#some might think bertha might not want to socialize with her

[mydaylight]

The Gilded Age bringing in Jay Gould as an actual character in s2 after repeatedly stating that George Russell's character and particularly his devotion to his family were based on him is so freaking funny but also kinda makes me wish we would get a showdown of the Russell vs Gould couples in the future seasons... like after the stand off between George and Gould, having Bertha interact with Mrs Gould has SO much potential

[electricbluebutterflies]

george/bertha & things you said when I was crying 💕

PG-ish and also on ao3.

Bertha keeps her emotions close.

A longtime habit, cultivated as one more way of getting what she wants, always perfect if a bit icy and so much more important now in a new city and-

Everything she wants will take time. She doesn’t like that.

It is her impatience that has her pacing a bedroom she still needs to properly decorate. Her social status will not live and die based on her first month in New York, but she’s not starting well, she knows that, all the judgmental comments just from people who are on her level and oh just think what she’s in for when she starts climbing and-

The door opens and for the first time in a long time she does not want to deal with her husband. If he really thinks…

No. They know each other better than that. He crosses the space and gathers her into his arms with a certain deliberate efficiency, always the warmth of him only she gets to see, always-

No one else gets the worst of her like this. The fact that he does goes against every bit of marriage advice she’s ever heard, but they have fifteen good years and counting to show for it and the fact that she actually wants his presence when she’s licking her wounds is-

She breaks, face against his shoulder, everything she feels turned into incoherent whimpers. The fear that she will not find a way, that everything she hopes and plans for will stay out of reach, that she will be at best a curiosity and at worst… she doesn’t even want to think about how that might go, but-

“Do you want to talk?”

Something almost like a laugh breaks through her breakdown. “You know better than anyone else that I have never been a wallflower…”

“And that has never been a complaint,” he finishes. “You are everything I could ever want.”

There are days she thinks he only makes such comments because she crossed his path before he was old enough to know better, but… this is no moment for self-loathing, not with other comments still echoing in her mind, the balances she does not yet know in this ecosystem and-

“I don’t know if I’m enough.”

They both know how rare and almost sacred her lapses in confidence are, and he holds her that much closer, always so aware of her needs, always-

“I’m not sure I follow what happened, but I do know you. You’ll take this frustration and destroy them.”

“You want to watch,” she murmurs.

“I am always interested in your happiness.”

She turns her head and takes a heartbeat of a kiss, marking her boundaries clear as she can. She is still wounded, and she will be for some time, and when she’s done burning…

“You like every part of me I was told to tear off. There are still days…”

“Don’t talk like that, darling. You are perfect, and if anyone else can’t see that…”

It’ll take time. Such things always do. It’ll take time, some good dresses, maybe some light blackmail if she comes across adequate information, probably every bit of time she has before her children are marriageable and even then she’ll need luck, but…

Nothing has stopped her yet, Bertha thinks as she tangles her fingers in her husband’s hair. How dare the witches of New York think they’ll be the first.

[greenandhazy]

I binged all of Rachel Hawkin’s books this week and I think I read them in like… descending order of how much I enjoyed them, which in a way is good! Because I did genuinely like all of them to some extent and I don’t know if I would have read them all if I went the opposite way, yk? But the more I think about it the more I have Opinions on The Wife Upstairs and I don’t want to leave a long, pretentious goodreads review so instead it’s going here. Under the cut for spoilers.

So I think all of her books are what you might categorize as feminist thriller/mysteries, but The Wife Upstairs in particular is a retelling/homage to Jane Eyre, and like… as itself, I think it’s a pretty good book? But as a Jane Eyre retelling, it makes a couple of choices that just leave me bemused.

Okay, so in this version of the story, it’s set in a wealthy community in Georgia. Jane is the main narrator, and she works as a dogwalker in the neighborhood, then meets and eventually gets engaged to Eddie Rochester, who is a widow. (Adele is his dog.) His wife Bea (nickname for Bertha) had founded a Southern lifestyle brand, but six months prior to the beginning of the novel, she and her best friend Blanche Ingram went out on a lake in a boat together, there was an accident, and they were presumed to be drowned (Blanche’s body is later found). It’s revealed that Bea has actually been trapped by Eddie in a panic room in their house; some chapters are from her POV as she keeps a journal claiming that Eddie killed Blanche, but eventually when Jane finds her and releases her, and they trap Eddie in the panic room, it’s revealed that he actually witnessed her killing Blanche, and imprisoned her as an alternative to turning her over to the police. Eddie lights a fire to try and escape the panic room, Bea goes to save him, and the house burns down; Jane survives but Bea and Eddie are both presumed dead.

Some of those things I do think work pretty well? I don’t mind the addition of the murder plot, the panic room is a nice touch, Bea as an unreliable narrator is pretty good, and the author is pretty spot-on in terms of depicting the setting and the social milieu.

But… okay. For one thing, Jane isn’t Jane. It’s implied early on, and confirmed about halfway through, that the narrator is actually Helen Burns, who was in foster care with Jane and took her ID when she left her last foster home and set off for a new life. Which… fine? But the personality of the narrator doesn’t fit either Jane or Helen AT ALL. She is so incredibly bitter for almost the entire book. The single most prominent plot point is Jane ingratiating herself into the social circle of the rich neighborhood housewives. She describes their clothes, their jewelry, their manner of talking, their social engagements, their cars. Everything. She’s a kleptomaniac and takes a lot of their jewelry. She consciously manipulates Eddie into dating her and proposing, but she doesn’t actually love him, she’s mostly just using him to fit in with the other women.

And having read Hawkin’s other books, it’s clear that this is an archetype she likes to play with (and there’s a whole runner in the book too about how Bea, who is also from a disadvantaged background, copies a lot of her Lifestyle brand from Blanche, which I think works really well). But it’s not recognizable as Jane Eyre? And it’s ESPECIALLY unrecognizable as Helen Burns! Like I don’t understand what the point was to this switcheroo when it doesn’t make any meaningful commentary on the source material. We never meet anyone who knew Jane or Helen in her previous life and there’s no sense of growth that would make this change make sense. I guess at most you could say “oh, in the original Jane Eyre was able to move past Helen’s death and retain her loving nature, and this is showing that if the roles were reversed, Helen couldn’t have done the same” but… I don’t see where that’s coming from.

Likewise, it becomes clear in the last few chapters of the book that Jane/Helen never loved Eddie Rochester and he never loved her, and that throughout this entire plot, the REAL love story, the couple who really belonged together, is Rochester and Bea/Bertha. And like, “Rochester is a dick and he doesn’t deserve Jane” is not a NEW interpretation and I won’t say there’s no basis for it. But I don’t think the book does enough to make this feel like a genuine subversion.

If there had been commentary from Helen about how Eddie was Jane’s type, maybe—if she had wistfully reminisced about talking about boys with her friend who died and that Jane always believed the best in people but Helen knew better—that might have worked, but it never happens because it feels like Hawkin is trying to string out the “yes the narrator is really Helen” reveal too long, and doesn’t have time to cram in real character work by the time it gets there. Or if there had been more of Eddie’s point of view—we don’t get it until almost the end of the book, and he and Jane don’t have a conversation after the reveal, and honestly he comes off as pretty bland for most of the book as a result?

And again, I do genuinely like Bea as an unreliable narrator, I think that reveal is genuinely very cool, and it’s one of the few moments where having read Jane Eyre actually plays off! There’s a great sequence of scenes where Bea sneaks her journal out and addresses a plea to Jane, Jane finds it, she goes to the panic room, she hits Eddie with one of the decorations, then we flashback to Eddie’s POV and learn the truth about the murder, and then we return to Jane’s POV where she’s going “your husband kept you locked up for almost a year, we need to call the police!” and Bea is casually perusing the wine cellar as Jane slowly starts to realize something is wrong. Her obsessive love for Rochester comes off really well, but his love for her, and his and Jane’s mutual disinterest, not so much.

Also… this is a quibble. But in that panic room confrontation, Jane knocks out a few of Eddie’s teeth, and then in the end the book plays up the ambiguity of “ooh, did Eddie and Bea really die after all, or did they escape together?”, the detective mentions that the fire burned too hot to leave much evidence, although they did “find a few teeth” and Jane is like “but that could have been from me hitting him…” and I fully do not buy that. If they’re supposed to have died, I don’t believe that a house fire could theoretically burn hot enough that two entire skeletons could be completely destroyed but a couple of random loose teeth would survive, and if we’re supposed to believe that they survived, I don’t believe forensics experts would be that gullible, or that there would be no visible sign that the teeth had been broken/knocked out!

Anyway. Those are my thoughts. For the record, I do think the Rachel Hawkin is genuinely a good writer. But from what I understand, this book was the first of these standalone feminist thrillers she’s written, and I think she was, like, more committed to the story she wanted to tell and less committed to the bit, you know? Imo The Villa is a much better read.

[eyreguide]

A recap of the Brontë2020 Virtual Conference

On Friday the very first virtual Brontë conference was held and included a program of various talks and presentations by people knowledgeable on many different aspects of the Brontës. And reader, I had a wonderful time.  

This post is just a brief overview of the event, with some commentary on the different topics and comments that were discussed and that I found interesting. This conference was held as a way to help support the amazing Brontë Parsonage in Haworth as they are going through a difficult time with the impact of Covid-19. If you are able, please donate whatever you can to the Parsonage by visiting this site. Help them reach their goal!

I live in the United States so I wasn’t able to attend all the panels - I decided to make my first one the discussion with Sandy Welch (screenwriter of the 2006 Jane Eyre adaptation) which was 5 am my time! I was so excited to hear what Sandy had to say about writing Jane Eyre that I was wide awake by the time her panel started.

Special Guest: Sandy Welch

First off, I didn’t realize Welch had also written the screenplay for North and South (one of my absolute favorite period dramas!) so I was pretty much in awe of her talent, even though the 2006 Jane Eyre isn’t exactly my favorite. If you read through my reviews of all the adaptations here. I have a few issues with the scenes after the failed wedding where Jane and Rochester are on her bed. And also I felt like the dialogue and added scenes did not always feel true to the novel. But Welch talked about her approach to adapting Jane Eyre and I agreed with all of her comments. Jane is a modern woman in that she is making her own way in the world, and that her thoughts and prose in the book are direct and clear to the reader. And Welch was glad to give more time to the conversations between Jane and Rochester so that the humor and intelligence that connects them shines through. The emotions were allowed to develop and we can see how Rochester changes with Jane.  

There was some discussion about the character of Rochester and how the audience needs to see that they deserve each other and are equals. So you see more of Rochester’s vulnerabilities and emotions in this adaptation. It’s important to remember too that Charlotte made Bertha irredeemable so that Rochester could not make his situation better, but he tried his best to take care of her.  

A question from the audience did bring up that scene where Jane must say goodbye to Rochester and they end up on her bed - I was very keen to know what Welch would say. She acknowledged that it was a bold choice, but there is that sensuality in the book, and Rochester wants to “impress” himself on Jane, and throughout the novel, Jane is very passionate. It seemed natural to Welch to have that shown on screen. It’s a bit of artistic license that still doesn’t sit easily with me, but I am glad to know the thought process was grounded in trying to take a realistic approach to how that scene would develop.

Another question also asked about the addition of the twins and the doubles theme in the adaptation. Welch included that to give Jane an opportunity to participate in the conversation around her since she is intelligent and able to hold her own. And to show that not all of the people in Rochester’s party are horrible. It also gives a little foreshadowing to the call across the moors between Jane and Rochester near the end.

The last topic I want to mention is when someone asked what the difference was between approaching Margaret Hale’s character (from North and South) and Jane Eyre. Welch worked to make Margaret more sympathetic and Thornton a little less so, so that they were equals in the story - much like Jane and Rochester already are.

A Day in the Life of the Parsonage

I was very excited about this next panel, where Ann Dindsdale, the collections manager of the Parsonage, and Rebecca Yorke, the communications manager, talk about what it is like to manage the Parsonage day to day. It made me long to be able to work there myself! Just think how lovely it would be to be up early in the morning at the house, preparing for the visitors that day.

On my last visit to the Parsonage, I was able to take the VIP tour (which I talked about here) and I have to say seeing a glimpse of the place behind the scenes and led by a knowledgeable docent was amazing. They do wonderful work there!

The two talked about the work that goes into maintaining the house - especially during the month-long closure in January where they clean every book and check every piece of furniture! When asked how they decide what to display, Ann said she puts out “what she likes” (lucky!) but it was also good to rotate everything regularly.  

The Parsonage feels it is important for guests to “engage with the Parsonage” - a wonderful way to describe how the guests are made to feel when they visit - as a part of the experience. And with social distancing right now due to the pandemic, visiting the Parsonage couldn’t be a more personal and intimate experience. I so wish I could make the trip across the pond right now and visit!

Author Roundtable: The Brontës, the 21st Century and Us

This was a fascinating panel with talented authors. I’ve read some of their books so I’ll link to my review of their work when possible. The panel was moderated by Rowan Coleman (The Vanished Bride) and included Finola Austin (Brontës’ Mistress), Syrie James (The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë), Sarah Shoemaker (Mr. Rochester), Julie Cohen (Spirited), Lucy Powrie (The Paper Hearts Society) and Nikita Gil (a well-known poet, although unfortunately I am unfamiliar with her work.  

The conversation was dense and thought-provoking. The authors touched on many topics and ideas beginning with how each author felt about the Brontës’ work. Their books are about identity and who we are as people - we can live by their ideals, said Lucy. Sarah said that women are still not equal to men in how they are treated today and she loves how Jane does not hesitate to tell Rochester that she does not think him handsome - it’s an unconventional answer, the unexpected one, and it shows how they are opening up to each other and on their way to being equals. Syrie is fascinated by the almost mythical story they lived in their little place in the world. And how you can feel their rage against patriarchal societies in their work. Nikita pointed out that patriarchy erases the role of women, but the Brontës have endured in spite of that.

In their approach to writing stories that revolve around the Brontës and their work, they try to be as reverential as possible and stick to the facts because so much of their lives are known, and their stories can be very autobiographical.  

Julie talked about how we read the Brontës to find out about ourselves. With Villette especially there is a sense with Lucy Snowe that she is hiding a part of herself from the reader and people can relate to that.

The talk ended with thoughts on publishing bias - how women may not need to publish under pseudonyms today, but there is still a bias against what a woman writes and against race, sexuality, and many other things. We as readers need to show that we are interested in reading about a variety of lives and experiences.

In Conversation with Adam Nagaitis

Adam Nagaitis played Branwell Brontë in the film To Walk Invisible and talked with the organizers about his role. They opened by asking him trivia questions about Branwell to see how much he remembered from his research. Adam mentioned that he is still in touch with the actresses who played his sisters which I think is wonderful. They seem to all have gotten along very well.  

Adam read all the classic works on Branwell to prepare, but he also dived into documentaries on alcoholism and it’s gruesome realities to understand Branwell better. Branwell wasn’t mature enough to deal with the vicissitudes in his life - with his relationship with Lydia he was excessive and consumed. He thought that turned her off from him, and that started a cycle where he blamed himself for the failed relationship and his failures in his art.  

Because he was always surrounded by the people who knew him best, he was always reminded of his failure. Adam’s approach was very sympathetic to Branwell and tried to understand him mentally. Adam also talked about how he felt Branwell was never free as an artist. He always needed to work for the family or money but he could have been a brilliant newspaper satirist - something that might have been more along with his interests since he made wonderful biting cartoons.

In Conversation with Sally Wainwright

The last panel of the conference was a talk with Sally Wainwright - the writer and director of the superb Brontë biopic To Walk Invisible. Sally was approached to write this back in 2010 but she didn’t have time until 2016 which coincided with Charlotte’s bicentenary. It was a tough shoot for her as she felt she didn’t get all the shots she wanted, but the set was fantastic. They recreated the Parsonage as accurately as they could, resulting in a place that is bleaker and more isolated than the actual Parsonage today.  

Sally also mentioned something that I found interesting - that she felt like the “Victorian” speak that people use today in period dramas probably didn’t really exist. We have constructed people in our period drama adaptations to speak in a particular way. And that the inclusion of curse words in her program showed that the characters were very like us - of course Branwell would curse and say the F-word.  

Her approach to adapting the story was always to show it as realistically as possible and she wanted to show how the family was an interdependent team. For people who felt that Branwell was featured too much in the story - it’s important to remember that he was the leader of their gang as children and that when they were older, living with an addict affected their work as can be seen in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Wuthering Heights.  

And speaking of Tenant of Wildfell Hall, apparently, Sally is working on a screenplay for the story, although it is on the backburner at the moment. She is having a hard time empathizing with Helen - especially because it is difficult today to empathize with a character who behaves in a certain way solely because of their religious beliefs. I do hope we get to see her adaptation of Anne’s work someday soon though!

[nothingeverlost]

So Lost it you were to take the characters and plot of Jane Eyre and dropped it into the universe of L.M. Montgomery's Prince Edward Island/Avonlea what would that look like?

This is such a delightful question that I’ve let myself think about it for days before answering.  Sorry it took so long.

INterestingly, Jane Eyre is actually mentioned a couple of times in the Emily of New Moon series. One can actually argue that in the same way Jane Eyre was an AU fanfic of Jane Austen’s Emma, the Emily Trilogy is an AU of Jane Eyre.  There’s even a night spent in a haunted ‘pink room’ that’s a pretty strong allusion to the red room.  There’s an essay I read that brings up the idea that Mrs. Kent, Teddy’s mother, is Emily’s Bertha Mason.

However let’s look at a more literal translation of Jane Eyre on PE Island.  I think one major change, other than the fact that we jump ahead 50 something years in history and the social morays that affects, is the idea of community.  A big part of Jane Eyre is a repeated theme of isolation.  She’s isolated with the Reed family. and other than a doctor we know little about the area around the Reed household.  She’s isolated at school, the only location other than the school being a very cold church.  With Thornfield we know the house itself is a distance from anything else, though we have a better idea of what surrounds it.  A town with a pub is visited.  The Ingrams are less than a day’s ride away.  We have a trip to London.  The town where the Rivers family live is the only loction really that seems tied to a community.   

This is something that I think would be a big change if you plopped Jane Eyre down in PEI.  To start I think we make Jane a little older when her parents die.  Maybe 5 or 6, in some foreign place with her parents.  A hint of a warm relationship with them before a long cold journey.  When she arrives in the town where her mother grew up people whisper about her mother running away to marry a poor minister.  Jane tries to make herself as small as she can as she waits at the boat dock.  It’s her uncle who comes and gets her, and his hug reminds her of mama.  For a moment she has hope, but the home he takes her to is cold and full of yelling.  It’s only a few months before her uncle dies and she learns just how unwelcome she is.  It’s 4 years before she’s sent away to school, probably in Nova Scotia or something.  Her Lowood experience isn’t very different, but probably not mentioned as much in the story.  

Mrs. Fairfax is a character that’s affected by the change.  She’s heavily tied to the community, with friendships with people in town.  We see her at a sewing circle, talking about how she can’t understand all that foreign talk now that the little girl is with them.  Talking about the governess she hired (some Rachel Lind type character ‘humphs’ about how their school is good enough for the island children and should be good enough for some foreign girl.  They talk at some point about Blanche Ingram (Miss Airs and graces, our Rachel Lynd character shakes her head.  She stole candy from the general store when she was a girl just like anyone else.). Mrs. Fairfax will not let anyone say anything bad about Master Rochester.  There are, of course, rumors all the time about why he’s gone all the time.  There’s conversation in the general store about it being for the best when the old Mr. Rochester died.  Rochester the younger might never be around, but the farms do better when the taxes aren’t so high.

Jane, when she arrives, has no idea how to interact with normal town people who ask her questions and want to know where she’s from and how the girl is doing.  Mrs. Fairfax has to rescue her more than once from a conversation making her uncomfortable.  She does have a tentative friendship eventually with the town’s schoolteacher.  She never talks about Mr. Rochester to her friend, though.  She attends church, and the curate is a friendly old man who takes an interest in her.  He tries to visit Thornfield once, but Rochester doesn’t take kindly to ministers in his house and questions him ruthlessly about contradictions in the Bible.  In the happy period we get a lovely scene of Adele playing with other children in town for the first time when Jane takes her to church.

Rochester has little interest in the town.  When he was a child his father drilled it into his head that he was too good for the villagers.  He wasn’t allowed to play with the children.  There are a few that remember his as a child, however, and pitied him.  He was a lonely boy, and unlike his brother and father not a bully or full of himself.  He was sent away to boarding school in England when he was ten.  He sees jane in town once, when his guests are staying over, and they end up wandering the village.  It totally sets off the rumor mills.  it turns out there are a few places he remembers that hold good memories, times he ran away from nannies and tutors and got to spend a brief time being free.  We see just a hint of him possibly being part of the community.  

Blanche of course has nothing but scorn for the little village. She’s hoping that she can talk Rochester into moving someplace like Montreal.  She wants off the island.   

When Jane runs away to the other side of the island she’s both more reluctant to interact with the people in town and craves it more.  She’s begun to know what it’s like to find not just a home and people she loved, but a community where she belonged.  It’s a small island and she still hears things occasionally.  The school placed first in the spelling bee.  Mr. Caron won a prize for the biggest pumpkin.  I think it’s the rumor mill that spreads the word about the fire.

At the end of the story we have Jane and Rochester showing up to church, her leading him on her arm, Adele following behind.  People whisper, but after a look from the curate they stop.  After the service they are greeted warmly and we get the feeling that they have both found a home.

[ambulatoryhoodie]

I’m trying to combine some of all the aspects of Beetlejuice media into a coherent algimation. For my own fic verse

So, long post, I can’t put a read more on mobile

Juno is Beetlejuices birth mom, she put him in foster care as soon as he was born.

Nat and Bea wanted to adopt him, even if he was a right troublemaker they still loved him and had raised him since infancy.

Around 8years or so the adoption papers wound up on Juno’s desk. She regained custody of him, pulled him out of regular schooling and made him work in the catacomb like offices.

She made his life hell, he never had any contact with Nat and Bea after that. She wasn’t physically abusive but she used her affection as a tool to make Beetlejuice do as told

Other office workers were physically abusive towards him but telling Juno just made things worse

Beetlejuice is a lot older that Miss Argentina but she’s like a mother figure to him.

Beetlejuice is emotionally stunted. He’s also extremely immature, either because he never learned better or actually went insane a long time ago.

He loves the hell out of Miss A, but would never say it outloud afraid Juno might put her down in the filing dungeon

He worked down there for a century, it was a never ending unorganized mess. On account of people always dying and all. He learned a lot about random people reading their files and can really spook some Neitherworld denizens by knowing every fact about them.

I’m calling it the Neitherworld not netherworld

The whole system is being computerized after Juno’s death.

After purposely fucking up continuously Juno banishes a Beetlejuice to the world of the living. And puts a name curse on him.

Events follow like the musical. But beetlejuice is more of a creepy haunting before he finds out Lydia can see him. The ‘wedding’ is way less creepy and Lydia is on board from the get go. It’s just a green card thing and she gets to be an honorary dead girl so she can freely travel to the Neitherworld to look for her mom.

They just can’t go through with it without a legal gardian signing a document. Juno stabs Beetlejuice and banishes him instead of Lydia stabbing him. Juno still gets eaten by a sandworm. But it’s Barbra and Beetlejuice who ride it into the living room.

beej is crazy good at writing up contracts and sometimes helps out Charles with his new business contracts. Beej can be scummy in them so Chuck always makes sure they aren’t too scummy.

Also, Chuck isn’t cowardly. He is easy to jump scare though.

Delia shows basically no reaction to any pranks. She laughs them off and sometimes gets Beej and the Maitlands to do creepy messed up poses and shapes so she can paint them.

Barbra is her favorite muse

Adam is really into miniatures

Charles bought the Maitland hardware store and a ‘sorry we almost exorcised you’ gift.

Adam still technically runs it and Lydia works there after school.

Delia has taught Barbra sculpting, and she likes it way better than pottery.

Ginger looks like a regular spider (her face bothers me in the cartoon) she’s redder, think red kneed tarantula, than in the cartoon and wears a pink tailcoat and top hat. Still tap dances but knows a lot of other dance styles too. She works as back up dancer but hopes to one day have her own show or dance studio

Jacques LaLean runs a gym in downtown, has a better less fake French accent.

Both rent from Beetlejuice who owns the roadhouse. He is actually a fair landlord and fixes things quickly.

Beetlejuice is still a slob in his own appartment. And kind of a hoarder.

The only thing organized are the books and documents wich are emacculant.

Beej enjoys reading but has some trouble actually reading and gets embarrassed when he pronounces something wrong. It takes him ages to finish a book.

Beej is Adhd hardcore. And on the autisic spectrum. Delia, Barbra, Adam, and Lydia are the only ones that know.

Most Neitherworld denizens hate Beetlejuice on priniciple, thinking he’d be like Juno. They quickly learn to hate him for other reasons.

He’s still a jerk but more prankster trickster than outright murderer. Thinks all problems can and should be solved with violence

Lydia is a little on the fence about this, on one hand she thinks some things can be talked out. On the other she totally agrees that guy needed a guilla monster set on him.

Doomie exists, and Lydia can summon him to the living world by clicking his car fob.

Lydia and Beej carry around compact mirrors to talk to each other anytime.

Clare is still a snobbish airhead. More of the school like her though and avoid the new kid Lydia.

Prudence and Bertha are still school friends with Lydia on account of thier shared social pariah status

Lydia dyes her hair black, it’s naturally blonde.

Adam and Barbra make frequent visits to the Neitherworld but aren’t ready to pass on yet.

Instead there’s a door in the attic that leads to Beej’s living room.

Beetlejuice is tempted to charge them rent for it

Charles and Delia occasionally vacation to the Neitherworld, Beej or the Maitlands tag along. Lydia loves showing them cool spots and weird flora and fauna. As well as introducing them to her friends.

There’s a room in Beejs appartment he rents out as a dead and breakfast.

During these times the appartments mess is localized to Beejs room. And eventually it stays like that.

Prudence and Bertha have never knowingly been in the Neitherworld. Lydia is afraid they wouldn’t want to be her friends if they knew most of her friends were dead or monsters.

Betty juice is still a thing, and is the ‘niece’ of Mister Beetleman. Who can be found sometimes conning the citizens of whatever that towns name is. It’s got like three names.

The school is coed instead of an all girls school (that makes no sense in a small town to have seperate schools)

There are some other weird kids that are friends with Lydia but I haven’t named them yet.

An alien enthusiast and conspiracy theory nut boy.

And a ditzy pastel horse girl she loves Lydia’s entomology projects. But the boy is terrified of all things six or more legged.

The kids hang out at the local grave yard. Some kids stole the g a long time ago and it never got replaced. There are sometimes secret dance parties on the empty side of the lot.

Lydia is still very into photography and with the help of prudence runs the school newspaper

The Deetz family donates large sums to the Girl Scouts every year.

Sky actually thinks Beetlejuice is cool and is very into horror now.

The kids think it’s weird Lydia hangs out with a smelly old guy but hey, it’s free adult supervision.

Most parents dont trust him at first, he claims to be Lydia’s uncle and the Deetz family assures all parents he’s not a pedophile. They don’t say not a sex offender because frankly they aren’t sure about that.

The parents are trusting after Beetlejuice beats some guy into pulp after harassing some school kids he didn’t even know.

The rest of the school like Lydia better after that and Beetlejuice is a local hero-ish. He still always has some kind of con he’s trying to run and no one wants another pyramid scheme after the last one involved and actual pyramid.

The pyramid is near a local park, and was made into an art gallery.

Lydia’s search for her mom lasts a long time, they eventually do find her. Emily adores Delia and had given Charles the go ahead to remarry after her death.

Emily will sometimes haunt the Deetz household, but she already has her own house in the Neitherworld which Lydia visits often.

Chuck, Delia, and Emily will sometimes go on group dates in the Neitherworld, it can be hard to find a place that living people can actually eat at though.

There is a bizarre ‘normal’ area in the Neitherworld. It looks just like any normal town. And the people there are usually newly deads.

Beetlejuice takes up bug farming, beetles actually got eged out as his favorite after he got his hands on some Dubia roaches. He loves the ‘Creamy filling’. he covers them in powdered sugar like reptile keepers would cover them in calcium.

Lydia likes to pick up weird feeder bugs for him in pairs so he can try raising them. She’s a pet store regular, the employees have no idea what critter she keeps.

When Emily found out about Juno and Beetlejuice she named him her honorary son. But really gave him a chewing out over the green card thing.

Lydia helps Beetlejuice reconnect with the Juice family and they finally legally adopt him.

Beejs full name is Lawrence Betlguise Juice

I can’t think of anymore at the moment but this is real long already

[hellolittleogre]

Billy Goody Jane Eyre AU

@lazaefair wrote a wonderful not!fic Billy x Goody Jane Eyre AU, which you can find here, and it was amazing and then my brain went but what if Goody was the mad wife in the attic? Because Wide Sargasso Sea is a thing. And then my brain went BOOM and spat this out.

Thank you @lazaefair for the inspiration, it was really fun writing this and I hope you don’t feel like I’m playing all over your sandbox.

The not!fic is under the cut because its a lot.

Soooooooo, it struck be that of course the real touchstone for this would not only be Jane Eyre, but also Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys about Bertha’s life before the attic, and the Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte, about a woman who marries for love but her husband is a abusive and a drunkard.

Goodnight is the rich spoiled son of a Creole family on Jamaica who runs away with his brother to fight in the America civil war (they have family in Louisiana), he admires his brother and has always done what his he did. The brother dies and Goody becomes a celebrated sharpshooter but still comes home a disgrace, fighting for the losing side,  severely traumatised and having made friends with Sam Chisholm a free black man, and with alarming notions about equality and slavery.

The family marries him off to Bouge as quick as they can with a fat dowry and no questions asked. (Same sex marriages exist with the proviso that the leading partner is allowed to have one official mistress in order to have an heir, or the couple can joint decide to adopt a child).

Bouge, a nouveau riche robber baron is at first elated over such a social coup, a status spouse, old money, beauty plus the official allowance to have a mistress in order to get an heir but soon he realises he has been cheated. Once the honeymoon is over and they have settled on his new estate in England he realises the extent of his mistake.

Goody is too frail, too obviously damaged to help him get ahead socially and it's a scandal to have a mad husband, can’t even fulfill his marriage duties because he is so mentally frail (Think pretty vulnerable Ethan Hawke in the mid 90s), Bouge finds this unacceptable.

Goodnight has written letters tightly to Sam during the first year as married, trying to put on a good front (elements of the Tenant of Wildfell hall), too proud to admit mistakes. He tries to have optimism, maybe Bouge will have a child and the act of raising it will bring them together. Surely Goody is just to sensitive to his meanness, tries to be a good partner but Bouge will have none of it.

Then he has a bad period and Bouge locks him away, writes to Sam and tells him Goody has asked him to cease writing it that his emotional state is too easily upset to undertake this task himself.  Sam insists that Goody writes and Bouge gets pretty nasty.

“If you knew how he begged me, your attentions upsets him and you are a constant reminder of his unhappy past. I would not be so I gentlemanly to make further reference to your history but cease this contact, if only for the sake of the one you profess to love so.”

Sam realises he has to play the long game.

Meanwhile Billy has grown up in an orphanage, the son of a woman who came to work as a servant to a British explorer. The man was working and collecting in China, and even managed to gain entry to Joseon, where he took the woman on as houskeeper. When his mother died the man took Billy in out of good will and when he suddenly died too, Billy was bundled along with the rest of his belongings to his family back in England. The family was expecting a white child and are besides themselves when Billy shows up, it might be implied that the explorer had fathered him (he hadn't, Billy had a very loving father who unfortunately also died. If anyone feels all this dying is unrealistic I would please refer you to Elizabeth Gaskell). Billy is pushed off as quick as they can to a school. He is very learned due to the old gentleman and becomes a very good student. When he is grown he advertises as a tutor. The boys home taught him how to fight, he makes two friends a brash Irish boy called Faraday, illegitimate child and Vasquez, nephew of some Spanish noblewoman married to an English lord (everyone’s an orphan! see: Gaskell)

Billy has been working  as a tutor for a while when he meets Bouge, he wants a governess for a little girl but changes his mind when he finds Billy.

Billy is curious as to why,  as it turn out Adele his ward is half Vietnamese, her mother a French-vietnamese dancer who used to be Bouge’s mistress and Bouge figures one Asian is as good as another.

Adele is as vain and silly as she is in the book and Billy kind of loves her. Her airy head has lots of space for learning. She speaks french and english in a charming unselfconscious mix and Billy was worried how they might talk to each other but in the end he finds that his old tutors were right, the language of arithmetic is universal.

She is not Bouge’s daughter, his mistress in Paris left him and he killed her new lover and stole her daughter to torment her. She is now destitute in Paris and he sends her letters now and then to remind her that her daughter is entirely at his mercy.

He tells Adele that her maman is dead,.

Billy hears somebody crying at night. Adele is terrified of the crying ghost but later calms down,  and when Billy asks after a couple of days she says the ghost is telling her fairy stories in French and he's not dangerous, only sad. Billy is kind of bewildered by this. Sees a man spying on him in the library, looks like nobody in the household.

Bouge has come back, Billy startles his horse, and he twists his ankle and Billy has to help him home, Bouge says that he owes him entertainment for being responsible for his incarceration. There is something hungry in how he looks at Billy. Sends for him in the evenings and talk to him.

Taunts Adele, Billy tries telling himself that it is playfully.  “that's how she charmed the money straight out of my pretty pocket”. Pinches her nose and cheeks just a little too hard

Billy is teaching Adele how to fight and Bouge watches them, silent and approving, eyes roving over Billy. Presses him a little. Mentions in passing that he is dependent on him, that without reference he would never be hired again, and then how will he live. No relations and no means?

Flirts a little and makes promises, comes down one evening with his face scratched, “by an owl” but you'd always be sweet to me? It makes Billy smile. It's nice to be wanted.

Billy hears the ghost crying at night, sees a white figure in the hallways.

Then as a cold shower Bouge invites a party of similarly ranked men, McCann and Denali, hints that he might be engaged to McCann. That he might ruin Billy and leave him on the street. Your reputation is in my hands, you can never leave me.

Billy meets the ghost man. Himself and Adele are exploring the garrets when he hears a voice singing a drinking song, they can't decide from where the sound is coming from but Adele is not afraid, it is the Goodnight man, he helps me sleep. He speaks French like maman.

Eventually Billy, pretty stiff with fear at this point though he would never admit it, finds a little crawl space that leads into another stairs and they find Goodnight. (Goody is kept in a room which is bolted not locked from the outside and his nurse often dips into the laudanum and he goes wandering.) He is beautiful and confused, flitting between lucidity and imagination but the more Adele and Billy talks to him the steadier he becomes.

Goodnight are convinced they are figments of his imagination. A little girl as he imagined at the beginning of the marriage. To tell stories to and never never go to war. And their shared features convinced him, Billy and the child with the same dark hair, mere reality could never conjure anything so beautiful.

They meet at night, both of them still not convinced the other is real. Adele calls him The prince in the tower after the story of Richard III nephews and Billy secretly agrees.. Billy wakes up one night to find Goody at the foot of his bed, looking terrible. He startles and goes looking for him. Follows him into Bouge room and finds a candle overturned, saves him from the flames.

Bouge proposes the next day.

Billy accepts, he's tired of being at somebody else's mercy and charity all the time. Bouge is not too unpleasant to look at, his attention is flattering and being a married spouse offers a hell of a lot more protection than he ever thought he would have.  So he accepts.

(Bouge plans to marry him so he can become his legal guardian and force him to be his assassin, plus Billy is hot)

Meets Goody and tells him he is going to stay, and that they will have more time together. Omits to mention that it's because he's getting married. He feels reluctant to tell Goodnight that.

Billy brings wine up one night and becomes terribly drunk and kisses Goodnight. The last little bit of freedom I have left.

Adele tells Bouge about the ghost and Billy tries to downplay it and when Bouge won't be deterred he makes up a story about seeing a woman in white, an interred nun. However it makes Bouge confine Goody more securely and they can't meet anymore. Billy is smart enough to understand he can't let Bouge know he and Goody know each other.

The night before his marriage he hears Goodnight wailing in the tower, like a banshee or a condemned soul.

Sam and Red show up to stop the wedding. Sam has been living in the Indian territories (Bass Reeves!) and befriended him and finally has bided his time enough to come to Europe and track down Goodnight (they have agreed to go on a Grand Tour if it turns out Goody is fine), Bouge tries to say that he is dead but Billy puts two and two together and alerts them of Goodnight in the tower.

“There he is,” Bouge says with disdain, Goodnight white and crouched at the far end of the room, “Who would not change a vulture for a raven? Look at him, so hale and beautiful, who can blame me?”

Red and Sam bring the family lawyer who concludes that its not lawful for Bouge and Billy to be married but equally since Goody must be seen as mentally deficient its perfectly fine for Bouge to keep him locked in the attic. Like y’know, no problem.

Sam and Red tries to resist but are powerless to help, Bouge locks Goody away, very upsetting scenes between Goodnight and Sam, fighting to get to each other.

Goody comes to Billy’s room at night, tells him he has to go, go Bouge plans to do something terrible to him (possibly lock him in the cellar?) Billy doesn’t want to leave but has no choice, Goody refuses to follow him. Without me you have a chance but if I come with you Bouge will never stop hunting us, besides he has the law on his side if he chooses to bring me back while you can go where you chose and have full protection of the law.

Billy flees in the night and ends up on the moors with Faraday and Vasquez, who are living together in a cabin (coincidence!)

They plan to go back and free Goodnight (and Adele) but before that Billy finds out that the explorers family has all died and he is the sole heir, he is now rich enough to take up the fight against Bouge. He hears Goody call for him in the night.

They prepare but as they are travelling back the hear that the whole house has burnt down and the poor madman in the attic perished in the flames. Billy goes over to kill Bouge but instead finds Goodnight, the house (mysteriously!) caught fire (some say they saw a man with a bow and arrow but such talk is nonsense surely?) and Bouge died in the flames. Goodnight was rescued and inherited the lot.

Then they all live together and are disgustingly rich. They send for Adele’s maman and Emma comes to be Adele’s governess.

FIN

[norafinds]

The Grandmother Top

My maternal grandmother, Bertha, loved wearing her Chinese tops. Tops with mandarin collars and frog closures with light brocade fabrics. She used to wear them with black slacks and she looked fashionable and yet comfortable. They’re rather common “uniforms” for older Chinese ladies in South East Asia, but I think I might have to adopt this pairing into my wardrobe after I discovered how cute my pyjama top looked with denim. Maybe I’m taking the vintage-style too far? Hehe.

Top - Vintage 1950s from pyjama set - Kikobells Vintage

Denim - Contrast Stitched Denim - c/o Relax Garden

Headscarf - from Japan

Earrings - Vintage 1940s Coro - Etsy

Belt - Revival Retro

Shoes - 40s-style suede - c/o Memery Shoes

Bag - Vintage 1940s - Xtabay Vintage

Brooch - Reign of Fire - c/o Erstwilder

>

In the past few years, I’ve been collecting more and more Chinese and Chinese-inspired pieces. It’s not always easy to find them, and some of them are questionable (both origin-wise and in terms of political correctness) but I have this weird feeling that it’s better to adopt and wear them than to let them go into the wrong hands. I’m not saying non-Chinese people aren’t allowed to buy Chinese pieces, but I sure don’t want them to wear them as costumes. Wearing them respectfully is the key, and I hope people would consult others before wearing ethnic pieces. 

>

I recently unfollowed a few influencers and brands for repeatedly taking advantage of minority cultures. Note that I wrote “repeatedly” - what I mean is they’ve been called out more than once before, either by me or by others. I always say to people who want to be respectful to other culture: “First offence is because you’re ignorant. Second is because you’re racist.” If you’ve been told off, do the right thing - apologise and do better next time. The internet is full of information nowadays and you should do your research. If you can’t find an answer, ask someone. Contact a cultural centre, ask an expert, or simply walk away. There is a reason why there’s a certain vintage icon I never mention on this blog or on social media - she’s taken advantage of my culture and many people have told her about it. Technically it’s her first offence, but I feel like at her level she should know better. What she’s done is a big production and it included many people - I don’t believe no one questioned her decisions. But then again I might be wrong because people don’t seem to speak up any more. That’s why both USA and UK have such controversial leaders, right?

Anyway, I hope this blog post makes you think about how you wear cultural pieces. I hope one day I can build a resource page with contact information of people you can consult regarding ethnic vintage pieces. Maybe you can submit some pieces you’re not sure about and I can get a group of girls to address them? Oh I have so many plans and so little time (as usual). Let me know what you think! 

[alaffy]

The Gilded Age, Ep.5 – Charity has Two Functions (Spoilers)

Nathan Lane, it’s Nathan Lane!  ….And he’s gone.  

Still, it looks like this won’t be a one-off cameo, so that’s good.  Starting again with the downstairs; we have two types of storylines going on with them.  One type involves the intrigues of those upstairs and the other is, I guess, a way to get to know these characters?  The second type of storyline needs to go.

Take, for example, in this episode.  We have the ongoing story about Turner, Ms. Russel’s maid.  Turner tried to seduce George and, seeing as how that failed, she’s now become a spy in the house for Oscar.  Now, this is a very interesting storyline because it advances the plot.  

On the other hand, we have the…thing with Armstrong.  From the little time we’ve spent with this character we know she’s a Lady’s Maid and a racist.  But, in this episode, we spend somewhere between 5-10 minutes learning that, on her days off, she goes and takes care of her mother.  And that her mother is pretty nasty towards her and nobody knows. Okay?  Maybe if we had spent more time with the characters downstairs I’d feel something about this.  But, right now, these little scenes they’ve had in each episode just seem to stop the story.  Maybe this is something that should have been done second season, after the characters have had more screen time.

Well, Birtha is definitely making her way into society.  Mrs. Morris, understandably, is unhappy about this.  However, it’s clear Mrs. Morris has no idea how to pick her battles.  As she manages to insult Bertha, just before everyone finds out Bertha is about to receive accolades for her donation; and is very prejudicial towards Peggy in front of Clara Barton, who clearly does not approve of such behavior.  Mrs. Morris didn’t do herself any favors for showing up to this event.  Good.

Also, is Bertha Irish? Because, if so, that line about being a “potato digger’s daughter,” takes on a whole different meaning.  

I also like that they show that Clara Barton isn’t a fool.  She knows she’s being used to climb the social ladder.  But, hey, so long as it benefits her cause….why not?

Marion is Marion.

I feel sorry for Georgia. I get that, in that day and age, who a young woman married was basically the biggest thing in her life.  If you don’t have a good husband, you reliant on the good will of your family (like Adia).   However, Bertha’s got to start being realistic.  Georgia needs to be able to have some say in her own relationships. Also, and I hate to say this, but back then if a young woman wasn’t married by a certain age….if Bertha doesn’t allow Georgia to come out soon, she might not have any prospects to consider.

I wonder if Peggy’s falling out with her father has to do with this young man Peggy was involved with. I’m also glad to see Peggy seems to be a regular in the newspaper now.  I want to see her succeed.  It’s also interesting to see the relationship between Peggy and Agnes.  I feel as though Agnes sees something in Peggy that Agnes wishes she could have been.  While we don’t know all the details, we do know that Agnes had to make some pretty terrible sacrifices (as it sounds like her husband was abusive) in order to make sure that she and her sister weren’t left out on the streets.  So, when she sees that Peggy is working hard to make a life for herself and not one someone is trying to make for her, well, she wants to give her the opportunity to do so. I also think she realizes that Marion is just too naïve and too stubborn to listen to her Aunt (not that Marion should always listen to Agnes, but there are times…).  I think Agnes is also hoping that Peggy will be able to knock some sense into that girl (which, good luck there).  

[ts-autumns-world]

Episode 6: “If someone can fuck you over once, then they can choose to do it again” - Raffy

Does this idol system have killer clowns walking around? Carnies doing handstands? Haunted Big Bertha’s? Who knows cause I CAN’T EVEN GET ACCESS TO THIS DAMN IDOL SYSTEM AND YALL ARE OUT HERE POCKETING SUPER IDOLS LIKE ITS AN IPOD TOUCH AND WE’RE 12.

---

WOW WHAT A VOTE. Raffy immediately having to use a Super Idol is probably ridiculously on brand, but in all honesty, seeing BENJ of all people go, is a shock to my system. I've voted out former finalists, but I thought that Benj was gonna go DEEP in this game. But now I need to focus I have to get Top 3 in this challenge to get these damn tickets. But my final thought on this super idol is that at least a *good* person got the Super Idol

this reward challenge has me so lost i hardly even go here i dont know any monologues i can perform

we're doing basic text dr today because if I talked I'll probably cry and no one wants that sahjahsjajs

so the vote happened and we were successful in voting raffy in majority. we being me Chris and benj BUT then it turned out raffy had something stupid called a superidol HJAHSJJHAS (sorry this is gonna be bitter time get ready) and was able to just basically cancel his elimination after seeing the votes???????? because who cares about strategy and having to make plans and being smart and capable of reading the tribe in successfully using an idol? no no no lets let someone just not talk to anyone and then save themselves and vote out someone who WORKS SO HARD AND IS SO ACTIVE AND PASSIONATE LIKE YEAH OKAY SAJHJSAHHJASASHJAHJSHAJS THAT MAKES SENSE

UGH

I'm sorry I'm so sad. benj was voted out because of this and I feel really empty and hurt about it. he was my best friend on this tribe we talked constantly every day and we were close in timezones and I trusted him and loved him and now we've been robbed of playing with each other in merge. we had so many plans for us too we wanted to pretend to not be that close and purposefully vote opposite and stuff. it's all ruined.

I think raffy deserves praise in FINDING the idol. but the idol itself is a get out of jail free card and requires no strategy when used like that so asjhasjhashjashj and only used in his 2nd tribal. so I'm glad it didn't last any longer and also that he didn't use it in the way survivor players usually do. by making everyone fear them sahjsajh COS THAT WOULD HAVE WORKED ON ME LIKE A CHARM. but instead we were able to flush it and even tho I've lost benj and I'm sad about it, I am very thankful that we got it flushed now and before merge. it's way more dangerous in merge. and like there was no way we could beat that. unless we split vote I guess but that wasn't possible. and also I just did not remember this was a thing BECAUSE NO ONE IN SURVIVOR HISTORY HAS USED A SUPERIDOL THE WAY IT WAS DESIGNED BECAUSE USING IT WOULD CAUSE MORE TROUBLES FOR THE HOLDER SO THEY ARE VERY STRATEGIC ABOUT IT JSAHHJASAHS so I'm actually excited to see how this carries raffy. would like to clarify I'm not anti raffy he's so nice and fun and this was such an exciting tribal thanks to him and I would have loveeeeed it as a viewer I'm just bitter because benj is gone and super idols suck. HASJHASJHASJH raffy if you read this do know I think you're great and congratulations I just think it was an easy way out WHICH IT WAS.

I guess it just made me feel powerless because there's nothing we could have done here to beat a superidol. and even if we did do Blake instead, it wouldn't change anything.

speaking of Blake he is really upset :(( I think making merge will cheer him up tho which is great because I think it's happening after this reward challenge for tickets

SPEAKING OF TICKETS

BENJ GAVE ME ALL HIS TICKETS AFTER DYING???????? AND IDK WHY LIKE do all the eliminated people get to give tickets to someone? and can it be anyone and not just someone on their tribe? much to think about. but this means I have 8 now which is pretty good I think. thank you benj I love u sm <3

it makes me wanna calculate how many tickets everyone had and who they would have given them to....hmmmm will think about it. benj has been the one who had the most upon leaving I think?

also my tarot was right because it gave raffy the tower and benj the hanged man and it all happened today AHHHH it's so sad how I predict things but don't know what it's predicting until it happens. makes me wanna reevaluate everything and see what it all could mean. could be handy.

I trust Chris the most here and I do trust Ricky I just hope they trust me. I do think we're gonna merge soon tho I really do. it makes sense.

I wonder if the tickets are for an auction or if they are the way to enter the outhouse yourself now. like the new idol system? maybe.

I'm excited to merge and get to talk to everyone and be with jinx and captain AND TALK TO JUDE MORE. YEEEE I just wish benj would have been able to join me :(((

stupid showy superidol

IT'S MY DAY 100 OF TUMBLR SURVIVOR OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDDD ITS ALSO MY 5 YEAR ORG ANNIVERSARY, PLEASE DON'T VOTE ME OUT THIS ROUND.

---

A true strategist's dream is a chessboard, and if we being honest, this is just Social Chess, never view anyone as a chess piece, but they're needed for movement. I'm going to be Jinx's favorite chess piece, because they need me too.

I can no longer trust Chris in this game. He chose his side, and he chose against me. If someone can fuck you over once then they can choose to do it again. I am not able to hold it against Mikki because I did not even try to reach out to her for the whole round. So, fair enough. However, Chris just decided that I needed to go because people thought I had an idol. I guess this is the outcome. He never even promised to rebuild the bridge of trust. He just gave me "I just don't want us to lose." He's 100% targeting me again if we go to tribal. I hope I'm sent to the Outhouse as my ass is grass if I remain in this place. Maybe if I have Blake it'll be fine. Right? 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Uo5w98Zm_5ih0fql6dxLjbnYelD7Mn5B_JhZxL18bkY/edit?usp=sharing

HERE is my spreadsheet with trust rankings and dm counts and stuff, I also added notes on all my trust rankings for each round and some of the dm counts so if you look carefully you'll see the black like corner thing that indicates a note and all my comments on that trust ranking or whatever will pop up if you hover shajhjsahjas hopefully that works

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO super duper califragilistically excited to do this reward challenge and hopefully avoid the Double council that I know is coming because I’m pretty sure Autumn is sick of Tua winning which is a weird sentence to type but hey ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The plan really backfired heavy on us....I thought Raffy just had a half idol but nope, he had a SUPER IDOL and we lost Benj. It made for an awkward post tribal, but I'm just going to keep my head up. I am usually good with damage control so lets see what happens boom boom

---

Honestly, I liked this idea but I feel like I'm gonna be crippled by the fact that I am getting a little sick, we'll see though. I think I did okay with my damage control, but truth told, I would not blame Raffy or Blake if they wanted me out now. With Ricky back in the picture, I guess there is hope, but I have learned to not give peeps the FULL benefit of the doubt outright so I am going to sit and wait

---

I had another disaster and I pray that the one I could semi finish can be taken in, if it is, then I think I've got 4 tickets, but if not then I will forever be sad about what happened!

---

How in God's name didn’t I get 11 tickets?? I didn't even know I had more than 2

This twist is legit the worst thing to happen to me. I have no clue who I am going into tribal with. I don't have prior connections that other may have before the game. And my super idol play was super flashy. So, obviously, they would want to come for me as a prime target. I feel so defeated and I haven't even met these people yet. AND I have to go to work tomorrow so I can't even socialize/communicate as much as I would want in order to keep myself safe. I might as well be one foot in the grave at this point.

Ahhhhh I just made the merge!  Also with my pals too? Omg I hope Ricky lives at the vote. I hear Joey has been messy messy but also wants Captain?? We'll see how that goes, especially with Lily C and O Railroad there. I'm just excited for the next step in the game! I also missed Jinx and Jude so much!

Well….well….well. This is not what I anticipated. Good one, Autumn. I had a fantastic call with Jinx earlier today which helped me get a better handle and the game and feel more connected. I believe Raffy and Blake are working together and this is a great opportunity to separate them. Instantly Joey and I agree to call and figure out a plan. We both agree it’s gonna be best to get Ricky on our side. We both talk to Ricky and I suggest to Ricky that we go for Blake and he is down. Such a relief. It’s stressful to be this close to merge and think that it could slip away. I hope Joey lily o and I are on the same page no matter what. I haven’t been able to talk to her yet but I hope she is good to go for Blake. Fingers crossed.

I'LL MAKE VIDEO CONFESSIONALS WHEN ITS MERGE I SWEAR. But this is a really unique twist, I love it, but it also puts me and the Lily sandwich in a precarious position. Immediately, my thought was "go to Ricky and tell them I let them out of the War Room on Night 1", and boom, immediate bonding point, it turns out wonderfully, in talking to Ricky it was quite obvious they felt on the outs, with no power all season(they're either lying or its true, hey you never know), and for me its important to just keep them comfortable. We're voting out Blake for literally one reason: If we don't, Jinx is gonna kill us, cause yanno they're winning this game, its a foregone conclusion at this point.

---

God it's going to be brutal, imagine being Blake, not particularly well liked, and always going premerge. Maybe next time you'll finally make merge/jury, but nah you're not taking away my opportunities to shine.

---

Even at midnight on a Friday before merge, I still feel nervous, I always feel nervous, even if I'm in an incredible position, being a crucial swing in a pivotal vote to set the pace for the merge, it's absolutely crucial that I make sure Ricky is good with us 3, once again the 2 votes I've been in, I've been a key decision maker, making dreams come true, and making nightmares real too for others. Its a pretty delusional take that I'm seen as a valuable number, and that's what I need to be, the number to make moves possible, while also having the agency to play my cards right in the middle.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I WON FOUR TICKETS IN THE AWARD CHALLENGE!!!!! I wasn't expecting that at all and I'm so delighted. AND THEN it turned out you needed 11 tickets to make it to merge and be immune from the last premiere vote and I had 15!!!! because of winning that and because of benj giving me four tickets when he was voted out. AND NOW IM FINALLY WITH JINX AND CAPTAIN AND JUDE AND AHHHHHH IM SO HAPPY AHHHHHHHHHHH ME AND JINX WERE JUST SCREAMING RIGHT AWAY AND I KNOW JINX AND CHRIS HAVE AN IDOL BETWEEN THEM COS THEY EACH FOUND HALF WOOOOOOO I FINALLY GET TO PLAY WITH THEM I CAN'T TELL YOU ENOUGH HOW HAPPY THIS MAKES ME. but then I was chosen to go to the outhouse so I didn't get to talk for long and still haven't gotten to talk to captain properly or Jude so :(( and I found nothing in the outhouse but this isn't a complete loss. if captain didn't look there then I know Ricky has something and I can use this info and if captain did find whatever is in there then WOOO!!! and also I can potentially use the fear of me having something if I must and that opens up many fun opportunities. nevertheless this experience in the outhouse has given me knowledge and in survivor knowledge is a currency, and I'm gonna buy as much as I can with it. I DO REALLY HOPE I GET A CHANCE TO FAKE SOME KIND OF ADVANTAGE THO THAT WOULD BE SO FUN AND I DEFS HAVE THE MEANS TO DO IT ASHJASHJASHJ but I need a reason to you know asjhashjashjashj any who that's all I have to share for today but I MADE MERGE IN MY FIRST SURVIVOR GAME I CAN'T BELIEVE IT I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD MAKE IT I'M SHOCKED AHHHHHHHH now I get to play with people I love and meet new people and YEEEEE happy dance, I've exceeded my expectations so I'm just happy here on out. I hope I can do some fun things and game planning with jinx, captain and Chris now plssss

I can't believe I was literally half a point away from the ticket requirement. If I had just been a tiny bit higher, I would've made immunity and had the tickets to be safe. It's kinda on me though, I forgot the "pop culture" part of the post and only verified that when it was literally the last day of the challenge (one where I had work no less, so it's a miracle I was even able to submit). But anyway, the vote isnt gonna be the end of the world. The post-swap Tua tribe is sticking together, and we seem to be getting Ricky on our side for an easy Blake vote. First thing that was suggested to me so I'm totally okay with doing that because it's just easy. I just hope that if the other side looks anywhere its not at me

This game literally feels like a Jane Elliott experiment half the time, and it does kinda bother me, maybe I'm just so used to my privilege that its about time it gets switched up on me

https://youtu.be/kmd-HiEeofg

https://photos.app.goo.gl/j8YwvF9eCukGiMQx5

Guys, gals, non binary pals, I think I have done it. Merge, no votes cast against me, being a crucial piece to how plans come together. God, that was the easiest premerge of my life.

---

Friend of mine wanted to know about Tumblr Survivor. So we’re talking and she asks me what the hardest situation you’ve been in is and I said “ You’ve clearly never been in a 6 person group with you running a 3-3 split and you need a flip to basically guarantee your merge/jury spot

And you basically have all your friends breathing down your neck if you don't execute the right person, it's like cutting the wrong wire in a bomb scenario”

I think I made bonds very quickly and will just narrowly avoid getting voted out. However, Blake seems to be getting the votes which I do not want to do. But I fear that if I push Ricky to Joey and the Lily's then they will just vote for me. Ugh. This sucks. If I vote with Blake, then the best we could do is tie. However, that puts me in a rough spot at merge because I would have 3 people mad at me. This is a really tough vote to be a part of. I probably won't even know who I am voting for until the last minute. 

https://youtu.be/ewiPRjyvOzk

https://youtu.be/-iPG5SyOCOk blake this is your tape ITS NOT MEAN

[electricbluebutterflies]

georgebertha & “Oh, the things I’d do to you if we were alone right now…” if you’d like

PG13-ish (nothing Happens but there are some implications and daydreams) and also on ao3.

She gets what she wants.

Rarely as fast as she wants it, fine, rarely with all the bows attached, but her refusal to admit defeat or develop anything legitimately resembling patience has worked out for her well enough, and-

Bertha knows how many people will have their eyes on her tonight, how important it is that she be perceived a certain way, and she still only cares what one person thinks.

She is good at everything she is, she reminds herself, and she is not as self-absorbed as accusations would assume. These maneuverings, this pretending she actually wants social status for the sake of wanting it, the things she does because she does not want her children to…

The less anyone else knows about her motivations, the better. If she is ambitious and serpentine, clearly it doesn’t run in the family, clearly-

She burns bright and fast, and it is not improper to approach her husband, to need that proximity. He knows her signals and she won’t be surprised if he makes some excuse to get them out of here a little earlier than planned – it’ll look better if he does it, they both know that, and-

She feels the way he looks at her, the deep abiding affection of it. She does what she wants and there have been no guidelines set, but she does know what colors he likes her in and she has developed her preferences accordingly, ice blue and wine red and tonight a midnight-sky purple gown that fits too well and she knows there will be rumors about it and-

She is one of the few happily married women on their level. She might as well act like it sometimes.

She feels what is not said as she moves close enough to touch and does not, as he ends a conversation and turns closer to her and-

“The things I would do to you if we were alone right now,” he murmurs just loud enough for her to hear.

Goal achieved.

Bertha has not blushed in years, thank you, but she does appreciate moments of directness, and she needs motivation, and-

“What should I expect later?”

“I may not have the patience to get you out of that dress.”

Well. That is a direction she didn’t have before. Low odds they’ll make it to her bedroom either, she’ll end up perched on a table maybe, maybe-

“We have never been patient, darling. And if I were to want some fresh air…”

“Wouldn’t give us enough time, and I intend to ruin your hair, and-“

She sighs, a content smile on her lips, more ideas forming, more-

“You’re planning something. I like it.”

“Not a plan, just the idea of you on that rug…”

“With my hair undone-“

“With all of you undone.”

She can fill in the rest easily enough. How focused and attentive he can be, the overwhelming pleasure he’ll make sure she has, and-

“Do you think it’s fair to make me want you that much and have to wait?”

“Only as much as I have to look at you and that neckline…”

“I do have to motivate you somehow,” she laughs.

“What would I do without you?”

“Drown. Or worse, be stuck in-“

“Worse, definitely.”

She slips away just as fluidly as she had approached, still aware of his eyes on her. She still has insipid conversations to overhear if not insert herself in, the unpleasant requirements of her rise, but after this…

She knows how her night will end and how delighted she will be by that point. Can any of these other women say the same?

[okamikodomo]

Even for those of us in the financial, emotional, geographical position to Selectively Disown Certain Family Members, it's STILL Not That Easy.

I'm one of the fortunate ones. I live over a thousand miles away from my abusive family members. (I'm in Connecticut, my mother is in New Mexico, my father is in Arizona). I have a good support network (my fiancée and her mom are amazing, and I also have a wonderful partner of the sort that would sooner dropkick the abusive people in my past than say hello). I am able-bodied, of socially-sound mind (I suffer from Anxiety/Depression like most Millenials, and also have some fairly manageable PTSD, but nothing that hinders me from "gainful employment", a phrase I really gate btw) and financially independent, with a job that pays above-poverty level wages, with half-decent medical coverage. My other family members that I want to stay in contact with Understand My Reasons for not wanting contact with my parents and my one remaining grandparent, and have agreed to withhold information such as my new phone number, new email addresses, new home address, etc.

Like, I literally tick all the boxes. Every single one. That makes it quote, easy, endquote, to disown my abusive family members. It's still hard. Holidays my family celebrated, major life events, an occasional message from one of the understanding family members that mention my disowned family in some way, before remembering themselves and apologizing. I went through a hysterectomy a scant three weeks ago, and all I could think about for a few days was wanting to reach out to my mom for comfort. Then I had to remind myself why I don't talk to her. Every holiday season, I think about the Christmas cookies, and the menorah (my mother's family is Jewish, my father's family is Protestant, and my mother does the whole "Jews For Jesus" shtick) and the New Year on TV, and every birthday, I remember her trying to make a party (sometimes whether my brothers and I wanted them or not). I remember my dad driving us as littles around the neighborhood to look at the light displays. And how That One Year, he draped Christmas lights all over the presents under the tree. How he was a rollerskating clown for my 3rd birthday, and thinking he was the Cooleat Thing Ever for being able to skate backwards.

Then I remember. That One Year with the lights on the presents was also the year he and my mom had a big fight and he smashed some of her favorite makeup. I remember how my mom accused him of infidelity because he was a trucker and gone for weeks at a time, and claimed all his friends were "pedophiles" just because one of them might have been bisexual. I remember my brother and I hiding under furniture when they fought. I remember being older and my mother screaming at me for leaving a few forks in the sink after doing dishes. I remember her barging into my room and screaming me awake from a sound sleep because it was almost 10am, and how dare I sleep the day away. (We didn't have anything planned, I just wasn't allowed to sleep in). I remember her reading my private AIM conversations. Going through my personal belongings. The list goes on. Thousands and thousands of microaggressions. "You would be so pretty if you lost a little weight/took care of yourself better/did your makeup this way/wore your clothes that way" "Why is all your artwork dark and Of the Devil? Where are the angels and the light?" "You're a chameleon, you don't have a true self, you just adopt little characteristics of the people around you." "Just because you went to college doesn't mean you know more than me, I will ALWAYS have more life experience than you!"

I would be more forgiving of my father picking on my weight (he frequently called me "Bertha Butt, and got uncomfortable talking about my weight) but he's an Unrepentant Trump Supporter and Conservative Ex Military Gun Nut, so I don't engage with him.

I rambled a bit there. Honestly, I could write a book about the crap my mom put me through without ever really laying a finger on me beyond age 14 (coincidentally, the time I fought back and shoved her off me, and she realized I was as tall as she was, about 40lbs heavier, and fueled by teenage rage). My point is, even those of us that successfully break free of our toxic family will always have a proverbial shackle around our ankle made of memories, both good and bad. So anyone who flippantly claims they could cut out any family member who was terrible to them "easy peasy" needs to just. Just sit down and shut the everloving fuck up. You really have no idea what you're talking about. You are simply incapable of understanding the kind of pain that comes with disowning your family, and the kind of fortitude and independence you have to have in order to accomplish it successfully. So just. Srsly. Shut. Up.

no offense but “if i had shitty parents i would simply disown them and not put up with it uwu” is always an extremely shitty take. like. it’s usually Not That Easy™, especially for people who are underage and/or living at home

[atlazaraes]

𝑨𝑵𝑵𝑬 𝑺𝑯𝑰𝑹𝑳𝑬𝒀 𝑪𝑼𝑻𝑯𝑩𝑬𝑹𝑻 + 𝑴𝑶𝑫𝑬𝑹𝑵

anne     shirley     ,     for     all     intents     &&     purposes     ,     might     as     well     have     been     born     an     orphan     .               not     long     after     she     came     into     this     world     ,     little     face     as     red     as     her     hair     would     one     day     come     to     be     ,     walter     &&     bertha     shirley     passed     away     due     to     sickness     .               the     pair     share     a     grave     in     bolingbroke     ,     nova     scotia     ,     with     a     headstone     gifted     by     the     school     board     which     they     both     worked     under     .         

at     three     months     old     ,     anne     was     on     her     own     .               she     was     taken     in     by     the     thomas     family     ,     where     she     lived     until     she     was     nine     years     old     when     mr     .               thomas     was     hit     by     a     train     &&     mrs     .               thomas     was     no     longer     capable     of     supporting     a     young     girl     .               from     there     she     went     on     to     live     with     the     hammond     family     .               

the     Hammond     family     was     a     particularly     dark     period     in     Anne's     life     .               the     large     family     had     eight     children     aside     from     anne     ,     including     three     sets     of     twins     ,     &&     the     parents     decided     that     their     new     member     was     perfectly     suited     to     take     care     of     them     &&     the     house     .               during     her     time     with     them     ,     she     did     not     attend     school     [     ...     ]     the     children     were     registered     as     being     home     schooled     but     neither     parent     put     much     effort     into     it     &&     while     anne     attempted     to     educate     both     the     children     &&     herself     ,     she     was     much     too     busy     with     house     work               -----               especially     when     being     deemed     lacking     could     earn     abuse     .          

at     eleven     ,     Mr     .               Hammond     died     .               truthfully     ,     if     one     were     to     pry     &&     needle     ,     anne     would     say     she     was     glad     the     horrible     man     was     gone     .               however     ,     with     his     demise     ,     his     widow     decided     to     move     closer     to     her     family     &&     declared     that     she     would     not     be     taking     anne     .               it     was     here     that     she     was     officially     placed     in     the     system     .               she     was     placed     in     foster     care     for     a     few     months     ,     enduring     horrendous     bullying     by     most     of     the     girls     there     ,     before     she     was     pulled     out     .               

the     cuthberts     didn't     want     a     girl     but     somehow     things     got     mixed     &&     all     the     same     it     was     anne     who     was     delivered     by     the     social     worker     into     matthews     custody     .               poor     soft     spoken     Matthew     was     unable     to     say     anything     &&     ended     up     bringing     her     into     the     home     he     shared     with     his     sister     .               marilla     ,     however     ,     wasn't     soft     spoken     &&     had     no     qualms     letting     anne     know     that     they     had     no     intentions     of     keeping     her     as     they     had     wanted     a     boy     who     could     help     around     their     avonlea     farm     .               however     ,     much     to     marillas     dismay     ,     eleven     year     old     anne     grew     on     her     quick     enough     that     the     siblings     added     her     to     the     registry     soon     enough     .          

in     avonlea     ,     anne     flourished     .               she     made     friends     ,     attended     middle     school     &&     then     high     school     before     going     on     to     attend     both     redmond     &&     queens     .               her     focus     in     both     was     English     ,     a     surprise     to     none     who     knew     her     [     ...     ]     what     was     surprising     ,     at     least     to     her     ,     was     how     much     she     ended     up     coming     into     her     own     .               the     homely     little     girl     with     red     braids     &&     more     freckles     than     she     could     count     who     was     ostracized     by     the     boys     ,     all     of     a     sudden     was     popular     with     them     during     her     college     years     .               it's     here     ,     needless     to     say     ,     that     anne     begins     to     think     that     maybe     she     won't     live     her     life     alone     as     expected     .               

after     schooling     ,     anne     decides     to     surround     herself     with     what     she     has     always     loved               -----               books     .               after     a     few     years     of     working     hard     &&     saving     nearly     every     penny     ,     she     opens     her     own     bookstore     .               it's     small     but     it's     hers     &&     she     loves     every     square     inch     .          

default     has     her     settling     back     down     in     avonlea     (     which     is     modeled     after     cavendish     ,     prince     edward     island     )     with     a     general     alternate     being     in     nova     scotia     .               however     ,     truthfully     ,   �� her     little     bookstore     could     be     anywhere     in     canada     .               

things     included     in     default     :     diana     .               

things     generally     not     included     in     default     outside     of     a     thread     by     thread     basis     :     a     romantic     relationship     with     gilbert     blythe     .               

matthew     dies     at     some     point     .               please     don't     ask     me     to     elaborate     or     I'll     cry     on     you     .               mr.     best     man     in     the     series     .          

[ntnchamp2]

So I finished reading Jane Eyre.  I also, consequently, finished teaching it as my AP Lit students are preparing to write Lit Crit essays about it.  It was kind of a mind fuck.

So, I had never read the book before, but I had read Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, which is like a 1960ish prequel to Jane Eyre focusing on Bertha (or Antoinette) Mason as she is betrothed to Rochester.  I was assigned Wide Sargasso Sea in a college Lit Crit class and I read it (and lost to memory, apparently annotated the shit out of it) without really knowing much at all about Jane Eyre.  So I already had a warped, twisted idea about Bertha and the secret that was hiding Rochester’s attic.  I was vaguely aware of how Rochester is like this prototypical studly, arrogant Romantic Victorian character.  

But after reading Jane Eyre and teaching the archetype of the Byronic Hero, I kind of feel like I understand Rochester in a personal way.  He’s kind of an aloof, condescending dick.  And I’ve spent a fair portion of my life as this same kind of phallic arsehole.  Rochester thinks he deserves better and kind of subtly treats other people like crap.  He thinks he’s the victim and locks Bertha up in the attic and just pays other people like Grace Poole a lot of money to keep it quiet.  I have struggled with these personal blind spots for most of my life under the pretense of just being introverted.

I was really not very hooked in the first 15 chapters, and kept waiting for something interesting to happen.  I knew the book’s reputation, but it was really the intense jealousy that Jane represses regarding Blanche Ingram that started getting me to sympathize with Jane more and caring for her character.  

By the end of the novel, I was pretty compelled to figure out what exactly Jane is searching for.  She spends so much of the book miserable and victimized and eternally in a never-ending and never-winning battle of comparing herself and comparing her circumstances to others, that it becomes unclear what exactly she wants.  Finally, the fact that Rochester actually wants her, compels her to run back to him at the end of the novel.  My students were mostly quite disturbed that it ended in such a conventional way.  I have tried to explain the serialization of the book and how Bronte might have felt an obligation to tie everything up for a magazine publisher with a neat little bow (as was the custom of serialized novel of the time), so in hindsight, we want more experimentation with the ending but Bronte offers little (besides the curious religious epitaph for St. John on the last page, despite Jane’s prioritization of romance over religion).  

Some of my students were criticizing the book in a Socratic Seminar yesterday stating that it is decidedly NOT a feminist novel, and that Jane running back to Rochester at the end negates any feminist framing of the novel.  I just had to interject on behalf of sensitive feminists everywhere, and explain that this was clearly Jane’s choice at the end, and though they protested that she chooses to devote herself to caring for a man, I had to rebut that Rochester needs care and is crippled and blinded, thus giving Jane purpose in life in lieu of her new inherited fortune and mid-life crisis milieu.

In summation of the novel, the complexity of Jane’s choices and the inherent social issues regarding women’s roles in Victorian England are very interesting.  I enjoyed emphasizing the characterization of Jane’s “plainness” and lack of remarkable “beauty” to my students, who are teenagers and quite concerned with beauty as a quantifiable value.  Yet, overall, I feel the most lasting thorniness and problematic issues with the novel are the narrative subjugation of Bertha Mason and her one-dimensionality, as well as Bronte’s treatment of Jane’s religious skepticism and Rochester’s borderline narcissistic and Byronic behavior.  

@katelucia, I honestly knew nothing about the novel when I started reading it besides that Rochester locked some woman up in his attic.  I asked your opinion of how to approach it as a teacher with an honest ignorance and curiosity about how to draw students in, because in the first 15 chapters, I was honestly flailing for critical lenses.

The thing I’m most astonished by is the Bronte sisters mastery of the novel form at a time when novels were still not incredibly popular, marketable, or widespread.  This is right along the timeline of Dickens and James Fenimore Cooper starting to popularize the novel, yet the Bronte sisters were already pretty refined in their mastery of narrative and long-form thematic storytelling.  It’s a polished novel.  I was expecting something more flawed and disjointed, I supposed considering the publishing date.  Jane Eyre was published only 25 years after Frankenstein, so I find it’s merit and quality remarkable for the time.  Thoughts on Bronte?

[junker-town]

Effa Manley’s hidden life

The only woman in the National Baseball Hall of Fame had a fascinating — and confusing — past

She was sure and confident in everything she did. She was tall, smart, and intimidating, a shrewd businesswoman unafraid to speak her mind. For years I’d recognized Effa Manley for many things: her civil rights work, co-owning and managing a Negro League baseball team, her stint as Negro National League treasurer, her role in Larry Doby integrating Major League Baseball’s American League, and being the first African-American woman inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

But for everything Manley was, there is one thing she really wasn’t: Black.

“Everything in my life has been Black,” Manley told sportswriter Henry Hecht of the New York Post in 1975. For many years, that’s seemed like the last word on the matter. While I knew Manley was not the first woman to own a team — a distinction actually held by Olivia Taylor, who became the owner of the Indianapolis ABC Clowns after her husband C.I. Taylor died 1922 — I had always assumed she was African American. Her race, however, has been a source of quiet controversy for years, one of which I was unaware. It wasn’t until I started researching more into her life I found out perhaps Manley wasn’t exactly who she seemed.

In the 1940 census, Manley is listed as 40 years old, female, and Negro. But her background is complex. Born March 27, 1897, in Philadelphia, to an interracial family, Manley believed her mother’s husband, an African-American man, was her father. It was when she was a teenager her mother Bertha Ford Brooks felt compelled to tell her the truth of her illegitimate parentage. Brooks revealed to her daughter that she had had an affair with an employer, John Marcus Bishop, and she was the result. Brooks told her on multiple occasions that she was white. Despite this information, for much of her life, Manley lived as a Black woman, and was known as such by the Black community. Throughout her life and career, people who met her assumed she was African American. Her Black identity was part of her legacy; finding evidence that hinted otherwise was shocking.

At 19, she married George A. Bush, an African-American man who worked as a chauffeur, and settled in Harlem. There, she lived as Black, but when she left the “Black Mecca,” she used her lighter complexion to get jobs. She would take the subway downtown as a white woman, and return to Harlem as a Black one.

After divorcing Bush, she married Abraham “Abe” Manley. She marked herself “colored” on their marriage license and changed her birth year from 1897 to 1900. (This new birth year would also appear on her tombstone.) A year after their marriage, the Negro National League owners awarded Abe a franchise, the Newark Eagles. She and Abe co-owned the team, but management was left to her. The Eagles had six eventual Hall of Famers on its roster: Larry Doby, Ray Dandridge, Leon Day, Monte Irvin, Biz Mackey, and Willie Wells. Effa Manley’s contributions to their team are where she forged her place in baseball history.

The importance of this place was recognized formally during Black History Month in 2006. The National Baseball Hall of Fame held a press conference to announce Manley would become its first woman inductee. Created to study Black baseball pre-1960, the Special Committee on Negro Leagues elected Manley to the Hall for her work as a baseball executive, managing and co-owning the Newark Eagles from 1935-1948. It was at this press conference that Jane Forbes Clark, a member of the hall’s board of trustees, referred to Manley as Black. Larry Lester, chairman of the Society for Baseball Research’s Negro League committee, immediately set the record straight; Manley was not, in fact, Black.

I can only imagine what it was like to be in the room when Lester dropped that bombshell. “There was a look of awe and surprise when I called Effa Manley the ‘Blackest white woman in Negro League baseball.’ Racial identity is mostly about visual perception,” Lester recalled to me in an email. I probed for more, but Lester didn’t have anything else to add, instead suggesting I check out her biographies. So I kept digging. Her life didn’t get any less paradoxical.

One of the things about Manley I’ve always admired was her long and vigorous fight against racial discrimination. She was the person who initially launched the historic “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” Harlem jobs campaign. In February 1934, she brought together a small group of progressive African-American women to see what they could do about the inability of Black people to get jobs, especially clerical, along 125th Street. Manley continued to be involved in civil rights work in her community. She raised funds for the victims of flooding in the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys, was treasurer of the New Jersey National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), hosted an anti-lynching campaign at Ruppert Stadium, where the ushers wore sashes that read “Stop Lynching.” During World War II, Manley supported the war effort through her work as a local warden for the Newark Defense Council and by purchasing bonds offered by the Colored Women’s Division of the Jersey City War Savings Committee. She also became secretary and treasurer of the Women’s Volunteer War Service Committee. Manley’s efforts to fight against racial discrimination made her relationship to race even more complicated.

Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images

Her activism and passion could be felt in her staunch defense of the league. When Jackie Robinson took to the Black press to voice his frustrations about the League’s disorganization and ethical lapses — “Negro baseball needs a housecleaning from top to bottom” — she shot back, calling the legend “ungrateful and more likely stupid” in a rebuttal published in Our World magazine.

“I do not think it’s fair for a half-baked statement to come from irresponsible members of our race and have it stand unchallenged. I think an apology is due the race that nurtured him — yes, the team and league which developed him,” she wrote.

Manley felt Robinson had betrayed the Negro league, and thus responded in kind. She deeply believed in the purpose of the league; that one of its own sons had publicly attacked it stung.

Manley’s feud with Robinson shows how race can frame history. If Manley was a white woman passing as Black, as modern baseball historians claim, her criticism of Robinson strikes an entirely different chord. The sheer audacity is unimaginable. There is a difference in believing you are socially Black and believing you have the right to speak about Robinson as if you are a Black woman. In that same year, she was featured in an Ebony magazine article as one of 15 Black women discussing “How to Stay Young After 40.” She never corrected this. Though she’d made her home in the gray area of racial identity, her rebuttal to Robinson and the Ebony article lead me to believe perhaps she thrived in the acceptance of appearing Black.

Through her marriage, team ownership, and civil rights activism, Manley firmly planted herself into the Black community. She performed Blackness, for the most part, on a day-to-day basis. However, whenever it was helpful, she would present herself as a white woman. Her niece, Connie Brooks, once said Manley “was white when she wanted to be and Black when she wanted to be.” While traveling, Abe pretended to be her chauffeur in order for them to find accommodations in a white hotel when no Black hotel was available.

In both her community and baseball-related roles, Manley seemed to have had the best interests of Black people in mind. Some might say her civic work was just the mark of a good ally. Is it possible that as she got older, Manley realized she might be “found out” and started to share her true genealogy? As I dug into her past, the many books and essays on Manley continued to sort of unravel the person I had heard of publicly.

I’ve mulled over the possible reasons she performed race for so many years. At the time in which Manley was married to Abe, interracial marriages were illegal. It was unsafe for them to be publicly married. What could’ve happened to Abe had it been known his wife was white? If Manley was in fact not Black, perhaps pretending to be was a deliberate act to keep her husband(s) from harm. When I view it from that perspective, the idea of her giving up white womanhood as a means of protection seems like a potentially radical act.

On Oct. 19, 1977, just three and a half years before her death, Manley finally addressed the confusion in an interview with A.B. Chandler for the University of Kentucky’s Oral History Project. It was then, without prompting by the interviewer, Manley explained her background in her own words. It seemed to me as if she felt she needed to explain why a white woman was so involved in a Black baseball league. Perhaps she assumed it was a question in the back of people’s minds. She knew people made the assumption of her race not simply based on how she looked, but with whom she associated. She offered up an explanation of her background that baffled me upon first listen. The woman I had believed for nearly my entire life was Black was telling someone she wasn’t. I listened to her words multiple times just to make sure I was hearing her correctly.

So I am really white, but I have come up as a Negro due to the fact that all my brothers and sisters were Negroes. I remember once — funniest thing how I remember it. When I was very young, in the first grade, the principal sent for me. At that time Negroes and whites just weren’t supposed to mix. You’re talking about — that was, [inaudible], well, it’s about 70 years ago. I’m 77 now. And she sent for me to ask me why I was always with these colored children. And when I went back home and told — I didn’t know what to say to her, I went back and told Mother. I’ve always felt how stupidly Mother reacted. I feel she should have made some effort to talk to the principal or something, explain things. But Mother said to me, ‘You go back and tell her you’re just as white as she is.’ Well, that was ridiculous. But I’m saying — telling you this to say I have come up in this entirely Negro atmosphere.

... I’ve often wondered what it would be like associating with white people ... and since Abe died I’ve married twice; again, both of them Negroes. It does seem funny that at some time I wouldn’t have gotten involved with some white per- man, you know. But in my long and unusual life history, and even being involved in the baseball and everything, I never — there was never any Caucasian. Of course, now, many occasions in my life I’ve always gone and traveled as white. I didn’t think about going visiting or going to any strange city or hotel anything or, you know, I’ve always — which I am white. My Mother’s father was Indian, so I do have a little bit of — Mother’s mother was a German woman and her father was an Indian, so my skin is kind of olive ... So I’m only telling you that because I know that even you must have been thinking that all this conversation, I’m always talking about the Negroes, and I guess you figured, ‘What’s this white woman doing so concerned about the Negro?’ So that’s what’s happened. I’ve just come up entirely in this Negro atmosphere.’

Manley’s status as a white woman wasn’t hidden; it was forgotten. It got lost in many years of assumptions based on the people with whom she was mostly affiliated. As a Black woman who often struggles with issues regarding race in general, but more specifically in baseball, this really got under my skin. We’ve seen movies and heard of stories of lighter-skinned Black people passing as white for a number of reasons, the main one being safety and insulation from racism, but, with the exception of Rachel Dolezal, a white woman passing as Black is pretty much unheard of in popular culture.

Regardless of her intent in creating the ambiguity around her race, Manley stands as an example of how messy our thinking about race can be. If Manley’s mother had not told her the truth of her birth, Manley may not have ever known she was white. Why would she, if she knew the circumstances of her birth, continue to hide it? Does social and self-identification supersede the biological? Perhaps Manley’s familial and emotional ties to the Black community are the reason why she maintained that she was Black for so many years. Her entire reality was just that. Despite that, she always had an out and her “Black experience” was performative and inauthentic.

But there’s yet another wrinkle in the Manley I thought I knew. Some historians suggest her mother was biracial or Black, which would mean Manley may actually have been mixed. Her descendants argue Manley was a Black woman who occasionally passed for white. In the October 2006 issue of Essence magazine, Connie Brooks, Manley’s niece, was quoted as saying, “Effa Manley was not white. I don’t understand reporters saying that she just liked Black people, what kind of ignorance is that?” She went on to say her aunt was of African American, Native American, and German descent. “I’m happy she’s been acknowledged, but it’s important that people know the truth. It’s a great achievement for a Black woman to be first.” Brooks was calling her own aunt, whom she was attempting to vehemently defend, a liar: it was Manley herself who told people she was white. It’s possible she enjoyed the confusion caused by her racial ambiguity. Was Manley really a biracial woman who had mastered moving throughout life simply being whatever people perceived her to be and was taking advantage of it?

Dr. Amira Rose Davis, a historian of race, gender, and sports and assistant professor of history and African-American studies at Penn State University, explained, “Effa Manley had a keen awareness of the color line and of how to navigate it. Her slippages in and out of whiteness and Blackness were always strategic. So much so that even posthumously some people, including family members, wondered if her declaration of whiteness was just another final slip, the product of a curious desire to continue to re-frame her story. A woman in baseball is interesting. A white woman in Black baseball? That’s downright compelling. Even on her death certificate you can just make out the B, underneath the word white, as if the Blackness was peeking out from the edges. Ultimately it was the ambiguity that came to define Effa’s racial identity, more than anything else.”

What if Davis is right? Her niece maintained that no white father was ever spoken of within their family. Was Manley Black? Are we all just playing the game she left for us nearly 40 years ago?

If Manley was, in fact, Black, I cannot understand the reasoning she could have had to deny her Blackness in her twilight years. Because she was such a chameleon, it’s easy to project on her. She was an influence on the baseball world at a time when Jim Crow and other forms of active discrimination ran rampant. She was a powerful and significant figure in sports, not because she was a woman, but in addition to being a woman. Manley’s racial background is so confusing my feelings about her are, as well.

I’m not sure if any other women will be enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and that the only woman to hold the honor may or may not have been a Black American woman is important. I can’t help but, alongside my admiration, feel a little betrayed that one of the greatest women in professional sports was, perhaps, performing race. Professional baseball has regressed in such a way that many wonder what level of participation from Black Americans we’ll see in the future. A Black woman in Manley’s position, with her contributions, could have been inspirational for the next generation of Black baseball talent both on and off the field. Sure, a white woman in Black baseball is compelling, but a Black woman? That’s poetic.

Nearly 40 years after her death Manley remains one of baseball’s greatest mysteries. Perhaps this really was by design. There aren’t very many personal artifacts for preservation; there’s just her love of baseball and the legacy she left behind with the sport. Her journey began in Philadelphia and, ultimately, ended in Cooperstown. Manley’s tombstone reads “She loved baseball” and that’s all she wanted us to know. She was inspirational and confounding, audacious in every sense of the word. Maybe that’s all she needed to be.

[theres-a-fine-line-fic]

Chapter Thirty Three- Ask Your Soul If You're Alright

When I got home, nothing had changed. I almost wanted to call Jenna to invite her over for coffee or something. Anything to stop the house from feeling so empty. It hadn't even been 12 hours since Josh had left, but the house was missing his presence already. The house was far too big just for me. I stopped myself from calling Jenna. I didn't know how much she and Tyler knew or if Josh had told anyone about what had happened last night. I sighed heavily realising that my phone was still upstairs, as I hadn't bothered to bring it with me to work. There wasn't any need, I would have been busy all day (had Dave Rose not sent me home) and no-one would need to contact me, as far as I was aware anyway. I turned on my phone and walked out of the bedroom, and into the bathroom to take my makeup off and change back into some loungewear. I had no plans on leaving the house today, so why shouldn't I allow myself to look like shit? My phone began jackhammering against my side table with notifications and messages coming through. I guess Josh had told someone. I checked the screen: 48 missed calls, 27 messages and 101 emails Not including any notifications from tumblr and the other apps on my phone. There were a lot of missed calls and texts from Jordan. I opened the most recent text. Ava please just tell me you're okay! No one has heard from you since last night and we're all worried, especially Josh. If you haven't called me by 10am, I'm going to come round and see you with Ashley. I know things are hard, but we want to make sure you're okay, we love you like you are family. The message hit me hard. I didn't want anyone to worry, so I started to type a message back. I was about halfway through composing a text when Ashley's name appeared along with her photo on my screen. I hesitated on whether or not to answer, only connecting the call seconds before it was due to go through to my voicemail. "Hello?" "Oh Ava, thank God you answered! Where have you been? You haven't been on social media for days and no one had seen or heard from you since last night. We were beginning to worry, no one wants you to be alone after... you know?" It was sweet for Ashley to care, although I was perfectly fine on my own. I could hear either Jordan or Abbie in the background asking Ashley if I was okay. After what I'd said to Josh, I didn't expect any member of the Dun family to speak to me again. "Yeah, I know. I'm sorry, I just needed a little quiet time. I honestly didn't mean to worry anyone." Ashley made a small noise of agreement, possibly understanding what I meant. "Ava, would you be okay have a visitor or two?" I could feel my breath catch in my throat, I didn't want to have to see Josh just yet. Ashley noticed the long pause, and quickly tried to explain herself. "It would be Jenna, not anyone else, don't worry." I breathed a little sighed of relief. I knew Jenna would be worried, last time we were on a break, we were both texting each other almost constantly or hanging out, getting coffee or picking up pieces to decorate the house. I didn't even need to check my phone to see that there would be missed calls and texts from both her and Tyler. "Sure, but I will look like crap. Sorry, I mean honestly like Professor Trelawney on a bad day." Ashley giggled softly at the silly reference. "I'll pick Jenna up, we'll be round in 20 minutes, okay? Also, do you mind if I tell Josh that I'm coming round to see you? I just don't want him to keep worrying." He shouldn't be worried about me, I was horrible to him! "Okay. Make him a cup of tea for me before you leave please. He likes milk and two sugars." Ashley agreed, and we terminated the call. I headed back downstairs to the living room to tidy a little. I folded the blankets that I had left sprawled along the couch and lit a couple of candles, opening the blinds to let a little light in. It didn't take long for the doorbell to ring, alerting me to Ashley and Jenna's presence. Both girls looked relieved when they saw me. They couldn't honestly have expected me to have done something stupid in such a short space of time. Jenna quickly threw her arms around me, I squeezed her back tightly. Ashley joined in, both muttering something about being happy to see me and how was I holding up? As I moved away, Ashley looked down at my chest, a ghost of a smile on her face. "I like your shirt." I looked down at my shirt. Sure enough, I was wearing one of Josh's own band merch t-shirts. Damnit. I'd just picked it up off of the floor when I'd came home, it was lying inside out so I just assumed it was a plain black t shirt and didn't bother to check otherwise. I ducked my head down and sniffed the chest. Yep, it definitely smelled faintly of Josh. Nice one Ava! "Uhhh, I hadn't actually noticed that until you pointed it now. I should go and change. Do you guys want to wait in the living room?" I turned to go back upstairs and find one of my own t-shirts. Jenna took my hand and walked me into the kitchen, Ashley following behind. "Just sit down, I'll make coffee and you can tell us what happened." I tried to interject and offer to make the coffee, but Ashley told me just to relax. "In that case, do you want to make coffee for just you and Ashley? I already have one." I grabbed the "big Bertha" coffee cup sat on the side where I had left it 5 minutes before. I took the lid off to take another gulp. "Ava, what on earth are you drinking?" Ashley looked suspiciously at the cup. "I call it the face melter, 3 shots of espresso topped with cold brew. And a little vanilla syrup to sweeten it." "Jeeze Ava! I know you don't want to think about what's happened recently, but giving yourself a heart attack isn't the way to avoid the situation!" Jenna took the cup out of my hand and sat at by the sink where she had been stood moments ago. Ashley looked at me with raised eyebrows. "How many of those have you drank?" I shrugged a little in response. "It depends if you mean today or since yesterday evening?" I could tell Jenna's maternal instincts were kicking in as she frowned at me trying to avoid answering Ashley's question. "Cause if you mean today, this is only my second one! If you mean yesterday... this is my fourth?" I whined as Jenna quickly poured half the coffee down the kitchen sink, before topping the rest up with milk from the fridge. "Don't complain, you still get your coffee but in a reasonable way that wouldn't give a blue whale a caffeine induced heart attack! Seriously Ava, be sensible woman." I rolled my eyes a little as I grasped the coffee cup again, taking a long sip. "How come you aren't wearing your ring?" Ashley asked quietly, taking her mug of hot coffee from Jenna. I raised an eyebrow at her, confused by the question. I raised my right hand, showing the men's silver ring which adorned my middle finger. It was the only finger that it would fit on without falling off. "Josh's ring? The one I woke up wearing in the hospital?" Now it was Ashley's turn to look confused. "Uhh... no. The other one my brother gave you?" Jenna shook her head quickly, causing both Ashley and I to look at her with bewildered expressions. "Ashley, Ava doesn't know. It didn't happen." What were they on about? Ashley's eyes widened as she realised she had let something slip. I couldn't think of anything to do with rings that had happened recently. "You know you might as well tell me now, it seems kind of important whatever the hell you guys are on about?" I didn't mean to be blunt with them, but the lack of sleep and emotional exhaustion had depleted my supply of sweetness for the present time. Maybe this whole situation was affecting me more than I had previously considered? "Ava, Josh was... well. You know that day in Lincoln where you went out to dinner? The night your relationship became public for the first real time? Well did anything seem out of the ordinary?" "Yeah Josh danced!" I laughed before noticing the serious look on Jenna's face. "Anything else? Think back, really analyse that night." Ashley tried to encourage me. I tried to remember as much as I could, even though it stirred a stinging sensation in my chest. Josh and I had gone out for a meal, which was delicious and then went sightseeing. We met the three girls and took photos, then went back to the hotel room. Sure the room was more of a suite and a hell of a lot bigger than I was expecting. There was everything we could possibly need to have a romantic night to ourselves, and we had laughed and danced our way well into the early hours of the next morning surrounded by a beautiful view of the city. I shrugged at both women. "It was just a little more romantic than normal. It was a really great night and we had both had a lot of fun? The only weird thing I can remember is the next morning. Jenna and Tyler kept prompting me to say if anything else happened the night before and kept staring at my hands?" I tried to ignore the now dull ache in my chest. This really wasn't the type of thing that I wanted to consider right now. I was definitely beginning to regret even asking Ashley to explain what she meant. Ashley and Jenna looked at each other and nodded. "There's a good reason for that though. Do you remember how surprised you were when you entered the suite?" I nodded a little, not entirely sure as to where Jenna was leading with this questioning. Ashley carried on the point Jenna was trying to make. "Well, you two were the only ones who had a suite. Jenna and Tyler, Mark, everyone else all had rooms. Josh paid for that with his own money because he wanted everything to be perfect-" "Because we were expecting a child together at that point?" I interjected, assuming I knew what Ashley was going to say. I already knew this, why did it matter anymore? We were through, finished, done, over. However you wanted to say it, Josh and I were no longer together. "Well, there was a little bit of that thought in his plan. Did he tuck your chair in when you sat down in the restaurant and carry you up to the room when your feet hurt? The whole night was roses and your favourite food and drinks, making memories and enjoying a little private time together right? Wasn't it the first time you had been able to act completely like a couple in public? No cares in the world? He tried his hardest to sweep you off of your feet and make you feel loved, didn't he?" My eyes had began to prickle a little as Ashley prompted again. I was trying to avoid the tears welling in my eyes, deciding instead to stare down into my mug of coffee and nodded. Avoiding eye contact and keeping my cards close to my chest was the plan right now and I had no intentions of differing from it. "Ava, at no point did that strike you as unusual? Even for Josh?" Jenna butted in, trying to drive the unknown point further home. Ashley took a deep breath again, before continuing. I could feel her lean across the table and rest her hand on my arm. "My brother wanted everything to be perfect for a reason. You mean the world to him, he would have moved the moon and stars for you if you would have asked him to. Really, he would even do that for you now if you wanted him to do so. He wanted to show you how much he cared for you, and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with you." I couldn't help but to feel sick, something major was about to be announced and I wasn't ready for it. I could tell by how anxious Ashley sounded, her voice wavering a little as she spoke. "Ava, Josh had the ring ready, it might even still be in his pocket.He had carried it around for about 3 weeks. He had even asked Nick for his permission and to help him pick which one." I didn't expect the next sentence to be uttered, especially not now. I knew I had broken Josh's heart, I had followed suit in doing the one thing I had promised him that I wouldn't do. "Ava, that night, after spending so long on arranging everything, even with Tyler's help planning everything, he was going to ask you to marry him."