have been merely a tool through which The Progenitors shaped dynamic life throughout the universe.  But to what end?   Are the Progenitors creating weapons?  Are they harvesting crops to consume?  Are they merely imitating the work of gods, making and shaping new life through the cosmos?  Are they benevolent, malevolent, or something beyond the confines of narrow constructs of morality?  More importantly, will The Royal be able to obtain from them what they so desperately need?  

This whole mission has been to discover a new source of Terrigen, a means through which to regain a future for The Inhumans of earth.  And what will it mean if they are to succeed?  Will confronting these Progenitors end up dooming the team… dooming all of earth?  The mystery of the Sky Spears has been uncovered; we now know what they are.  And the answering of one question has led to a bevy of new ones.  New mysterious, the prospect of saving the Inhuman race, as well as the threat of total destruction.   Pretty cool stuff… I’m just a sucker for all this high concept sci-fi weirdness.  

Although I must admit that, as villains, The Snarks don’t do a whole lot for me.  With their power-thieving technology, they are kind of ersatz Super Skrulls and I’ve no investment nor care for whatever civil war their planet is embroiled in.  Although it is possible my animus toward them is mostly seated in the fact that their attack on NovaHalla resulted in the deaths of two members of the Light Brigade (my fav, Kal Blackborn, as well as the Centurion Inhuman, Metallic Titan).  

Nevertheless, the threat posed by The Snarks provided some cool action sequences as well as interesting character developments for both Gorgon and Flint.  

Gorgon has been through a lot over the last few years.  The injury he sustained and subsequent paralysis forced him to carve out a new sense of purpose.  He could no longer be a warrior, so instead he focused on teaching, taking the younger, newer Inhumans, Flint, Naja, and Grid under his wing and helping them to gain greater mastery over their abilities.  It also forced him to come to terms with his failures as a father and the ineffectiveness of his efforts to push away his bereavement over his wife’s death.  Through it all, Gorgon has gradually come to learn that his true strength is not in his hooves, in the seismic blasts that he can generate… rather his real power is rooted in his sense of will, his determination in the face of adversity.  And it was only by acknowledging and tapping into that power that he was able to escape and, ultimately, save the day.  

In terms of  Flint, his path remains unclear.   This is the first time he has used his powers to kill.  Once before, Flint’s actions caused an opponent serious harm and the ordeal had left Flint greatly shaken (it happened way back in All New Inhumans #6).  His killing Hyinar and The Snarks was in the heat of war, justified, possibly imperative.  Yet it may be that having done so will leave a powerful impact on him.  He is already feeling quite lost and unsure of his place.  The sense of guilt over his actions, regardless of how necessary they may have been, could be enough to push him over the edge.    

As for Medusa and Gorgon hooking up… where the heck did that come from?  

Gorgon’s admiration for his former queen has been evident from the start, but I hadn’t imagined it as being amorous and in no way did I expect Medusa to reciprocate such feelings.  I was just as shocked as Crystal and the others at seeing these two lock lips.  

Medusa has been quite stoic in dealing with her illness and loss of power.  Taking a page from her ex-husband, Black Bolt, Medusa has pushed down her own feelings and focused exclusively on the mission at hand and the needs of those whom she leads.  And with this stoicism, Medusa has remained something of a cypher throughout the series.  She’s driven, but her thoughts and feelings, how she is coping with her illness and her sense of having failed Attilan in destroying the Terrigen Cloud, has all remained under the surface.  As such, the whole idea that would kiss Gorgon really feels to have come out of left field.  

And I don’t like it!

Medusa and Black Bolt are my one-true-pair.  The prospect of them getting back together has been something of a beacon… a goal or achievement that would signify a sense of symbolic victory for The Inhumans.   To be clear, I don’t at all see Medusa’s actions as cheating.  She and Black Bolt are not together and I don’t consider her hooking up with Johnny Storm nor Gorgon as an infidelity.  Yet that doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.  Furthermore, I hope that Medusa’s rational, her feelings about it, are made more clear in subsequent issues.  She has been brave in the face of her impending doom, but with this development, we really need to know what is going on in her head.  Has she always fancied Gorgon?  Does she just not want to be alone in her last days?  Has she made peace with the fact that she will likely never see Black Bolt again and is seeking comfort in the arms of another?  Enquiring minds need to know…

It was very cool to get a sneak peak at what Javier Rodriguez has in store for the visual side of the tale moving forward.  Along with depicting Gorgon’s flashback scene, Rodriguez also offered up Noh-Varr’s vision of the Progenitors which was just a wonderful visage of crackling cosmic awesomeness.  Not to be outdone, co-illustrator, Kevin Libranda also brings his A-game with vibrant action sequences and really terrific facial expressions of emotion.  Seeing Maximus truly surprised is a rare thing indeed and Libranda nails it perfectly.  

Much of the action takes place int he barren lands outside of the city of NovaHalla.  It doesn’t offer Libranda much to work with in terms of backgrounds… little more than a pink-hued atmosphere (although colorist, Jose Villarrubia, does a nice job fading the hue as it gradates to the horizon).  The scenes that take place within the Snark command ship are a bit more dynamic with the addition of  Libranda’s skill for depicting backgrounds.

A few quick notes:

very cool to see Karnak show up (albeit in a flashback).  I’m loving the cast in Royals, but Karnak, Black Bolt and Lockjaw are greatly missed nonetheless.

Swain seems to be still be quite shaken by her encounter with Ronan’s guilt-inducing powers.  Even after the Snark who had possessed Swain’s powers was killed, she struggled in regaining control of them.  It’s likely that her shaken confidence will continue to be explored in subsequent issues.

Crystal remains the least refined member of the cast.  Initially this seemed to be merely an issue of page-space economy, but I’m starting to wonder if Ewing knows exactly what he wants to do with Crystal.  I hope she receives increased attention soon.

It was neat to see the specific powers possessed by The Universal Inhuman Queens and the some of the members of their procession.  Matriarch Oola of The Centurions possesses telekinesis; Queen Aladi Ko Eke of the Baddoon seems to have bone-like class that protract from her forearms.  First Chair Onomi of the Kymellians has freeze breath.   It’s unclear what powers are possessed by Avoe of the Dire Wraiths, but one of Oola’s Centurion aides has stretching powers.  

The distant-future-set prologue to the issue shows the aged Maximus and Noh-Varr making their way to a Sky Spear located in the heart of the ruined and flooded isle of Manhattan.  The purpose of their mission remains unclear, but it is hinted that their actions five thousand years in the past has somehow incurred the wraith of the Progenitors; that these beings are coming to earth to extract some sort of vengeance.  

Good stuff and highly recommend.  Whereas Medusa and Gorgon’s kiss earns zero of five Lockjaws, the issue as a whole gets a solid four out of Five Lockjaws.

[suchagiantnerd]

54 Books, 1 Year

2018 was my first full year back at work after my mat leave, and thanks to all the time I spend on the subway, my yearly reading total is back up to over 50 books!

2018 was a dark year, and I made a conscious effort to read more books from authors on the margins of society. The more those of us with privilege take the time to listen to and learn from these voices, the better we’ll be as friends, colleagues and citizens.

You’ll also notice a lot of books about witchcraft and witches in this year’s list. What can I say? Dark times call for resorting to ANYTHING that can help dig us out of our current reality, including putting a hex on Donald Trump.

Trigger Warning: Some of the books reviewed below are about mental illness, suicide, domestic violence, sexual assault, and violence against people of colour, Indigenous people and people in the LGBTQ community.

Here are this year’s mini reviews:

1.       The Lottery and Other Stories / Shirley Jackson

Jackson’s short stories were published in the late forties and fifties, but their slow-burning creep factor holds up today. The stories involve normal people doing normal things until something small gives, and we realize something is really wrong here. As you read through the collection, take note of the mysterious man in blue. He appears in about half of the stories, always in the margins of the action. Who is he? I read him as a bit of a trickster figure, bringing chaos and mayhem with him wherever he goes. Other people have read him as the devil himself. Let me know what you think!

2.       The Ship / Antonia Honeywell

I was excited to read this YA novel about a giant cruise ship-turned-ark, designed and captained by the protagonist Lalla’s father in a dystopic near future. The premise of the book is great and brings up lots of juicy questions – where is the ship going? How long can the passengers survive together in a confined space? How did Lalla’s father choose who got to board the ship? But the author’s execution was a disappointment and focused far too much on Lalla’s inner turmoil and immaturity.

3.       The Hot One: A Memoir of Friendship, Sex and Murder / Carolyn Murnick

My book club read this true crime memoir detailing the intense, adolescent friendship between Carolyn, the author, and Ashley, who was murdered in her home in her early 20s a few years after the girls’ friendship fizzled. Murnick is understandably destroyed by the murder and obsessed with the killer’s trial. The narrative loops back and forth between the trial and the girls’ paths, which diverged sharply after Ashley moved away in high school. Murnick (the self-proclaimed nerdy one) muses on the intricacies of female friendship, growing up under the microscope of the male gaze, and the last weekend she ever spent with Ashley (the hot one). This is an emotional, detailed account of a woman trying her best to bear witness to her friend’s horrific death and to honour who she was in life.

4.       The Break / Katherena Vermette

Somebody is brutally attacked on a cold winter night in Winnipeg, and Stella, a young Métis woman and tired new mother is the only witness – and even she isn’t sure what she saw. The police investigation into the attack puts a series of events in motion that make long-buried emotions bubble to the surface and ripple outwards to touch a number of people in the community, including an Indigenous teenager recently released from a youth detention center, one of the investigating officers (a Métis man walking a fine line between two worlds), and an artist. This is a tough read, especially in the era of #MMIW and #MeToo, but all the more important because of it.

5.       So You Want to Talk About Race / Ijeoma Oluo

Probably the most important book I read this year, I will never stop recommending this read to anyone and everyone. This is your Allyship 101 syllabus right here, folks. Do you really want to do better and be better as an ally? Then you need to read every chapter closely and start implementing the lessons learned right away. This book will teach you about tone policing, microaggressions and privilege, and how all of those things are harmful to people of colour and other marginalized communities.

6.       The Accusation / Bandi

This is a collection of short stories by a North Korean man (written under a pseudonym for his protection as he still lives there). The stories were actually smuggled out of the country for publication by a family friend. The characters in these stories are regular people living regular lives (as much as that is possible in North Korea). What really comes across is the fine line between laughter and tears while living under the scrutiny of a dangerous regime. There are several scenes where people laugh uncontrollably because they can’t cry, and where people start to cry because they can’t laugh. This book offers a rare perspective into a hidden world.

7.       Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen / Jazz Jennings

Some of you will be familiar with Jazz via the TLC show about her and her family, “I Am Jazz”. I’d never seen it but was inspired to read the book to gain a better understanding about what coming out as trans as a child is like. Jazz came out to her family at 5 years old (!) and her parents and siblings have had her back from the beginning. If you are still having a tough time understanding that trans women are women, full stop, this book will help get you there.

8.       A Field Guide to Getting Lost / Rebecca Solnit

When it comes to the books that gave me “all the feels”, this one tops the 2018 list. Solnit is everything - historian, writer, philosopher, culture lover, explorer. Her mind is always making connections and as you follow her through her labyrinthine thoughts you start to feel connected too. Her words on loss, nostalgia and missing a person/place/time actually made me cry, they were so true. For me, an agnostic leaning towards atheism, she illuminated the magic in the everyday that made me feel more spiritually rooted to life than I have in a long time.

9.       I Found You / Lisa Jewell

Lots of weird and bad things seem to happen in British seaside towns, don’t they? This is another psychological thriller, à la “The Girl on the Train” and “Gone Girl”. One woman finds a man sitting on the beach one morning. He has no idea who he is or how he got there. Miles away, another woman wakes up one morning to find her husband has vanished. Is the mystery man on the beach the missing husband? Dive into this page-turner and find out!

10.   The Midnight Sun / Cecilia Ekbäck

This novel is the sequel to a historical Swedish noir book I read a few years ago. Though it’s not so much a sequel, as it is a novel taking place in the same setting – Blackasen Mountain in Lapland. This story actually takes place about a hundred years after the first novel does, so it can be read on its own. Ekbäck’s stories dive into the effect of place on people – whether it’s the isolation of a harsh and long winter or the mental havoc caused by the midnight sun on sleep patterns, the people on Blackasen Mountain are always strained and ready to explode. (Oh, and there’s also a bit of the supernatural happening on this mountain too – but just a bit!)

11.   After the Bloom / Leslie Shimotakahara

Strained mother-daughter relationships. The PTSD caused by immigration and then being detained in camps in your new home. Fraught romances. Shimotakahara’s novel tackles all of this and more. Taking place in two times – 1980s Toronto and a WWII Japanese internment camp in the California desert – this story of loss, hardship, betrayal and family is both tragic and hopeful.

12.   Company Town / Madeline Ashby

In this Canadian dystopian tale, thousands of people live in little cities built on the oil rigs off the coast of Newfoundland. Hwa works as a bodyguard for the family that owns the rigs and is simultaneously trying to protect the family’s youngest child from threats, find out who is killing her sex-worker friends, mourn her brother (who died in a rig explosion), and work through her own self-esteem issues. Phew! If it sounds like too much, it is. I really did like this book, but I think it needed tighter editing and focus.

13.   The Power / Naomi Alderman

In the near-future, women and girls all over the world develop the ability to send electrical shocks out of their hands. With this newfound power, society’s gender power imbalance starts to flip. The U.S. military scrambles to try and work this to their advantage. A new religious movement starts to grow. And Tunde, a Nigerian photographer (and a dude!) travels the world, trying to document it all. This is an exciting novel that seriously asks, “what if?” in which many of the key characters cross paths.

14.   Milk and Honey / Rupi Kaur

Everyone’s reading it, so I had to too! Kaur’s poems are refreshing and healing, and definitely accessible. This is poetry for the people, for women, for daughters, mothers and sisters. These are poems about how women make themselves small and quiet, about our inner anger, about sacrifice, longing and love.

15.   Tell It to the Trees / Anita Rau Badami

In the dead of winter in small-town B.C., the body of big-city writer Anu is found outside of the Dharmas’ house, frozen to death. Anu had been renting their renovated shed, working on a novel in seclusion. As we get to know the Dharmas – angry and controlling Vikram, his quiet and frightened wife Suman, the two children, and the ghost of Vikram’s first wife, Helen, we feel more and more uneasy. Was Anu’s death just a tragic accident, or something else entirely? There is a touch of “The Good Son” in this novel…

16.   You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life / Jen Sincero

This book was huge last year and my curiosity got the better of me. But I can’t, I just can’t subscribe to this advice! All of this stuff about manifesting whatever you want reeks of privilege and is just “The Secret” repackaged for millennials and Gen-Z. Thank u, next!

17.   All the Things We Never Knew: Chasing the Chaos of Mental Illness / Sheila Hamilton

Shortly after a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, Hamilton’s husband, David, took his own life after years of little signs and indicators that something wasn’t right. Her memoir, in the aftermath of his death, is a reckoning, a tribute, and a warning to others. In it, she details the fairy tale beginning of their relationship (but even then, there were signs), the birth of their only child, and the rocky path that led to his final choice. Hamilton’s story doesn’t feel exploitative to me. It’s an important piece in the global conversation about mental health and includes lots of facts and statistics too.

18.   This Is How It Always Is / Laurie Frankel

This is a beautiful novel about loving your family members for who they are and about the tough choices parents have to make when it comes to protecting their children. Rosie and Penn have five boys (that this modern couple has five children is the most unbelievable part of the plot, frankly), but at five years old, their youngest, Claude, tells the family that he is a girl. Claude changes her name to Poppy, and Rosie and Penn decide to move the whole family to more inclusive Seattle to give Poppy a fresh start in life. Of course, the move has consequences on the other four children as well, and we follow everybody’s ups and downs over the years as they adjust and adapt to their new reality.

19.   Dumplin’ / Julie Murphy

While I didn’t love the writing or any of the characters, I do need to acknowledge the importance of this YA novel in showing a fat teenager as happy and confident in who she is. Willowdean Dickson has a job, a best friend and a passion for Dolly Parton. She also catches the attention of cute new kid, Bo, and a sweet summer romance develops between the two (with all of the miscommunications and misunderstandings you’d expect in a YA plot). This is an important book in the #RepresentationMatters movement, and is now a Netflix film if you want to skip the read!

20.   Kintu / Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

This was touted as “the great Ugandan novel” and it did not disappoint! The first part of the novel takes place in 1754, as Kintu Kidda, leader of a clan, travels to the capital of Buganda (modern day Kampala) with his entourage to pledge allegiance to the new Kabaka. During the journey, tragedy strikes, unleashing a curse on Kintu’s descendants. The rest of the novel follows five modern-day Ugandans who are descended from Kintu’s bloodline and find themselves invited to a massive family reunion. As their paths cross and family histories unfold, will the curse be broken?

21.   The Child Finder / Rene Denfeld

I bought this at the airport as a quick and thrilling travel read, and that’s exactly what it was. Naomi is a private investigator with a knack for finding missing and kidnapped children. This is because she was once a kidnapped child herself. The plot moves back and forth in time between Naomi’s current case and her own escape and recovery. There was nothing exceptional about this book, but it’s definitely a page-turner.

22.   Difficult Women / Roxane Gay

Are the women in Gay’s short stories actually difficult? Or has a sexist, racist world made things difficult for them? I think you know what my answer is. The stories are at times beautiful - like the fairy tale about a woman made of glass, and at times violent and visceral – like a number of stories about hunting and butchering. Women are everything and more.

23.   My Education / Susan Choi

I suggested this novel to my book club and I will always regret it. This was my least favourite read of the year. I thought it was going to be about a sexy and inappropriate threesome or love triangle between a student, her professor, and his wife. Instead it had a few very unsexy sex scenes and hundreds and hundreds of pages about the minutiae of academic life. I can’t see anyone enjoying this book except English professors and grad students.

24.   Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities / Rebecca Solnit

This series of essays was a balm to my soul after Ford won the provincial election. It reminded me that history is full of steps forward and steps back, and though things look bleak right now, there are millions of us around the world trying to make positive changes in big and little ways as we speak.

25.   The Woman in Cabin 10 / Ruth Ware

Another novel in the vein of “The Woman on the Train”, that is, a book featuring a young, female, unreliable narrator. Lo knows what she saw – or does she? There was a woman in the now empty Cabin 10 – or was there? And also, Lo hasn’t been eating or sleeping. But she’s been drinking a lot and not taking her medication. I’m kind of done with this genre – anyone else?

26.   My Brilliant Friend / Elena Ferrante

After hearing many intelligent women praise this novel (the first in a four-part series), my book club decided to give it a try. I didn’t fall in love with it, but I was sufficiently intrigued by the intense and passionate friendship between Lila and Lenu, two young girls growing up in post-war Naples, that I will likely read the whole series. Many claim that no writer has managed to capture the intricacy of female friendship the way that Ferrante has.

27.   The Turquoise Table: Finding Community and Connection in Your Own Front Yard / Kristin Schell

This is Schell’s non-fiction account of how she started Austin’s turquoise table movement (which has now spread further into other communities). Schell was feeling disconnected from her immediate community, so she painted an old picnic table a bright turquoise, moved it into her front yard, and started sitting out there some mornings, evenings and weekends - sometimes alone, and sometimes with her family. Neighbours started to gather for chats, snacks, card games, and more. People got to know each other on a deeper level and friendships bloomed. This book is a nice reminder that small actions matter. A small warning though – Schell is an evangelical Christian, and I didn’t know this before diving in. There is a focus on Christianity in the book, and though it’s not quite preachy, it’s very in-your-face.

28.   Sing, Unburied, Sing / Jesmyn Ward

This was hands-down my favourite novel of the year. It’s a lingering and haunting look at the generational trauma carried by the descendants of those who were enslaved and lived during the Jim Crow era. One part road trip novel, one part ghost story, the plot follows a fractured, multi-racial family as they head into the broken heart of Mississippi to pick up the protagonist’s father, who has just been released from prison.

29.   Full Disclosure / Beverley McLachlin

This is the first novel by Canada’s former Chief Justice, Beverley McLachlin. As someone who works in the legal industry and has heard her speak, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this. But, with all due respect to one of the queens, the book was very ‘meh’. The plot was a little over the top, the characters weren’t sufficiently fleshed out, and I felt that the backdrop of the Robert Pickton murders was somewhat exploitative and not done respectfully. Am I being more critical of this novel than I might otherwise be because the author is so intelligent? Likely yes, so you can take this review with a grain of salt.

30.   The Long Way Home / Louise Penny

This is the 10th novel in Penny’s Inspector Gamache mystery series. As ever, I fell in love with her descriptions of Quebec’s beauty, the small town of Three Pines, and the delicious food the characters are always eating. Penny’s books are the definition of cozy.

31.   In the Skin of a Lion / Michael Ondaatje

Ondaatje has the gift of writing novels that read like poetry, and this story is no exception. Taking place in Toronto during construction of the Don Valley bridge and the RC Harris water treatment plant, the plot follows a construction worker, a young nun, an explosives expert, a business magnate and an actress as they maneuver making a life for themselves in the big city and changing ideas about class and gender.

32.   The Story of a New Name / Elena Ferrante

This is the second novel in Ferrante’s four-part series about the complicated life-long friendship between Lila and Lenu. In this installment, the women navigate first love, marriage, post-secondary education, first jobs and new motherhood.

33.   The Happiness Project / Gretchen Rubin

In this memoir / self-help book, Rubin studies the concept of happiness and implements a new action or practice each month of the year that is designed to increase her happiness levels. Examples include practicing gratitude, going to bed earlier, making time for fun and learning something new. Her journey inspired me to make a few tweaks to my life during a difficult time, and I do think they’ve made me more appreciative of what I have (which I think is a form of happiness?)

34.   The Virgin Suicides / Jeffrey Eugenides

I loved the film adaptation of this novel when I was a teenager, but I’d never actually read it until my book club selected it. Eugenides paints a glimmering, ethereal portrait of the five teenaged Lisbon sisters living a suffocating half-life at the hands of their overly protective and religious parents. The story is told through the eyes of the neighbourhood boys who longed for them from a distance and learned about who they were through snatched telephone calls, passed notes and one tragic suburban basement party.

35.   Time’s Convert / Deborah Harkness

This is a supernatural fantasy novel that takes place in the same universe of witches, vampires and daemons as Harkness’ All Souls trilogy. The plot follows the romance between centuries-old vampire Marcus, who came of age during the American Civil War, and human Phoebe, who begins her own transformation into a vampire so that she and Marcus can be together forever.

36.   The Saturday Night Ghost Club / Craig Davidson

Were you a fan of the TV show “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” If yes, this novel is for you. Davidson explores the blurred line between real-life tragedy and ghost story over the course of one summer in 1980s Niagara Falls. A coming-of-age novel that’s somehow sweet, funny and sad all at once, this story delves into the aftershocks of trauma and the way we heal the cracks in families.

37.   Oh Crap! Potty Training: Everything Modern Parents Need to Know to Do It Once and Do It Right / Jamie Glowacki

I hoped this was the book for us, but I don’t think it was. Some of the tips were great, but others really didn’t work for us. The other issue is that the technique in this book is much better suited to kids staying at home with a caregiver, not kids in daycare.

38.   The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One / Amanda Lovelace

This is a collection of poetry about women’s anger, women’s long memories and strength in sisterhood. It’s accessible, emotional and a bit of a feminist rallying cry. As someone who is obsessed with the Salem witch trials, I also loved the historical backdrop to the poems.

39.   The Rules of Magic / Alice Hoffman

I love to read seasonally, and this prequel to “Practical Magic” was a perfect October book. Remember Jet and Franny, the old, quirky aunts from the movie? This novel describes their upbringing, along with that of their brother Vincent, as the three siblings discover their powers and try to out-maneuver the Owens family curse.

40.   Witch: Unleased. Untamed. Unapologetic. / Lisa Lister

This book has a very sleek, appealing cover. Holding it made me feel magical. Reading it really disappointed me. From Lister’s almost outright transphobia to her unedited, repetitive style, this was a huge disappointment and I don’t recommend it.

41.   The Death of Mrs. Westaway / Ruth Ware

I liked this novel a lot more than Ware’s other novel, “The Woman in Cabin 10”. Crumbling English manor homes, long-buried family evils and people trapped together by snowstorms are my jam.

42.   Weirdo / Cathi Unsworth

Another British seaside town, another grisly murder. Jumping back and forth between a modern-day private investigation and the parental panic around cults and Satanism in the 1980s, Unsworth unpacks the darkness lurking within a small community and the way society’s outcasts are often used as scapegoats. The creep factor grows as the story unfolds.

43.   Mabon: Rituals, Recipes and Lore for the Autumn Equinox / Diana Rajchel

And so begins my witchy education. I have to admit, I really liked learning about the historical pagan celebrations and superstitions surrounding harvest time. I also liked reading about spells and incantations… ooooOOOOoooo!

44.   From Here to Eternity: Travelling the World to Find the Good Death / Caitlin Doughty

In North America, we are so removed from death that we are unequipped to process it when someone close to us dies. But this doesn’t have to be the case. In this non-fiction account, Doughty, a mortician based in L.A., travels the world learning about the business of death, the cultural customs around mortality, and the rituals of care and compassion for the deceased in ten different places. It seems that the closer we are to death, the less we’ll fear it, and the better-equipped we’ll be to process loss and grief in healthy ways.

45.   Samhain: Rituals, Recipes and Lore for Halloween / Diana Rajchel

Did you know that Samhain is actually pronounced “Sow-en”? I didn’t until I read this book, and felt very intelligent indeed, when later, while watching “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” on Netflix, the head witch pronounced the word as “Sam-hain”, destroying the writers’ credibility in one instant. I am a witch now.

46.   See What I Have Done / Sarah Schmidt

This novel is a retelling of the Lizzie Borden murders, illuminated through four characters – Lizzie herself, the Borden’s maid Bridget, Lizzie’s sister, and a mysterious man hired the day before the murders by Lizzie’s uncle to intimidate Mr. Borden (one of the murder victims). I knew very little about the murders before reading this book, but this version of the tale strongly suggests that Lizzie really is the murderer. Unhinged, childlike, selfish and manipulative, I hated her so much and felt awful for everyone that had to live in her orbit.

47.   The Nature of the Beast / Louise Penny

In the 11th installment of Penny’s Inspector Gamache mystery series, she sets the story up with a parallel to the boy who cried wolf and introduces us to her first killer without a soul. Crimes of passion and greed abound in Penny’s universe, but a crime of pure, cold evil? This is a first.

48.   How Are You Going to Save Yourself? / J.M. Holmes

This is a powerful collection of short stories about what it’s like to be a Black man in America right now. It’s about Black male friendship, fathers and sons, outright racism and dealing with a lifetime of microaggressions. Holmes makes some risky and bold decisions with his characters, even playing into some of the harmful stereotypes about Black men while subverting some of the others. This book really stayed with me. One disturbing story in particular I kept turning around and around in my mind for days afterward.

49.   Split Tooth / Tanya Tagaq

This is a beautiful story about a young Inuit girl growing up in Nunavut in the 1970s, combining gritty anecdotes about bullying, friendship, family and addiction with Inuit myth, legend, and the magic of the Arctic. The most evocative and otherworldly scenes in the novel took place under the Northern Lights and left me kind of mesmerized.

50.   Motherhood / Sheila Heti

Heti’s book is a work of fiction styled as a memoir, during which the protagonist, nearing her 40s, weighs the pros and cons of having a baby. I’ve maybe never felt so “seen” by an author before. I agonized over the decision about whether to have a baby for years before finally making a decision. The unsatisfying, but freeing conclusion that both the author and I came to is that for many of us there is no right choice (but no wrong choice either).

51.   The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories / P.D. James

This is a short collection of James’ four “Christmas-y” mysteries published over the course of a number of years. It was a perfect cozy read to welcome the holiday season.

52.   The Christmas Sisters / Sarah Morgan

Morgan’s story is a Hallmark holiday movie in book form. A family experiencing emotional turmoil at Christmas? Check. Predictable romances, old and new? Check. A beautiful, festive setting? Check. (In this case, it’s a rustic inn nestled in the Scottish Highlands). This novel is fluff, but the most delightful kind.

53.   Jonny Appleseed / Joshua Whitehead

Jonny is a Two-Spirit Ojibway-Cree person who leaves the reservation in his early 20s to escape his community’s homophobia and make it in the city. Making ends meet as a cybersex worker, the action begins when he has to scrape together enough cash to make it home to the “rez” (and all the loose ends he left behind there) for a funeral. The emotional heart of the novel are Jonny’s relationships with his kokum (grandmother) and his best friend / part-time lover Tias.

54.   Yule: Rituals, Recipes and Lore for the Winter Solstice / Susan Pesznecker

Do you folks believe that I’m a witch now? I am, okay? I even spoke an incantation to Old Mother Winter while staring into the flame of a candle after reading this book.

55.   Half Spent Was the Night: A Witches’ Yuletide / Ami McKay

Old-timey witches? At Christmas time? At an elaborate New Year’s Eve masked ball? Be still my heart. This novella was just what I wanted to read in those lost days between Christmas and New Year’s. You’ll appreciate it even more if you’ve already read Ami McKay’s previous novel “The Witches of New York”, as it features the same characters.

[10oclockdot]

True/False 2017 Festival Report, part 2:

in which I give capsule reviews of films that I viewed on March 4 and 5, the last two days of this year's True/False, in order of best to worst. Part 1 here.

The War Show (Andreas Dalsgaard, Obaidah Zytoon, 2016) Imagine Five Broken Cameras, but in Syria. Mix in a deeply wise coming-of-age story that tragically spirals into a tale of existential perdition with poetic voice-over to rival The House is Black and ending with the most clear-throated call for piece I've heard in ages. That's The War Show, and that description doesn't do justice to this rich, multi-modal, and severely underappreciated film. It all begins with Obaidah Zytoon, a young woman who liked shooting home movies with her friends (and who became the film's director), playing forbidden music as a DJ on a Syrian radio station. "Going on air was like dancing in a mine field," she recalls. As the anti-Assad protests begin, she films the people marching with her. "I'm doing it to breathe," says a kid named Nawarah. A bevy of catchy chants fill the air with the bracing spirit of revolution. And so we meet her exuberant friends -- Houssam, her lover, Lulu, a friend who removes her hijab for the first time, Hisham, Lulu's boyfriend and a poet, and more. But even as their spirits remain high and the crowds swell, "demonstrations turned into funerals," she tells us. Journalists are targeted, the country's "senses polluted" by the ensuing flow of disinformation. "No one raised in Syria can define freedom," says one of her comrades. Dozens of locals show off scars left by torture at the hands of the Assad regime. The friends take one final trip, and then, out of nowhere, they start to be arrested, kidnapped, houses destroyed, one is even killed, the halcyon opening smashed. As the film goes on and the madness of the conflict spirals ever farther away from believability, I found myself lost -- I didn't know where we were, when we were, or what to believe. Intelligently, the film doesn't attempt an encyclopedic or journalistic account of the conflict -- it would be impossible as yet anyway -- so what we're left with are fragments that we can barely situate or hold onto. Scenes of destruction, of protests and counter-protests between those wanting democracy and those wanting a caliphate, children playing with unsafed rifles, and, of course, an inside look into how a revolution gets co-opted by warlords and arms dealers, each staging some unreality for YouTube to further their financial cause. "There was a place for everyone in the war show," Obaidah explains, "except for the people." Many moments of brilliance follow after this, but it culminates in the very final scene of the film, just as a felt most poetically and tragically lost (which, of course, is the point). After years of prison, a disappeared friend returns unexpectedly, reconciling the lives of the few friends who remain. "Syria as we know it is gone," she intones, but kneels over a clay pot, gathering soil and planting seeds, and she says of the Syrian people, "We will plant the seed of peace around the planet." And there it is: the powerful, beautiful, perfect message of The War Show -- that the Syrian diaspora is, contrary to what every xenophobic isolationist asshole has ever said, the greatest peace movement of the 21st Century. Because the Syrian people, each scarred by the madness of their country's war, will carry the scars of that war their entire lives, scars that will always speak to the necessity of peace, wherever they live and as long as they live. It's an essential message and an essential film.

Brimstone and Glory (Viktor Jakovleski, 2017) I guess that in the back of my mind, I knew that documentary could be pure spectacle -- what, after all, are IMAX documentaries? -- but I never imagined I'd spend fully half of a feature length documentary leaning forward, mouth agape, absolutely in awe of the visceral madness taking place in front of me. Brimstone and Glory is a documentary about fireworks -- specifically the absolutely bonkers annual fireworks festival in Tultepec, Mexico, where half the buildings in town are labeled "Peligro" (they build the fireworks there, year-round), where they erect hundred-foot-high towers of fireworks (castles of fire, they call them) and where they build sculptures of bulls the size of buses and run them through downtown, shooting fireworks off of them into crowds of thrill-seeking and oft-injured spectators. Director Viktor Jakovleski spent went three years in a row, shooting with drone cameras, an arsenal of Go-Pro's, and cinematographers covered head-to-toe in protective gear diving headlong into the middle of the mayhem. Add to that eruptive sound design, sharp editing, and a driving original score co-written by Behn Zeitlin (the guy who directed and wrote the music for Beasts of the Southern Wild), and you've got one of the best adrenaline rushes you can get sitting still in a seat. Best moment: as they're setting up the castles of fire, lightning strikes one of them, setting it alight. Cut to the perspective of a Go-Pro mounted on a man's head whose job it is to rapidly scale the wooden tower without a safety harness and put things in order. Damn.

Manifesto (Julian Rosefeldt, 2017) Extreme close-up, shallow-focus, ultra-slow-motion: a fuse burns across the screen, sending sparks in all directions while Cate Blanchett quotes some delicious gobbledegook from Tristan Tzara's Dada Manifesto, culminating with, "I am neither for nor against and I do not explain because I hate common sense." Thus began a film that refused common sense and did not explain itself. Cut to old women shooting off fireworks over some abandoned Eastern bloc factory or weather station. As a drone camera flies over the tumbledown complex, we find Cate Blanchett, dressed as a shabby character that recalls Denis Lavant's Monsieur Merde, dragging a suitcase through the ruins and quoting Marx. In a flash, the opening credits are a barrage: huge white block letters on a black background, the names of artists and thinkers who wrote manifestos, each on screen for about a third of a second, like a stripped-down Enter the Void. The ensuing 90-minute film follows Blanchett as she dons a dozen different disguises in a dozen different environments -- from a puppet shop to a garbage processing facility to an anechoic chamber, all brilliantly photographed -- and speaks excerpts from a few dozen manifestos from across the last century and a half. To be clear, this is not a documentary. In fact, it began as a 13-channel video installation that editor Bobby Good transformed into a feature. Though most of the audience was probably befuddled and confused about the origin of these words (the film does not caption the quotations), they were generally amused by the absurdity of deterritorializing the tone of the manifesto into more quotidian environments (a highlight: Blanchett as a news anchor conversing with Blanchett as a field reporter in a rainstorm). I enjoyed the handsome cinematography and the Nils Frahm score, but I had the most fun whenever I recognized the origin of the words: Maciunas, Lewitt, Jarmusch, Brakhage, and a few others. As for the words I didn't recognize ("Equal rights for all materials," "One dies as a hero or an idiot, which is the same thing," "Elephants are very big and cars go very fast, but so what?"), I looked a bunch of them up and learned something. A nice provocation of a film. Perfect for screening the last week of a class on avant-garde art history.

Distant Constellation (Shevaun Mizrahi, 2017) A lovely, slow-moving film made of lovely slow-moving and somewhat haunting images. The whole is not greater than the sum of its parts, making it a film that's not especially worth seeking out, but a few of the images will probably stick with me. In Istanbul, languid shots of a building under construction intercut with languider scenes of life in a retirement home. It all seems to take place neither in the past, nor the present, nor the future, but a place disconnected from time, where the overworked young build a future that won't happen while the un-visited old disappear from a past equally unreachable. Two old men ride up and down on an elevator in order to have a private conversation with each other. A very old woman who insists on being known by a pseudonym (Selma) falls asleep in the middle of an interview. One old codger, not without some charm, recounts the sexual exploits of his youth before proposing marriage to the director, saying she'll surely outlive him, which would make the marriage to her advantage. A stopped clock labeled USSR sits next to a working Western one. An old woman complains that now she walks too slowly to make it all the way across the street while the walk sign is on. The rhythms of the modern world aren't kind to everyone, but as tales of the Armenian genocide reveal, perhaps the world was never all that kind. So this constellation drifts on, and fades away.

Still Tomorrow (Fan Jian, 2016) A woman with cerebral palsy living in a remote Chinese village writes a poem that gets shared a million times on Chinese Facebook and scores her a book deal. That sounds like a good hook for a documentary, but the film lacks a clear shape or direction. For the most part, Yu Xiuhua spends the film not charismatically soaking up her newfound fame (though there's a bit of that, and it's really fun), but rather fighting with and divorcing a husband she's never loved. That focus feels strange until you notice that the poetry isn't really the object of investigation here, but rather the abuse which lower-class disabled people suffer in exchange for a caregiver. Sadly, this theme receives scant development. Still, there's plenty of her lovely poetry on display. "Silent wheat in the moonlight / the frictions between them / are the trembling of all the things of the earth." Here the image shows a wheatfield near her home. It's a choice not entirely without grace, but when a documentary's images cannot stand alongside its subject's words, the project falters.

Lindy Lou, Juror #2 (Florent Vassault, 2017) I desperately wanted to like this film. Lindy Lou served on a jury two decades ago that sent a murderer to death row. There's no doubt the man was guilty, but in the intervening years Lindy Lou has come to deeply regret this decision. So she and the documentarian travel around Mississippi tracking down her fellow jurors and finding out whether any of them changed their minds. It's a clear spine with clear motivation and all, but the structure ends up deeply limiting the film, since many of the people she goes to talk to aren't all that interesting people to talk to. The film was at its best when one of the jurors who'd also felt pangs of guilt years later suggests that their ought to be a state-funded counseling service for jurors who have to do such work. In the Q&A after the film, Lindy Lou, who was there in person, suggested that the trauma experienced by jurors on such cases was a bit like the trauma experienced by soldiers -- and she ought to know, she's a veteran herself. But she made the mistake of mentioning the film American Sniper to the fairly liberal crowd at T/F, which drew a couple of muted snarls from people seated near me. And in that moment I realized that even if Lindy Lou's on the right side of the death penalty debate, the Confederate flag flying on her property and her husband's gun enthusiasm (both depicted in the film) put her in such a different world from many of the folks in the audience that effective bipartisan collaboration might be impossible. I rarely learn more from the Q&A than from the film, but that was the case here.

[coreglia]

Family update, not that you asked, but I’m just getting over my PTS from last week, and I could use a little support from things that don’t slither or build webs.

Even gratuitous interest is welcome.

Something I knew, but conveniently forgot, three-year-olds scream. A lot. It’s sort of an ear-piercing howl that lingers in the air as if a recently smoked cigar. You know what I mean? But so do their giggles and that’s the win.

I wake up to the echo of soft laughter coming from down the hall and can’t remember a time when this wasn’t so?

The odd thing is when it’s quiet you know there’s trouble brewing, that’s when you jump up and rush the tranquility.

Rounding the corner to the room in which the twins were last seen, I ask accusingly, “What are you two doing?”

“Nothing (in unison),” claims Cora and Sienna, looking up at me with the most cherubic faces you have ever seen.

“What’s in your hands?”

Four sets of little hands disappear, “nothing Grammie.”

“Are those Kiki’s earrings I see scattered all over the floor, dangling from your shirt, hiding in your hands?”

“We organizing Grammie.”

“Did Kiki ask you to organize her jewelry?”

“Yes, she did,” says Cora.

“Seems odd?”

“We helping,” says Sienna as she holds a crystal earring up to her ear.

“Let’s put them all back and then we can have an otter pop!”

By the way, otter pops solve everything.

Can we move on to the industriousness of our five-year-old roomie? When this child is in pursuit of an important task it is nearly impossible to dissuade her. Recently I found her creating a collage with my latest DIY magazine, later that day she was using my toothbrush as if her own, after relocating my lipsticks to an undisclosed location? Today she was lavishing my French perfume on the dog and my hair clip has mysteriously disappeared?

It’s quite possible Shaggy not only smells but looks better than the humans with whom he resides?

And by the way, adult children revert to their adolescent personas when in the company of their parents, only now they’re educated, self-funded, and not subject to parental restrictions or grounding.

It’s utter mayhem.

Even so, everyone is getting their needs met, albeit with a few peculiar compromises, and silent negotiations. We’re under construction, literally, and metaphorically. My daughter and son-in-law just took ownership of the house across the street. It needs some serious renovations, but that’s the beauty of a large family, many hands make light work as John Heywood notes.

Families have their own micro-culture, it’s as if a bustling harbor, a place to moor your person while you recover from the stress of the outside world. Shannon Alder says love doesn’t make the world go ’round, love is what makes the ride worthwhile, and family is your fast pass.

The best part of being in a large family is you don’t have to waste your time trying to prove yourself in order to be loved, we actually care about each other, and value one another even when we’re acting like total assholes. At least we take turns. Can I just add some of us have taken more turns than others? As Johathan Carroll reminds us, real love is always chaotic. You lose control; you lose perspective. You lose the ability to protect yourself. The greater the love, the greater the chaos. It’s a given and that’s the secret.

I have learned through long and lengthy discussions that disagreements don’t get resolved, they hibernate, until the issue emerges under some new circumstance, disguised as concern, judgment, or control. There are no winners in the ring of unresolved conflict, just knockouts, and bruised feelings. You can’t change people, it’s more about acceptance, and the resolve to agree to disagree. I have to learn to be okay with that and just move on. #LifeLessons

Here’s another hiccup when you live in crowded conditions with wannabe fairies, aka Cora, Sienna, and Audrey. Things get lost! Julie lost a wallet, Larry couldn’t find his keys or flipflops, and I believe there was a necklace that went missing for several days. I keep losing the book I’m currently reading, our shoes are never where we left them, and we are always in search of our iPhones. When one phone rings seven people go into a hard scramble and one of them doesn’t even have a phone?

One day I was using my Airpods and the next day they were gone! I accused everyone (including Shaggy) of borrowing them and then failing to return the merchandise. They all vehemently denied any knowledge of their whereabouts (keep in mind four of us have the exact same model).

A week later I found them precisely where I always store them and had searched this location no less than fifteen times! Fairies or adults? We’ll never know for sure.

The minute the kids got the keys to their new house, we migrated across the street as if a murder of crows, forming this makeshift crew of amateur artists as if attempting to paint a new portrait over a previously used canvas. The kids have submitted plans to the city for an extensive remodel, and while they await approval, there is a lot of prep work that needs to be done. The first order of operations was to pull up all the old carpet, clean out the garage for storage, remove the draperies and rods, along with some of the landscaping, and finally take down the dated wallpaper.

It’s interesting to me how our lives follow the same cycles, we experience periods of creation, followed by deconstruction, and then reconstruction, and it’s the same for houses, cultures, governments, movements, relationships, even our faith. Is this what you think about when you can’t sleep? I didn’t think so.

Too bad we’re deconstructing this beautiful house in the middle of July, it’s hot and humid, and I believe I have sweat out half my body weight pulling carpet staples out of the floorboards.

We were delighted to find hardwood under all the carpets, solid wood doors on all the rooms, and a wallpaper mural of Paris in the dining room! Everywhere I look I sense a surfeit of memories and traditions lodged in the walls of this charming house and smile warmly at the sweet memories domiciled in the future.

Our lives are continually under construction, just when things get comfortable, we find ourselves redesigning the idle spaces. “Every day we reconstruct ourselves out of the salvage of our yesterdays,” says James Sallis. I say family is but a glimpse of heaven simmering on the fires of hell, and like Olaf says, “some people are worth melting for.”

I’m Living in a crowded Gap, searching the net for diversions, catch me up on your life in the comments!

Anecdotes:

“The strewn and tangled wreckage that litters our lives is the precious raw material from which great beginnings are forged.” Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Writers will happen in the best of families.” Rita Mae Brown

“Before you were conceived, I wanted you. Before you were born, I loved you. Before you were an hour, I would die for you. This is the miracle of love.” Maureen Hawkins

  Not that you asked… Family update, not that you asked, but I'm just getting over my PTS from last week, and I could use a little support from things that don't slither or build webs.

[pettyandprettyblog-blog]

Let’s Talk About Taylor Swift

It’s about time we talked about the fake, money-grubbing, white supremacist, anti-feminist, Katy-Kim-Kanye-Clavin-John-Jake-Nicki-Spotify-Apple fighting, man-eating, snake, sheep, selfish bitch, (did I miss any descriptors?) that is more commonly known as Taylor Swift.  What’s that, you say?  You’re sick of hearing about her?  You’re tired of seeing her fake face all over social media?  Oh, honey.  I’m sorry, but she is just getting started and I am so here for it.  Allow me tell you exactly why.

Personally, I was never a huge Swiftie or “stan” (I literally just Googled what “stan” meant.  It means overly obsessive fan if you wanted to know), but I always listened to her music.  In eighth grade, when the Fearless album came out, of course I listened!  “You Belong With Me”, “Love Story”, “Fifteen”--those songs spoke to me as a fresh adolescent, ready to embrace the world of social mayhem one mismatched converse shoe at a time.  The boy you liked but never liked you back, the boy you loved and knew you were going to marry, the blind hope that your freshmen year of high school would be charming and romantic and pure and lovely and not just awkward and disappointing (SURPRISE!! No one escapes the fresh hell that is the first year of high school).

But I digress.

The Old Taylor Swift, I guess that’s what people are calling her now, could tap into your soul.  She somehow knew what you were suffering through and could sense your deepest dreams and desires.  Even those of us who weren’t “stans” could be caught singing along to “Mine” during the car ride to the movie theater with the girls and Kayla’s mom in the big, black suburban.  We all knew every word.  I had friends who went to her performance in Maine at a church after finishing her filming of a music video.  It started raining and she kept singing.  It was a whole thing with the rain and such.  I had other friends who went to each one of her tours from the flagship Taylor Swift Tour to the new and improved 1989 Tour.  I personally attended the 1989 Tour in Massachusetts.  Gillette Stadium was filled to capacity with tens of thousands of screaming and crying men, women, and children.  Even I shed a tear during her throwback to “Fifteen”, standing with my best friend since sixth grade who had seen me through the good, the bad, and the ugly (not necessarily in that order).  Taylor would stop and look around the stadium in awe.  Her face, projected on the massive LED screen, would make direct eye contact with every one of us and then she’d transition into her next banger.  She made you feel like she knew you.  She’s talented, I’ll giver her that.  It was certainly an experience.

Along the way, I feel like I always noticed people clapping back at her but it never really registered.  I always brushed it off as another celebrity feud, another meaningless piece of exploitation or mindless positioning by the media.  When the whole thing about Taylor and Kanye’s “Famous-gate” happened, I remember thinking it was funny.  I, too, called her a snake.  Better her than me #taylorswiftexposedparty (hiss, hiss).  I thought Kanye and Kim were being kind of mean, but I didn’t care.  Not that much.

Not until now.

After the drama with Kanye, she disappeared.  Radio silence followed for approx. three whole years until the $1 Lawsuit.  Maybe some people kept track of her movements or her rare appearances in public places, but I didn’t.  I listened to 1989 just like a lot of people, a slightly bigger fan than I once was, thinking it was her best work to date and wondering what kind of music she would do next, IF she would do anything else.  I also wondered what kind of scandal she would be apart of this time, what version of Ms. Swift would be revealed in the chaos.  Then, just a few weeks ago, she deleted EVERYTHING.  Website?  Gone.  Instagram?  Gone.  Twitter?  Tumblr?  Gone, all gone.  “IT’S ALIVE!!!”  The world screamed.  The words of Lord Baelish from GoT echoed in my ears, “Chaos is a ladder” and Taylor Swift is scrambling up that shit.  She stirred from her hibernation.  What was she going to do now?  Was she hacked?  And she’s back on Spotify?!

Then came the snake.  An actual, bonafide snake video that Taylor posted on Instagram.  People were taken aback to say the least.  General excitement, theories, awkward laughs, shrugs, silence, and comments about how the snake-dragon was kind of scary, followed her posts.  I, on the other hand, was jacked.  I sent updates to like all my friends and would sit and refresh Taylor’s Instagram for a few minutes at a time just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.  After all, time makes the heart grow fonder.  Or is it distance?  Idk same thing.  The album art popped up with Taylor looking edgy in black and white.  The classic New York Times-I Feel Like Pablo-esc font and color scheme graced the cover’s presence.  “Wow,” I thought.“ Reputation. She’s going after Kanye with this one.”  The too-tight choker, the ripped sweater, the dark makeup, slicked-back hair, this Taylor looks different.  Unprecedented.  Badass.

Taylor Swift released her newest single, “Look What You Made Me Do”, last Friday.  A few friends and I stayed up until late Thursday night to get a first listen.  We drank wine and streamed Ye Olde Taylor Swift while we waited for the single.  When it dropped, the universe lost its collective shit, Spotify kept cutting out, and we listened to the song four times in a row.  Two of my buddies didn’t like it.  They said that the New Taylor was bad, that they missed the Old Taylor Swift.  Her music was better.  I disagreed.  This is Taylor Swift.  What’s to differentiate Old from New?  She just is who she is.

After listening to the song about five-thousand, three-hundred, and twenty-six more times and then watching the following music video nine-hundred times more, I realized this: a lot of people were super upset about this “New Taylor Swift”.  I know.  Groundbreaking.  But then I thought about why, just like my liberal arts education wants me to, and I came to a conclusion.  People dislike change.  Especially those who feel as though they have a personal stake in whatever or whoever is changing.  People loved the Taylor that tapped into their souls and understood their plight of loving people who love them or don’t love them or kind of love them.  In “Look What You Made Me Do”, Taylor Swift focuses on other people in a completely different way and she mostly does it for herself, to build herself up.  That selfish bitch!  But wait.  Doesn’t Nicki Minaj do the same thing in Monster?  What about Katy Perry in Swish Swish?  How about all the countless male artists like Justin Bieber, Kanye West, Drake, etc. who do the same thing?  All of them are different stylistically but they all tend to put across the same message, don’t they?  That message being: Fuck. You.  Taylor would hide little tidbits like that in the past, but her current one has neon arrow signs, black leather, chainsaws, whips, and Grammy’s that get that message across like a flaming garbage fire.  She is finished with everyone’s bullshit and she will do whatever the hell she wants.

I also have my own theories.  I don’t believe in a “New” or “Old” Taylor Swift.  I believe in Taylor Swift.  Each one of us changes and develops in different ways as we get older.  Our viewpoints can/should change, our personalities shift, we move places, we meet people and lose old friends, and, hell, we can develop allergies to gluten and lactose.  So what if I said one day, “No, sorry. The old me is dead.  She wasn’t allergic to anything before but now she can’t eat ice cream without getting the shits, so new, shit-stained me is here to stay.”  Charming, I know, but ultimately untrue.  I’m still who I was in literally every aspect.  I’ve grown.  I look older.  I have different opinions and thoughts.  But I’m still me.  My image is simply what I choose to put forward to other people.  I exist on a continuum. I didn’t just stop one day and become a whole different version of myself.

Going along with the whole image theme, let me enlighten your asses about a little thing called business acumen.  Taylor Swift is a BRILLIANT businesswoman.  She times her music and tour releases for optimal moneymaking and can extend her reign for up to three years worth of Taylor tomfoolery.  There is also something to be said about musicians and their use of imagery to create hype and gain followers (much like a cult leader tbh).  But this is why I’m so into her right now at this moment like never before.  The whole premise of “Look What You Made Me Do” is how imagery and bad press (although Taylor Swift takes bad press and turns it into record breaking hit singles) has driven her to her peak of success.  “Oh look what you made me do!  I’ve won Grammy’s and lawsuits.  I have millions of dollars, loyal fans, a squad of friends, and two lovely cats.”

Since she was a mere fifteen year old girl, singin’ in Nashville, people have been all over her for one thing or another saying she can’t be that nice, or look that surprised all the time, or date that many people, etc.  “Look What You Made Me Do” is her way of saying “you know what?  I’m never going to be perfect in your eyes so why should I try?  I’m a product of what you all think of me and that will never change so I will become the stereotype and throw you all for a loop.”  In “Look What You Made Me Do”, she quite literally just BECAME the headlines.  I know this is a very different artist who operated with a totally different message but I’m going to do it anyway.  An 80’s pop star/model/actress/general badass and current goddess named Grace Jones had/has a similar plan of attack.  If you don’t know who she is, you should Google her ass immediately.  She pushed the boundaries of stereotypes and what people thought of her to the point where she became the stereotype and that was her whole thing as an artist.  Sounds familiar right?  (*cough* Madonna *cough* Lady Gaga *cough* Nicki Minaj and so many others *cough*).

We saw the start of this “Become the Stereotype: Grace Jone’s Method for Financial Success” in 1989.  “Blank Space” portrayed Taylor as a man-hungry, black-widow queen who lured unsuspecting males to her massive mansion only to chew them up and spit them out like a piece of Juicy Fruit Gum after five minutes.  And again, we saw it in “Shake It Off”: the girl can’t dance for shit (although it seems like she been taking lessons because she busts a fuckin’ MOVE in the LWYMMD music video) but she can sure mom-shimmy with the best of em and she does what she wants.

I’ve taken up too much space, but the moral of the story is this: don’t judge someone by what they did when they were younger or what you think they should be.  If I were judged that way, people would forever see a pockmarked sack of hormones with little talent but above average hand-eye coordination.  Let Taylor be.  She said that the Old Taylor couldn’t come to the phone right now because she’s dead, but she is certainly, very much alive.  We criticized her for not being “country” enough.  Then we judged her for not being “pop” enough.  Now we’re judging her for being a “snake” and presenting a different set of thoughts and sounds.  Just because she was young once doesn’t erase everything she’s said, or done, or sung, but she’s evolving.  We’ve been telling her to change her whole life.  Let her do it now.

It’s what we all wanted her to do anyway.  

Wasn’t it?

-A