#the parallel between daniel and nicolas always gets to me

[rainbowcarousels]

remembering when you said nicki was more of a proto-daniel to armand rather an proto-louis and now i'm upset because it makes sense like lestat never saw nicki at his worst but armand did!! lestat doesn't know what a mentally ill vampire looks like when he meets louis 😭 (and oh boy is that an oxymoron because they're all fucked up but there's degrees)

and now i'm sad <3

So I tried to be thoughtful about this and make it detailed but...then I ended up writing you a fic in response instead. You played with my emotions and now this is what you get. I hope that's okay!

Whatever Louis said, Lestat was not stalking Armand. If anything, historically speaking, Armand had the tendency to stalk him! Even as far back as Paris, before they’d been formally introduced, Armand had stalked him through the theatre and watched his every step.

So if anyone was going to be prone to such an action, surely Louis should be aiming his accusations at their sometimes resident/occasional antagonist/often lover and not at Lestat. Lestat was out here minding his own business and his own business was everything that went on here, so him taking a casual stroll or three through the streets was not considered entirely unusual.

It was more unusual for Armand. 

If anyone was acting in a way that you could call peculiar, look no further than his wanderings lately.

Was Louis rubbing off on him? Was he about to meandering about his eternal life now instead of building his fortresses in an illusion of safety? It’s not as if Lestat could say much about that now either. This place, this – what had Daniel called it, a Disney with fangs meets Colonial Williamsburg, this was supposed to be a place to make decisions, to keep safe the core of their ongoing immortality and it was supposed to mean something. A place to come to that felt safe.

Lestat huffed to himself.

In the end, that was all any of them really did, this building of safe havens and places to escape to. 

Maybe for Armand, this was not unlike him watching Lestat at that theatre or ransacking the apartment. If he was out here gathering information, filing it away behind those intense eyes as if he were trying to make a mental folder all about him. Lestat wasn’t ruling it out. Lots of people had folders about him.

That was what happened when you ended up as the sparkling example of modern vampirism, fall apart and then try to put your pieces back together as if you’re collecting puzzle pieces. People watched you. People wondered about your decisions and considered the choices you made, even if Lestat often felt more like an oversized mascot than a Prince.

And secretly, or perhaps not so secretly by this point, that was how he’d prefer it. To be loud and wild and without the heaviness of a crown he took for the greater good but knowing it was being handled by people he could trust. As much as you could trust anyone with that kind of thing. As long as Armand and Louis never got up in arms at him at the same time, as long as Gabrielle didn’t join the rant, it was probably all running as best it can with egos larger than even his all stuffed into a little ruling party.

So if Lestat came out for a constitutional now and then, mostly now, then it was not out of character for him. It didn't mean he was stalking anyone, thank you very much.

“You’ve also established it isn’t odd for me either.” 

Of course Armand was aware of him. Lestat hadn’t been trying to hide. They didn’t hide from each other, not anymore. Why should they?

“You don’t wander aimlessly.” They’d come to a stop outside the Inn, but the streets were quiet. Everything was stunningly quiet. “Since you don’t grant me access to your mind often, I must resort to more mundane methods to sniff out the mystery.”

“Louis doesn’t walk aimlessly either,” Armand deflected. “He enjoys it. That is the aim.”

“Louis doing something simply for the joy of doing it,” Lestat said, looking away from Armand and back around the streets. Doubtless people were watching him from somewhere, but he couldn’t tell exactly where from at this moment. “Will wonders never cease?”

“Joy is not spontaneous to everyone,” Armand replied evenly. “Even for you, sometimes you have to reach for it.”

“Are you reaching for it?” Lestat asked.

“I hope so,” Armand said, his expression changing from the impassive to something a little softer, something that suited those little cherubic cheeks a lot better.

This was closer to how he’d looked when he’d arrived, fledgling in tow, well over a week ago now. Something burning in veins far more potent than blood, anticipation for a reunion of their little family, perhaps? 

It had only been a few nights ago that this melancholy wandering had set in. Lestat had wracked his mind to find the cause of it. 

There were the complications of their relationship, but they’d embraced as lovers long apart do and he’d felt the warmth of him in his heart. No, Armand had been as happy to see him as he’d been to have him there.

Louis had been quiet, but Louis was often quiet and the court was very social. Armand of all people knew that Louis liked his little corners to disappear in so he didn’t think being ignored was the issue.

There was Marius and the inevitable difficulties of their relationship, but he’d greeted him with more warmth than usual.

There was also Daniel, but he’d arrived with Daniel in good spirits and whatever they had been working out together, it seemed to be a source of something beautiful and not something that would cause him to wander about like a lost child.

Who else was there that could cause such a response in him?

It was embarrassing that it took more than another few nights before Lestat realised where Armand tended to end up. It was a route he walked himself on occasion, when he was longing for someone else, someone that they’d shared a very long time ago without ever truly sharing him. Eleni had once told him that Armand had taken Nicolas’s death almost as well as Lestat had – so was this why he wandered by the places he had to know clung to his spirit?

Not literally, Nicolas had never shown up as others had in ghostly form, but there was an imprint of him at the places they wandered past - his fathers shop with the open window, the inn, the square, even Lestat’s rooms.

Had Lestat simply not realised that Armand had found some way to grieve another old loss, not unlike Lestat himself had been trying to do?

Eventually, he found Armand in one of the larger rooms that had been turned into something of a crafting studio by the more creative of among them. Armand had sat himself in the corner, letting two dead former lovers talk wildly about plans for some project with such an intense passion that suddenly, in his mind, something clicked into place. 

When he had left Nicolas with Armand, it had been because he thought that Armand needed a guide to the then modern world. Daniel had been the same thing two centuries later. Both were sarcastic, brash, passionate about their respective arts and both had fallen into an obsessive madness before their very eyes.

“Before my eyes.” Armand’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Be thankful you didn’t see the worst of it.”

Lestat met his eye and couldn’t help but grimace. “I still wish I had,” he said.It didn’t matter that all logic said he was making things worse by staying, that their relationship had been destroyed the moment he was pulled through that window and it had been cruel to keep hanging on after that.  “If only for more time. He had always wanted more time to become whoever he was supposed to be.”

“Instead, the infinity of time was the problem.” Armand wasn’t looking at him at all. Maybe it was too hard to do so. “Did you really think it would end any other way?”

Lestat could think of no rebuttal to that. Maybe before he’d drank so deeply, seen such desolation and misery, then yes, he believed they could get past it. It may have taken a while, but there would be time. It was all Nicolas had ever wanted, the time to study, the time to become the musician he wanted to be and maybe it was Lestat’s own foolishness to think that may have made him happy.

“Giving someone what they think want can cause more problems than it solves,” Armand said. 

It was only then that Lestat understood, that the reason he wasn’t looking at Lestat wasn’t because he was overcome with some old emotion but rather that he was looking at another child that should never have to pass: his own.

Daniel had been exactly what Lestat had hoped Nicolas would be for Armand, his link to the world, a teacher of how to be a person from the most self possessed person he knew and yet, shortly after coming into the blood, their relationship had been ripped to shreds too. Daniel had slipped into obsession while Armand had slipped into despair.

But they had recovered. Armand had founded Trinity Gate with Louis, he had kept the children safe and he had begun to connect with old lovers and lovers that should have been. From his understanding, Daniel had slowly found his way back to the world under Marius’ care and his patience, something Armand confessed he didn’t know he could give another of his blood.  They had found new life in themselves before finding each other again.

If Nicolas had the time, if they had all known what they know now, could he have recovered from his fevered mind?

Could he have found himself in the rubble and as stubbornly as he had cursed him out, as creatively as he had written his music, as persistently as he had practiced his craft, begun to see the world as something that could be beautiful? No, not beautiful, beautiful wouldn’t have been enough, but as something interesting, something thought provoking, something that could have kept his mind from slipping down into the wailing waves of his own internal agonies? 

“I did what I thought would help.” Armand’s voice was tight now. “Clearly Marius knows something I don’t.”

“And if you’re not careful, he’ll give you an extensive yet largely uninformative lecture on what it is.” Lestat reached for his hands, cupping them in his own. They were fever hot and it warmed something within him to do it. “I am not casting blame on you. I know that you did everything you could, and you always do. I’m not blind to what you did for Louis. I’m not blind to what you do for me either. I’m just a little sad to think of what we could have had.”

“He would have liked that,” Armand said, eyes flickering to Lestat’s own. There was the briefest hint of an affectionate smile, but if it was for how Nicolas seemed to make despair and darkness into something to be loved or for Lestat then or Lestat now, who knows? “Any idiot can make you smile, but this deep sense of grief, a sweet misery, I think he would have liked to be remembered as having caused that.”

“You’re right,” Lestat agreed. Any idiot could be happy, he’d often said, in fact idiots were often happier because they didn’t know any differently. This mix of grief, nostalgia, pain and pleasure tied into a memory, it would be how his Nicki would want to be remembered. “And things didn’t turn out so badly in the end, did they?”

“He was right about one thing,” Armand said, rolling his eyes. “You are irrepressibly optimistic.”

“It’s part of my charm,” Lestat said, bringing Armand’s hands to his lips and kissing them, taking care to brush a fang over the skin just to feel the reaction. “And I am terribly charming, aren’t I?”

“You’re definitely terrible.” 

It lost some of its heat by the way his face could still go the softest shade of red, but Lestat would take it.

[youwontlikethisblog]

A lil rant

After watching this episode a fourth time and certain scenes a lot and thinking about it a lot I wanted to explain further than I did in the last post.

I focused a lot on explaining the consensual aspect of their first time and explaining the motivation behind Armando's actions as well as Betty's, but didn't elaborate much more, for one like I said I'm an insomniac and was out of it lol, try writing a post for nearly twelve hours and tell me you wouldn't either. I do see that I should probably draft a lot of my "analysis" when I write them because I am not all there so I don't explain things as well so I'll start doing that so the post are a lot more consistent and clear as opposed to me starting with one point and never finishing it. Anyway now that this disclaimer is out of the way here are my thoughts on said episodes as a writer.

Many times when writing we have to revisit our work as we are writing it. This allows us to pick up on certain plot holes and mistakes as well as even figure out some plot twist in the future. Often times when you know your characters and the moral and ending of your story, the story ends up writing itself and forming it's own path. I've mentioned in past posts that the first draft is to write with tears and blood and the when that's over you clean up your crime scene.

Now, all writers are imperfect and we make mistakes, duh, so there's inconsistent things in this show, like the dog, Camila, Beatriz Valencia, etc.. etc.. however when it comes to the main character's personality there really isn't much of a flaw, in fact they are very realistic and consistent, the actors did a phenomenal job bringing said characters to life, one of my all time favorite details of the characters in this show is how they all have ticks. Guti Guti does that thing with his lips, Patricia flips her hair, Betty worries her lips a lot and when she is explaining certain things she often has this really adorable thing where she rocks on her feet and speaks very certain of what she's saying. Armando has so many ticks that it's hard to keep up with them. Point is they all have so many realistic behaviors that it's hard not to notice them and even harder to disregard them as not part of the story when they are. They are a huge part of being able to credit or discredit the motives and actions that move these characters.

For that exact reason Betty's character in the past few episodes was so heavily important to understand where she was coming from. It wasn't just that she was drinking that got her all riled up and excited that night. It wasn't just that she missed him days without him made her longing and desire increase ten fold. There is always a cause and effect.

What caused Betty to behave this way? How did that effect her relationship? What caused Armando to react that way? How did that effect their relationship? Most importantly, how did this affect them both?

There's a clear understanding of who Armando is and what his secret desire and motive is to make Betty fall in love with him. Though his pride and ego are so huge he can't see past it to dissect and understand his feelings aside from the prejudice he has against women who are not the status quota, in the mildest of all of that there lays one true objective: Betty's heart. We mustn't forget that Armando IS worried about Eco Moda and most certainly that he never wants to admit that he was wrong.

However much like a future dream demonstrates it, Eco Moda is just a farce for his feelings towards Betty. Though outwardly he is motivated by the desperate desire to be validated and loved by his parents, to be better than Daniel, and not admit that he was wrong, inwardly what really pushes him and makes him go after Betty is his desire for her.

How does this start off? He blurs the line at work, where things no longer are just professional coming from him. He makes certain achievements of Betty's in her profession and even morale his own, as if they were a team facing the challenges together. He inserts himself into Betty's life and he inserts Betty into his personal life a lot. With his affairs, his feelings regarding the company and his worries. He trust her as his confidant, as his best friend. He trust her with his feelings more than he does with his actual best friend and his fiancé and this all starts days before the plan is even a plan to him.

The cause of this? Betty's faithfulness and unconditionality.

The effect? He feels like he is special to Betty, as he said himself he had been so special with her(If you haven't yet I suggest that you read the posts Nicolas Mora, Un Amigo, Betty, My Betty! Parts 1-3).

As their relationship progressed his feelings continued to grow to the point that this night, not after he slept with her but before he did, he fell in love. It was when Betty was being vulnerable and apologizing to him for having been overbearing that he fell in love.

However Betty had already been in love with him, way before. She knew him in and out. She knew the good and the bad. She accepted him as is and all she wanted to do was give him her affection and love and that's what she's done, it's all she's done and this feeds a cycle of desire and motivation for Armando where her love motivates him to change, it inspires him to be a better version of himself to make Betty happy because seeing her happy makes him happy, it challenges him to change his own prejudice of society and people. She is a safe haven and she achieves that, how wasn't he supposed to fall in love with her this night when she does exactly that?

Betty's cause to behave like this was her conversation with Aura Maria days before where she questioned if Armando felt more for her than just admiration. She questioned if he too desired her. The effect of that conversation was her testing to see if Armando did in fact feel the same way, that he was on the same page.

It is also so satisfying to see the parallels! Oh how wonderful they are!

The extreme contrast between Betty and Marcela are so visible, so vivid, so in your face that you cannot say that Marcela is a victim of Betty's.

I won't defend Betty's actions for involving herself with a man that was in a contract with another woman(I say contract because it was not an engagement. What Marcela and Armando had was a contract, he did her the favor of marrying her and she owned him.) I understand that she is insecure but she was always shown to have morals and ethics above all, where did those go? Out the window that's where. However I still love her so imma be a supportive mother to Betty and call her out but lend her my two shoulders to cry on, okay?

Moving on.

Betty did not and I will repeat this BETTY DID NOT MANIPULATE OR FORCE ARMANDO TO SLEEP WITH HER.

We get two contrast of the exact same scenario for that exact reason people.

Betty and Marcela literally ask the exact same questions to Armando: Am I making you uncomfortable? Am I bothering you? Do you not want to be with me?(Marcela asked Do you want me to leave?)

However they ask it with different intentions and motivation.

Marcela never pays attention to Armando's body language. Instead she focuses solely on herself, her feelings, and what she wants, this is not a person who is insecure, this is not a person who has no self-worth. This is a person who has a huge ego. MARCELA IS SELF-CENTERED AND SELFISH TO THE CORE. For this exact reason she refuses to let go of Armando because she believes that she deserves him not as a human being but as a trophy to satisfy herself that she tamed a man who sluts it out left and right.

This night we get to see that.

While Betty asked him these questions to make sure he was on the same page as her, that he too desired her just as she desired him; Marcela asked these questions to trap him. She wanted to be like "Aha! You do have a lover! Now I'm going to make your life a living hell because I was right!"

No sis, calm your tits, you need a therapist.

While Betty was legit asking for it, for Armando to consent, Marcela was asking for him to satisfy her. There is a huge, and I mean huge difference between asking for consent and wanting to be satisfied.

Ironically my current WIP pushed me down a rabbit hole on information that explains the dynamics of a survivor and a romantic relationship and how to be a supportive S.O and a lot of the articles I read mentioned the importance of intimacy.

What is intimacy? It is forming a friendship with your S.O and establishing honesty and respect. It comes above the physical aspect of the relationship because it makes you feel safe when things are leading to something physical.

Marcela and Armando don't have that. Armando has even told Marcela that he doesn't want her to have his intimacy. When I first saw that scene I was like "Take a look at this an*s! Why is she with him?" and then I saw why... Marcela be blabbering his business to everyone. She tells everyone that Armando is unfaithful(I mean in that aspect he do be deserving that) but it goes so much deeper than that. The reason he cheats on her is because he is trying to escape, have control, and feel validated and then that feeds her possessiveness over him, which then feeds his desire to cheat(@el-moscorrofio-y-el-mercachifle already made a meme about that lol). She never does anything to gain his trust, instead she demands it and when she doesn't get it she has this "Aha! It's because you're a cheating whore and I'll destroy the woman but stay with you because you belong to me you puny little man! But I will also ruin you if you leave me!" Their relationship sucks. It's honestly just a moral enemies to sex trope. That's it. Like there's nothing there.

Which is not the case for Betty and Armando.

They in fact do have intimacy. They talk about their feelings, they face trials together, as a team, they push one another and inspire one another. They were friends(a lil more than friends doe) long before. In the scene where they are talking in the hotel room Betty tells him she understand him, that she understands that he doesn't feel that sort of attraction towards her and just because she loves him he isn't obligated to sleep with her.

I want to repeat this in cause people are still confused or saying Betty forced Armando to sleep with her: She said :YOU ARE NOT UNDER THE OBLIGATION TO HAVE RELATIONS WITH ME JUST BECAUSE I WANT TO.

What does that sound like to you?

Imma wait for crickets.

When Armando then tries to engage into relations she pulls away and tells him that he doesn't have to.

She is literally placing his needs, his feelings, before her own, however Armando has just barely fallen in love and he wants to. He wants to sleep with her. He wants to engage in fornication and sinful actions with Betty.

He gets frustrated when Betty tells him that he doesn't have to and we know it's because he hates it when people, especially Betty, invalidate his feelings or efforts. The fact that Betty now was telling him no upset him because he did want to sleep with her, however he did not pressure her either. He explained why he did want to sleep with her and when she consented and he too consented they sinned.

However later that night we get almost the exact same scenario but with a different tone.

Marcela, after they argued, sits by his bed where he is laying down and goes to take off his tie and tells him that she desires him. Armando was laying still he told her he was tired, wanted to wash up and go to sleep before she did this. He did not look nor welcome her actions, which is different from when Betty told him that she wanted to make him feel better. In that scene Armando asked her how she was going to do that and when she said with her kisses, they both leaned in to kiss. This time Armando just lays there, like all the other times before but he looks at her with a cold stare.

When he jumped back from Betty when they were making out, Betty asked him what was wrong and he expressed himself.

However this time when Marcela asks him her tone is different. This time she's angry at him as she yells at him to deny that he has a lover now.

Marcela wasn't looking to be with her man, she was looking for her man to be with her. She wanted him to prove to her that he hadn't been sluting it out(like how was he supposed to prove that when she been knew that he still went and slept with her after he slept with whomever? Like she knew he did that and she still consented? WHAT? which y'know feeds the notion that she just wanted her socks rocked) but it contradicts what she says the next day to Patsy Pats at the office. Marcela just wanted him to satisfy her. She wasn't looking for it to be team work, she was looking for it to be about her.

This is why that night was so important. These little scenes, movements, play on words and parrales are there to show us two different relationships; a healthy one and a toxic one.

Marcela didn't respect Armando's no, she just had no other option because this time he wasn't just laying there letting her do what she wanted, this time her emotional manipulation didn't work, this time her seggsual manipulation doesn't work so unless she was gonna r-word him than she had no other choice but to be pissed about it.

Betty did respect Armando's no. She tried to explain herself and apologize to him. She even double checked with him when he told her he did want to. Betty was willing to not have relations with Armando if he didn't want to, for the sake of their relationship and what they have, she would not jeopardize their relationship just to get her socks rocked nor would she make him feel guilty for it.

It wasn't a happy little accident that we get these parrales in one episode.

Understanding the cause and effect helps us determine this.

Understanding the character's inner desires and dilemas helps us understand this.

So no, once again, Betty did not force Armando to sleep with her. Everything before, during, and after that scene shows us and tells us this.

We get both a cause and effect with the added bonus of show, not tell.

This novela reads like a book, so there isn't much of a speculation when we are being shown to compare both of these relationships when they are saying the same things, in the same scenario but with different tone and reaction from the character of interest in both scenarios.

The purpose of this novela was to break social norms of how certain women and men are presented in the media and to question why that is. It isn't simply a love story, if it was I wouldn't be able to watch it as stuff like that makes me want to puke, again this is all a funny ironic joke that someone is playing on me.

[EDIT:

Another key things to take into account(I mentioned it in the Forgive Me post) is that even Mario's tactic to manipulate Armando had nothing to do with Eco Moda or his ego. It had everything to do with Betty's feelings and Armando's desire to make her happy. That same day Mario took notice of Armando's behavior towards Betty at the office and the guilt he felt over forgetting her B-day. Mario played with Armando's feelings and he pushed his buttons to see just how much it mattered to Armando.

When Armando said at the bar that he couldn't go through with it, Mario told him he was convinced, a sincere reaction of his, and he didn't have to do it anymore. However when Armando said he couldn't do that to Betty because she was really looking forward to it, Armando was smiling when he was talking about her enthusiasm to spend time with him, and Mario took notice of that.

So again, Armando did want to sleep with Betty, he just didn't want to do it under deceit or manipulation. He didn't want to be Betty's "First" under those conditions and Betty didn't force him.

My rant is over.

[EDIT: On the Forgive Me post I went back and did two corrections, they are in bold so if y'all want to read them, that would be awesome :)]

[deadparrish]

BOOKS READ IN 2017

total count: 78

goodreads: punknicole

i’m going to give a rating and a brief review of each book— just a sentence or two, depending on how much i remember about the book. this is mostly for fun, but I hope someone gets some use out of this! happy new year and happy reading! and, of course, possible spoilers ahead. 

I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson: 5/5. Everyone and their mother has read this, so I’ll keep it short and sweet. I really enjoyed this book because I found it difficult to support just one specific character— everyone had flaws and they were all multi-dimensional. I appreciated the fact that each part of the story eventually matched up with the others. 

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon: 4/5. This was a cute book. I didn’t have too many strong feelings about it when I first read it, but it was enjoyable in a passing way. I thought the diversity was really wonderful but it was a bit overhyped.

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater: 5/5. I was rereading this and I loved it even more than the first time I read it. I feel like if you follow me you’ve probably read this, since this is a mostly trc blog, so I won’t go too deep into this. It’s wonderful. 

The Color Purple by Alice Walker: 5/5. I loved this a lot!!!! I think that the style it was written in is really interesting and the fact that it’s about a black lesbian is wonderful. It’s also a classic so I’d say that this should be on everyone’s reading list!!

The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavik: 4/5. I never got as into these as everyone else seemed to. It was good and I read it really quickly, but it isn’t something I’d want to read again? I only read it because it had lgbt+ representation and honestly I think that’s all it has going for it. 

The Raven King by Nora Sakavik: 4/5. Again, I read this really quickly. I can’t really remember what happens. I think this is the book that triggered me a bit— there was some pretty awful sexual assault. 

The King’s Men by Nora Sakavik: 4/5. I remember being really disappointed in the ending, but I’m not sure why. I think I expected something a little more dramatic. Again, I read the whole trilogy over the span of two days, so it all kind of blended together. I’d suggest reading these so you can understand what all the tumblr posts are about, but they aren't my favorite. 

The Elements of Style by William Strunk JR. and E. B. White: 4/5. Ah, the first book that I finished that was for school! This was basically a mini textbook, and I found it really informative if a bit dry at times. I’d recommend reading it if English is something that you’re passionate about.

Another Day by David Levithan: 2/5. This was awful. I had high hopes for it, because I really liked Every Day, but this just gives you insight into how awful the main character is. It’s completely unnecessary, and I wish I hadn’t read it. 

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: 5/5. I LOVED THIS!!! I read it for school and I absolutely fell in love. It’s extremely heavy handed on symbolism, but the language is so beautiful. I have a twitter thread about how I think that Nick is in love with Gatsby here. 

We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson: 5/5. I really liked this too, and I recently gave this to my mom and grandma to read and they loved it too!! I think that the storyline was really interesting and it dealt with some really existential issues about life, which I always really enjoy. 

You Know Me Well by David Levithan and Nina LaCour: 5/5. This was really cute!! I remember really enjoying the wlw representation in this, because most lgbt books focus on white guys, so this was refreshing. 

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes: 5/5. I bawled my eyes out reading this. I can’t even explain it but it is... so fucking good. 

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway: 2/5. Ugh. I didn’t even finish this. I know it’s a classic, but I just really couldn’t get into it. I might try again in a few years but it just didn’t work for me. 

Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente: 5/5. I tried to find this books in stores for at least a year before I finally took the leap and ordered it online. I love it so much— it’s one of the first books on my reread list. The language is really beautiful and I love the aesthetic, but it is a bit dark.

Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls: 5/5. A book straight out of my childhood! I love it just as much as I did when I was a kid, and I cried even more than I did the last time I read it, which had to have been at least ten years ago. It’s timeless and beautiful and I think it’s a must-read!

Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur: 4/5. Honestly, I think this book is a bit overhyped. I enjoyed some of the poems but it didn’t leave a huge lasting impact. 

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray: 3/5. This was a really fast read for me, and I sort of liked it? It was lighthearted and kind of funny and had incredible representation, but it wasn’t a favorite for me. 

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde: 4/5. I love Oscar Wilde, so I’m a bit biased, but I thought this was enjoyable. It was clever and passingly funny, but I think it would be better to see it performed live. 

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini: 5/5. This was my second time reading this, and I loved it even more than I did the first time I read it. I read this for school the first time and I’d definitely recommend that everyone read it at least once! It’s an incredible story and it really touches your heart.

The Black Swan by Mercedes Lackey: 4/5. I consider this a guilty pleasure book but I’m not exactly sure why. I read it when I was really young, which might be part of the reason why, since it has some really mature themes, but it’s a good read. 

The May Queen Murders by Sarah Jude: 2/5. I remember seeing a lot of posts on here about this book, so I was disappointed when it ended up being really boring. I just didn’t like it, and I wouldn’t recommend it. 

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck: 4/5. I read this for school, and I’ll probably never pick it up again. I didn’t hate it, but it definitely wasn’t a favorite. I would recommend it, though, just because it’s a classic and it’s something that you Have To Read at least once. 

Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan: 4/5. This was another book that I had really high expectations for because I saw a lot of hype for it on tumblr. I did like it, but it wasn’t life changing like I expected it to be. 

The Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: 5/5. This is probably my favorite book of all time. I can’t say enough good things about it, so just read it. 

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison: 5/5. This was incredible! It really makes you think about American standards of beauty and how that affects your day-to-day life. 

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros: 4/5. I’ll be honest, I feel like I missed a huge part of this book because I read it really quickly, but I still liked it. 

1984 by George Orwell: 5/5. Everyone needs to read this, especially in our current political climate. There are quite a few parallels between what happens in the novel an what’s happening today, and it’s really helpful when it comes to trying to understand what people on the news are talking about when they say we’re “living in 1984.”

This is Where it Ends by Marieke Nijkamp: 4/5. I remember being a little disappointed in this, but I still really liked it! I think I cried but I’m not super sure? I guess it didn’t leave as lasting of an impact as I thought it did, but I remember liking it as I read it. 

Vampirates: Tide of Terror by Justin Somper: 4/5. This is definitely a guilty pleasure book and I’m not ashamed to admit it. My cousin recommended them to me at least ten years ago and every so often I get into a phase where I want to reread them. The title is pretty self-explanatory— vampire pirates. 

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak: 5/5. One of my favorite reads of the year! The narrative style is really interesting and it’s really beautifully written. I absolutely recommend it!!

The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: 2/5. Ugh. Again, I couldn’t even finish this, and I’m not sure why. It just seemed so boring! I’ll try to reread it at some point but definitely not any time soon. 

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath: 5/5. I really enjoyed this!! It also got me into the good graces of my english teacher this year (she saw me carrying it around school and talked to me about it) so I’d recommend it!

Animal Farm by George Orwell: 5/5. I first read this in middle school and really liked it, so I figured I’d reread it and see if it held up, and it did. It’s another classic that I think should be on everyone’s read list!

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner’s Dilemma by Trenton Lee Stewart: 5/5. These are really fun books that I’d recommend you read if you have a free afternoon! They’re clever, engaging, and easy to read. 

Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie: 3/5. I didn’t like this and I can’t remember exactly why. I think that it was a bit dry for my liking, although it might have just been because I didn’t like all the talk about mothers. Either way, I wouldn’t recommend it.

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Calahan: 5/5. This was really interesting! I don’t usually read memoirs, but my mom gave this to me to read and I actually really liked it.

The Scorch Trials by James Dashner: 4/5. I’ve tried to get into the Maze Runner series a few times, but it never quite manages to get me interested enough. I liked this well enough but it didn’t leave me invested enough to go out and buy the next book in the series, so it’ll probably be another year (at least) before I revisit this series. Oh well. 

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux: 4/5. The movie with Gerald Butler is yet another guilty pleasure of mine, so I really wanted to like this, but it kind of fell short. It was decent, but it took me a while to read, which always means that I’m not loving it. 

The Holy Bible: 1611 Edition, King James Version by Hendrickson Bibles (compiler): I can’t write a real review for this because I only read certain parts of it for school, but I counted it on my goodreads because I wanted it to count towards my 2017 reading challenge. It was interesting, I guess? 

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett: 4/5. I didn’t expect to like this as much as I did! The characters were really sweet and I enjoyed their growth, and the plot was interesting. 

Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg: 4/5. I picked this up because I had just watched Kill Your Darlings and I wasn't as impressed as I wanted to be. There were some good poems but nothing that stuck with me.

The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket: 5/5. The beginning of my series of unfortunate events reread! I love these books a lot and they were a huge part of my childhood. Everyone should read these books! I don’t have much to say about each individual book but I’ll try to make a comment or two on each one. 

The Reptile Room by Lemony Snicket: 5/5. I love snakes so this is one of my favorites out of the series! 

The Wide Window by Lemony Snicket: 5/5. This book helped create my tentative fear of heights. I always remember being horrified of the image of Aunt Josephines house. 

The Miserable Mill by Lemony Snicket: 5/5. Nothing about this one really ever stood out to me besides my own outrage at child labor. 

The Austere Academy by Lemony Snicket: 5/5. This is my favorite of all the books!! I think it’s because I’ve always been obsessed with the idea of boarding school. 

The Ersatz Elevator by Lemony Snicket: 5/5. Climbing an elevator shaft would suck. 

The Vile Village by Lemony Snicket: 5/5. I would love to live in a village filled with crows. 

Mythology by Edith Hamilton: 5/5. I read this for school and it was really fascinating! I already knew a bit about Greek and Roman mythology (mostly because of Percy Jackson) but it was cool to learn more about it and Norse mythology. 

A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin: 5/5. All I have to say is that A Song of Ice and Fire is so much better than Game of Thrones. 

Witch & Wizard by James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet:  3/5. I had found this in a box and wanted to reread it, and it wasn’t as good as I remember it being. It was a really fast read and fairly interesting, though, simply because of the magic. 

The Hostile Hospital by Lemony Snicket: 5/5. I feel like this is when the books really take a dark turn, which makes them really interesting to read. 

Blockade Billy by Stephen King: 5/5. I listen to this in the car with my dad whenever we take a long trip, and I always really enjoy it. There’s nothing super special about it, and I’ve never been super interested in books about sports, but this story is cool because it’s also about murder. 

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood: 5/5. This is amazing! It’s another book that’s been in the news a lot due to the Trump presidency, so I’d say give it a read simply because of that, but it’s incredible and should be read in its own right. A total cliffhanger ending. 

Witch & Wizard: The Gift by James Patterson and Ned Rust: 3/5. Honestly, I can’t remember what this was about. 

The Carnivorous Carnival by Lemony Snicket: 5/5. Those lions deserved better. 

Holes by Louis Sachar: 4/5. This is one of those books that you’re supposed to read as a kid that I never got around to. I did like it, but I think I would have liked it a lot better if I had read it ten years ago. 

How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster: 5/5. Another really awesome pseudo-textbook! It really teaches you a lot about certain aspects of literature that you’ve probably never thought about before, and it’ll really change the way you read! 

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll: 3/5. This was really boring for me to read and I’m not sure why. I think I just expected it to be something else, and I didn't really like it. 

Medea by Euripides, translated by Rex Warner: 4/5. My World Mythology class read this out-loud and it was really entertaining. It’s not a necessary read but it’s kind of fun. 

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: 5/5. This is super hard to read so I’d definitely recommend paraphrasing it as you go, but it’s a classic, so you definitely need to read it at least once. 

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: 3/5. Again, this was a book that I really wanted to like, but just couldn’t force myself to. I think I ended up skim-reading at least three-fourths of it. 

The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks: 4/5. I think this is probably the first straight up romance novel that I’ve ever read, and I actually kind of liked it. It wasn’t my favorite, but it was cute and I cried a little bit at the end. 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon: 5/5. This was excellent! I’d never read anything like this before, and the format was super unique as well, and it was all around a good read. It was also really sad and made me really uncomfortable at times, which I think speaks to how well it’s written. 

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: 5/5. Super good. I read this for class and I’m really thankful for that, since I think there’s a lot of deeper meaning to the book that I was able to examine thanks to class discussions. 

All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater: 4/5. I liked this okay, but it’s definitely not on the same level as The Raven Cycle. I really enjoyed the characters in this— they were all extremely different from one another, and that was refreshing. 

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins: 5/5. This started a minor obsession with murder/thriller novels!!! It was extremely well written and had me guessing until the end (I didn’t see the final twist coming!) I actually leant this to my mom and she also loved it! 

The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien: 4/5. I was desperate to like this more than I actually did. There were parts of it that I really liked, and parts of it that had me literally falling asleep. 

Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding: 3/5. Ugh. I didn’t like this at all. It’s only redeeming factor was that it’s a really fast read. 

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber: 3/5. Extremely underwhelming. 

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien: 5/5. I wasn’t super into this in the beginning, because I don’t like war books, but I had to read it for class and I ended up loving it by the end. There’s definitely some triggering content but the book mainly focuses on the idea of truth and storytelling, and it’s really fascinating! 

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson: 4/5. This was okay. I found myself getting annoyed with how dramatic everything was, but it’s a story about overcoming odds and finding strength within yourself, which I know some people are into. 

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger: 3/5. Yikes. The narrator is so fucking annoying in this that I couldn’t take it seriously. I know it’s a classic, but I really didn’t like it. 

The Giver by Lois Lowry: 4/5. This is another book that I wish I had read in a classroom setting when I was a little younger because I feel like I missed out on a lot of the deeper meaning because I sped through it in an hour or two. I did really enjoy it, though. 

The Martian by Andy Weir: 4/5. This is one of the rare instances where I prefer the movie to the book. I liked this book okay, but there were big lengthy descriptions of the “science” that I found really tedious. 

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn: 5/5. I wish I had read this before I watched the movie, though I still really enjoyed it. It’s another book that leaves you guessing about what’s going to happen until the very end, and it leaves you feeling really unsettled. 

Misery by Stephen King: 5/5. This is my first Stephen King book that I actually read (aka didn’t listen to)! I’m glad I picked this as my first book of his to read, because it’s shorter than some of his other stuff without being boring. It’s more violent and gory than I usually go for, but I still really liked it! 

And that’s it! Happy new year, everyone! 

[culturalgutter]

At first it was the way the bears were stacked atop each other that appealed to me. I’d see ads for We Bare Bears while watching other shows and think, “That is adorable/charming/cute/apealing?” Their shape, the color arrangement. Just the whole stacking thing. But one weekend shortly after the 2016 election, I made myself chocolate chip pancakes and decided I’d watch an episode of this bear cartoon and see what was what. I ended up spending the day watching episode after episode of We Bare Bears.  My first episode—or at least the one that I remember most clearly—was, “The Demon.” In it, Ice Bear and his friend Chloe Park face the terror of the neighbor’s little dog after Chloe accidentally loses her hoody to the fiend. It is nicely done with Chekov’s potato gun appearing in the first act appearing again in the third. It has elements that I most like about the show at its best. A reliance on character to drive the plot, conflict and action; diverse characters; a careful calculus around consequences; appropriate stakes; and, resolutions that tend toward ending in a better place than the episode began. These elements aren’t easy to pull off, especially in an eleven minute episode.

In We Bare Bears, three bear bros, Grizz, Panda and Ice Bear, live together in a cave in the woods. We Bare Bears is set in the Bay Area.  A lot of cartoons and shows are set supposedly non-specific anywhere or everywhere that only make them seem even more the product a specific place, often, ironically enough, California. But We Bare Bears goes ahead and lets their place be their place and then sees what stories they can tell. You might have suspected from their names that these bears are not biologically related. The bears are a chosen family with Grizz as the oldest brother and Ice Bear as the youngest. And even though Ice Bear is, as he says, “best bear,” all the bears have their own charm. Grizz is an outgoing and enthusiastic brown bear. His wants to be cool and to have a lot of friends. Sometimes he tries too hard or is too caught up in his own enthusiasm. But he tries hard and when the bears befriend Chloe, he learns some Korean to try be a good friend and maybe to reassure her father and grandmother that being friends with bears is alright. Grizz loves 1980s and 1990s action movies and has made a couple of his own “Crowbar Jones” shorts, starring himself as Crowbar Jones and “Pando,” a comic relief sidekick clearly inspired by Panda.

Panda, aka, Pan-Pan, is as his name implies, a panda. He’s also an otaku loves anime, manga, Japanese and Korean pop music and K-dramas, though likely not Vampire Prosecutor, more say, Boys Over Flowers and those body-switching romantic dramas, like Secret Garden (2010). Panda loves the idea of being in a relationship, but it’s probably a good thing he isn’t. He has a waifu body pillow named Miki-chan. Panda is intensely involved online hoping for likes and shares and trying to meet his true love. He’s an otaku who doesn’t read or speak much Japanese or Korean.  He’s allergic to everything and is vegetarian while his brothers love meat. Panda is sweet and sensitive but also capable of becoming resentful to the point of supervillainy.

Ice Bear always refers to himself as “Ice Bear,” except that one time he was conked on his noggin and started wearing a man-bun and hanging out with tech bros. His room is the bears’ refrigerator, where he knits and watches figure skating. Ice Bear was nonverbal as a cub and his affect does not necessarily reflect what he is feeling on the inside. Ice Bear comes across as neurodivergent and probably on the autism spectrum.

Ice Bear is clearly the coolest and arguably as he claims, “best bear.” He has what Grizz and Napoleon Dynamite would call, “skillz.” He speaks Russian, Korean, Pigeon and, I expect, many more languages. He likes axes, throwing stars, martial arts, salsa dancing, cooking, knitting and making robots. Ice Bear also has a secret life his brothers don’t know about. One revealed particularly in two episodes that are We Bare Bears influenced by Drive (2011), general Nicolas Winding Refn-ness and by John Wick, “Icy Nights” and “Icy Nights II.”* The song playing when Ice Bear enters the city in “Icy Nights” recalls “Nightcall” from the Drive soundtrack.

Grizz befriends Wyatt the biker at a gas station in the desert.

The bears make friends, though. They befriend Chloe Park, a 12-year-old Korean-American child protege who comes to study them for a college biology course. Chloe is stressed and lonely being the only tween in university. And they are also friends with Ranger Tabes, who reminds me of Rosie the camp director from Lumberjanes. Tabes out for their part of the forest. And they are friends with Charlie, a bigfoot voiced by Jason Lee, so I always kind of think he’s Earl from My Name Is Earl. Charlie also hosts the Halloween episodes, each a little horror anthology. (One with a fantastic take on Scooby-Doo).

We Bare Bears has some superficial similarities with Polar Bear Cafe, which also features a polar/ice bear, panda and grizzly bear–as well as a llama, sloth and penguin. Polar Bear Cafe‘s Panda is obsessed with being cute.  Like Ice Bear, Polar Bear is responsible and can drive a car. I enjoy his attempts to teach Penguin to drive.

“Ice Bear is responsible.”

There is a grizzly bear who gets most of his clothes from the Harley-Davidson store. But Polar Bear runs a cafe. There are a lot of puns. And the show skews towards a younger audience. That said, I think We Bare Bears make a little nod to Polar Bear Cafe with the “Coffee Cave” episode, in which the bears turn their cave into a cafe. Ice Bear becomes a barrista to facilitate Grizz hanging with cool people and Panda tries to make time with a woman he thinks is cute.

I enjoy We Bare Bears‘ references to film, tv, games, comics and cartoons and even Walt Whitman. When the bears work “shushing the unshushable” in an Oakland cineplex, there are a slew of film references that would warm the heart of the most cantankerous cinephile. In another episode, the bears recall films like Phase IV (1974) and Empire of the Ants (1977) as they obey the wishes of a queen bee.

The bears listening to the queen.

Ranger Tabes in peril!

Panda is pursued by a virtual reality Doof Warrior from Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). And there’s a bit from the beginning of Quincy Jones’ Ironside theme in “Bear Cleanse” when someone is secretly eating cake. It might’ve been taken from Kill Bill (2003) or from Lo Lieh dangerous fists in King Boxer/ Five Fingers of Death (1972). Grizz knows it from Kill Bill, but Ice Bear definitely recognizes it from King Boxer. I like that the creators are using art that they like. And art that I like, too.

While the structure is episodic, there is no total reset at the end of every episode. “Icy Nights,” for example, uses a number of elements from earlier episodes—Ice Bear’s modified roomba, for example. And human characters who are almost doppelgangers of the bears, Tom, Isaac and Griff, appear first in “Panda’s friend” and then in two more episodes, “Bro Brawl” and “The Mall.”

The show alternates between episodes featuring the bears in their presumably current adult forms with ones about the bears as cubs. If you must have origin stories, the baby bear episodes provide them and do a pretty good job. The baby bear episodes also do a good job of capturing a kids point-of-view. In general, I prefer the adult episodes, but that might be because I am an adult. As always, I don’t begrudge kids’ interests being put before my own in cartoons meant for kids.  I do, however, very much enjoy “Los Escandalosos,” in which the baby bears become a tag team in a kids’ lucha libre league in Mexico. There are some sweet luchador names in that episode and mariachis sing a ballad about los Escandalosos. Incidentally, “Escandalosos” is also the Spanish name for the show. I appreciate the pun making the title, “Scandal Bears.” It only took me two days catch it, but I did.

I also appreciate that We Bare Bears rarely translates the Spanish, Korean or Russian in the show. The writers relies on us to understand generally what is going on and not freak out when we don’t understand specifically what is said. There are times when we don’t understand something and that’s okay. I particularly appreciate that while we learn why Ice Bear knows Russian, we don’t see when Ice Bear went from non-verbal to verbal. Neurodiversity isn’t exactly the same kind of plot point as that time a Russian man in the arctic took in Ice Bear. At the same time, if the writers did decide to show the first time Ice Bear spoke, I trust them to do right by him and neurodivergent folk.

The bears are trying to participate in the human world and figure out how they fit into it. They not like they other animals anymore, but that’s okay. Though it might negatively impact their health as they prefer to eat, say, pizza bagels over bamboo and seals. And they’re not quite like humans cause they’re still bears, and that should be okay, but it’s not always.

Panda being hassled by the Man.

Daniel Chong talked a bit about how one of the things he was thinking of when creating this show was the ways that this experience paralleled being a minority in America and particularly, racism in America. Sometimes people react negatively to the bears and it’s just those people’s thing, not the bears, though it is particularly distressing to Grizz.**

I mentioned before that I appreciate that whatever shenanigans the bears or a single bears cause or are involved in have appropriately calculated stakes and consequences–and not just in the sense that a cartoon meant for all ages should probably not have a lot of gruesome death in it. The person most responsible for shenanigating takes most of the damage and uninvolved people or innocent people caught up in it are not as subject to the shenanigans.*** And that’s a relief to me. It’s not a cartoon that relies on either the pleasure of someone finally getting what they deserve–one day that Roadrunner will get his/her due!–or on the shock of, say, Ren’s cruelty to Stimpy, Jerry’s cruelty to Tom the Cat or Woody Woodpecker’s flat-out sociopathy.

Sweet jean jacket.

When the bears dig a cool jean jacket with a tiger on the back out of a dumpster, they get a run of good luck. The luck is low level, but the bears are ecstatic. Ice Bear says, “This is the best thing to happen to Ice Bear” and they all agree.  Panda finds money in the pocket. Grizz gets three high fives in a row. Ice Bear finds coupons for salsa dancing lessons.

The rain stops. Streetlights go their way. Pizza bagels are on sale. A cash opens up at the grocery store and they are first in line. But when the jacket’s curse is revealed, it operates on the same level. They each want the jacket for themselves and end up fighting. Joss Whedon’s We Bare Bears would straight up have killed one of them, but instead Panda accidentally punches his own face.

They realize, ‘We’re not wearing this jacket. This jacket is wearing us. We have to get rid of it.” The temptations the jacket uses to try to get them to take it back are things like pizza mistakenly delivered to their house. All of which are stakes and consequences appropriate to the situation. We Bare Bears is about critters and people mostly trying their best and screwing up sometimes. It is a pretty gentle cartoon, though there are both shenanigans and hijinx. It seems to me that in its own way going the chill and gentle route can be more avant-garde than another manic cartoon.

*I see a little Tokyo Drifter in the part where Ice Bear is silhouetted in red, too.

**There is a thing here where I talk a bit about the Prime Directive and the ways that it is kind of butts, but we have bears to discuss.

***This is a more complicated calculation when Panda goes bad in “Braces.”

~~~

Carol Borden isn’t going to lie. She kind of covets that jean jacket.

Ice Bear is Best Bear At first it was the way the bears were stacked atop each other that appealed to me.