Abigail Barnette's Blog, page 64

What A Fibromyalgia Flare Feels Like

I blog openly about my mental health issues, and I think occasionally I mention that I have Fibromyalgia, a disorder that causes widespread pain and fatigue, as well as memory, concentration and sleep issues. One of the fun features of this condition (aside from the many friends it can bring along, like IBS, Interstitial Cystitis, Raynaud’s Phenomenon, depression, anxiety, and suicide) are “flares”, when your symptoms go from sucking on a daily basis to sucking five times harder on top of all five business days of sucking you’re already experiencing getting stacked on you all at once. It’s not great.

A lot of people in my life will hear me say, “I’m having a flare,” but I don’t think I’ve ever explained what that means. I’m going through one right now. It started last night, and I thought, “I should really pay attention, so I can tell people what happens and how.” So, here’s what happens when I have a Fibromyalgia flare. Other people might experience symptoms in a different way, this is just what happens to me:

1. I notice my face feels hot, like I’ve been out in the sun a little too long.

2. My fingers and feet swell up, and the joints become red and swollen.

3. That hot feeling in my face spreads through my whole body. It feels like having a fever, but if I take my temperature it’s normal. I still get chilled like I have a fever.

4. Raynaud’s Phenomenon makes my feet cold. They take on a bluish tint and hurt the way your hands hurt after you’ve played in the snow without mittens all recess. Socks, hot water bottles, etc. are kind of ineffective at this point, but I always try.

5. Fatigue. My entire body feels heavier. Today, even lifting my arms up to type has been a challenge (some days, it’s not even possible, or my hands hurt too much, so I use Dragon Naturally Speaking to do my work).

6. And let’s not forget pain! All of these symptoms come pretty much in this order, one right after the other, but sometimes I don’t realize I’m having a flare until the pain ramps up. My bones feel like there’s something that’s inside of them trying to push out. My muscles ache like the first day after a hard workout. When you have Fibromyalgia, there are specific spots on your body (and they’re basically the same on everyone) that are always painful to the touch, but they become super sensitive during flares. I would describe the sensation of triggering one of these areas as getting an electric shock, followed by a lingering, burning pain. Sometimes, just your clothes are enough pressure to cause this.

7. The pain causes lack of sleep, as well as lack of focus. If I can sleep, it’s not well, and I wake up tired. This contributes to my difficulties concentrating or communicating well. I end up reading the same page over and over, or starting to write something and wander away for a while, only to be surprised when I come back and realizing, oh, I didn’t finish that thought. I started writing this relatively simple post at 11:00. As I write this, it’s 12:21, and I’ve written 536 words.

Most of these symptoms are alleviated by marijuana, which (given my history of destructive, opiate-related behavior) is the only pain medication I trust. The only things it doesn’t help with are swelling, which I take ibuprofen for, and Raynaud’s, because what the hell even is Raynaud’s? Why does it do that? But yes, it even helps with the brain fog and concentration, depending on which strain you get.

If you suffer from Fibromyalgia, I’d be interested in hearing if we share any of the same symptoms during a flare. Sometimes, because of the attitudes toward it at the time I was getting diagnosed (and those are thankfully getting better), I still wonder if we’re all just making it up. Which is absurd, but when you hear it from doctors and random people who think the problem is that you’re not doing enough yoga, you start to doubt everything. Anyway, share in the comments, or if you have any questions about Fibromyalgia, just put them there, too.

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Second Chance Sneak Peek #2!

Remember last week, when I said I’d share another excerpt from Second Chance? And this time it would be Ian? And this time there would be spoilers? But you won’t be spoiled for long, because it’s out next Tuesday!

Disclaimer: this is the text as-is before copy-edit changes have been finalized. The final copy may contain superficial differences from the published version.

“We should get married.”

It took me a moment to realize that I’d just said those words. But I didn’t regret them one iota.

Penny’s eyes grew wide, and she blinked slowly. “Um…maybe now isn’t the best time to talk about something like that.”

“It’s a great time,” I insisted, because I was clearly out of my mind. What the fuck was I doing? I hadn’t read any guidebooks on the subject, but I assumed a freshly divorced person shouldn’t run out and immediately remarry months later, to a woman he’d known for less than six months.

The fact that I wasn’t frightened at all was cause for serious worry, as well. But nothing could deter me. Proposing might be foolish, but it was right; I knew that beneath all the conventional wisdom. “We want to start our lives together, yeah?”

“Well, yeah, of course. But I don’t–”

“Then let’s go,” I urged. If she had the good sense to turn me down, I would either be happy, or devastated, I couldn’t tell. “On Monday, let’s go to city hall and get married.”

“I…I can’t. I have to work,” she said, but a smile slowly bent her lips. “With all of this, Sophie is going to need me to handle a lot of stuff for her.”

I took Penny’s hands in mine. “We’ll go on our lunch hour.”

Her face broke into a full grin. Despite her smudged makeup and the crease lines from her pillowcase, my ribs ached at her utter perfection.

“This is really stupid,” she warned me. “And it’s not the way I ever expected this to go.”

Of course. How had I been so thick? Penny had never been married before. She’d never gotten the chance to have the wedding every woman dreams of, or at least what popular culture insisted they should. Penny had been a twenty-two year old virgin when we’d met, so to say there was a touch of the traditional about her would be a fairly large understatement.

“You want the dress and the flowers and the cake.” I dropped my head in shame. “I’m sorry. This was selfish of me.”

“I didn’t say no.”

I looked up. The single, bashful dimple in her cheek deepened as her gaze met mine. “I just meant that you haven’t really proposed to me properly. ‘Let’s get married,’ is nice and all, but if we’re not going to do the dress and the flowers and the cake, I at least need you to take a knee.”

That would be the one tradition she would adhere to, I moaned in my head as I pushed back the blankets. Kneeling on her arctic floor would be unpleasant enough, but I also had to suffer the embarrassment of trying to stand up again. This is for true love, you bastard. It’s not too much to ask. Get on down there and make her want to be your wife.

I didn’t even have a ring.

The floor was a slap of ice when it met my bare knee. Proposing in boxer shorts hardly seemed like the most romantic thing I would ever do for Penny, but her eyes glittered in the light as though Mr. Darcy himself knelt before her.

I wished I hadn’t thought of that prick. He’d set the bar too high for all of us.

I reached for Penny’s hand, and she slipped it into mine gladly. I exhaled sharply, paused to psych myself up, and said, “Penelope Parker. Will you…” What, spend the rest of her life with me? I hoped it wasn’t the rest of her life, or it would be tragically short. We were thirty years apart, for Christ’s sake. “Will you be mine for the rest of my life?”

She squeezed my hand and nodded. “Yes, Ian Pratchett, I will be yours for the rest of both of our lives.”

Jenny Reads 50 Shades of Midnight Sun: Sunday, May 22, 2011 or “I’m not sure this whole day-by-day instead of chapter numbers thing is practical PART THREE”

Just in case this franchise hasn’t ripped of Twilight enough, there are now rumors swirling that Jamie Dornan is cheating on his wife with Dakota Johnson. I’m not including any links, because there aren’t even half-way interesting sources carrying the “story”, but it certainly reminds me of that time Bella and Edward fell in love off-screen, then infidelity became involved. Except whereas Kristen Steward actually dated Robert Pattinson and cheated on him with someone else, where as Dornan is allegedly cheating on his wife with Johnson. And there’s very little proof that’s actually happening. Once again, Fifty Shades proves itself a grasping, lukewarm imitation of a superior franchise.

So, let’s just get through this.

When we last left Ana, she wasn’t hungry, because the sole purpose of Ana’s mouth is to bite her lip. All the dead skin flakes and chapstick she consumes on a daily basis is probably enough to sustain her. But that doesn’t really matter to Christian, who takes her out to eat anyway.

“Two glasses of pinot grigio,” I order from the waitress, who’s making eyes at me from beneath blond bangs. It’s annoying.

Perhaps the greatest suspension of disbelief this series begs of the reader is accepting that a twenty-seven year old billionaire with an ego taller than the Space Needle is put-off by sexual attention from women. Of course, the problem might be that she doesn’t look exactly like his mother, as per his totally normal and healthy sexual fixation.

Because you’re supposed to say one nice thing for every three mean things you say about a book (or so a recent ridiculous email whined at me), I do want to genuinely praise the use of “blond” instead of “blonde.” In the last year or so, I’ve come to dislike the gendering of words loaned to English. We don’t gender our words with suffixes generally, and blond/blonde has really started to grate on me. It is disquieting to find that this book actually has more than one element which I find commendable (the other being the removal of menstruation taboo, and fuck this book for having a feminist element, even accidentally).

Ana scowls.

“What?” I ask, wondering if the waitress is annoying her, too.

“Say the word, my darling, and I shall have the strumpet whipped naked in the town square!”

“I wanted a Diet Coke.”

Why didn’t you say so?

Because you didn’t ask, dick.

Underlines = Italics.

Now, Christian could easily change her order. The waitress would be happy to bring a Diet Coke once she finishes wringing her drenched panties out in the slop sink. But he doesn’t get Ana the soda. He tells her that the wine will be fine:

“The pinot grigio here is a decent wine. It will go well with the meal, whatever we get.”

Okay, but she didn’t ask about the wine. She asked for a Diet Coke. Also, it’s not true that pinot grigio will go well with any meal they get. Earlier, he remarks that the menu is a single option prix fixe, so it seems like there would be a wine pairing already chosen. And on top of that, the restaurant actually is a cuisine sauvage restaurant: only wild stuff. If they’re not served fish, but wild game like venison or duck, then no, pinot grigio isn’t the right pairing, sorry. My play house as a child was a fucking rusted out car on cinderblocks in the tall grass, and I knew that, Mr. Expert-On-Classy-Junk.

And I give her my megawatt smile to make amends for not letting her order her own drink. I’m just not used to asking…

 Because you’re a dick.
There is still a way to rectify this situation, and you’re choosing not to because you’re a dick.

At the same time, why the fuck can’t Ana just ask for it her damn self? As the series goes on, Ana is brainwashed and manipulated into not speaking up or making choices for herself, but this early in their relationship she is unable to resist even something as minor as his control over her drink choices? I know we’re supposed to view this through the romantic lens of being so caught up in new love that she can’t think for herself, but it just makes her look weak and pathetic at this point.

“My mother liked you,” I add, hoping this will please her and remembering Grace’s reaction to Ana.

“Really?” she says, looking flattered.

“Oh yes. She always thought I was gay.”

Just in case there was still doubt about Christian Grey’s overpowering manliness, he is definitely not gay. Gosh, I hope this point is reiterated in every single chapter, just so no one gets the accidental impression that Christian Grey might be into icky icky man sex.

Chedward tells Ana that his mother has never seen him with a woman, and she’s like, not even one of the fifteen:

Yes…only you, baby. The thought is unsettling.

Every thought is unsettling. Unsettling is a good word. Most writers use it. The reason it sticks out so much here is that it’s always used in the same context, sometimes with the same exact phrasing. In the ten times “unsettling” is used in this book, all ten are in regard to some unexpected feeling he has toward Ana. In the four times it’s been used already, it’s always in the same phrase: “The thought is unsettling.” I’m not generally a huge stickler for word/phrase rep (sometimes a certain word or phrase has to be reused because it’s the only way to make sentence work or convey things properly to the reader, i.e., there are few synonyms for lips/mouth, hand/fingers), but I have  really hard time letting this one slide, especially considering how often “the thought is” gets used in this book, too.

Christian reiterates that he’s never flown anyone in his helicopter, never introduced anyone to his mother, never had sex with someone in his bed, etc., I guess in case the point hasn’t been driven home by the five or thirty odd times he mentioned it while those things were actually happening.

Ana asks Christian what vanilla sex is, and he tells her, and she asks him if he’s always done the kinky stuff, and he tells her about Mrs. Robinson. But obviously he doesn’t call her Mrs. Robinson, because that was in Ana’s head the whole time, not his. Ana asked him if he ever dated anyone in college:

“I didn’t want to. She was all I wanted, needed. And besides, she’d have beaten the shit out of me.”

So, this doesn’t in any way excuse Christian Grey’s actions. He’s a bastard. But if he’s really as super private about his sex life as he says he is, and Elena was his only introduction to sex and kink, is it any wonder that he believes this is how a Dom is supposed to act? He was submissive to a woman who would apparently beat him for making personal choices, so obviously he’s going to think that’s how the game works.

That doesn’t excuse his abuse, it just supports my position that Elena is an abuser and a child predator who groomed him to specifically accept her abuse as normal and healthy.

The waitress returns with the main entrée: venison. Ana takes a long sip of her wine.

Which is pinot grigio, and therefore not a good pairing, as Chedward suggested. In case you’re not from deer eating country, pinot noir, port, or sherry is what you drink with venison. Christian thinks she’s “ignoring” her food, and he commands her to eat.

“I’m not really hungry, Christian,” she says.

I narrow my eyes. “Eat.” I keep my voice low, as I try to check my temper.

“Give me a moment,” she says, her tone as quiet as mine.

What’s her problem? Elena?

You’re visibly agitated and ordering her to eat when she’s not hungry, by yeah, the problem is probably your child molester ex, not anything you did.

“Is this what our, um…relationship will be like?” she asks. “You ordering me around?” She scrutinizes the plate of food in front of her.

“Yes.”

“I see.” She tosses her ponytail over her shoulder.

“And what’s more, you’ll want me to.”

Let’s put that, “you’ll want me to” into some real harsh context here. He’s already forced her to eat (even though she told him she wasn’t hungry before he brought her to the restaurant), denied her the agency to choose what she wanted to drink, and now he’s telling her that she will accept the contract he’s given her. None of this is for her own good or because he just never thought to ask someone else what they might want. This is all because if she gets used to going along with his demands over small things, he’ll be able to demand bigger and bigger things. Which is exactly what happens as the series goes on.

 “Anastasia, you have to go with your gut. Do the research, read the contract. I’m happy to discuss any aspect. I’ll be in Portland until Friday if you want to talk about it before then. Call me–maybe we can have dinner–say, Wednesday? I really want to make this work. In fact, I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want this.”

So, he trusts her to make this decision, over something important to him, but not over whether or not she eats or what she drinks? Way to give her the illusion of control. Also, way to put a big decision on a time limit by specifying that you want to talk about it on Wednesday, and way to manipulate her by implying that if she says no, she’s denying you a hugely important thing.

“What happened to the fifteen?” she asks.

They’re all dead now, Ana. Seriously, what a weird question to ask. If he’s not with them anymore, you’d assume they broke up, right? At the same time, since we’re not in Ana’s head at the moment and we don’t realize that her every thought is, “Oh by gosh golly gee, is this man who handed me a sex contract really into little old super skinny and you-don’t-know-you’re-beautiful-that’s-what-makes-you-beautiful me?”, I can just amuse myself by assuming that Ana is asking if the other fifteen are dead.

“So, you’re not seeing any of them anymore?”

“No, Anastasia, I’m not. I am monogamous in my relationships.”

“I see.”

“Do the research, Ana.”

Without any internal thought to switch tracks, it sounds like he’s telling her to research his past relationships. Instead, he’s once again telling her to research BDSM. Of course, she’s signed an NDA, so she can’t actually ask anyone any questions.

She puts her knife and fork down, signaling that she’s finished her meal.

“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to eat?”

She nods, placing her hands in her lap, and her mouth sets in the mulish way she has…and I know it will be a fight to persuade her to clean her plate.

Alternately, you could just trust that she would eat if she was hungry.

No wonder she’s so slim. Her eating issues will be something to work on, if she agrees to be mine.

In the last chapter, all we heard was how beautiful and gorgeous and perfect Ana’s body is. Now she’s too skinny and she needs to eat more. What gives.

The way this book is written, Christian Grey constantly contradicts himself. Now, I could sit here and go, “Well, that’s what abusers do, they outwardly express displeasure with their partner’s appearance/mannerisms/personality/etc. to keep them a prison of self-doubt, when in reality if those flaws truly bothered the abuser so much, they just wouldn’t be with that partner in the first place.” But I honestly think E.L. James heard some of the criticisms people were making of the original series and thought that if she just changed his internal thoughts to a complete 180 from his actions, that would make him less abusive. It doesn’t work. Now he just seems abusive and bewildered.

As I continue to eat, her eyes dart to me every few seconds and a slow flush stains her cheeks.

Oh, what’s this?

“I’d give anything to know what you’re thinking right at this moment.” She’s thinking about sex.”

She might be red in the face because she’s offended by your constant comments about her eating habits. But nope, it’s probably because she’s in a constant state of arousal around you.

“I’m glad you can’t read my mind.”

If I’d read this before I read Fifty Shades Of Grey, I would have assumed she was trying to let him know that she was pissed at him without actually saying she’s pissed at him.

“Your mind, no, Anastasia, but your body–that I’ve gotten to know quite well since yesterday.” I give her a wolfish grin and ask for the check.

So, first we’ve got mulish and now we have wolfish, and the whole thing has become a hellish discarded scene from Zootopia in my mind.

I hate when guys say shit like that. I absolutely hate it. No, looking at our faces and seeing that they’re a little pink does mean we’re turned on. It could mean that, but chances are, if you were just criticizing our eating habits, we’re just annoyed. We might also be holding in a cough, or it’s just really warm in here. I assume he’s the same kind of guy who thinks the women he works with are super turned on whenever he’s around, but they’re all just really cold and that’s why they have erect nipples.

Christian drives Ana home. She asks him if he wants to come in, and he declines.

I know that if I accept her invitation I’ll be crossing a line I’m not prepared to cross. I’m not boyfriend material–and I don’t want to give her any false expectations of the kind of relationship she’ll have with me.

You know, false expectations like, “You’re the only woman I’ve ever introduced to my mother,” and “I really want to make this work” and “In fact, I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want this,” for example. If he’d said stuff like that, she could have gotten the wrong idea.

He thanks her for spending the weekend with him.

She turns shining eyes to me.

Oh my god, is she crying because he doesn’t want to come into her apartment?

He really has to research poor people? Like, this is what he does in his down time? He tries to figure out what makes poors do their poor things?

An image of a young woman brushing out her long, dark hair comes to mind; her hair shines in the light from the cracked, yellowed window, and the air is filled with dancing dust motes. She’s singing softly, like a child.

Oh my god. It’s not just Ana. He infantilizes the mother he wants to fuck, too. How does that even work? How do you have an Oedipus complex AND pedophilia at the same time?

I shudder.

Me too, man. Me too.

Second Chance Sneak Peek!

As promised, I have brought you a sneak peek of Second Chance! This week, from Penny’s POV. Disclaimer: this is the text as-is before copy-edit changes have been finalized. The final copy may contain superficial differences from the published version.

So much happens in this story, it was difficult to find a passage that wouldn’t give away spoilers, but I did it! Next week, you won’t be so lucky; there will be a major spoiler in Ian’s excerpt. But for now, let’s check in with Penny.

 

When he dashed into the dining room and returned with a large white gift box, I raised an eyebrow at him.

“I don’t know, Ian. Clothing box, Valentine’s Day… I think this might be a present for you, not a present for me.” I wrangled the lid off. “It’s heavy, though.”

Way too heavy for some skimpy lingerie, unless he’d bought it by the pound. But it was…

“Okay, microfiber, not the sexiest–” Was it a stuffed animal? There were no-skid grips in circles down one of the…tentacles? I squeaked and jumped up, unfolding all eight as the fabric rolled down.

“It’s an octopus onesie,” Ian said, but I had already gotten the hint. I reached down and undid the ankle strap of my pump in record time.

“You don’t have to try it on now, if you don’t want to,” Ian said, almost hopefully.

Whatever. I wasn’t going to ask him to bang me in this thing. “Uh, yeah I do.” I kicked off my shoes and put a foot into the onesie. “This is incredible! I didn’t even know this existed!” Which was odd, considering the high volume of octopus-related products that friends posted to my Facebook wall.

Ian stopped me from toppling over as I struggled my excited and uncoordinated limbs into the suit. He even helped zip me up.

“This isn’t the whole present,” he promised as he pulled the hood over the back of my head. “I have a very romantic mood set upstairs to go with your sexy new lingerie.”

I shuffled ahead of him and caught my reflection in the glass elevator shaft. The hood had eyes on it. I could die from the cute.

When we got to the bedroom door, and I stopped. “It’s dark.”

I don’t know what I was expecting. We’d both come home at the exact same time.

“So it is,” Ian said behind me. “Dark is a mood.”

I turned to him with a puzzled squint.

He nodded at the door. “Just turn on the light.”

I felt around for the switch. The lights came up, and my gaze went directly to the bed. I gasped and covered my face with the sleeves of my octopus. “This is…the most romantic thing…”

Instead of his usual plain white duvet cover, now a beautiful, realistically colored octopus spread across the bed, vibrant against the white silk it was printed on. I almost couldn’t tear my eyes away from it, but I had to, to look at Ian. “I can’t believe you did this for me.”

“I wasn’t just trying to be romantic here. I want you to feel at home. I know you brought a few things–” he motioned toward the dresser– “but everything here was chosen by a decorator, and I never bothered to change anything. And after the…”

Divorce, I filled in for him mentally.

“What I’m trying to say is that I’m not so set in my ways that you can’t change anything, or that we can’t change them together.”

My previous fears about making him unhappy or not being good enough evaporated in an instant. Realistically, they would probably return. But in the moment, I completely understood why Ian had gone to all the trouble he’d gone to. Not to spoil me, but to make me feel like a special part of his life.

“You weren’t trying to be romantic? You’re so stupid.”

“That wasn’t the reaction I hoped for,” he said uncertainly.

“This is probably the most romantic thing you’ve done for me tonight. Don’t get me wrong, the planetarium, the fancy meal…all of that was incredible,” I reassured him. “But this? You get me. You really get me, what matters to me. And that’s the most romantic thing that’s ever happened to me.”

I moved toward him at the same time he reached to put his arms around me. My tentacles got in the way.

“As lovely as you look draped in cheap microfiber and extra appendages, I’d really rather strip that dress off you and make you come so hard you black out,” he said, his voice low beside my ear.

Chills raced through every vein and blood vessel, radiating out from my heart. It made me almost too lightheaded to flirt. I smacked his shoulder. “Why would you want to render me unconscious? That’s not romantic. That causes brain trauma.”

“Figure of speech,” he claimed. “But if you have some objection–”

“Not at all.” I felt really silly wearing the octopus pajamas now. “I probably won’t lose consciousness, but I’m fine with you trying. Let me just slip into something more comfortable.”

I pulled the zipper down, humming my own stripping music as I did a little shimmy he probably couldn’t see beneath the baggy onesie. I dropped the octopus to the floor and straightened my dress. Ian grabbed me, and I made a squeaky gasp as he hauled me up against his chest. I put my hands on his upper arms to steady myself on my feet. “Are you going to ravish me?”

It was a valid question; his hold was super tight.

“I intend to. If that’s all right?”

I laughed. “I don’t think you’re supposed to timidly ask permission if this is a true ravishment.”

“Fine. I’ll try again.”

His hand moved up my back, to the nape of my neck, where he took a hold of me possessively, but not roughly.

“I plan to strip that dress off of your body,” he said, his voice somewhere between a whisper and a groan. “Throw you on the bed, and do unspeakably wicked things to you until you can bear it no longer.”

State Of The Trout: Reading Challenge Update, Chicago Signing, and Book Info

Good Monday, everyone! I’ve been super busy for the past few weeks getting Second Chance in shape to go out into the world, but now I feel like I can finally get my breath!

Speaking of Second Chance Tune in tomorrow for your first look at Second Chance. I’ll be releasing an excerpt tomorrow, and one next week, as we gear up for the books’ release!

Also speaking of Ian and Penny, First Time will be out as audiobooks this month from Tantor Media. Penny’s book will release on May 31, but Ian’s is already available. And the narrator’s voice is fantastic. I kind of listened to this one with my hands over my face, blushing.

Chicago area people! Come out and see me this weekend, Saturday, May 21, from 3-5 pm at the Hyatt Regency in Schaumburg. You can find more information, including a list of all all the amazing authors who’ll be there, here. I’ll be signing copies of The Baby and First Time, but you’re welcome to bring your books or your Kindle covers. I also give away free stuff like pens and bracelets, and that’s always fun, so come snag some of that and chat with me, if you’d like!

My Reading Challenge Progress!

I haven’t been reading as much lately because I’ve been working, but I did manage to get a few books in. In fairness, I’m pretty sure one of them was like nine billion pages.

A Book You Haven’t Read Since High School: Fear Street Cheerleaders: The First Evil, by R.L. Stine. I don’t remember why I thought to look these books up again, but I’m glad I did. I cheated on this entry a bit; I didn’t read this book when I was in high school. I read it in seventh or eighth grade. My problem is that I don’t remember reading anything for pleasure in high school that wasn’t written by Anne Rice, and while I absolutely still treasure those books, I don’t want to taint my memory with a reread by present day, post-feud me. So, I fudged and reached back a little further. I remembered a lot of FSC:TFE as happening differently, probably from reading all three books back-to-back-to-back. I forgot like half the characters. Reading it as an adult who knows the horror formula now from other movies and books, it all came back to me pretty quickly and I was like, “Oh my gosh, how did I not see this coming?” when I got to the twists that shocked me as a kid. Still, it stands the test of time. When do we get a Fear Street Cheerleaders movie?

A Book That’s At Least 100 Years Older Than You: Anne, by Constance Fenimore Woolson. I originally picked this for “A book set in your home state”, due to the title character living on Mackinac Island, but switched categories when I found that the majority of the story takes place off the island. It is now one of my favorite books. I could write an entire post about all the things that make this book so great, but I’ll keep it brief: Anne, the eldest daughter of an elderly widower, finds herself forced into New York society through a series of various events. The drama is real. Anne becomes best friends with a glamorous woman who later becomes a romantic rival. Anne, despite being engaged to her childhood love, becomes the object of affection to not one, but two suitors. Anne becomes a teacher, a singer, an amateur botanist, a Civil War battlefield nurse, a detective, and a murder trial’s star witness. It’s just like, the biggest soap opera ever. There are definitely some “sign of the times” issues; Anne’s biracial half-siblings are frequently described as being savage or conniving due to their Chippewa heritage. I found it interesting, though, that while two of the black characters in the book were referred to with the n-word once, it was used in dialogue by a character we were meant to dislike, as proof of what a shitty person they were. It really smashed the “it was okay back then” argument for me when I read that. White people, we knew that was not an okay word that far back. Stop using that stupid defense.

A Political Memoir The Speech Writer: A Brief Education in Politics, by Barton Swaim. I wanted to pick something off the beaten path for this one. Swaim isn’t a politician, but he was hired as a speech writer for then-governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford. Though sometimes I rolled my eyes at Swaim’s self-importance (he tends to make snotty comments about the grammar of non-writers), I really enjoyed this behind-the-scenes look at the train wreck governor who comes off as a mix of Kevin Spacey in Swimming With Sharks, Michael Scott from The Office, and Scrooge from A Christmas Carol (Swaim describes Sanford cutting a piece from an employee’s birthday cake and walking away without even wishing the woman a happy birthday). By the time the narrative reaches Sanford’s bizarre 2009 disappearance and the revelation of his extramarital affair, I was weirdly invested, and as torn between dislike of the governor and pity for him. If you’re a fan of The Thick Of It or Veep, this book was like if Armando Iannucci wrote real life.

That’s all the news that’s fit to print right now. I’m sure I’m forgetting something, but aren’t I always?

Legion XIII Rome watch-along, “About Your Father” or “At least one character ends up happy. But like, just one.”

CW: Suicide

Here we are, at the last episode of the entire series. Which, if you check interviews as recent as 2013 with certain cast members, isn’t the end. There’s still talk that Bruno Heller is adapting the series into a movie, or crafting a third season. Which makes the ambiguity at the end of the show make a lot more sense.

Quick rundown of the episode:  Mark Antony’s bid against Octavian has failed. He has literally hit a dead end, because Octavian is going to be coming for Egypt and Antony with murder on his mind. In the forum, the news reader describes the victory, and calls Antony Cleopatra’s slave, and her a witch. So public sentiment has turned, most definitely.

At a dinner party with the mean girls, Livia tells a long, dramatic story about how cowardly Antony is. Octavia is at the point where she hates her brother and his wife so much, she’ll actually defend her husband. Meanwhile, Atia is catatonic with wondering what happened to turn her son into a monster.

I don’t want to point fingers here, Atia.

Antony promises Octavian that he’ll retire from public life if Octavian promises to let Cleopatra and her kids keep on ruling. Octavian wants nothing short of total surrender, and wants Pullo to convince Vorenus to open the palace so they can storm it, rather than burn it. They need a way to make it clear to Vorenus that the message is coming from Pullo, so Pullo tells them to mention his son, since Vorenus is the only other person who knows that Caesarion is his child. Pullo passes this off as an inside joke.

Inside the palace, that orgy scene from The Matrix: Reloaded is happening when Octavian’s messenger shows up to give him the bad news. Antony has moved on to his Apocalypse Now Brando phase. He’s all puffy and sweaty. Cleopatra suggests they escape the palace and live life on the run, but Antony thinks suicide is probably the better option. Vorenus tells the messenger that Pullo’s son is well, but those gates are not going to open, no matter what. Antony tells the messenger that he’ll engage Octavian mano a mano.

Which, of course, Octavian rejects totally. He knows he can’t burn down the palace or lay siege to it, so he sends Cleopatra a secret message while Antony kills a palace onlooker who laughs at him when he falls down. Antony asks the dude, “Do I amuse you? Am I a fucking clown?” because apparently Bruno Heller is really into Goodfellas.

The message Octavian sends Cleopatra promises that she, her children, and Egypt will be safe if she hands over Antony, dead or alive. Cleopatra is heartbroken, because she knows betraying Antony is dishonorable. She and Antony make a plan to kill themselves in the morning, because she doesn’t want to die in the dark. Antony decides to spend his last night on Earth drinking with Vorenus and remembering the men they’ve fought with over the years. Antony passes out in the throne room, and when he wakes, Cleopatra’s slave gives him the news that the queen has already killed herself. Antony is despondent. He kills himself by falling on Vorenus’s sword.

Vorenus dresses Antony and places him on the throne, at which point Cleopatra, totally not dead, comes in. Vorenus loses it and tells the queen she’s lucky he doesn’t kill her. He tells her that Octavian is going to take her back to Rome as a trophy, and murder Caesarion. Vorenus tells Cleopatra that he’s going to take Caesarion to his real father to protect him, but she’s like, uh, no, Octavian said everything is cool. But she sends Caesarion with Vorenus, anyway, and they escape the city.

Cleopatra meets with Octavian, who, in a spectacularly cold exchange of fake pleasantries that would make his mama proud, suggests that Cleopatra immediately leave with him to go to Rome. Like, tomorrow. Cleopatra realizes that everything Vorenus says is true; she’s going to be paraded through the forum like a prisoner of war and humiliated. She goes back to the throne room, where she apologizes to Antony’s dead body and commits orgasmic suicide by snake.

I wonder what happens if you want to commit suicide by snake and you can’t get the snake to bite you.

Octavian realizes too late that this might go down, and he should have taken her hostage when he had the chance. By the time they return to the palace, Cleopatra is already dying. With her final breaths, she tells Octavian that he has a rotten soul. Which is the kind of the thing that can shake up even Octavian. It’s worse when he tells Agrippa what she said, and Agrippa doesn’t really argue with that.

Pullo finds Vorenus’s picture of Niobe, and he realizes that Vorenus has taken Caesarion to safety. Still not vibing on the dynamic, Octavian sends Pullo after Vorenus and the boy. Meanwhile, Caesarion is having a real hard time grasping that he’s not royalty anymore. Pullo arrives and breaks the news to the kid that his mom killed herself, in the sensitive manner we’ve all come to expect from Pullo. He and Vorenus plan a route to get Caesarion out of Egypt.

Meanwhile, in Rome, Octavian brings Antony’s kids by Cleopatra to Octavia, like, hey, your husband sired these kids, they’re your problem now. Oh, and by the way, mom, your true love killed himself. Atia pretends to take it well, but obviously she’s destroyed.

In Egypt, Pullo and Vorenus run afoul of some Roman soldiers. They pretend to be grain merchants, but Caesarion blows their cover when he responds to a soldier who calls him “your highness”. Vorenus and Pullo take on the soldiers and kill them all, but Vorenus is seriously wounded. He’s worried he’s going to die, and he tells Pullo to take him back to Rome, because he doesn’t want to die on the Egyptian Road Trip That Never Ends.

Octavian’s triumph is coming up, but Atia is too despondent to go. Octavia reminds her that this triumph is the culmination of a lifetime of political maneuvering and personal manipulation. She tells her mother that

Somehow, Vorenus has survived an entire month with a gut wound. I feel like if you’ve survived for that long, you’re probably going to be fine, but we never find out if he is or not. There is a long, glorious moment in which Pullo and Vorenus hold hands, until Vorena the Elder comes in and kisses her father’s forehead. All the kids come in, and apparently they forgive him.

At the triumph, all the women are lining up. Livia tells Octavia that Octavian will be angry that Atia isn’t there. Livia tells everyone to line up “in order of precedence,” and Atia enters looking like a goddamn black widow spider. She breezes right past Livia, to the head of the processional. Livia tries to put Atia in her place by telling her that the priests say the wife should walk ahead of the mother. To which Atia says, and this is a direct quote, “I don’t give a fuck what the priests say. I’ll not let a vicious little trollop like you walk ahead of me. I go first.” And Livia tries to call her crazy, in the most saccharine way possible. As Octavia looks on proudly, Atia tells her, “You’re swearing now that someday, you’ll destroy me. Remember, far better women than you have sworn to do the same. Go and look for them now.”

And then this shot happens:

But for as triumphant as Atia is in the moment, she’s totally cold as she watches her son riding into the forum as Caesar. They parade the rotting corpses of Antony and Cleopatra through the streets, and Atia turns to her son, realizing she’s basically worked her entire life to destroy herself and put a monster on the throne.

After the triumph, Pullo goes to Octavian and tells him that he killed Caesarion and meant to bring back the boy’s head, but it was so rotten he had to throw it away. He tells Octavian that Vorenus “didn’t make it”, but since he’s lying about everything else, it’s probably safe to say he’s lying about Vorenus’s death, too. As Pullo walks through the streets with his son, who has vengeance on his mind. He’s going to bring glory back to his father’s name, to which Pullo says, “Listen…about your father.”

And that’s it. That’s the whole series.

My favorite part of the episode: Atia’s bad ass confrontation with Livia. Even after Servillia’s curse, even after losing the love of her life and watching her son turn into a monster and her daughter turn into, well, her, she comes out with her dignity in tact. And that might not seem like much considering how terrible her life is turning out, but to Atia, appearances are more important than anything, so in a way, she’s won.

My least favorite part of the episode: When Cleopatra realizes that Vorenus is right, and she’s now basically Octavian’s slave. I feel so bad for Cleopatra throughout this series, because she’s always on the run or doing something she has to do to keep her country safe. And everything is really sad, because I think she did love Antony, even though she was manipulating him the entire time. Then she has to lose her children

Favorite costume: I have not given enough love to the News Reader, so for this final week, this spot goes to him and his fantastic teal getup.

Team Atia or Team Servilia: Atia all the way. She’s classy enough to give a nod to Servilia when she verbally smacks Livia, but confident enough to remind everyone who the real winner is in Rome.

@gfortin_05 So since the show was never renewed, Vorenus is now Schrodinger’s Roman: both dead and alive. #LegionXIII

— Gabe (@gfortin_05) May 10, 2016

What hairdo or costume would Bronwyn steal? I’m going to go with Atia’s dress for the triumph, because it seems like the kind of thing Bronwyn would actually wear.

Guess Jess’s head canon. Vorenus doesn’t die. He recovers, and he and Pullo finally realize their love and bisexuality, together.

That’s it for #LegionXIII. Thank you to everyone who joined us on Monday nights for a good time!  Now go check out Bronwyn’s post, as Jess’s hand lost a fight to an avocado about halfway through this season.

The Face Of Romance?

Long before the internet, cover models became viral sensations. As “The Topaz Man,” Steve Sandalis graced the covers of over 700 novels. CJ Hollenbach has been a fan favorite at conventions for over twenty years. And the average shopper probably can’t walk past the dairy case without thinking of Fabio (the undisputed king of romance) and his disbelief with regards to imitation butter spreads.

For as long as modern romances have existed, male models have been an integral part of their marketing. Readers love them, and love interacting with them. In 2016, Nightline somehow managed to go to a convention full of women and single out these men to profile (rather than the female authors or readers who drive the industry).

How important are models? You can see the perspectives of readers in the video, but as one woman bluntly stated, “If the book ain’t good, you can always put it on the shelf and look at it, honey.” Author Beth Williamson stated that the cover of the book was “almost” more important the content, because it was all about making a first impression with the reader. That’s not a reality that’s lost on authors or publishers. But recent developments within the romance community have many questioning just how important these men are to the success of the genre–and how much authors and readers are willing to put up with.

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Since Fabio’s heyday, fan interaction has been an important part of a model’s career. In a 2015 story for Jezebel, Romantic Times founder Katheryn Falk explained the appeal that made the golden one so popular:

Katheryn Falk, the founder of Romantic Times, says a great cover model can “look a woman in the eye.” Falk adds, “Like Fabio, he was bigger than life. He thought every woman was beautiful. And he had a lot of charisma. The accent, the name. He wasn’t overdoing it, but he would pay attention. He would look them in the eye. He appreciated women and it was part of his nature and part of his charisma that all women ruled over him.”

The personality of a model was once as important as looks in becoming the object of reader fantasy. Respecting the authors and readers wasn’t just a key to success; it was a job requirement.

So, where did it all go wrong?

Recently, Faith*, an author, pleaded with romance readers and writers via Facebook, warning them of a model she’d worked with who’d harassed and stalked her. Faith says the model repeatedly asked her sexually inappropriate questions via text message, tried to pressure her into signing a contract guaranteeing him a portion of her royalties, and physically threatened her at an event. Faith initially feared retribution from her publishers and from convention directors who’d warned her against going public. Even when she eventually did, she declined to mention the model’s name. Emboldened by Faith’s story, other authors who’d had similar interactions with the model came forward, and were more than willing to name Jackson Young as their tormentor.

Public content on Young’s Facebook page features bible verses and a profile photo declaring that he loves his mother. Readers and authors have tagged him in photos from the Romantic Times convention in Las Vegas, declaring how much they enjoyed meeting him. This public persona of the aww-shucks-cornfed-country-boy has given him ample camouflage to abuse the women signing his paychecks, as well as the voracious readers who swoon over his appearance on their favorite novels. When the story went public, readers and authors alike rushed to defend him and declare Faith a liar and an attention seeker.

Another model, Paul Blake, recently posted the following tirade on Facebook:

I’m going to keep this real simple. If I see you post anything that has to do with body shaming I will delete you. Let me clarify. If you are That person that has a weight problem and your always posting these memes about how it is wrong to “body shame” I am deleting you!!!! Becaaaaaaause you are the reason many of our youth is thinking it’s okay to be obese. Idiot!!!!! You SHOULD be ashamed of yourself.

When one woman objected, Blake responded:

you should go eat your last Dairy Queen Blizzard and then hang yourself in the closet

Screenshots of the altercation quickly circulated on social media, yet some of Blake’s fans still felt that his “honesty” was refreshing. One wrote:

I know so many “big girls” who are big by choice because of poor diet and lack of exercise that have passed their poor eating habits on to their children and it frustrates me so much! Then yeah will be like curvy girls do it better and I just want to slap them because curves means you have big hips and a smaller waist line not a muffin top hence the word “curves”! I agree with you completely. Preach on, I love it!

Blake’s response?

Thank you that’s what I’m talking about I care nothing about book covers or a following. Im not a fuckin celebrity.

When damning evidence of his behavior circulated, he warned one woman via Facebook messenger:

You and all the other fat slob offers going screenshot this and pass it around I don’t give two f**** what you old horny b****** think about me that’s why your big fat ass sits behind the f******* computer and types romance novels about the dick you will never have you will all pathetic lazy b******* so you can say what you want just like I say what I want I don’t give two s****

How did the genre move from readers worshipping at the feet of Fabio, a man who worshipped and valued each and every one of them right back, to muscle-bound meatheads who proudly degrade women and tell them to kill themselves?

Romance novels have always been the domain of women, from the majority of editorial staff, agents who represent clients within the genre, to the authors and readers. Even romance novels about gay men are written and consumed predominately by cis heterosexual women. The genre has made millionaires (Nora Roberts, E.L. James, Danielle Steel, among others), and boasts a loyal and hungry fanbase. So then why, in an industry driven by women, are these abuses allowed to happen?

The actions of these men are their own responsibility, and only they are accountable for them. But the fostering of the toxic culture within romance that has elevated them to near untouchable status lies squarely on the industry. Authors, publishers, and conventions have gleefully touted the importance of a square jaw and rock-hard abs as an integral part of fully enjoying the romance experience. Some authors even hire their cover models to attend their signings, in the hopes of drawing a larger crowd. When the models begin to believe that they’re so important or noteworthy that they no longer need the authors or readers, something has to give.

Change in the genre must come from within. While many authors and readers stepped up to publicly shame Blake and Young, social media outcry isn’t enough to protect future victims of harassment. Authors and publishers must agree to stop hiring any amateur with a nice body because he’ll settle for a low paycheck. Background checks should be mandatory before models can attend reader events (during the social media backlash, Blake boasted to one author that he had spent time in prison on weapons charges). And when an author or reader levies serious accusations against a model, those accusations should be investigated, not hushed up. Romance is a billion dollar industry. Surely it can afford to safeguard its readers and authors.

*Name changed to protect the individual

Jealous Haters Book Club: Apolonia, Chapter 20

When last we met, Hamech had arrived and was blasting the college all to hell. Dr. Z had just headed directly into danger and probably died (the way he should have long ago, when the Hero’s Journey demanded it), and everyone is in the big government warehouse.

 There were only two things left to do, and I had no idea how to accomplish either of them. Hamech’s ship was moving slowly, but it was headed straight for the warehouse. We still weren’t sure where the specimen was, if Tennison had reactivated the parasites, or if Brahmberger was being held captive somewhere inside the facility.

That’s three things, and none of them are things they have to do. They’re just things that are happening.

Benji needs to find his papa:

“Frank Reynolds!” he screamed.

Because it is the famed Dr. Tennison, who was responsible for getting the rock into Zorba’s hands, if I remember correctly. If don’t remember correctly, who gives a fuck, because this is the second to last chapter and we’re almost done. Let’s just get through this so we can pretend it never happened to us.

I grabbed a scalpel and lunged at Tennison, but a strong, thick hand grabbed my wrist.

“Easy now!” the man laughed.

I pulled away. It was Rendlesham, still wearing his ridiculous crocodile boots.

If you follow my Buffy recaps, you know that I’ve pointed out places where Buffy’s strength and skill seems to wax and wane dependent on the plot. This is exactly what’s happening here. We’ve seen Rory react with inhuman reflex in situations where she’s called upon to defend herself. But all it takes here is Rendlesham grabbing her wrist. She doesn’t flip him over or use the scalpel to stab him, the way she would have if he were a random dispensable character.

“Don’t be stupid, girl. You’re outnumbered and alone. We don’t want to hurt you,” Rendlesham said, forcing me to drop the scalpel.

Rory pulled away. How did he force her to drop the scalpel? Also, he doesn’t want to hurt her? When people say that, it’s definitely because they want to hurt you.

Rory tells them that Hammech is going to destroy the warehouse, so everything they’re doing is just going to get blown to bits, anyway and all of the data will be lost. I’m glad the data got brought up again. We haven’t talked about entering numbers or data in a long time.

“We know he’s here for her,” Tennison said, looking up. “She’s already gone to stop him. We’ve already seen signs of life in the specimen. By the time they come to get it–”

“It’ll already be too late?” I said.

“Precisely.”

“For them or for us?”

“Them, of course.”

I’m confused. Are they waking up the parasite specifically so they can kill these aliens? And if they are aware of the existence of the aliens who have basically fostered every single advance made by the ancient world, why would the government want to wipe them out? Why not work together and share technology, which the aliens are more than willing to do, and have been doing for centuries?

This is the second to last chapter in the book, and we still have no clear motivations for the villains.

Another scientist is revealed to be the missing Dr. Brahmberger, who is now in league with the Majestic. Rory tells him about the planets the parasites have destroyed.

“Your curiosity is going to result in the same end,” I said, looking to Brahmberger. “Do you want to be responsible for helping that thing eradicate our existence?”

“If it means I finally get the notoriety I deserve, I can live with that,” Tennison said, situating the girl’s arm closer to the rock.

The girl being referred to is, I assume, one of the people on the tables. It’s not clear. Also not clear is how Tennison thinks he’s going to be famous when every single member of the human race is dead, but okay, at least we have some motivation, I guess?

Without missing a beat, I grabbed a pen out of his pocket and stabbed him in the eye.

This is exactly what I’m talking about. Rory couldn’t have had a page long conversation with the scientists if she’d fought against them in the first place. We needed something other than, “This scientist made me drop my only weapon” to make us believe that Rory had no chance to kill the bad guys when she’s been able to disarm trained soldiers and stuff before.

Rendlesham started to grab for me, but a gun cocked, and all movement stopped.

Benji was on the other side of the barrel.

Benji freed himself from the phone cord they’d tied him up with. Cy realized Benji was actually on their side (like we always knew all along, because you can see the strings when you’re watching False Tension Marionette Theatre).

The building shook again, this time more violently, nearly throwing us all to the floor. Benji grabbed for me and kept me from falling headfirst into one of the tables.

I pulled away from his grip.

“Rory,” he whispered, his eyebrows pulled together.

Since Cy–who never trusted Benji–now inexplicably trusts Benji, Rory can’t trust Benji. I feel like the author is the only one who’s really invested in keeping this love triangle alive. I know that as a reader, I want it to be over.

So, Benji sees that his dad is hooked up to the rock, too, and he and Bryn go nuts.

Bryn rounded the corner and rushed to her dad’s table, her wrists still bound together. “Daddy?” she shrieked. “What did you do?” she screamed at Brahmberger.

He began to cry and backed away, sitting on a nearby stood. “What I thought…what I thought was right in the name of science.”

You endangered the life of a high ranking CIA agent in a secret twelve-man organization for science? Why not use one of the soldiers? Anybody who’s expendable?

So, a bunch of stuff happens at this point that I can kind of sum up for you. Brahmberger uses a drug to reverse the coma that Daddy Reynolds is in. Rory cuts Bryn’s hands free. Bryn escapes with her dad, but they can’t move the other test subjects because they’re all in comas, too, and apparently this can’t be reversed by the drug they used on Daddy Reynolds. Brahmberger says he’s staying with the patients and going down with the ship, basically, and Rendlesham tries to escape, but Benji kneecaps him with the 9 mil. And out of nowhere, Tsavi, who was dead, starts to wake up.

When Cy had rested her back on the table, her arm had fallen onto the table the rock was perched on.

Thick red mucus was draining from the pores in the rock. At first, the substance appeared to be snaking up Tsavi’s arm and entering her wounds, but when I looked closer, I could see it was not the mucus moving, but small creatures inside the red trail. They were slug-like in texture and appearance, each one about as big as a human thumb.

Tennison gets around to pulling the pen out of his eye, and tells Brahmberger to get a sample.

“This is it,” Tennison said, his hand hover over Tsavi. “What we’ve been working toward for three years, Brahmberger.”

Okay, so now we have some kind of timeline of events. Let me see if I have this straight:

Tennison or Brahmberger or whoever find the rock.
They use Dr. Zorba to smuggle it out of Antarctica or whatever.
Dr. Zorba did a bunch of research on it.
Rory’s dad was involved somehow, getting his whole family killed,
Except for Rory, who may or may not be immortal.
The Majestic sent Benji and Ellie to keep an eye on Rory because they planned to use her impossible strength and/or immortality to reactivate the parasite.
The aliens send Cy to keep tabs on the rock and keep the parasites from waking up.

And that’s where we come into the story.

I guess my biggest question here is…why didn’t Tennison or Brahmberger or whoever just keep the goddamn rock in the first place?

So then this happens:

Brahmberger screamed, dropped the petri dish, and backed away as Tsavi rose from the table, her head, shoulders, and wrists twitching.

Then, the young boy began to twitch…and scream. Now that the parasites had found a familiar host, they were trying to embed themselves in the others. The humans.

So, the parasites are spreading, and they have to run. They have to get up to the roof before what’s happening to all the other people happens to them. But the stairway is blocked, and they have to take the elevator. Which Rory won’t do because:

“My parents were murdered, Benji. The men who killed them–they worked for Majestic. They got on the hotel elevator with us. They held a gun to my head and forced my parents to lead them to our room where they raped my best friend and tortured us before leaving us all to die. I haven’t been in an elevator since.”

The problem is that Tsavi shows up, all twitchy and dripping parasite goo, so Rory doesn’t have a choice. She doesn’t get on the elevator willingly, though. She just falls inside and Benji hits the button.

Okay, I get it. She has this thing about elevators because of her family getting murdered. But this is literally life or death. I get that phobias aren’t rational, but she’s be fine rushing headlong into the warehouse where the Majestic–the people who did all the stuff to her family–had tons and tons of men with guns at their disposal. She’s done this not once, but twice. Her inability to get into the elevator takes a big chunk out of all the growth she’s shown so far.

They get to the roof, where Cy and Apolonia are trying to activate some kind of energy source to signal Hamech.

An explosion set ablaze the field jut one mile to the east. I could feel the heat against my face. My hair blew into my eyes from the firestorm raging just a mile away.

Again, the distances in this book make no sense. Either the college is much further away from the warehouse than it originally seemed–making it unlikely that they saw the college get destroyed–or Hamech’s ship is incredibly slow.

They can’t get the energy source to work, so basically they’re all going to die.

“Will Hamech stop once he destroys the warehouse?” Benji asked. “Because if Hamech is going to to destroy Earth anyway, instead of just waiting here to die, we should all get a fighting chance.”

Uh, I think you got that backwards, Benji. If Hamech wasn’t going to destroy the Earth, then it would make sense to try for a fighting chance. If he’s going to destroy the Earth, why does it matter where you die?

Cy tells them that once Hamech destroys the warehouse and the parasites, he’ll leave.

Benji tensed and then held out his hand for mine. I took it, both of us staring up, waiting for our impending death.

Before when they needed to escape the warehouse, Benji and Cy jumped off the roof and made a run for it. It didn’t kill them then. Why can’t they do that now?

Oh, because this book is incredibly inconsistent.

But don’t worry, we still have time for Rory to critique Apolonia’s appearance:

Apolonia’s long hair blew in the wind, dull and dirty, like her skin and clothes.

Cy and Apolonia embrace, and he tells her that this isn’t the end, they’ll see each other again, presumably in the afterlife.

So, I was wrong when I said this was the second to last chapter. It’s actually the third to last chapter, but the next two are so short, I’ll just throw them into one recap. Then I can move on with my life, and we can forget this whole thing ever happened.

#LegionXIII Rome Watch-Along S02E09 “No God Can Stop A Hungry Man” or “Unnecessary Character Death Vol. 2″

Quick rundown of the episode: Vorenus dreams that he’s in bed with Niobe (Indira Varma got before-the-credits billing for just rolling over, smiling, and kissing Kevin McKidd, so things are really coming up Indira), but he’s slept with an Egyptian woman. He’s been in Egypt for a while. Long enough for Posca to become a pot head who avoids Antony and Cleopatra, because they’ve become tyrants with no respect for human life. They’re using slaves dressed in deer skins for a hunting game involving real arrows and real death, and barely paying attention to the Roman senators who have come to negotiate a deal with Antony. Rome needs grain because its people are starving. All Antony cares about is his popularity with the people in Rome, and the chances of getting Octavian to declare war against him.

So, how long has it been since the last episode, exactly? Long enough that Cleopatra has bore Antony two children who are now preschoolers, and Gaia has moved easily into Eirene’s place. Pullo has also moved up, taking over Vorenus’s place as leader of the collegium. Because of the grain shortage, he’s not a popular dude. Starving people are demanding more grain rations, which Pullo can’t give them.

Vorena the Elder appears to have joined whatever religious order her aunt has, and Lucius has finally aged. That kid was five for five years, I swear. After the big fight at the end of the last episode, Pullo has been keeping a now-tongueless Memio in a cage and feeding him scraps. So, don’t cross Pullo, I guess.

Even though Antony is refusing to send grain, and the newsreader is telling everyone what’s up, the people still love Antony more than Octavian, and Octavian knows that if he declares war against Antony, everything is going to go to shit real fast. Octavian suspects Antony’s weakness is probably Cleopatra, and gets this great idea to send Octavia to Egypt to negotiate with her husband. Octavia says he should send Atia, and Octavian is like, yeah, you should both go. Atia is all for it, because she’s still waiting for Antony to send for her. Also, because both women are still under house arrest. Atia puts the squeeze on her son, asking for a villa in Capri, and cash for Octavia.

Vorenus tells Caesarion about his father. Not Caesar, but Pullo, the kid’s real father, dressed up as stories of Caesar. Vorenus is the only member of the household who doesn’t coddle Caesarion, and it seems to be something the kid wants, and he respects Vorenus for it.

When Octavia and Atia arrive in Egypt, Antony won’t see them. He’s too busy getting all opiumed up with his his new girlfriend, who wants Antony to murder Atia as proof of his love. When Atia refuses, it sparks a huge fight that goes from Antony and Cleopatra beating the fuck out of each other to Antony and Cleopatra just fucking, all while Atia and Octavia wilt outside in the heat. Jocasta comes outside to chat about styles and bitch about the queen, but Posca comes and herds her back inside. Cleopatra insists that it’s a good idea to send Octavia away and start a war, and Antony agrees; Vorenus tells Octavia and Atia that they have to turn around and go home. Atia is crushed and humiliated, and it would be heartbreaking if you don’t remember that in the grand scheme of things, getting dumped is hardly payback for all the evil shit she’s done in her life.

Because war is on the way, Posca and Jocasta intend to flee Egypt with nothing more than what they can carry. Vorenus catches them, but Jocasta begs him not to tell Antony. Vorenus lets them go, and sends a message for Pullo and the children. When he sees Antony, he tells him that things did not go well. They did not go well at all. Vorenus gives Antony Octavia’s message about him being cowardly scum. Vorenus tells Antony that he’s not a coward, but that he has a disease in his soul, and Vorenus knows because he has the same disease. And Caesarion watches this whole exchange like, fuuuuuuck, this is what I have to be when I grow up?

Having returned to Rome, Atia smacks Octavian, because she’s figured out that he’d sent her to Egypt to be shunned on purpose. She tells him to keep the villa he promised her, she just wants him to destroy Antony and Cleopatra. Speaking of their deaths, Posca has stolen their will. In it, Antony declares Cleopatra is his wife and gives all the eastern provinces to their children, and promises Rome to Caesarion. The newsreader is having the best week ever, telling a horrified crowd that Antony has turned his back on Rome, started wearing makeup, worships Egyptian dog gods, and, perhaps most horrible of all, dances with cymbals. Octavian uses the same sensational news to rile up the senate, and insinuates that Antony has been bewitched by Cleopatra.

Octavian asks Titus Pullo to go to Egypt with him, in the hopes he can talk to Vorenus and get something done from the inside. Pullo is reluctant, until Octavian mentions that Caesarion will have to be killed. And since Pullo knows that’s his kid, that sways him to go. He gives the children the message about Vorenus sending them kisses, and they’re like, fuck our dad, our mom is still dead, so we still hate him.

While Pullo packs to go to Egypt, he notices that Memio has broken out of his cage. Memio attacks Pullo, but Gaia stops him and gets stabbed in the process. As she’s dying, she confesses to Pullo (who’s fallen in love with her and can’t figure out why the fuck this is happening to him again) that she killed Eirene. Pullo goes from “oh no, she’s going to die,” to “fuck this bitch,” in like two seconds. He crushes Gaia’s windpipe, then takes her dead body out into the street and dumps her like garbage.

My favorite part of the episode: The gratuitous violent sex between Livia and Octavian, which involves slapping and choking and actually takes place in a red room. How could I not find that funny?

My least favorite part of the episode: As much as I hate Gaia, I hate the fact that she dies even more. I mean, yes, it’s satisfying to see her get her comeuppance, but that’s only until you remember that she exists entirely to set Pullo up for as much man-pain as possible. Gaia arrives on the scene, kills Eirene, then is killed by Pullo, all so we can see him go through something. And it’s not anything that’s important to the story. You could cut Eirene’s death and Gaia from the plot line and nothing changes. So what was the purpose? Pullo killed Eirene’s bethrothed, so Pullo is punished by Eirene’s death. Gaia killed Eirene, so she’s punished by death at Pullo’s hands. The only real consequence Pullo has faced in the narrative as a result of what he did to Eirene’s boyfriend is that Eriene died. Nothing has happened to him, it’s all just happened to the women around him. That’s some bullshit.

Favorite costume: I’m going to start with my least favorite costume, thank you very much. Cleopatra’s flea market Ankh earrings:

With all the attention to detail this show invests in costuming, why the hell did someone think these clearly modern earrings that someone probably picked up at Claire’s or Icing were a great idea for a closeup?

My most favorite costume? Antony’s man-romper. Antony has had so many wild looks this season.

Team Atia or Team Servilia: Team Servilia is still going strong, as Atia’s life continues to crumble to ashes.

Favorite watch-a-long tweet: 

Antony has a henna douche-tat. SO EGYPTIAN. MUCH CULTURE. #LegionXIII

— Lauren Billingsley (@Noisy_ninja) May 3, 2016

What hairdo or costume would Bronwyn steal? I feel like I’m always picking Octavia for this, but she really does dress in stuff that Bronwyn would covet:

Guess Jess’s head canon. Vorenus telling such fond memories of Pullo to Caesarion only proves that Vorenus misses and loves Pullo.

Now go check out Bronwyn’s post, as Jess is still nursing her injury from the fight she lost to an avocado, and join us Monday at 9 PM EST for season two, episode ten, “About Your Father” . Tweet to #LegionXIII to join us!