#red son should not have to suffer for his asshole parents to get a redemption fuck off with that

[redysetdare]

Thinking Abt how I saw a post talking Abt how angsty and great it would be if DBK and Iron fan got redeemed from Red Sons death (one where he was put under so much stress to please them he burns out completely like an actual fire) and I absolutely HATE that idea with a burning passion like BRO WHY DID YOU THINK IT WAS GOOD FOR ABUSERS TO BE REDEEMED AFTER THEIR VICTIM DIES BY THEIR OWN FAULT???

[blorbosexterminator]

AND I am back. Once again on this lovely day to give my review for the EPISODE 24 so, here we go :

Agustin is squinting his eyes at him, as Sergio keeps muttering that Agustin has in fact done what he just mentioned he did and which both of them have known for years. 

Federico is 99% dead?! Damn, what is Sergio's gonna do?! Make it 100% ? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

(I got a feeling that Federico is the kidnapper or atleast a very important lead to them)

Btw, WHO IS FEDERICO?! Tatiana's alive husband?!

(Look at me, hoping like a moron she aint dead

My dog : Yep, total moron 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Me :

Me : NOBODY ASKED FOR YOUR BITCH-ASS OPINION, YOU DUMB-FUCK DONKEY!!!! 😡😡😡)

Martin, my darling, my sweetheart, my poor angel. Nada, some help? Atleast gimme some tips, bruh, come on, you cant desert me like that. Not when I need to help someone 🙁🙁🙁

since, drunk, the last idea he got was that Laura turned out to be completely insane and kidnapped Andrés to marry him

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Martin, honey, stop drinking. This getting out of hand 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. But then again, Andres is so hot poor thing keeps on doubting.

As Roci said in one of the tags, his wives deserve the highest civilian award for putting up with him.

(Although, I just had a frisky thought. What if Sergio wanted Andres away from Martin, not because he cared bout his hermano but......😳😳😳😳😳 *whispers loudly* he wanted Andres all for himself? In *frantically looks around* INCEST WAY?!)

(Calm down, my deranged mind, you went too far 🤣🤣🤣)

Who knows, it could be the professor he punched in the middle of an exam once. Martín doesn’t think he has forgiven him.

Mood, bruh, such a mood 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 NO, OMG 😆😆😆 I didnt do it, but I do kinda have a beef with my Organic prof. I'll go off tangent again, so tell me if you wanna know the story.

He sent Silene in disguise to collect the cctv from the nearby shops and streets. His own cctv has been disabled since the IT bitch ruined it, Martín will kill him when he gets them back.

I think if and only IF Silene finds something good, her % of redemption will increase.

(Raquel s2e7 deja vu, I see what you did there 😏)

And Martin about to go John Wick on anyone & everyone. I tell ya Keanu Reeves will be crying when he sees Martin go nuts. I am willing to bet he'll pull a gun on the poor milkman, who just wanna do his job 😆😆😆

So he calls Bogota, with a little (not that little) handwritten list in his hand with the names of people he thinks he might have ruined their life in the past. 

Martin : Okay, I'll just take out the list and

*the paper rolls out the door, travels around the world for 5 times and comes back while going over top of Everest and bottom of Marina Trench*

No, it’s because when he hated Martín, he had always hated him openly. If he wanted to hurt him, then he’d just try to stab him in the middle of the living room.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

“Bogota, did Tatiana have any family?”

“No, who of us did, Martín?”

“You literally have 7 children and 7 ex-wives.”

COMEDY GOLD, NADA 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

“Those kids are ungrateful bastards, if I fall dead tomorrow they would just run to see what they’ve inherited.”

Aka THE PLOT of 70% Indian Telenovas 🤣🤣🤣. Also this line alone has so much soap opera vibes 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

He has no choice but to go to fucking Sergio Marquina. And if it’s his wife, then even better. Keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer. 

For fuck sake, Martín, Ive been telling you from last 2 ep

Stop. Blaming. Raquel.

Also, 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 damn, these 2 assholes cant keep away from each other. Nada, are we sure these 2 married the right people? As much I am a Berlermo ship stan, this here is just smth else 😆😆😆

Uh-oh 🙁 this asshole son of a bitch just poked the mama bear. And if ANDRES of all people narrows his eyes at you, You are, quoting Martin from last ep, truly, utterly, entirely, thoroughly and wholly fucked.

“Do you know him?”

“Oh yes, a childhood friend, I stole his pencil once and he never forgave me. Have you heard this Paula? Don’t steal your friends’ pencils, they will never get over the betrayal. You could steal the teacher’s ones though.”

“Why did you steal his pencil?” Paula asked seriously, with a delirious tone, and too tired to even move her head upwards. Raquel is gonna kill every single person involved for doing this to her daughter.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Sassy Andres = Best Andres. Words that should be written with GOLD. Wisdom passed onto generations

Poor Paula 🤣🤣🤣 I just imagine this in some other situation :

Andres : *saying smth smth*

Paula : *taking notes & asking questions*

Raquel after seeing her daughter :

Look what you made me do

🎶But I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time

Honey, I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time

I got a list of names, and yours is in red, underlined

I check it once, then I check it twice, oh!

Ooh, look what you made me do

Look what you just made me do🎶

(Look what you made me do by Taylor Swift)

I am telling you Nada, by the time Raquel will be done with everyone, Uma Thurman will cry buckets because no one, okay?, no one can compete with A MAMA BEAR RAQUEL MURILLO.

“Poison is a woman’s choice of weapon, Anibal. Don’t be disrespectful.”

Again, words of wisdom. Only time hes not being a misogynist.

Also, Andres, my dear, are you speaking this from experience?

(Why do I think that Martin got Tatiana killed cause she poisoned him and Martin had to watch Andres fight for his life in hospital?)

“He won’t say anything, Mama. He’s the one who kidnapped grandma with Silene!”

Is anyone gonna listen to her? Or do I need to bonk Raquel myself? 🤦‍♀️

“Silence!” she screams. “I need to know everything that happened, if we’re getting out of here alive.” 

FINALLY!!!! SOME COMMON SENSE!!!! WE THANK THE LORD FOR MERCY!!!

And as for me, its time for me to say goodbye and goodnight (Cause its quarter to 12 rn in my watch)

AND ILL SEE YALL TOMORROW 🤗 BYE!!! 🙋‍♀️

I'm back as well! And we've finally caught up with each other.

Valid reaction. Sergio is also slowly going insane. Love that for him.

He's hoping he could. We all know this family has beef with that last one percentage.

(we'll see👀👀👀)

Hope is all we got at this point afabgs.

Now, now, don't speak to him like that. He has valid criticism.

I'd help him if I could, but alas (lmfao no, I do love them suffering)

Same recommendation. But he just, poor boy, could nothing to think of. So might as well be Laura. (also fair, who knows, maybe Andrés gets constantly kidnapped and forced into marriage)

Definitely, she's 100%. I really don't know how they do it.

Avsnsjsvjshsjs all theories are valid. Maybe Sergio does want Martín or Andrés, who knows what goes in the head of that fucker.

Seems like an interesting story! I never got along with my chemistry teachers. (Got one once to tell me that he's still not kicking me out of class only because he feels bad for my parents that they have to deal with me and they'll be the ones who will have to deal with the mess lmfao.)

Yes, have some faith in her!

100% accurate. Martín is this close from just shooting random people in the supermarket because they also could be the ones who kidnapped Andrés.

HAHAHA YES. This is exactly how the scene went.

We stan honesty in this house.

So happy you found it funny!!

I can confirm! Like 70% of all Egyptian drama as well.

I don't think he's hearing you well. But afnajscsgsh SAME. Okay look, now I really understand show runners with super homoerotic ships that they refuse to make canon. You try and make two male characters hate each other so much for plot then it slips and gets homoerotic.

Totally agree. This guy isn't making enemies with the right people (they are all dumb, but also none of them have anything that even resembles a moral compass)

Totally agree. This guy is honestly super amusing to watch and it's mainly because he's incapable of taking any situation in life seriously.

This family is really iconic. (love the song agsnsg) but also like Raquel would basically tell her after writing done his notes just put the title on top: things to never, ever, do.

I believe you! They really fucked with the wrong dumb family.

I mean, he's still a misogynist. Maybe some of us really like dagger, has he considered that?

That's as valid theory as any right there.

Hopefully Raquel will finally start listening to the child!

Raquel is the only one with a semblance of common sense.

Hope you had a good sleep! I'll see you tomorrow!

[bicoastalbip-blog]

EPISODE 1 RECAP

Welcome to season FIVE of Bachelor in Paradise! We are ready to attack this season from two coasts, simultaneously, armed with way too much wine and a hysterically apropos gif folder. For week one, we want to make sure everyone knows our cast of characters for this season, even if those characters turn out to be a major WHO, or Woefully Humdrum Occupant.

Tia:

A heavy hitter this season [read: someone the production will focus on for star power and sheer drama], Tia comes to Paradise on the coattails of dating Colton (from Becca's season) and stealing him away from the Bachelorette. In theory, anyway, since she hasn't made a move post-season, pre-Paradise. She is first on the beach, eventually starting a dialogue with anyone who will listen about her need to see Colton in Paradise. This is shaping up to be a very Ashley I. situation, and for anyone keeping track [Kevin], that could potentially be a good thing! Tia spends the entire first half of the episode awfully disappointed that Colton hasn’t dragged his gorilla knuckles down the sandy steps of Paradise in the time frame she was aiming for. When the producers ultimately dupe her with a date card, she chooses Chris. Tia wants "a serious relationship," and "something lasting," or at least that's what she tells the dude she's kissing right before Colton shows up. Colton eventually arrives the next day, and after artfully wasting his time pretending to talk to Kendall & Angela, swoops in on Tia and whisks her away on a yacht, during which time she rescinds her earlier, "Colton WHO?!"

Kendall:

An adorable ray of sunshine, far removed from the dead animal obsessive of Nick's season -- oh wait, she's discussing cemeteries and corpses with Grocery Store Joe. Old habits! Kendall tells the camera that "there's more to Kendall than just taxidermy and ukulele," and the editors cut to Kendall half naked in a yellow bikini, offering America the world. Kendall stays low key this episode, offering not-too-deep cuts and only slightly biting commentary throughout; she tells Joe sweet simplicities like, "I like talking to you," and, "Have you ever seen a dead body?" finally sealing the deal with a makeout session on a day bed while the producers lure Krystal away for an interview and then break the news to her.

Krystal:

Krystal is a blonde woman with whitened teeth and a fitness influencer on Instagram here to explain the "adversity" she has faced since appearing on Arie's season. In true editing reflection to Kendall's scene, Krystal says she has "a lot more to offer" while the camera pans over her bikini bod on the beach. She tells us that having a dog and knowing how to cook are the prerequisites for being a wife, which means that 70% of the men we know are going to be excellent wives. After a brief montage of Krystal's voice from the previous season, we're left wondering if she's woman who has just completed an orgasm and is rushing to meet the mailman, or, a white woman at a country club that has just crushed two Xanax into her morning Chardonnay. Krystal steals Joe away, much to Kendall's chagrin, and a fascinating conversation ensues as two white people discuss their heritage and bond over their exotic Norwegian backgrounds. Krystal licks her chops and moans, "Excellent," after finding out Joe is untainted and hasn't watched her season. She finishes off the episode in Kevin's arms, and they make out with the fervor and desperation of a man whose girlfriend has just left him for JARED and a woman who has had to adjust her voice several octaves to join this cast.

Wills:

The producers try their best to give Wills his moment of adorable redemption by putting him in various printed shirts and having him dance in a goofy way in a park.

Jordan:

Jordan whips out his slightly pudgy "model body" and declares that he's finally "in a place as beautiful as" him. He shows his relaxed, redemption ready side with a glass of white wine on his sofa whilst petting his cat. He slobbers over most of the women, including Annaliese, who doesn’t seem to mind the fact that he thinks chickens go, "Quack, quack." After multiple awkward silences with multiple women, his next victim is Nysha, whom he tells, "You only get this one life, right? You don't know where your soul or your energy is going to go after this." Nysha awkwardly agrees, and Jordan proceeds to tell her he wants to be a crab on the island. He later stirs drama by telling Chris that Colton is "a serpent" that he needs to cut the head off of, setting up next's week's storyline nicely.

Chelsea:

Our Klonopin mommy wanders down the Paradise steps with all the vigor of a woman sentenced to death, managing to say "hopeful" with all the hope of the string quartet aboard the Titanic. Chelsea spends the episode unobtrusively floating around, a human Xanax with eyes that beg you to end her suffering. She tells the producers, "I have no idea what I did to be here," followed by, "I am loving it," spoken with the cadence of someone who had to put their dog down today and then locked themselves out of their car. Chelsea's great contribution, however, is a brief dialogue with Nick that turns out to be the highlight of the episode.

Nick:

Nick starts out the ep by being a big WHO, and ends up in the hall of fame. He takes a drunken seat next  to untoasted Wonderbread slice and single mother Chelsea on the day bed, and pours out his soul. "You're fucking cool as shit." Chelsea tells him she's not making the first move.

"Chelsea's a snack. A woman that has a child doesn't really bother me at all." You're right, you could just ship it off to boarding school and then it wouldn't be a bother at all.

"I love moms and moms usually love me." For a man who has had exactly .3 seconds of air time, he's managed to fit in 90% of the episode's memorable quotes.

The producers rightfully question Nick's future parenting style. He tells them, "I think I would be a great role model," and follows it up with a huge guffaw. They ask him Chelsea's son's name and he cycles through "Joey," "Danny," "Johnny," and "Slippy," before landing on "Sammy." Fifth time's the charm. He tells Chelsea he has a "super weird attraction" to her and offers to walk her up "towards her area." After she gives him the slip, Nick laments that he's spent too much time putting in groundwork with Chelsea, and now he's "thumbing his own asshole." Chelsea's kid is gonna love this guy, especially after he uses Sammy's vintage baseball card collection as coasters for his Coors light.

Eric:

"It's miracle season!" Eric trills with 20% less enthusiasm than a year ago. He has several memorable moments with Tia, telling the producers that "she's got nice teeth, long hair, nice feet, nice body," which goes hand in hand with "I have a lot more to offer," since the women are judged almost strictly on their appearance and Instagram sponsorship-worthiness.

"I like your toes, is white your favourite colour?" is another loaded question, during which Eric mentions feet again while also questioning Tia's ethnic preference in a partner right out of the gate.

Annaliese:

Annaliese gets a flashback to Arie's season, and a new clip package where she lets us know her fears include: "the dog thing," sand, thunder, large bodies of water [all literally included on the notoriously stormy coast of Mexico she's headed to], class one recycled plastics, guys with red hair, sombreros, birds, AND,  the biggest thing that scares her, "not finding love." She cues the "Evan and Carly" buzzwords, a true love story for the ages that included Evan faking serious trauma and trapping Carly in a hot yurt. Annaliese tells the camera that she wants a ring, followed by marriage and babies. She seems as if she's not sure how the babies are made following the marriage, but is enthusiastic about finding out.

Chris:

Chris has a brief intro during which he feeds swans and compares himself to a goose, trying to convince the viewers that he's a goofy and fun loving weirdo and not an over perspiring sociopath. Following his date with Tia, Chris acts entirely proprietary, laughing as Nick says that Colton is getting "sloppy segundos," and generally being  misogynistic.

Colton:

Colton isn't exactly worth mentioning this episode, briefly shading Tia for being the reason that he had to leave Becca after he fell in love with her. She says she understands, and feels guilty, but doesn't exactly look guilty aboard a gorgeous yacht on a date with her best friend's ex. Colton is "here to figure his shit out," and Tia wants to give it a shot. They jump happily into shark infested waters together, but escape on a Jet Ski. That last one's only partially a metaphor.

David:

David is a "former chicken," who we strongly believe should hook up with Tiara the "chicken enthusiast" from Ben's season. David provides the producers with a clip package involving him living with his mom in Florida, where she waits on him hand and foot. "Unfortunately I can't marry my mom." No, David, but you can marry a similarly aged retiree in Boca Raton and keep living the same lifestyle you're accustomed to. David has beef with Jordan, but they shake hands and go their separate ways without the bloodbath everyone predicted would follow.

Kevin:

Kevin is wearing a firefighter outfit in his intro despite harboring the needlessly creepy glare of an arsonist who's girlfriend just left him for JARED. He shades Ashley I. hard, accusing her of cheating and not helping the relationship work. He's *yikes* 34, and has heard through "The Bachelor Grapevine" i.e. the entire internet, that his ex is engaged to JARED. Is Kevin into being dominated by "fit" Krystal? Between the arson and the masochism we have some deeply rooted trauma to dig up this season.

Joe:

Grocery store Joe was kicked off of Becca's season night one, and admits he only had himself to blame by being awkward and nervous. Shortly after, "Twitter blew up" and now he's on a rainbow ride to a pot of gold filled with hair gummy vitamins. Joe's low self confidence somehow makes him more charming, and Chris Harrison tells him not to "screw it up this time." He briefly speaks to Tia about Colton, saying "I like him, he's nice" with the same enthusiasm that Chelsea uses to approach just about everything. Joe sticks with Kendall throughout the episode, which we're big fans of.

Bibi:

Bibiana is a gorgeous ray of sunshine and has brought a multitude of bikinis for Paradise. She tries to add some humour to Chris Harrison's life by declaring that the bumpy SUV ride there was "more action than her uterus has seen in a while," but he doesn't take the bait. She also lets us know that she's waiting for her "hoohah" to send her a sign, and wishes the producers would blur her ass.

John:

Venmo John deserves love! He has convos on camera with multiple women, including Angela and Annaliese, but we here at Bi-Coastal BIP ship him hard with Astrid, who is pretty and safe.

Astrid:

Pretty-but-safe Astrid is back, keeping her catty screentime to the confessional and generally staying out of everyone's day whilst posing as a plastic Solo cup filled with lukewarm water.

Angela:

A WHO straight out of an eighties Dynasty episode.

Nysha:

A sweet but misguided WHO, getting points for letting everyone know she was "blink and you miss me" on Arie's season. Nysha decides to tell Jordan she believes in reincarnation and that her soul gets "transferred somewhere else."

Kenny:

Another fan fave that is back to try, try again, Kenny is now FORTY-SIX?! And still chose to dust off his dad flip flops and matching dad tank top. We meet his eleven year old daughter and pray that her friends don't make fun of her at school.

Preview thoughts:

This season's preview has us seeing Krystal with Kenny, Angela with Eric, Krystal and Jordan, Kevin & Astrid?!, Kendall & Leo,

Joe tells us he's falling in love with Kendall, and Leo calls him a "grocery store bitch." Kendall cries, David plots ruining Jordan's summer, Jenna shows up (WHO?), Shushanah faces some assholes calling her a witch and Euro trash, Tia and Colton shed tears, and Chris claims he's falling in love with Tia. Ben shows up to shout his one and only memorable line, "I am unlovable," Amanda makes an appearance in DiffEye shades that came straight from her Instagram, and unfortunately Arie/Lauren show up as well. Human mannequins Robby and Jordan square off, Raven reminds us that she had her first orgasm in Paradise, JARED proposes to Ashley I., Carly/Evan and Jade/Tanner show up with tots in tow, more tears are shed, fights are briefly glimpsed, and Chelsea misses a Xanax dose, sobbing and struggling to breathe in her confessional. See you guys Monday!

[ladymoonveil]

  Saying that Billy Hargrove is a polarizing character is putting it mildly in this fandom.  I’ve always hated that the Duffers wanted him to exist purely for the reason of having a “human villain”.  Why does Billy need to fill that role when you already have an organization full of evil dudes experimenting on kids?  If they wanted someone more specific, there’s always Neil Hargrove.  He’s a piece of shit who beats his son on the regular, and actively destroyed Billy’s relationship with Max by turning her into his walking, talking punishment.  He’s an abuser who turned the abused into another abuser, and if that’s not the peak of human villainy I don’t know what is.

   It also really bothers me when people hate Billy because he “doesn’t deserve redemption” and “should die for what he did”.  Apparently, shipping Harringrove means people want Steve to be in a violent relationship with a racist, which cannot be further from the truth.  Literally 99% of Harringrove fics have Billy getting the help he needs, admitting his past mistakes, and becoming a better person in the progress.  

  Steve has been one of my favourites since season 1, back when most people still disliked him.  I wouldn’t put him in a relationship with a one-dimensional asshole and make him suffer just for the sake of shipping.  (Though this is the accusations that some people like to make.)

  The reason I wanted to write this post about Billy Hargrove is because he reminded me of a boy I used to know when I was in the second grade.  We were only classmates for about 2 months, since I moved to Canada right after, but his name is the only one that I remember from back then.  (The following story is deeply personal, and please note this trigger warning for child abuse.)

  This boy was what everyone would call a “problem student”; someone who couldn’t sit still in class and had terrible grades.  He was always in trouble with the teacher for being too loud and noisy.  When you live in an East Asian country like Taiwan where grades are super important, this is a big red flag and people generally wouldn’t want to be friends with this person.  When I think about it now, I’m pretty sure he had ADHD.  But this was back in 1999, and ADHD wasn’t exactly a widely understood mental disorder.

  Despite this boy being a “problem child”, he wasn’t a bully.  (My mom told me a story of a real bully from when she was young.  He was also terrible at school, but he was a star player on the baseball team.  He would walk up an aisle of the classroom and slap his classmates’ heads as he walked by.  My mom got smacked almost every day, but he got away with it because he was athletic.  Unfortunately for the boy in my class, he wasn’t outstanding in sports either.)  

  I remember distinctly that he was nice and excited whenever I talked with him.  He certainly didn’t go around hitting people, or else I wouldn’t have given him the time of day.  We didn’t hang out together at recess, but he would lend me his Tamagotchi for an entire week before asking for it back.  My mom told me that whenever she brought me to school, he would stop to speak with her, and he was always very polite.  I didn’t think much of our interactions at the time, as he was just another classmate to me.

  One day, he showed up at school with literally half his face covered in black and blue.  You know the type of bruises people get if they’re slapped or punched?  This wasn’t like that.  This was like someone took black paint and slopped it on one side of his face.  It was that opaque.   

  My mom and I were shocked when we saw him.  She went to ask him what happened, and he told her that his father hit him with a wet towel because he stole some money.  She asked him how much he stole, and it turns out he stole five dollars because he wanted to buy erasers.  My mom told him that he shouldn’t steal; that he should ask his dad next time and tell him he wants to buy school supplies.  The boy said he did ask, but his dad wouldn’t lend him the money which is why he stole it instead.

 I remember very clearly that he didn’t cry, or act like he was in any pain.  In fact, he was so nonchalant about it that one of the thoughts that went through my 7-year-old brain was, “Oh, maybe it’s not as bad as it looks?”  

  I’m old enough now to understand his dad probably beat him so much that he wasn’t even phased by it anymore.  You don’t get that kind of bruising from being hit once with a wet towel. (Hell, you don’t get that type of bruising from being hit five times with a wet towel. It’s amazing that he didn’t go deaf from the abuse.) It really bothers me that I wasn’t more bothered about it back then, but the image of his bruised face has stayed with me for eighteen years.

 My mom was so angry when she heard what happened to him.  She went to tell the teacher, who was also a counselling advisor for the school.  My mom’s first thought was that she is more qualified to speak with students, and maybe she will be able to do something about it.  But when my mom told her what happened, my teacher said, “His grandparents told me he’s always causing trouble at home, and that he never learns no matter how many times they teach him.”  

  What she really meant was that his family all thought it was apt punishment and that he deserved it for his behaviour.  She wasn’t going to do anything about the abuse.  (Now, I don’t know if my teacher had already tried to help him and wasn’t able to, but my mom told me she came out of that conversation feeling very disappointed and upset at the outcome.  She never forgot his name either.)  

  Days passed and his bruises faded.  One day, the boy left in the middle of the class, and someone asked where he went.  The teacher said his mom came to visit him, so she let him take the day off to spend with her.  I didn’t realize his parents were divorced until this moment.  At the end of the school day, I was standing outside the classroom.  I saw him with a woman I had never seen before, and he was holding onto her and sobbing. He didn’t want his mom to go.  

  I remember thinking to myself, “Why doesn’t he just stay with his mom?  He really seems to like her more.”  (My mom has told me since that the system in Taiwan favours the father when it comes to child custody, similar to how the system in Canada favours the mother.  It could also be a case that she wasn’t able to support him financially, but I don’t know for sure.  All I know is that I’ve never seen him cry until that moment. He didn’t even shed a tear at school after his dad had beaten him black and blue.)  

 Fast forward a month or so and I was going to leave; I was immigrating to Canada with my family.  When I was saying goodbye to all my friends, he gave me a farewell present. It was this little book that had a bit of water damage.  I could tell it was something of his, and that he has spent time reading it.  I’ve gone through the book a few times, and from what I remember I enjoyed reading the short mystery stories and riddles in it.  When I told him I was leaving, he cried harder than most of the friends that I actually hung out with.  

  Over the last 18 years, I’ve thought about him from time to time.  But it wasn’t until two days ago that I really pondered why I haven’t forgotten his name, and why it seems like most of the things I remember from those two months of second grade in Taiwan involved that boy.  

  At the time, I was in the shower thinking about how I should write Billy’s character, since I wanted to tackle his childhood days in my story.  One thing led to another and suddenly, I was thinking about the book that my classmate had given me. To my absolute dismay, I couldn’t remember where I put it.  

  It was around 2:00 AM, and I had work the next day but I found myself going through my desk drawers and my bookshelves because I really needed to find this book.  I tried to remember where last saw it, and I had this creeping sense of dread that maybe I left it back in Taiwan, which means I may never see it again.  This made me think about why I didn’t bring it with me when I moved, and if I did, why can’t I remember where I put it?  

The answer? It just didn’t matter that much to me.  

  For the first time in my life, I sat down and really processed my experience with this boy that I barely knew.  It broke my fucking heart, and I’m still highly emotional about it even as I type this out.  I realized that this boy probably didn’t have things. His dad beat him for stealing five dollars to buy erasers and yet he lent me his toy for a week.  He couldn’t go and buy the most basic of school supplies but he gave me his book.  And I don’t even remember where I left it.  

  Unlike some people in my class, I was friendly to him.  But even though we talked, I don’t remember thinking of him as a friend.  I was the vice class president and he was someone who was always getting in trouble, and that put an invisible barrier between us.  (You don’t hang out with the problem child, the stigma was always there. Even though I knew in my heart that he wasn’t a bad kid.)   Thinking about the way he cried when I said goodbye, I realized that to him, I was his friend.  

 I’ve honestly been bawling my eyes out over the past few days at this revelation.  I wish I had talked to him more.  I wish that I was genuinely his friend.  I wish that I hung out with him at school because he was abused at home and I can’t recall if he had any friends of his own.  

  I wish I knew what I know now so I could try to help him.  

 It hits me the hardest when I think about where he might be now.  Did he manage to get away from his dad and his grandparents, who stood by and enabled the abuse?  Did he grow up to be a delinquent or a gangster and follow in his dad’s violent footsteps?  Did he get to stay with his mom when he was older?  Is he still the kind boy who shared what little he had with a girl that only spoke to him sometimes?  

  I tried to look him up on Facebook, but I can’t recall his face enough to recognize him, even if I did find the right person.  (There are multiple people with the same name, and none of their profiles listed the elementary school I went to.  I’m not really surprised, e-mails barely existed back then, let alone Facebook.)  I’m not sure what I would say to him, or if he even remembers me.  How should I react, if he had in fact turned into a horrible person?  But regardless, I want to thank him for the book, and for thinking of me as his friend.

  Sometimes my thoughts would go very dark and I’d wonder if maybe he had died from one of his dad’s beatings.  I try not to think about that, I want him to be alive and happy.  I hope he’s living a normal life now, surrounded by people who care about him.

  I guess I realized that this boy I knew could have easily grown up to be a Billy Hargrove, and it’s a fucking travesty because he was stuck in a situation where nobody helped him.  I think back to the scene where Billy’s dad slapped him around, while his stepmom stood by and watched.  Let’s just say I view his character in a different light after my own emotional journey. We don’t know what he’s been through growing up; who he was before his dad twisted him into the volatile teen that he is today.  This is why I will never agree with people who don’t think he deserves a chance at redemption.

 I told my best friend about this yesterday, and she cried with me.  I thought that maybe her tears were for his plight, but then she told me something that floored me.  She said that I shouldn’t beat myself up over this because I was seven years old, and seven-year-olds don’t think about things the way a twenty-six-year-old would. She told me that she believed I was a kind friend to him even if I felt like I wasn’t genuine, because that’s who I was for her when we were young.  

 I didn’t understand at first, and then she told me that she had really bad anger issues before we became friends.  She bounced from classmate to classmate, and she felt terrible because she wasn’t really close to anyone.  It made her isolated and angry, to the point that she punched a hole in her wall.  She said that after she met me in the sixth grade, she told herself that she has to get her anger under control, because she felt like she’ll scare me away, and she wanted me to be her friend.  I told her I never felt that from her, and she cried harder because that meant she succeeded.  Its profound how much you can mean to someone without even realizing it, and this is something that I don’t think I would have learned if not for the character of Billy Hargrove.  

  When I ship Harringrove, I’m not doing it to “fetishize gay men” or to “put Steve in an unhealthy relationship for the sake of having two attractive white guys getting it on”, as some people like to assume.  I see in Steve someone who is dealing with his own issues back at home, and is genuinely a nice guy who cares and likes to help people.  I see him as someone who can reach out to Billy and support him when he has nobody else on his side.  The Steve in my mind would be the person to give Billy the motivation to change for the better.  

  It won’t be easy for Steve, but helping Billy isn’t a burden that I place on this character.  It’s not some trial that I put him through for the drama of this ship.  I now know firsthand the regret you feel when you leave someone you could have helped behind, and the absolute relief when you do end up making a difference for a person you’ve grown to care about.  I love Steve, and he’s not going to feel this regret because he’ll do better than I did in my stories.  And it’s not just a one-way street, because after Billy gets the help he needs, he’s going to turn right back around and support Steve through his traumas as well.  Billy’s strong in a different way, and they could be so good for each other.

  This is the potential that Harringrove shippers see in their relationship. Before you go around judging or sending hateful messages, actually stop to take a look at why people like these two characters together.  You may be surprised by what you find.

[centerofstupidity]

A Walk to Remember Chapter 1 Snark

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Interested in reading the previous A Walk to Remember chapter snarks? They can be found here. 

Next Nicholas Sparks Book Snark: The Rescue 

Chapter summary: We meet a Bible-thumping minister and Landon is a terrible person. Also, the designated love interest is an Angel of the House: innocent, perfect, and pure.

The story is set in Beaufort, North Carolina in 1958.

Landon says that the humidity is so hot in the summer that “walking out to get the mail made a person feel as if he needed a shower.”

People waved from their cars whenever they saw someone on the street whether they knew him or not,

In a Nicholas Sparks, everyone is friendly, good, and God-fearing Christians. (The villain is always one-dimensional.)

They know each other’s business and have lived in town for their entire lives. And news always travels fast in the small town.

Landon says for many people fishing and crabbing is a way of life.

Only three channels came in on the television, though television was never important to those of us who grew up there. Instead our lives were centered around the churches, of which there were eighteen within the town limits alone.

1. Yes, I know that Americans were more religious in the 1950’s. 2. But they still had a life outside of a church and weren’t thinking about Jesus 24/7. 3. People went camping and fishing. They also went to bowling alleys, sock hops, and drive-in movie theaters. 4. For most of the story, Landon isn’t very religious. He goes to church but that’s it. And Landon regards a girl who reads the Bible every day as a weirdo. 5. The only time Landon became religious is when he supposedly fell in love with Jamie. 6. It is important to remember that Nicholas Sparks has writing rules that he won’t break like all of his characters must go to church.  7. And he has said that people without faith are alone, thinking they are the center of the universe. 

Landon rattles off the names and types of Baptist churches in the area.

The big event of the year is a Christmas play sponsored by the Baptist church downtown and the local high school.

The play is written by Hegbert Sullivan, “a minister who’d been with the church since Moses parted the Red Sea."

Okay, maybe he wasn’t that old, but he was old enough that you could almost see through the guy’s skin. It was sort of clammy all the time, and translucent—kids would swear they actually saw the blood flowing through his veins—

Translucent skin… Translu…

“His skin was translucently white, like onionskin, and it looked just as delicate—” New Moon by Stephenie Meyer

So Hegbert is a sparklepire? Good to know.

and his hair was as white as those bunnies you see in pet stores around Easter.

Wow. Just wow. The prose is so boring and bland.

And Nicholas Sparks thinks he writes like Ernest Hemingway…

Also, what seventeen-year-old boy would say “bunnies”?

Hebert wrote the play The Christmas Angel because he hates A Christmas Carol.

In his mind, Scrooge was a heathen, who came to his redemption only because he saw ghosts, not angels—and who was to say whether they’d been sent by God, anyway?

I hate to break it to ya but both ghosts and angels are spirits.

The only difference is that a ghost is a human spirit that has not properly passed over to the other side and they remain on earth while angels are spiritual beings of light.

And who was to say he wouldn’t revert to his sinful ways if they hadn’t been sent directly from heaven?

Um… If the ghosts weren’t sent from Heaven, then where did they come from?

Baptists don’t believe in purgatory. After death, they believe that there are only two places where people can go: Heaven or Hell.

Unless the minister thinks the ghosts are demons in disguise.

It won’t make any sense because the three spirits are trying to get Scrooge to repent and be a better person.

The play didn’t exactly tell you in the end—it sort of plays into faith and all—

Maybe Charles Dickens didn’t think he had to spell it out in 72 pt Times New Roman font.

but Hegbert didn’t trust ghosts if they weren’t actually sent by God, which wasn’t explained in plain language, and this was his big problem with it.

1. And where is the proof that they are not sent by God? 2. Faith is about believing without seeing and not demanding proof. 3. And Christians who deepen their faith learn how to discern between the voice of God, the voice of Satan, and one’s ego. 4. Is Hegbert pissed off at Charles Dickens because the ghosts didn’t say ”I am the ghost of Christmas (past/present/future) and I was sent by God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth"? 5. Because following that logic, the Archangel Raphael was not sent by God. 6. In The Book of Tobit, the Archangel Raphael didn’t reveal his identity until Tobit cures his father’s blindness. For most of the story, Tobit knew the Archangel Raphael as Azariah the son of Hananiah the great.

A few years back he’d changed the end of the play—sort of followed it up with his own version, complete with old man Scrooge becoming a preacher and all, heading off to Jerusalem to find the place where Jesus once taught the scribes.

Unsurprisingly, nobody liked the play so Hegbert decided to write his own play.

He’d written his own sermons his whole life, and some of them, we had to admit, were actually interesting, especially when he talked about the “wrath of God coming down on the fornicators” and all that good stuff.

A fire and brimstone minister.

N. Sparks will claim later on that he has a great sense of humor and we are supposed to see him as a great guy.

Because we all know fire and brimstone ministers are not anti-semitic, homophobic, islamophobic, misogynistic, racist, sexist and xenophobic pieces of shit.

That really got his blood boiling, I’ll tell you, when he talked about the fornicators. That was his real hot spot.

“And don’t get him started on those Commies and sodomites."

So Landon and his friends hid behind trees and shouting that Hegbert is a fornicator before walking down the street.

We’d giggle like idiots, like we were the wittiest creatures ever to inhabit the planet.

Landon is following Anita Blake's logic: If you do something wrong, just say you feel bad about it, and continue being a terrible person. And nobody will dare tell you to STOP being an asshole.

Old Hegbert, he’d stop dead in his tracks and his ears would perk up—I swear to God, they actually moved—and he’d turn this bright shade of red, like he’d just drunk gasoline, and the big green veins in his neck would start sticking out all over, like those maps of the Amazon River that you see in National Geographic.

1. So Hegbert is a mog too? (Virtual cupcake to anyone who gets that reference.) 2. I know that some people can wiggle their ears. Because humans can't perk their ears up like a dog.

Hegbert is pissed off and he is looking for them.

Boy, it was something to watch, that’s for sure.

"Being an asshole is a lot of fun!"

So the assholes are hiding behind a tree. Landon sneers "what kind of parents name their kid Hegbert, anyway?" and Hegbert is standing there, waiting for them to "to give ourselves up, as if he thought we’d be that stupid."

They cover their mouths with their hands and Hegbert always knows where to find them.

Hegbert tells them that he along with the Lord knows "who you are". And a minute later, Hegbert walks away.

During the sermon that weekend he’d stare right at us and say something like “God is merciful to children, but the children must be worthy as well.”

"But subject you to pain, unpleasantness -- suffering -- and you will take notice, you will fight to overcome, to earn your redemption. That is when you're at your best." Gabriel from Constantine 2005.

I think Gabriel and Hegbert should go bowling.

The assholes lower themselves in seats "not from embarrassment, but to hide a new round of giggles."

Landon says that Hegbert didn't understand us "didn’t understand us at all, which was really sort of strange, being that he had a kid and all."

But then again, she was a girl. More on that, though, later.

"Girls are ladylike and only like cute and pretty things. And tomboys don't exist."

Landon repeats the fact that Hegbert is the one who wrote The Christmas Angel and decided to put on the play.

He says that the play isn't bad and this surprised everyone the first year it was performed.

I am putting on my jeweled turban and gaze into my crystal ball.

It's about Hegbert Tom Thorton who had lost his wife in childbirth and is raising a daughter all on his own.

It will also be sappy like a Hallmark movie. Aren't I awesome?

He hasn't been the greatest father and his daughter wants a special music box for Christmas. He can't find the box and meets an angel disguised as a woman on Christmas Eve.

The angel promises to help him to get the gift for his daughter. Along the way, they help a homeless person and Landon is quick to say that "back then they were called bums".

Tom tells the angel that he wants his wife back for Christmas. The angel tells him to look into the city fountain and he'll find what he is looking for.

Tom cries after seeing the face of his daughter. The angel is MIA and Tom heads home.

He realizes he hasn't been a good father and that his daughter is all he has left of his wife.

The story ends with the music box underneath the tree and the angel on the box looks exactly like the mysterious woman.

Landon repeats that the play "wasn't that bad".

Apparently, the play sold out every year and people "cried buckets" every time they saw it.

Hegbert wants seniors in high school to perform the play and not the theater group.

I reckon he thought it would be a good learning experience before the seniors headed off to college and came face-to-face with all the fornicators.

Unless these seniors want to become actors, how is performing a play count as "good learning experience"? 

And how does performing a Christmas give the students the information to deal with "fornicators"? 

I'm getting the impression that Nicholas Sparks thinks that men and women in the past were BOTH expected to stay celibate before marriage.

But that's not the case. Men weren't expected to remain virgins.

Men could have extramarital affairs, have longtime mistresses, and even have sex with other men. And guys would get away with it as long as they didn't flaunt them in public.

Women were expected to celibate until they were married. It took an unchaperoned visit or ONE sexual affair for a woman to be considered a whore. 

He was that kind of guy, you know, always wanting to save us from temptation.

"Remember boys and girls: premarital sex is wrong!"

He wanted us to know that God is out there watching you, even when you’re away from home, and that if you put your trust in God, you’ll be all right in the end.

Riiight.

Because the same minister who gives fire and brimstone sermons would be the sort of person that would talk about God watching over you and if you trust Him, then things will be all right.

I think the minister would most likely say "God is always watching your every move. If you are bad, He will smite you. And your soul will burn in Hell for all eternity."

It was a lesson that I would eventually learn in time, though it wasn’t Hegbert who taught me.

"It would be my designated love interest."

Landon says that Beaufort is a typical southern town but it has an interesting history.

He talks about how Blackbeard owned a house in town and recently his ship might have been found by "some archaeologists or oceanographers or whoever looks for stuff like that."

Landon, they are called marine archaeologists.

Being that it sank over 250 years ago and you can’t exactly reach into the glove compartment and check the registration.

Because a pirate ship would have a glove box.

I think that comment sounded wittier in Nicholas Spark’s head than it does on paper.

Beaufort’s come a long way since the 1950s, but it’s still not exactly a major metropolis or anything.

We get it, Landon. Beaufort is a quaint and small southern town.

Beaufort was, and always will be, on the smallish side, but when I was growing up, it barely warranted a place on the map.

For the love of all that is holy, will you please stop talking about the same thing over and over again?

Landon keeps talking about how Beaufort is a small town and how "the congressional district that included Beaufort covered the entire eastern part of the state—some twenty thousand square miles—and there wasn’t a single town with more than twenty-five thousand people."

It turns out that Landon's father is a congressman.

I suppose you’ve heard of him. He’s sort of a legend, even now.

If he was a legend, then you wouldn't be telling us who he is.

Landon's father is Worth Carter and he was a congressman for almost thirty years.

Worth's election slogan is “Worth Carter represents ———” and people are supposed to fill in the city name where they lived.

I can remember, driving on trips when me and Mom had to make our appearances to show the people he was a true family man

I call bullshit on Landon's dad being a "true family man".

Landon's father is gone nine months out of the year and is living in Washington D.C. while his mother is taking care of him.

Landon talks about how his father election slogan "was fairly sophisticated publicity."

He says that nowadays people would put foul language in the blank space but in the good ol' days  "we never saw it once."

Landon quickly backpedals and says "okay, maybe once."

A farmer from Duplin County once wrote the word shit in the blank space, and when my mom saw it, she covered my eyes and said a prayer asking for forgiveness for the poor ignorant bastard.

Nicholas Sparks is still trying to persuade me that 1950's was a wholesome utopia.

But I'm not convinced.

Every era of human history, no matter how fascinating or glamorous, has a dark side that people don't want to acknowledge. 

And I find it very hard to believe that Landon has never seen or heard foul language before. 

For instance, in middle school, I heard people say things that would make even a sailor blush. 

Since Landon's mother is ladylike, she "didn’t say exactly those words."

So my father, Mr. Congressman, was a big-wig, and everyone but everyone knew it, including old man Hegbert.

Landon claimed that daddy dearest was a "legend."

And Merriam-Webster defines a bigwig as "an important person"

So the words "everyone but everyone knew it" is redundant.

Worth Carter and Hegbert don't get along. But Worth still goes to Hegbert's church whenever he was in town.

Hegbert, in addition to his belief that fornicators were destined to clean the urinals in hell, also believed that communism was “a sickness that doomed mankind to heathenhood.”

I will bring this up if anyone claims that Hegbert is a good guy. 

One of the biggest problems with A Walk to Remember is plot mixing. 

What is plot mixing, you may ask?

Plot mixing is a term that I have coined. Plot mixing is when an artist takes at least two contradictory plots and they mix it together haphazardly, resulting in a ghastly mess. 

For instance, Hegbert is supposed to be a wonderful guy with a great sense of humor. But he is acting like a Bible-thumping minister. 

They also knew that he was directing his words specifically to my father, who would sit with his eyes closed and pretend not to listen.

I have just a quick question: why would Landon's dad go to a church where the minister despises him and makes pointed sermons?  

According to Landon, there are other churches in the area. So, why hasn't Worth Carter left Hegbert's church and joined another church?

It turns out that Landon's father belongs to the House of Un-American Activities Committee.

My father had consistently looked for facts, which were irrelevant to people like Hegbert.

IRL, I hate it when people think they are the gatekeepers of knowledge, truth, and wisdom.

They also claim that they have "facts" that support their worldviews.

If anyone who disagrees with them, then they are dumb sheep and a racist bigot.

Are we seriously supposed to see HUAC as the good guys? 

HUAC ruined people's lives and careers. And their actions violated the 1st and 5th Amendments of the Bill of Rights. 

Every time Landon's father would come home after the church service, he would complain about Reverend Sullivan.

My father tried to defuse situations whenever possible. I think that’s why he stayed in Congress for so long.

Like any politician, a congressperson gives people in high places verbal blowjobs and make promises that they have no intentions of keeping along with having goons to cover up their crimes.

The guy could kiss the ugliest babies known to mankind and still come up with something nice to say.

Are we supposed to applaud Landon's dad being nice to the "ugly" people?

“He’s such a gentle child,” he’d say when a baby had a giant head, or, “I’ll bet she’s the sweetest girl in the world,” if she had a birthmark over her entire face. One time a lady showed up with a kid in a wheelchair. My father took one look at him and said, “I’ll bet you ten to one that you’re smartest kid in your class.”

Fuck this book with a rusty screwdriver!

And he wasn’t such a bad guy, not really, especially if you consider the fact that he didn’t beat me or anything.

A parent is not supposed to abuse their children, you twat!

But he wasn’t there for me growing up.

In a better story, Landon being estranged from his father would be a source of conflict. 

And throughout the story, Landon would fix his broken relationship with his father.

But this is a shitty story, Landon will meet his designated one tru luv who is purer than Sir Galahad. 

Landon spends time with this girl and his relationship with Dad is magically mended. 

I hate to say that because nowadays people claim that sort of stuff even if their parent was around and use it to excuse their behavior. I’m not using it to excuse the person I’ve become, I’m simply saying it as a fact.

No, you did. 

You even said it "made me become something of a rebel."

My mother didn’t go with him because both of them wanted me to grow up “the same way they had.”

So they were raised by one parent?

Wait a tick... I think what Landon means is that his parents wanted him to grow up in a small town. 

And small towns tend to be politically conservative. 

As a member of HUAC, a married man living alone would raise more than a few eyebrows.

Especially since the nuclear family was considered the "ideal" family in 1950's.

Also during this time period, people wanted to uphold traditional family roles and values.   

I'm sure Worth Carter's political opponents would have a field day if they knew he wasn't a family man. 

And you can't tell me that in a Southern small-town that people won't gossip about a married woman raising a child all by herself and her husband is rarely home. 

Landon says that his grandfather spent time with his father and how that "adds up to quite a bit before adulthood."

Landon talks about how his father was "a stranger" and someone he "barely knew at all."

He also used to think that "all fathers lived somewhere else."

Landon says that one day his best friend Eric Hunter asks him "who that guy was who showed up at my house".

Landon replies that the man was his father "proudly."

“Oh,” Eric said as he rifled through my lunchbox, looking for my Milky Way, “I didn’t know you had a father.”

"People around town were saying that your mamma was a whore and has a beau."

Landon repeats the fact that he was raised by his mother.

Now she was a nice lady, sweet and gentle, the kind of mother most people dream about.

Because most people want their mother to be a cold-hearted bitch.

Does Landon seriously think that his mother deserves a medal for not being an asshole? 

And I'm getting the feeling that dear old mom is going to be a submissive housewife who never speaks her mind, makes sure the house is always immaculate and treats her husband like a king. 

But she wasn’t, nor could she ever be, a manly influence in my life, and that fact, coupled with my growing disillusionment with my father, made me become something of a rebel, even at a young age.

Where do I even begin?

According to Landon, women are incapable of doing/liking "manly" activities. 

Butch women or tomboys don't exist. ALL women love feminine things and are ladylike. 

And it takes a MAN to raise a "real" man.

The father is supposed to do "manly" activities with his son on a regular basis. And boys are supposed to do and like "manly" activities.

If the boy doesn't and becomes a delinquent, then he is a sissy and his mother is to blame.

Not a bad one, mind you.

This is a Nicholas Sparks novel.

He would never have a "protagonist" do bad things. He has a wholesome image to uphold.

They must be good as gold or be mildly delinquent.

Me and my friends might sneak out late and soap up car windows now and then or eat boiled peanuts in the graveyard behind the church, but in the fifties that was the kind of thing that made other parents shake their heads and whisper to their children, “You don’t want to be like that Carter boy. He’s on the fast track to prison.”

Contrary to what Nicholas Sparks might believe, the 1950's wasn't Leave it to Beaver.

For instance, people did phone pranks, threw cherry bombs or were stealing statues.

Me. A bad boy. For eating boiled peanuts in the graveyard. Go figure.

Landon repeats the fact that his father and Hegbert don't get along. But he says "it wasn’t only because of politics."

And then it happens.

It turns out that Worth Carter and Hegbert knew each other for a long time.

And Hegbert is twenty years older than Daddy Dearest and used to work for Landon's grandfather.

My grandfather— even though he spent lots of time with my father —was a true bastard if there ever was one.

I have a question, Landon. Does your grandfather only wears black clothing and has an evil laugh?

He was the one, by the way, who made the family fortune, but I don’t want you to imagine him as the sort of man who slaved over his business, working diligently and watching it grow, prospering slowly over time.

We get it, Nicholas Sparks. Landon's grandpa is more evil and greedy than all the robber barons.

Next, you'll be telling us that grandpa was a pedophile or kicked puppies for fun.

His grandfather was a bootlegger during the Prohibition, started buying land and then hired sharecroppers to work it.

Grandpa also took ninety percent of the money the sharecroppers made and loaned them money whenever they needed it at high-interest rates.

Grandpa is so EVIL he forecloses on any equipment or land they happen to own. Evil Grandpa...

No. From now on, I'm calling him Grandpa Beelzebub or GB.

GB started a bank called "Carter Banking and Loan."

The only other bank in a two-county radius had mysteriously burned down, and with the onset of the Depression, it never reopened.

The other bank didn't "mysteriously" burn down, you twit. GB had his goons torch the place.

Though everyone knew what had really happened, not a word was ever spoken for fear of retribution, and their fear was well placed.

So even the police were shaking in their boots?

The bank wasn't the only building that burned down.

Landon repeats the fact that Grandpa Beelzebub's interest rates "were outrageous." As time progresses, GB amasses more land and property.

He gets the original owners to continue working and pays them just enough money to "to keep them where they were, because they had nowhere else to go."

He told them that when the economy improved, he’d sell their business back to them, and people always believed him.

The townspeople know that GB used fear and intimidation to get what he wanted along with his shady business practices.

And they ALL believed that he would honor his promises. 

Never once, however, did he keep his promise. In the end he controlled a vast portion of the county’s economy, and he abused his clout in every way imaginable.

Ya know what?

There are so many times I can point out how Grandpa Beelzebub is cartoonishly evil so I'll let this gif speak for itself.

Grandpa Beelzebub died while having sex with his mistress on his yacht in the Cayman Islands. GB was also an old man.

He’d outlived both his wives and his only son.

If Daddy Dearest died before GB, he wouldn't be a prominent congressman.

And Landon would have never met his father. 

He would be visiting Daddy's grave and be raised by a widow. 

Life, I’ve learned, is never fair.

Marvel at how deep he is! No one has ever made such a wise statement.

Landon whines that it should be taught in school.

Hegbert, once he realized what a bastard my grandfather really was,

You mean arson and usury are not legal and moral? I never knew that!

Thanks for letting me know, Nicholas Sparks!

So, Hegbert quit working for GB and went into the ministry. Then he started ministering in the same church that Landon's family attended.

Hegbert spent some time "perfecting his fire-and brimstone act", giving monthly sermons on the evils of greed.

He was so busy Bible thumping that he had "scant time for anything else."

Hegbert was forty-three when he was married and his daughter Jamie was born when he was fifty-five.

Hegbert's wife was twenty-three years old and had six miscarriages before Jamie was born. She also died in childbirth.

Hence, of course, the story behind the play.

I love it when I'm right. And Hegbert is so arrogant if he thinks that everyone would want to see a play that is his thinly veiled life story.

People knew the story even before the play was first performed.

If it was any more obvious, the character Tom would be called Hegbert and be a minister.

It was one of those stories that made its rounds whenever Hegbert had to baptize a baby or attend a funeral.

Baptists don't baptize babies. They believe that only believers should be baptized and be fully immersed in the water.

Landon repeats the fact that everyone knew about Hegbert's story and says it is why people "got emotional" when they saw the play.

They knew it was based on something that happened in real life, which gave it special meaning.

So if a story isn't based on something that happened in real life, then it isn't special? Fuck you, Landon.

Jamie Sullivan was a senior in high school, just like me, and she’d already been chosen to play the angel, not that anyone else even had a chance.

I would be very surprised if Jamie WASN'T in the play.

After all, the play was written by her father and is a thinly veiled story about her dad losing her mom.

And real subtle, Nicholas Sparks.

A saintly girl is going to play an angel. 

Thank God, Jamie isn't named Sunshine Goodness. 

Jamie playing the angel is going to make the play "extra special" and how it is going to be a "big deal" especially for Miss Garber.

Miss Garber is the drama teacher and she was excited "the first time I met her in class."

Landon admits that he really didn't want to take drama class but it was "either that or chemistry II."  

No papers, no tests, no tables where I’d have to memorize protons and neutrons and combine elements in their proper formulas … what could possibly be better for a high school senior?

How about lunch? All you have to do is eat and socialize.

It seemed like a sure thing, and when I signed up for it, I thought I’d just be able to sleep through most every class, which, considering my late night peanut eating, was fairly important at the time.

Why am I getting the feeling that "late night peanut eating" is a euphemism for sex? Because eating peanuts is not a strenuous thing to do...

Landon arrives before the bell rang and sits in the back of the room.

Miss Garber had her back turned to the class, and she was busy writing her name in big cursive letters, as if we didn’t know who she was.

You just said that you met Miss Garber for the first time in class.

Now you are saying that you already knew her.

Which is it, Landon? 

All these contradictions are giving me a headache. 

Everyone knew her—it was impossible not to.

"She was bludgeoned with the ugly stick."

Am I the only one who thinks this comment is catty?

She was big, at least six feet two, with flaming red hair and pale skin that showed her freckles well into her forties.

The word "tall" seems like a better fit. 

Big is used to describe the size of something.

While "tall" refers to the height of something.

I seriously hope that Landon isn't saying that this woman is "ugly". 

She was also overweight—I’d say honestly she pushed two fifty—and she had a fondness for wearing flower patterned muumuus. She had thick, dark, horn-rimmed glasses, and she greeted everyone with, “Helloooooo,” sort of singing the last syllable.

Translation: she's a fat Julia Child who wears glasses.  

From now on, I shall call Miss Garber Julia Child.

Miss Garber was one of a kind, that’s for sure, and she was single, which made it even worse.

Stop! Do not pass go! Do not collect $200!

A guy, no matter how old, couldn’t help but feel sorry for a gal like her.

Because after all, beauty on the outside is the only thing that matters. 

Being a good human being and having a nice personality is overrated. 

Later on, Landon complains that "the pickings were getting pretty slim" and how he doesn't want to be stuck bringing an "ugly" girl to the homecoming dance (i.e.  girls who have thick glasses or have lisps.)

People praise Nicholas Sparks for writing wholesome fiction that has life lessons and good morals. 

But I would rather read a story that has swearing (Ow! My virgin ears!) or graphic sex (gasp!) than a story with shitty messages and it is written by a pretentious writer who believes that they write literary masterpieces. 

Julia Child writes the three goals that she wants to accomplish: self-confidence, self-awareness, and self-fulfillment.

Landon remarks that she was "into the 'self' stuff."

Maybe it had something to do with the way she looked; maybe she was just trying to feel better about herself. But I digress.

It wasn’t until the class started that I noticed something unusual.

"Everyone wore black cloaks and pledged their allegiance to Satan."

Landon is surprised that the class is "at least ninety percent female" because he "knew for a fact" that school is split 50/50 between boys and girls.

There was only one other male in the class, which to my thinking was a good thing, and for a moment I felt flush with a “look out world, here I come” kind of feeling.

The schools in Beaufort NC have excellent math programs...

I don't feel like spending hours trying to look up the average high school class size in North Carolina during the 1950's.

So I'll be using the current average high school class size in North Carolina.

According to this, the average class size for secondary school (high school) in North Carolina is 25.8 students.

Let's say there are twenty-six students in the drama class. 

91% of 26 would be 23.66

Approximately, there would be 23 girls and 3 boys. 

Besides Landon, there would be two other boys in the classroom.

Girls, girls, girls … I couldn’t help but think. Girls and girls and no tests in sight.

It is good to know that Landon is thinking with his head and not with his dick.

Okay, so I wasn’t the most forward-thinking guy on the block.

Anita Blake Logic # 2: If you say something wrong, act like you are feeling guilty.

You DON'T try to be a better person and APOLOGIZE to the person/people that you have hurt. No one EVER calls you out on your shit.

So Julia Child talks about the play and tells everyone that Jamie is going to play the angel.

She starts clapping and it turns out that she is a member of Landon's church.

And there were a lot of people who thought she was gunning for Hegbert in a romantic sort of way. The first time I heard it, I remember thinking that it was a good thing they were too old to have children, if they ever did get together. Imagine—translucent with freckles?

The very thought gave everyone shudders, but of course, no one ever said anything about it, at least within hearing distance of Miss Garber and Hegbert.

So everyone is an asshole and gossips like fishwives?

Gossip is one thing, hurtful gossip is completely another, and even in high school we weren’t that mean.

"Like Duloc, the South is a perfect place!"

I'm sorry but I don't believe that a high school with no cliques and everyone is nice exists. 

Landon is a douchebag and so are his friends. 

Also, how is gossiping about Thank God Hegbert and Julia Child can't reproduce count as not being "mean"?

And the townspeople talk about Hegbert's wife having multiple miscarriages and dying in childbirth...

And for a novel that is so friggin' preachy by constantly talking about God's plan/the Lord's plan and quoting Bible verses...

It doesn't realize that the Good Book doesn't view gossip as a venial sin while "hurtful" gossip is a mortal sin.

The Bible denounces it.

Julia Child keeps on clapping until everyone finally joined in. She orders Jamie to stand up.

Jamie stands up and turns around. Julia Child is clapping even faster to which Landon snidely remarks "as if she were standing in the presence of a bona fide movie star."

Now Jamie Sullivan was a nice girl. She really was.

Translation: It's a pleasant way to say that she isn't attractive.

Landon talks about the town only has one elementary school so everyone has been "in the same classes our entire lives."

He admits to having a "few conversations" with Jamie.

Who I saw in school was one thing; who I saw after school was something completely different, and Jamie had never been on my social calendar.

"She is not worthy to stand before me!"

It’s not that Jamie was unattractive— don’t get me wrong. She wasn’t hideous or anything like that.

"Inner beauty is overrated!"

Landon reluctantly admits that Jamie "wasn't half-bad." But he doesn't consider her to be attractive.

Despite the fact that she was thin, with honey blond hair and soft blue eyes, most of the time she looked sort of … plain, and that was when you noticed her at all.

Because having fair skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes were NEVER considered to be signs of beauty.

And I really hate it when a character is "TV ugly".

Especially when it is combined with this. 

Jamie didn’t care much about outward appearances, because she was always looking for things like “inner beauty,” and I suppose that’s part of the reason she looked the way she did.

I love how inner beauty is put in quotes. As if the concept is absolute horse shit.

For as long as I’d known her—and this was going way back, remember— she’d always worn her hair in a tight bun, almost like a spinster, without a stitch of makeup on her face.

This statement is obnoxious because later on in the story Jamie will be described as beautiful even when she is dying of a terminal illness.

Jamie wears frumpy clothes and everyone thought it was "just a phase".

But it wasn’t just the way Jamie looked that made her different; it was also the way she acted.

"She acted like an Angel of the House: innocent, perfect, and pure."

Jamie never went to slumber parties or had a boyfriend.

Old Hegbert would probably have had a heart attack if she had.

Hegbert would have denounced his daughter as a harlot before killing her.

Jamie carried her Bible wherever she went, and if her looks and Hegbert didn’t keep the boys away, the Bible sure as heck did.

"It couldn't possibly be that her father is a Bible-thumping asshat."

Now, I liked the Bible as much as the next teenage boy,

Translation: not at all.

but Jamie seemed to enjoy it in a way that was completely foreign to me.

"She reads it from cover to cover."

Not only did she go to vacation Bible school every August, but she would read the Bible during lunch break at school.

This is Nicholas Spark's "subtle" way of telling us that Jamie is a good person. Because she reads the Bible.

Landon thinks Jamie is abby normal. How romantic.

No matter how you sliced it, reading Paul’s letters to the Ephesians wasn’t nearly as much fun as flirting, if you know what I mean.

Because flirting is a lot of fun!

If I didn't know any better, I'd say flirting is a code word for sex... 

But one of Nicholas Sparks' writing rules is that his teenage characters never have premarital sex. 

But Jamie didn’t stop there. I knew she volunteered at the orphanage in Morehead City, but for her that simply wasn’t enough.

Let me guess. Jamie is SO good that she is going to help baby animals and solve world hunger.

She was always in charge of one fund-raiser or another, helping everyone from the Boy Scouts to the Indian Princesses, and I know that when she was fourteen, she spent part of her summer painting the outside of an elderly neighbor’s house. Jamie was the kind of girl who would pull weeds in someone’s garden without being asked or stop traffic to help little kids cross the road. She’d save her allowance to buy a new basketball for the orphans, or she’d turn around and drop the money into the church basket on Sunday.

Ho-lee fuck! Where do I even begin?

There is no such thing as a Native American princess.

Nobody is perfect. But according to Nicholas Sparks Landon, Jamie is practically perfect in every way. 

Jamie is NEVER depicted as having any flaws. She is always nice to everyone and always never does anything wrong.

She was, in other words, the kind of girl who made the rest of us look bad, and whenever she glanced my way, I couldn’t help but feel guilty, even though I hadn’t done anything wrong.

You are a douchebag who makes snide comments.

Nor did Jamie limit her good deeds to people. If she ever came across a wounded animal, for instance, she’d try to help it, too. Opossums, squirrels, dogs, cats, frogs … it didn’t matter to her.

We get it, Sparks. Jamie is a paragon of virtue. Stop talking.

With Jamie, everything was in the Lord’s plan. That was another thing. She always mentioned the Lord’s plan whenever you talked to her, no matter what the subject.

I get it, Sparks.

Jamie is a saintly person. 

And Jesus is love, Jesus is life.

Landon tells us that Jamie thinks she is "so blessed to have a father like mine."

He thinks "what planet she actually came from."

Despite all these other strikes, though, the one thing that really drove me crazy about her was the fact that she was always so damn cheerful, no matter what was happening around her.

In real life, a person who is ALWAYS cheerful is depressed.

But this is a Nicholas Sparks novel. 

So Jamie is cheerful like a Disney princess. 

Thank God, Jamie doesn't break into song.

I swear, that girl never said a bad thing about anything or anyone, even to those of us who weren’t that nice to her.

Translation: Jamie is a female version of Jesus Christ.

Landon keeps going on about how nice Jamie is.

All the adults "adored" her and ladies would "come running out of their house" if they see Jamie walking by.

I was thinking about all this while Jamie stood in front of us on the first day of drama class, and I admit that I wasn’t much interested in seeing her.

For a girl that Landon despises, he won't stop talking about her.

But strangely, when Jamie turned to face us, I kind of got a shock, like I was sitting on a loose wire or something.

It is bad enough that Nicholas Sparks is forcing a romance between two characters and will claim that they are soulmates...

Now he has them feeling an instant electric connection.  

What’s next? Will fireworks go off? Will cherubs start to sing?

She wore a plaid skirt with a white blouse under the same brown cardigan sweater I’d seen a million times, but there were two new bumps on her chest that the sweater couldn’t hide that I swore hadn’t been there just three months earlier.

I'll give three guesses and the first two don't count. 

It isn't surprising since a lot of Nicholas Sparks' novels are renowned for having contrived "tragic" endings in which someone (usually the love interest) dies.

She’d never worn makeup and she still didn’t, but she had a tan, probably from Bible school, and for the first time she looked—well, almost pretty.

If "almost pretty" isn't a backhanded compliment, I don't know what is.

Landon quickly "dismissed" the thought.

But as she looked around the room, she stopped and smiled right at me, obviously glad to see that I was in the class.

Smiling is an expression that shows happiness, affection, etc. 

She shouldn't be happy to see him. 

The guy mocks her and avoids her like the plague. 

But Sparks told us that Jamie is made up of sugar, spice, and everything nice.

It wasn’t until later that I would learn the reason why.

[abalonetea]

Wanna See Me Rant? Too Bad, It’s Happening

A lot of people don’t like South Park and don’t watch it because of the crude humor. I’ve just been thinking about this a lot, especially in light of the most recent episode, Put It Down, and I feel like it’s more sad of a truth than ever. The crude humor gives it a very bad reputation and, like, I get that? I’m not into the gross jokes – and I’m calling out I Shouldn’t Have Gone Ziplining specifically here, thank you very much, let’s not even get started on the Red Rocket episode, Christ, boys.

But there are so many good points too that often get overlooked because people are so hyperfocused on the gross jokes. Like, first, I hate most crude humor? Adam Sandler’s more recent movies (like Click) are the bane of my existence. I couldn’t even finish watching the new Baywatch movie because it was nothing but poorly done and pointless sex jokes. I firmly believe that comedy is meant to be funny.

And South Park is.

A really good episode that was focused on gross humor was Pee. It was one of my favorite episodes. I thought that it was hysterical – also I totally agreed with Kyle, public pools are gross!

But, like, I always wish that people could go beyond the humor and the gross jokes so, uh, if anyone is interested in knowing why I, personally, think that South Park is a great show check this out?

*Canon gay characters before shows actively tried to be PC and put gay characters in. Garrison, Sparky, Satan, Big Gay Al and Mr. Slave have been staple characters for years. Big Gay Al was first seen in Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Boat Ride which aired September 3, 1997. The entire episode was about how it was A-Okay to be gay. In 1997. We’re in 2017 and Disney still hasn’t had characters that are as openly gay as South Park.

*Timmy Burch. Just – fucking Timmy Burch. He first appeared in The Toothfairy Tats 2000, which aired on April 5, 2000. To this day, Timmy (along with Jimmy Valmer) are two of the most praised handicapped characters that have ever graced animated television. Timmy is in a wheelchair and has a limited vocabulary – most assume that he suffers from cerebral palsy, something that I agree with. Despite this, he is constantly seen playing with the other kids, being involved in the scams that go on, and even having entire episodes based around him. Timmy loves heavy metal rock, is a conniving son of a bitch when he wants to be, and there are never jokes made about how he is less than other kids, which is something that is frequently done in comedies. Timmy never gets a redemption episode because there is no point in the series where he has to prove himself better, or even equal too, the other kids. At the same time, his disability isn’t ignored – the other kids grow very concerned when Father Maxie explains that you have to speak to confess your sins to God, and the episode is spent actively trying to find a way around this for Timmy.

*Kenny McCormick. That is all.

*A better explanation – Kenny McCormick is poor. He is dead ass dirt poor. His family lives in a trailer that, minus the cars and the rats, resembles one of the houses my family used to live in. Representation of every kind matters. South Park frequently pokes fun at the Food Stamps system, citing problems that my family has had to endure. They make fun of how church food drives are run and the food given out – using conversations that are almost verbatim for thoughts I have had, while sitting in line for the food pick-up at a church who goes out of their way to make you feel small, insignificant, and less.

*On Novemeber 16, 2011 we were given the pure relief of an episode called The Poor Kid. This has gone down, for me, as one of my all time favorite episodes of any show that I have watched, ever, period. This episode is perfection. South Park doesn’t shy away from using real life situations in their show. They handle subjects that other series, even live-action shows, refuse to cover. Like how being taken away from your abusive home isn’t always the best, like how the foster care system is falling apart and failing, like how a big brother would do anything to keep their little sister safe and happy. Honestly, if you never watch any other episode of South Park, you should still watch this episode. Cartman is there for what I can only describe as background comedy that no one pays attention too because what is happening with Kenny and his sister is so fucking real and important.

*There are episodes where it’s nothing more than kids being kids, and it gives me life. The Losing Edge from 2005 instantly comes to mind.

*Back to the serious bits – this is a show with countless characters that suffer from various mental afflictions, and those issues are handled in realistic, believable, and understandable ways. Characters that come to mind instantly are Tweek, Stan, Kenny, Cartman, Butters, Linda Stotch, Randy Marsh, Thomas – honestly, the list is seemingly endless. Tweek’s anxieties and paranoia are something that I relate to on a personal level. We see episodes that feature characters who have bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, paranoid schizophrenia, tourette’s syndrome, alcoholism, addictive personalities, hoarding problems, multiple personality disorder, and dementia (this episode was heartbreaking). We cover Asperger’s (another one that hits home for me, personally), suicidal tendencies, child abuse, and other problems that are faced in the real world.

*Eric Cartman is an asshole and that is never shied away from. But it’s also shown that he’s an asshole with no parental guidance, no rules that he’s made to follow at home, and a distinct array of mental problems.

*Jimmy fucking Valmer is a bad-ass on crutches. No line will ever be funnier than “are you going to break both of his legs, PC Principle? Are you really?”

*They make fun of every religion equally. I see a lot of people who refuse to watch the show because it’s “antisemetic” and, uh, yeah, Cartman’s kind of a dick in that regard? But he’s also a ten year old boy in a fictional universe filled with dumbass adults that have never taught him better. Also, something people tend to forget is that one of the creators of the show is actually Jewish. We have seen Catholicism, Judaism, Christianity, Scientology, Buddhism, and several other religions poked fun at.

*Gnomes.

*Chef Goes Nanners is an episode devoted to explaining that, by viewing something only according to race, you’re still being racist. In fact, they tackle racism a lot. The character Token Black is literally introduced in an episode that makes fun of how many shows (most shows) have a singular black character, the token black character, that is meant to make their show diverse and just makes it seem racist and stupid.

I could actually continue to site a fuck ton of other episodes. South Park is one of the longest running shows, ever. It’s on the twenty first season. To this day, I have never seen a show more diverse, more ready and willing to tackle issues and problematic topics, than South Park. It makes me sad that so many people write it off as stupid, immature, and a waste of time because it is so, so much more than that!

Basically I just have a lot of feelings about South Park and am tired of seeing it get shit on so often by people that have literally never watched a single episode of the show.