Winter Hiatus

 Hi guys!  I won't be able to upload my blog for a while because of finals and a family trip.  But I'll be back next month with commentary on The Awakening!! Stay tuned

- Leah

Settling the Mileven vs. Byler Debate

 Stranger Things Season 5 is coming out in 3 days, and I thought it would be a good chance to add my 2 cents on the whole Mileven vs. Byler debate that's been going on since season 1.

Mileven

I totally get why people love this ship so much, especially in the earlier seasons.  In season 1, Mike was the only person to treat El with genuine kindness.  Because she was staying at his house, she trusted him, and Mike got to know her the best.  They formed a deeper bond compared to the rest of the party.  Even though Mike isn't the most verbally affectionate person, he shows that he loves El in so many other ways.  He's very protective of her, and his encouragements give El the strength to fight.  When she moves to California, they constantly write letters back and forth which shows an insane amount of commitment.  It's very clear that they love and care about eachother very much.  They've been the central ship and couple for ten years.  It would make sense if they were endgame.  It started with Mileven, so it should end with Mileven.

HOWEVER, I think that what people forget is that when they started dating, Eleven barely knew English.  She couldn't grasp the concept of "friends".  At least for the first 2 years of her relationship, she probably didn't even know what dating was.  Because of her lack of social development, the romance feels rushed and it feels like she's making out and writing letters because that's what everyone else is doing.  When in Rome, do as the Romans do.  

In season 4, Mike outright says that he's afraid that El won't need him anymore.  He relied on El to make him feel wanted, and in the earlier seasons El depended on him for safety and emotional support.  However, after Max teaches her how to be her own person, Mike loses interest in who she is.  She doesn't need Mike's support anymore.  Mike doesn't feel needed anymore.  They both start losing interest and it leads to tension in season 4.

Ever since becoming a couple, Mike has been retreating from his role as the core four's Dungeon Master/ leader to spend more time with El.  This leads to instability within the friend group.  It's exactly as Will said in their rain fight: "You're destroying everything, and for what?  So you can swap spit with some stupid girl?"  Mike prioritizing El destroyed their friend group.

While narratively, it would make sense to end with Mileven, seeing as it would be a little rushed to change the ship, it wouldn't make sense for their characters.  They essentially broke up in season 4, and it would be disappointing if Eleven finds herself only to go back to being emotionally dependent on Mike.  It wouldn't make sense for Mike to become the group's leader again and be with the core four only for him to go back to pining about how El doesn't want him.  It wouldn't make sense as a narrative.

Byler

Let me preface this by saying that Will's crush on Mike is canon.  Now, it's a matter of whether Mike likes him back, which is ironic because when season 2 came out the debate was whether or not Will liked Mike back.  Oh, how the tables have turned.

Anyways, Mike and Will are best friends.  Even within their friend group, Mike seems to understand Will the most and has a "Will voice", which is a soft and kinder voice that he uses with Will whenever he's afraid.  They have a very deep and long emotional connection which could be the ideal setup for the couple of the century.  However, Mike isn't confirmed to like Will back.  he's in a committed relationship, he emotionally slaps Will around (espescially in season 3), and Byler could ruin some character development that Mike had.  On top of that, since there's only one season left, and it's the season meant to explain and explore the entire Upside Down, El's story, Will's time in the Upside Down, how it ends, etc.  If we add an LGBTQ+ arc for Mike where he accepts his queer identity and gets with Will, it could feel overwhelming.  Plus, if its rushed or gets poorly executed it could ruin the story by being too big of a plot twist.

On the other hand, there's 2 things to consider when it comes to confirming that Byler will happen.

1. Will is the ultimate Mileven shipper because he doesn't think that he could be loved.  He puts his feelings aside because he believes that he's unlovable and that he doesn't deserve love.  If Will dies before Mike loves him back, or if Mike rejects him, all it will do is confirm Will's negative beliefs.  Also, you wouldn't write a 10 year long slow-burn that ends with rejection or closure.

2. Queerbaiting.  Queerbaiting is when a movie or TV show adds a queer coded character to attract a queer audience without ever being good representation.  It' a move to profit off of the queer community without committing to the bit and giving them actual representation where it could risk losing the general audience.  A show made by nerds for nerds, that is meant to uplift minorities wouldn't queerbait to simply profit off of the queer audience.

Final Verdict

Byler is the most likely to happen!!  While Mileven is a stable ship that has its ups and downs, Byler adds emotional depth and connection between the two lovers.  On top of that, it would narratively make more sense.  If they were going to give Will a slightly happy ending, it wouldn't be by kissing a random boy.  It would be from finally having his feeling reciprocated by his long time best friend and lover.  A show for minorities wouldn't just profit off of queer people and not take responsibility.  If they can pull it off well, I will be ecstatic.

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams: Themes

Themes

Dream vs. Reality

    The battle between dreams and reality is embodied by the tension between Blanche and Stanley.  Upon losing Belle Reve, the love of her life, and her youthful glow, Blanche clings to her dreams and constructs a world of fantasy to protect herself.  She keeps her face in the dark to hide her aging features, romanticizes her life, and bathes excessively to maintain the illusion of composure and control.  On the other hand, Stanley represents the harsh reality.  He lives in a working class neighborhood with a rough job.  He aggressively exposes Blanche's true past, violently rapes her (remind her that chivalry is dead), and destroys her delicate illusions.  Reality crashing down on her caused her to lose her sanity because she couldn't handle it.
    However, I don't think that Tennessee Williams is trying to say that having hopes and dreams suck.  In the novel, Blanche and Stanley represent the extremes of their beliefs.  I think that the book is trying to say that the battle is constant and that we need to find a middle ground between the two.  Stanley and Stella only believe in reality, and they live a barely stable life because of that.  They don't think that they can get a better life that that, so they stick to their working class and stable life.  Stella doesn't want to run away from Stanley because his abuse is a good trade off for stability.  They don't believe that things will get better.  On the other hand, Blanche needs hope and dreams to survive.  She lives in her dreams to avoid facing her harsh reality because she knows that it will break her.  However, her hope lets her move on in life.  She may have lost her whole family and estate, but her hope that she will find a prince to rescue her keeps her in high spirits.  I think that Williams is trying to say that both of these extremes are wrong.  There's no right answer to this battle.  We can't depend on our dreams to live but we also can't be cynical and hopeless. 

Social Class

    This one's pretty straight forward.  Blanche represents the old ideals of class superiority and ethnocentrism (french is better than polish kind of idea), since she's a white aristocrat with generations of wealth from running a plantation.  Stanley and Stella represent the progressive and industrial working class.  The conflict between a declining traditional, more Eurocentric society and the new diverse, equal opportunity, and brutal society shows how the collapse of rigid social classes create not only freedom but also instability.  Although Stanley represents a new age of America, he also exposes how the struggle for progress can come with violence and loss of tradition (and therefore stability).  Blanche represents how people rooted in old fashion social values can be left behind when society evolves.  I think that the play is saying that when different social classes collide in pursuit of power, which in this case is Blanche and Stanley fighting over the house and Stella to fit their ideals, it can lead destruction and loss of empathy.  

Desire

    Each main character experiences the theme of desire differently.  
    For Blanche, desire is a coping mechanism and a response to loneliness.  After the death of her husband (and the cheating before it), she fills the emotional void with sexual encounters at the Tarantula hotel.  She's not just aroused by young men, she flirts with them because she's so desperate for validation, security, and the youth that she was promised.  Blanche believes that she needs to be romantically wanted by someone to have value in the world.  Her promiscuous past in Laurel isn't a reflection of how sinful and immoral she is.  It's a reflection of her fear of abandonment.  However, her desire is self-destructive.  The one thing that she believes she needs to have a life worth living, intimacy, is used against her by society to shame and destroy her.
    Stella's desire is a little different from Blanche.  It's a mutual desire between her and Stanley that's more physical (😏 😏 😏).  She is physically fulfilled by Stanley, which is why she forgives his violent behavior.  Their desire for each other is so strong that they become heavily dependent on each other.  When Stanley hits her at poker night, she is pulled back to him within minutes by her physical passion.  She needs him financially, emotionally, and physically to live a fulfilling life.  In her life, desire is a mechanism of manipulation, being used to bind her to a life that isn't necessarily safe nor happy.
    Stanley's desire is the most frightening out of the three.  His desire is a desire for dominance  and control.  He needs Stella to validate his masculinity and dominance.  He wants to feel like he has control over her.  He feels like he needs to have control over his home, the money in his family, and the people around him.  This is why he hates Blanche so much.  She is a threat to his desire for Stella, since she disrupts the mood and can influence her.  Her values of class, dreams, and virtue clash with his ideas and she resists his control.  Him raping Blanche was a violent fusion of fulfilling his sexual desire and destroying/controlling the 1 person who challenged him.  To Stanley, desire isn't passion.  It's a weapon of domination and control.  
    The play is saying that desire is both a primary motivation and a dangerous force that's capable of sustaining life but equally capable of ruining it.  Desire isn't bad, but the society that offers the characters no healthy way to fulfill it is. In the play, desire becomes inescapable, consuming, and ultimately destructive, revealing that what people long for could also be what destroys them.
P.S. The streetcar called Desire is important because Desire sets the characters on the path towards destruction.

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams: Summary

    Blanche DuBois, an aristocratic highschool English teacher, moves into her sister, Stella, and her husband, Stanley's apartment for the summer after she lost her family's plantation, Belle Reve.  Upon arrival, she is shocked and disturbed by Stella's lifestyle.  She comments on how she had fully given up her wealthy, old fashioned lifestyle to live in a diverse, working class town with an "uncivilized" man like Stanley.

    Her outburst ends with her revealing that she lost the plantation because the whole family died and she could not keep up with the payments on her own, and blaming Stella for running off and leaving her to deal with the mess.
    That night, Blanche meets Stanley for the first time.  As they make small talk, he changes his sweaty t-shirt in front of her and abruptly asks her what happened to her marriage.  She says that he died and leaves, saying that she feels ill.
    The next day, while Blanche is taking a rejuvenating bath, Stanley and Stella discuss Blanche, with Stella Stella explaining Blanche’s ordeal of losing Belle Reve and asking that he be kind to her by flattering her appearance.  But Stanley is mad.  He accuses Blanche of scamming them and that she spent the family fortune on the expensive clothes and jewelry in her trunk.  This pisses Stella off and she walks away.
    When Blanche returns, she flirts with Stanley (what the heck Blanche).  Stanley responds by asking why she's so rich, accusing her of selling Belle Reve.  Blanche responds by giving him a stack of papers containing documents about Belle Reve and love letters from her old lover (whoops).  But, yippee!  Blanche was telling the truth the whole time.  Belle Reve was lost in its mortgage, not sold for a profit. 
    That night, Stanley hosts a poker night with him and his friends, and Blanche meets a man named Mitch in the bathroom.  They begin to flirt and talk, and Blanche asks Mitch to cover the lightbulb with a Chinese lantern.  However, the night does not end well.  When Stella yells at Stanley for throwing a radio out the window, he beats her up.  (he did all this knowing she's pregnant btw). After this, Stella and Blanche escape to their upstairs neighbor, Eunice's house.  This leads to Stanley remorsefully crying for her, Stella forgiving him, and ending the night by making love.
    The next morning, Blanche is horrified by the abuse that her sister goes through.  However, Stella justifies it and claims that you just have to get used to it.  Obviously Blanche is appalled, and she goes on a rant of how he acts and looks inhuman and that Stella should leave him.  But oop, it turns out Stanley heard the whole thing and Stella knew it, so she hugs him tightly when he comes home.  Blanche and Stanley are now enemies.

   TIME JUMP: now it's August.  Blanche tells Stella about a letter she wrote to her old lover, Shep Huntleigh, telling him that they've been going to rich parties and visiting country homes.  On the other hand, Stanley is being horrible to Blanche.  He insinuates that he knows that Blanche isn't virtuous but in realty sleeps around in love hotels.  This leaves her shaken up right before her date with Mitch. Right before he comes, she kisses a teen delivery boy.  Then, Mitch arrives with flowers and takes her on a date.  When they come back, they share a kiss and they try to get their freak on but Blanche refuses because of her "old-fashioned ideals" (no boombayah till marriage).  So they begin to talk about life.  Blanche asks if Stanley hates her, Mitch says they met in the military and that he doesn't, he asks how old she is, and she asks him to marry her.  She also tells him how her old lover died.  She was smitten but she caught him cheating with another guy.  Even though she accepted him and went to a club with him, she told him he disgusted her leading to him committing suicide.  She begins to cry and Mitch comforts her and essentially fully commits to loving her.

TIME JUMP: now it's mid-September.  Stella is decorating for Blanche's birthday.  Stanley tells Stella the tea he learned about Blanche and her promiscuous past.  She wasn't on break, she was fired from her job for sleeping with a 17 year old boy.  She was sleeping around in a love hotel called the Flamingo and was told to leave by the whole town.  Even though those stories don't convince Stella, who excuses the behavior due to her lavender marriage, Stanley was able to convince Mitch.  There was no way Mitch would marry her now.  He also reveals that for her birthday, he got her a one-way bus ticket back to Laurel.
During the birthday party, Blanche notices Mitch's absence and calls to no avail.  When she opens the ticket, she starts to have a nervous breakdown.  Stanley is satisfied.  He begins to explain to Stella that she's a narcissist who needed to be put in her place for ruining their lives.  Then, Stella's water breaks and baby time is upon them.
    Later that night, Mitch comes for a visit.  She begins to talk nervously, to which Mitch asks why she's always in dimly lit spaces.  To take a good look at her, he tears the paper lantern off the light.  He says that he's not mad about her age, but that she lied to him all summer and pretended that she was a virtuous woman.  After talking for a while, Mitch tries to hook up with her, despite knowing that they won't get married.  Since Mitch know sees her in the sex worker way that other people do, she kicks him out.
    A few hours later, Stanley finds Blanche being delusional and acting like she's abotu to go on a cruise with Shep Huntleigh.  He tells her that they'll be alone tonight since the baby won't arrive until tomorrow.  She begins talking about her breakup and Shep, and Stanley replies by tearing down her world of make-believe.  When Blanche tries to run away from him, he prevents her from leaving,  Sensing the danger, Blanche smashes a bottle and threatens to hurt him with it.  However, he overpowers her and rapes her.

A few weeks later, Stella is crying and Blanche is bathing.  The guys are playing poker and Mitch is blackout drunk.  Blanche has completely broken psychologically.  She is constantly in a daze and is having delusions.  A doctor and a nurse come to pick up Blanche and take her to a mental asylum.  Stanley continues to taunt Blanche and she tries to escape the nurse.  She gets caught and is almost restrained when the doctor steps in and "rescues" her like a knight in shining armor.  Blanche willingly follows the doctor out and presumably gets sent away.  Stella watches on and sobs as Stanley comforts her.  Steve deals a new hand in their poker game.  THE END.

The History and Impact of Barbies

 The creator of Barbie’s birthday is tomorrow!!!  SOOOOO I decided that this would be a cool opportunity to write about the history and impact of barbies!

An Unexpected Origin

On June 24th, 1952, Bild Lilli was introduced as a sultry secretary in a series of comedic comic strips by the German Tabloid Newspaper, Bild.  Bild is now a widely read incredibly conservative news source which gives Barbie’s feminism a delicious touch of irony.  Lilli, and her subsequent doll form, and then the creation of the Barbie franchise may have never happened if it weren’t for the empty space on the 2nd page of the first edition of Bild that needed to be filled at the last minute.  That was when illustrator Reinhard Beuthein, threw together a small comic about a girl at a fortune teller, asking for the name and details of her future husband, who she hoped would be rich and handsome.  And thus, Lilli was born.  While she remained controversial until her demise in 1959, she served as a voice for the German women who were seeking social independence, through her woody comebacks at the men in her comic.  She became an international success, even getting her own film and dolls.  Although they were mostly targeted towards adult men to buy as a gag gift, they were also popular amongst little girls.

The Birth of Barbie

Barbie was invented by Ruth Handler, the cofounder of Mattel, after she noticed something about her children’s toys.  While her son had toys that allowed him to imagine himself as an astronaut or a firefighter, her daughter had toys that limited her to imagine herself as a caregiver or mother.  This wasn’t just a “Ruth should buy better toys” issue.  This was 1959, a time where girls were expected to get married, have kids, and be a housewife.

Ruth was disappointed in these gender expectations so when she and her daughter

discovered a Bild Lilli doll in a toy shop, she decided to give her daughter a toy that wouldn’t confine her daughter to that patriarchal future.  This led to the company she co-founded, Mattel, to release a near carbon copy of a Bild Lilli doll on March 9th, 1959.  This was the world’s first Barbie, named after her daughter, Barbara Millicent Robert.

Once the Barbie dolls began flying off the shelves, the company manufacturer of Lilli, Greiner and Hausser’s fought for the copyright and patent rights on Lilli, but in 1964, Mattel bought the rights, taking Bild Lilli out of production.  From then on, Mattel began pumping out new dream houses, designs, and careers for Barbie.  

Barbie’s Careers and Impacts

Through the years, they released dozens of dolls fitting the themes of the biggest movements in history, to show their support through their products.  This can be shown through Christie, one of the first black dolls ever created, for the Civil Rights movements, and Malibu Barbie, for the Women’s Liberation Movement.  However, Mattel has not only created dolls that are direct representations of revolutionary moments in history, but they have also brought awareness to the underrepresentation of women using Barbie’s careers.

Barbie has had over 250 careers, ranging from Circus performer to a nurse, but her first

ever career was as an astronaut, released in 1965.  This doll led to young girls feeling inspired to reach for the stars and begin exploring their own passions, leading to a new generation of girls entering the corporate world.  This was until Mattel began releasing more career dolls, such as UNICEF Ambassador Barbie, Paleontologist Barbie, and Surgeon Barbie.  These career barbies were used to recognize the fields of work in which women were underrepresented to show young girls that they can be anything and to encourage discovery.  Other than bringing attention to women's problems in society, they also brought awareness to other minorities  such as those with Down syndrome, hearing loss, alopecia and more with their Diverse Barbie collection.  They were created to help young children be aware that there were other people who were different from them and teach them acceptance and help young children who could relate to the dolls, find comfort that there were others like them.  This collection is relatively new, causing controversy online about whether or not Mattel was too late in releasing this collection.

Controversies…

On a similar note, as much as I hate to talk dirt about a doll that was my whole childhood, Mattel has been caught for some troubling messaging in their products.

The 1963 doll Barbie babysitter contains a health magazine with a very simple and harmful message: “DON’T EAT!”

Similarly, the 1965 Slumber Party Barbie contains a scale permanently stuck on 110lb (49kg).

These two dolls caused an uproar as, surprise surprise, people don’t love it when a progressive company gives them advice to give them an eating disorder.

While there were some morally troubling Barbies released in the past, their impact on modern day feminism is undeniable.  With the dolls representing political movements and fields in which women are underrepresented, it has assisted in our world evolving.  Barbies have helped our world broaden the potential for women and minorities, and become more accepting of those who don’t fit the norm and find beauty in originality.

P.S. If you're interested in Mattel's controversial Barbie dolls, I highly recommend researching banned Barbie dolls. They are so wacky and insane, it's hard to believe they made it past production.

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

 Review: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

    Let me preface this by saying that I understand how amazing this book is.  It's one of the most famous plays out there, it changed the way we view romance, and I really like the themes.  The idea of fate and how much control we have over our lives is really interesting to me.  The amount of dick jokes were astonishing and funny, Mercutio was amazing, and the characters each had depth and tragedy to them.   So all in all, I understand how revolutionary and objectively good this book is.

    HOWEVER.  I have some issues with this book.  Just because it's iconic it doesn't mean that it's perfect.  

    First off, the age gap.  I understand that 17-18 and 13 is miles better than 32 and 13, but it's still a large age gap.  The story is essentially about a horny 18 year old guy who marries a 13 year old girl within a week of meeting her for the thrill of it and for lust.  What the hell?  The book portrays romance as wild, passionate, and spreads the idea of love at first sight.  I don't understand how we ever looked at this and thought "you know what?  This is how we should all fall in love."  Love shouldn't be that way.  It shouldn't be binding or forced, or passionate to the point that being separated would be a worse punishment than death.

    I think I just hate Romeo and the way he views love.  He spends Acts 1-3 depressed over the fact that he was friendzoned by Rosaline until he forgets about her because he found a girl prettier and better.  He just wanted to find someone to hook up with.  He's the ultimate fuckboy.  

    Juliet on the other hand?  Absolute diva in the making.  I actually said "DIVA DOWN!!" when she died.  She was so smart and she had Romeo on a LEASH.  I'm not 100% sure on whether or not she actually loved Romeo as much as he loved her, but either way she was the brains and the heart of the love story.  She used Romeo's passion for her to escape her arranged marriage, knowing that he was so desperate that he would do anything for her.  She accelerated her love story with him and controlled the entire operation.  If Romeo wasn't so dumb, they would've had their happily ever after.  But because he fumbled, they both died.  I loved the end when Prince said "For never was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."  Like YESSSS Juliet was the mastermind and Romeo was manipulated by her.  It was such a queen move.

In the end, I gave the book 3.5 stars because Mercutio and Juliet were too iconic to be given 3 stars.  The story was interesting but there were some details that didn't sit right with me.  

P. S.I honestly prefer the ballet version since it feels more romantic and you could actually feel the emotions in the air.

Summary

In the 14th century, the Italian city of Verona is being torn apart by a centuries old feud between the powerful families of Montague and Capulet. The patriarchs of each household encourage their young male relatives and servants to battle their disagreements out in the streets. To stem the violence, the Prince of Verona sets a harsh law that any further brawling will result in the execution of the perpetrators. 
Romeo, the son of Montague, is depressed over his crush, Rosaline, when his cousin, Benvolio, and best friend, Mercutio, invite him to crash a Capulet masquerade ball.  When they get there, he meets a young girl named Juliet, and they immediately fall in love.  At her balcony, they promise to get married in the following morning.
After the marriage (and completely unrelated to it), Tybalt, Juliet's cousin, challenges Romeo to a duel.  When he refuses, Mercutio gets annoyed and fights Tybalt.  In the duel, Mercutio is killed, which makes Romeo so angry that he hunts him down and kills him.  This causes the Prince to banish him.  Juliet learns of all of this, and Friar Lawrence tells her that Romeo will come visit her tonight.  Meanwhile, the Capulets grieve Tybalt, causing Lord Capulet to move Juliet's arranged marriage to County Paris to the following day.  Juliet panics and refuses to marry him, causing her family to disown/abandon her.
Juliet knows she can't avoid this forever so she goes to Friar Lawrence to beg for help.  The friar gives her a potion that would temporarily stop her heart to convince everyone that she died.  He later sends a letter to Romeo to tell him to save his sleeping wife.
However, Romeo doesn't get the letter in time.  He arrives in Verona where he learns that she is "dead".  Distraught, he drinks poison and kills himself, right when she wakes up.  Discovering the body, Juliet grabs Romeo's dagger and kills herself.  This event causes the patriarchs to resolve their feud.

True Crime Story by Joseph Knox

Review:⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

I enjoyed this book way more than I thought I would.  For being a story that doesn't have a clear ending, it was executed pretty well.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Now, I have my gripes – which I'll get into later – but I want to talk about what I think they did right.  

I think it was really good commentary on the crime genre of entertainment.  The victim of the murder was a flawed teen who lied to all of her friends and family, and unknowingly pit them against each other, while portraying herself as an angelic, kind person.  It spoiled the idea of a "perfect victim".  

The "perfect victim" Theory describes how crime victims in media gain sympathy and support due to characteristics like looking weak and vulnerable.  However, Zoe Nolan wasn't a perfect victim.  She was friendly but she was also impulsive and manipulative.  She wasn't overly evil and she wasn't overly kind.  She was just an average teenager hiding her secrets from her family.

I also liked how all of her friends were flawed people too.  They weren't bound to tropes like "The Sidekick" or "The Jock".  They were made to be like real people.  They each spoke with a different voice and personality.  I really recommend reading this with the audiobook.  It might slow you down a few minutes, but it's worth it.  It really immerses you into the world of J.Knox, and makes you feel like you're the investigator.

The book also commented on the endings in crime media.  Usually, in horror/crime movies like Scream and American Psycho, or even True Crime media, a clear answer is revealed at the end.  The true timeline, the killer, the aftermath.  They're all definitive answers.  True Crime Story defies it.  In the last chapter, the book reveals the killer, but comments that they might have caught the wrong guy; there was plenty of evidence pointing to him but there were other pieces of evidence that would've proven his innocence.  There is doubt in the arrest.  Unlike crime media, the true timeline of events is never revealed.  It was definitely not a satisfying ending, but I thought it was an interesting way to end the book.

I watch a lot of whodunnit movies where the characters' goal is to find the killer/villain, and I listen to true crime podcasts.  They both reveal the villain in the end and I can leave the immersive world feeling satisfied that the heroes caught the villain.  Yet, I think I keep forgetting that nearly 47% of all murders remain unsolved.  Not all crime stories end on a good note with the killer admitting to their crimes and giving a clear answer.  True Crime Story reminded me of the 47% of murders.  Not everyone's crime story gets to end with the true killer being caught.  Sometimes, the wrong people are caught, and sometimes, no one is caught.

That doesn't mean there wasn't anything bad though.  There was one thing that I didn't enjoy and made me take a star off.  The ending was extremely sudden and felt rushed.  It was definitely a plot twist, but not because it made me doubt the character's actions, but because it made no sense and wasn't foreshadowed at all.

But other than that point, highly recommend and I would 100% read it again.

Summary

In 2011, Zoe Nolan, a popular university student, left her dorm in Manchester University and was never seen or head from ever again.
Now, it's 2018.  7 years since Zoe's case went cold.  Struggling crime writer/investigator Evelyn Mitchell finds herself drawn to the case.  She and her good writer friend, Jospeh Knox, collaborate on writing a book dedicated to solving Zoe Nolan's case.  Evelyn begins to interview her friends and family, slowly uncovering dark truths about her past.  As she gets closer and closer to the truth, Evelyn's life starts to be put in danger.  She is stalked, assaulted, and her car gets vandalized, until she is killed by a masked man.
Left alone and mourning, Joseph Knox chooses to continue pursuing the truth about Zoe to pay tribute to his friend.  He continues to interview her friends and family, which takes him on a journey through a murder in Europe and a tax scandal that her father caused.
Finally, after years of pursuing the truth and being taken on a wild trip around the world and different families, the book ends on a peculiar note.
Zoe's best friend killed her.  But there isn't enough evidence to convict him.  But there isn't nearly enough evidence to convict anyone else either.  Zoe's father was abusive and a con man.  Zoe's sister was jealous of her success.  Zoe's boyfriend cheated on her with her twin sister.  Now, the question is, who do you believe is guilty?

Why the marketing for Jennifer's Body sucks donkeypoo

    Jennifer’s Body tells the story of Jennifer Check, a high school student, who is kidnapped and sacrificed by an indie band in exchange for fame, which leaves her demonically possessed and hungry for boys.  

    In the poster, Jennifer is wearing a cheerleading uniform, commonly used to signify popularity, attractiveness, and beauty.  Her top is low cut, bringing spotlight to her chest, or as she calls them, her “smart bombs”.  She is posing in a powerful, predator-like stance, giving the audience a Kubrick stare, and facing the audience head on, but her closed legs signify a defensive nature.  Her body language communicates that while she may be feisty, she’s just “playing hard to get” and is an invitation for unwanted sex.  The title, Jennifer’s Body signifies the value of Jennifer’s actual body over who Jennifer becomes after her possession, emphasizing the word body instead of Jennifer.

    However, the poster itself is a mockery of the movie.  Unlike what the poster implies, Jennifer isn’t a cheerleader in the movie.  She’s in flagship, with a higher cut, longer top, but even then her flagship is only briefly mentioned at the beginning of the movie to establish her, at most, semi popularity.  Jennifer faces her prey head on, breaking their bones and egos with all the confidence in the world, without the fear of being attacked.  The movie is a dark comedy that criticizes the male gaze, and the exploitation of women with a violently feminist plot.  Jennifer Check is a succubus, exploiting the lust of men to kill them, and is a result of a symbolic assault, more feminine and powerful than ever.  She is equally lustrous as she is calculated and smart.  The movie challenges the notion that women are either pure, angelic virgins or TNA shot-only, sex objects, and instead mixes the two to show that women don’t need to be the “perfect victim” to be a victim.  Yet, the poster contradicts its point.

    The poster uses the male gaze to gain attention, using the seductiveness of Megan Fox (Jennifer)’s body.  After all, lust is always profitable.  Every aspect of the poster serves to objectify Jennifer, and reduce her character to a mush-for-brains playgirl.  Her breasts are the focal point, her waist is accentuated, and the spotlight is on her body, not her.

This poster is meant to market to young men, to VERY obviously hint that this movie will be full of sex, blood, and boobs.  This poster was proven effective when the movie was dragged through the mud during the initial release for not living up to the dirty and sexy 100 minutes they were promised.  The public was misled by the body being presented, not the actual story of Jennifer.

    The poster for Jennifer’s Body depicts Jennifer as a slut, highlighting her body through costume design, body language and text.  The movie is marketed to lustful young men, when in reality it’s a horror comedy for women, meant to criticize the very audience it was marketed to.

A Deep Dive into 2 Non-Water Floods

The Dublin Whiskey Fire

    This flood and fire took place on June 18th, 1975 in Dublin, Ireland. The fire originated in the storehouse of a bar called Laurence Malone, where 1.2 million litres (315 thousand gallons) of pure whiskey were stored. The cause of the fire is unknown, and our only guess is that it caught on fire between 4:30pm when the storehouse was checked and 8:30pm when alarms were raised. The fire caused the barrels of whiskey to explode from the heat and stream out of the burning building, catching fire in the process, and becoming a flood of what is essentially liquid fire.

    The citizens were first alerted when the fire spread to a nearby pig pen, causing the pigs inside to squeal uproariously. By the time the citizens began to evacuate, 3 different streets in the city were already demolished, rapidly spreading the fire and flood. The evacuation process was surprisingly efficient for the time, with the mayor commending the emergency personnel who made the escape possible. He is quoted as saying: "The time given for escape in some places during the progress of the fire was so short, I was apprehensive that some people should be left in danger in the garrets and cellars of the district. But on inquiry I was happy to learn that no life was lost during the great conflagration."

    However, despite the amazing evacuation, there was one small issue:  This is a flood of whiskey in a city known for its alcohol culture and high rates of alcoholism (at the time).

    As they were evacuating their burning homes, people noticed that the flood was made of whiskey and began using their hats, boots, and other vessels to gather the alcohol to drink it. This led to the people of Dublin drinking so much that all twenty four hospitalizations and thirteen deaths caused by the flood were not from burns, drowning, or smoke inhalation, but were caused by alcohol poisoning.

Rockwood & Company shipping department fire

    Rockwood & Co. was a famous chocolatier company that was the second largest producer of chocolate after Hershey and created Tootsie Rolls. However, on May 12, 1919, a fire started on the 2nd floor of the shipping department of the factory in Brooklyn. The 2nd floor contained finished chocolate products as well as cocoa beans which are believed to have spontaneously combusted, starting the fire. The fire was discovered just after 1 am by a factory worker who soon alerted the fire department. However, between the time that the worker discovered the fire and the time the firefighters arrived, the fire spread to the 3rd floor, which stored ingredients like cocoa, butter, and sugar.  The products from the 2nd floor and the raw ingredients on the 3rd floor mixed and formed a flood of molten chocolate.

    When the firefighters arrived, they began spraying the chocolate with water, unintentionally causing the sugar and butter to separate from the mixture and solidify all over the city streets, making them greasy and hindering the efforts of the firefighters.

    The fire in the factory was extinguished, but it left the city covered in butter and chocolate.  The Brooklyn Daily Eagle would report it as an "ocean of fudge flooding the street like lava", and that the river of chocolate was so deep that you could "float a rowboat for 2 blocks along Flushing Avenue".  Unsurprisingly, this flood attracted the local children who were eager to eat the delicious chocolate.  The children were allowed to eat the chocolate but were collected by officers an hour later to go to school.  

    Although children got to eat the chocolate for free and there was no real damage to the factory, the company suffered damage worth 1.8 million dollars in today’s money.

The Shining by Stephen King

 Review: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

    I actually really enjoyed this book!  I liked how it focused so much more on the shine than the movie.  The story was exhilarating and full of action, and full of Jack's battle with alcoholism and tension within the family.  While in the movie, Jack's character was unlikable from the beginning, being and angry man who insulted his wife, the book portrayed the man as a more sympathetic man who genuinely sought to improve his alcoholism and loved his family; there was a greater contrast in Jack when he was and wasn't possessed by the spirit of the Overlook Hotel.

    I also really loved the characters.  Danny was emotionally intelligent due to his shine and was therefore extremely aware of his parents' situation.  It was heartbreaking to see 5 year old Danny attempt to grasp the concept of divorce and murder, knowing the horrors of what would happen at the Overlook, but not having the words to describe it.  Wendy was a lovely lady who was so stuck in life, that leaving her husband meant being free from the potential that Jack was drunkenly abusing Danny, but proving her emotionally abusive mother right and being poor.  Staying with her husband meant financial stability, love, a happy family, but the risk of Jack getting drunk and ruining it all.  She has to live her life walking on egg shells.  Jack, as I mentioned, is a complicated man.  He genuinely strives to be a good father and husband, and a successful writing career.  However, he has a fatal flaw of becoming an angry and potentially violent man when drinking.  All three of the protagonists were complex and well developed characters and it was hard to pick a "good guy" and a "bad guy" because they were all morally good.

    I also loved how scary it was.  I thought the movie was spooky, but holy cow.  The ending when Danny pleads with his possessed father to spare him because he loves him, and Jack using the last of his will to tell Danny to remember how much he loves him and to run away; wow.  Immediate tears.  Then following the heartbreaking farewell with Jack being completely possessed and killing himself (Jack) by smashing his own face in with a splintered mallet, leaving only the body to be controlled by the Overlook Hotel, I was HORRIFIED.  I liked both the movie and book endings but this was insane.

    The only thing I didn't like about this book was how long it was.  I liked how detailed it was but sometimes it got to a point where it felt like the book was trying to meet a certain page count.

But other than that, I absolutely loved the book.

Summary

    Jack Torrance was recently fired from his job as a high school english teacher.  His family is plunged into (near) poverty until he comes along a unique job opportunity: to be the winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel.  Jack is ecstatic, and he, Danny, and Wendy head to the hotel.  They get a tour from the manager and meet Dick Hallorann, the hotel cook who seemed to deeply resonate with Danny.  He tells him that he has "the shine", a supernatural power to empathize so deeply with the memories and people around him, that he can see them.  He tells the kid to stay away from hotel room 217 as it had an unknown energy that was dangerous to people who shine.  After he leaves, the family begins their stay.

    A few weeks into the stay, strange things begin to happen.  While playing outside, Danny sees the hedge animals outside moving.  Jack Torrance becomes obsessed over the history of the Overlook Hotel and the serial family murders that the previous caretakers carried out and spends sleepless nights writing a book.  Danny wakes up in the night screaming.  And they are locked in the house due to the terrible snow storm, and the weather causes their radio to go down, completely cutting them off from the outside world.

    As time goes on, things get weirder.  Jack begins hallucinating and sleep-walking, to the point that he attempts to physically assault Wendy and Danny in his sleep.  Danny appears with a strangulation mark on his neck.  Danny's visions get scarier and gorier.  Wendy senses the danger and the danger that the hotel itself poses to kids like Danny. 

    However, when she attempts to escape with Danny (and find help for Jack), Jack appears with a croquet mallet and chases after her.  The chase leads to a bloody fight, ending with Jack having broken Wendy's ribs, Wendy stabbing him with a kitchen knife, and knocking him out with the mallet.  During the battle, a horrified Danny telepathically sends Dick Hallorann an SOS signal to beg him to help him and his mom escape the Overlook.  As Dick heads to the hotel, Wendy and Danny hide Jack in the walk-in fridge to keep him safely caged until they can get help.  However, when Jack wakes up, he is met with a hallucination of the previous hotel caretaker's ghost who torments him to punish his family before setting him free from the fridge.  The rage from being caged by his family and the possession turns Jack into a homicidal maniac, chasing Wendy through the halls of the hotel.

    However, in the nick of time, Dick comes to the rescue.  But the heroic act doesn't last long.  Before long, Jack beats him to a pulp with his mallet and returns to kill Danny.  When he catches him, Danny cries in horror and begs his dad to come back.  For a moment, the real Jack comes back; just long enough to tell his son that he loves him, before the spirit of the hotel reposesses him and forces his body to kill himself.  In this raw, possessed state, Jack (a.k.a. the Overlook Hotel) chases the family, when the boiler of the hotel suddenly explodes, causing the building to go up in flames.  The violent fire traps him in the hotel, and Jack dies in the hotel, as Wendy, Danny, and Dick escape on a snowmobile.

My Bali Summer Vacation

     Over the summer I visited Bali with my family, fully expecting it to be a typical summer vacation full of beach days and adventures.  However, I instead spent the week exploring and discovering Bali’s extraordinary culture.

Religion

Unlike the rest of Indonesia which is primarily Muslim or Christian, most Balinese people practice a special branch of Hinduism called Balinese Hinduism.  While the basic ideas and prayers of Hinduism were adopted, the religion was adopted as more of a life philosophy rather than a religion.  In Balinese Hinduism, it is believed that balance is the key to achieving peace.  Because of this, there is an emphasis on honoring both the good and evil.  Throughout the island, there were countless houses with offerings on the floor to honor malevolent spirits and on a high shelf to honor the gods.  To put it simply, high places were good because mountains were the home of the gods, and low places were bad because the ocean housed evil spirits and demons that caused destruction. 

During my stay, I was able to visit Nusa Lembongan, an island that was once notorious for being an evil island. The island is a flat and floating island made of coral and limestone.  While the other Nusa islands and mainland Bali have countless mountains and cliffs, allowing for a balance between the gods and the demons. However, there were no mountains on Nusa Lembongan. The lack of mountains caused mainland Balinese people to believe that the island was full of malevolent spirits.  However, between the 90s and 2000s, tourists began visiting the island in search for a less crowded tourist destination. This popularity amongst tourists gave the island to redeem itself. The island now thrives on the snorkeling and sailing business, with some of the most popular services being snorkeling with manta rays and sailing on a speedboat. The tourist business helped restore the bond between Bali and Nusa Lembongan as Balinese people were able to believe that the island is no longer haunted.

Art

Balinese Hinduism also emphasizes art, as it is seen as the essence of life.  Cultural architecture was carved with intricate designs to tell a story or symbolize protection, balance, or fertility; Paintings used natural pigments to express Hindu ideas and appreciation, and they were made to tell stories.  Dances and other theater performances were explosive and emotional, emphasizing themes of balance, love, and loyalty.  While I could only depend on context clues, as I’m not knowledgeable in neither the Indonesian language nor Balinese Hinduism, the dance was enjoyable and I was moved by how expressive and colorful the performance was.  It was refreshing to see art intertwined with religion.  It was certainly fascinating to see how this form of expression is how the religion and culture of Bali survives and thrives.

Bali was such a captivating experience as I got to explore how religion evolves and shapes the culture on an island.  I would love to visit mainland Indonesia someday, so I can see how much it differs from Bali, and compare the after effects that their respective religions had on the cultures.  All in all, if you love exploring cultures, manta rays, and art, I would highly recommend Bali as your next summer vacation.

The Subway by Chappell Roan

    The Subway by Chappell Roan was released on July 31st, 2025, over a year after she first performed it at her Governor's Ball performance in 2024.  The song tells a story of a time when Chappell unexpectedly ran into her ex, leading to a breakdown where she mourned what she and her lover could've been.

Throughout the music video, and on the album cover, Chappell has extremely long hair.  In the music video, her hair is a kind of nuisance that she has to carry around.  I believe it symbolizes how mentally draining the breakup was.  She feels so heavy all the time and feels exhausted with her life from dealing with the grief of breaking up with her girlfriend.

    Another important thing to note is the significance of the song taking place in the New York City subway, despite taking place in Los Angeles.  Compared to LA, New York City is a more dense urban city that is fast-paced and energetic.  The subway is always bustling, and everyone is always on the go.  This environment offers a visual of the feeling of feeling left behind.  Chappell feels left behind for being unable to move on from her breakup.  Similarly, the subway is often a place where you never take notice of the people around you.  Unless you know someone on the train, no one ever sticks out to you.  Chappell doesn't want to notice her ex everywhere she goes, she wants her ex to be a stranger again so that she can be "just another girl on the subway".

 Lyrics

    When it comes to the lyrics, most of them are pretty direct.  Verse 1 describes her experience of seeing her ex on the subway and nearly having a breakdown over it.  However, the pre chorus of "It's just another day, and it's not over/till it's over, oh till it's over/It's just another day, and it's not over/till it's over, it's never over" creates a kind of tragic and mournful feel to the lyrics.  She repeats to herself in the pre chorus of both verses 1 and 2 that it's just another day and that she's over the relationship/the relationship is over.  By the end of the pre chorus, though, she admits to herself that she either doesn't want their relationship to be over or that she isn't over the breakup.  She has to soothe herself to stop herself from having a break down.  She then says that she won't be over the relationship until she can see her ex as "just another girl on the subway".

    Verse 2 is more metaphorical.  The verse opens with "Made you the villain, evil for just moving on" showing how she initially hated her for moving on without her but that she now feels that she is the one who needs to move on.  She knows she needs to move on and that her ex isn't a villain, but she loved her so much that she can't simply move on.  She then says that she sees her shadow even with the lights off.  It shows that she sees small reminders of her, even if they aren't actual reminders at all; it's just that her ex is constantly on her mind.

    At the end of the verse, she says if this feeling of feeling unable to move on from her ex persists, she'll move to Saskatchewan.  Saskatchewan doesn't have asubway system, meaning that Chappell won't have a way to be reminded of her.  If she isn't able to willfully move on from her ex, she promises herself to put herself in a situation that forces her to move on.

The ending lines of the song that alternate from "She got away" to "She's got a way" show Chappell's final feelings of anguish in mourning the breakup.

"She got away" means that the ex left or that she moved on.  Chappell sings this line with anguish, feeling like she let the person that was her soulmate get away from her.

She then alternates to "She's got a way" meaning that there was something special about her that made her so charming and attractive.

By switching between the 2 lines, she gives you the full impact and despair that she felt when she was finally able to meet the right person who still left her.

Review: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Overall, this song was genuinely one of my favorites of 2025.  I mean, hell, I listened to it 78 times in August alone.  It was such an impactful battle cry song about unrequited love and the feeling of being left behind while the rest of the world moves on without you.  The song felt angry at her ex but it was sympathetic at the same time, and it was such a powerful song that really moved me and made me feel the grief and anguish that the song was created from.  Absolute banger. 10/10 highly recommend.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro: Themes

Inevitability of Life/Mortality

Miss Lucy is the only guardian who is blatantly honest with the students.  She tells them that their future is predetermined.  While Chrissie, Rodney, Ruth, Tommy, Kathy, and probably countless others before them have tried to find a way out of the system, they all ended up exactly where Miss Lucy said they would be.  While they all had very different lives, they all ultimately led to the same destination: death.  While the originals created the clones to prolong their lives and escape chronic illness, their lives still lead to death.  The point of the clones was to show how they had to face the idea of mortality at a young age.  They need to feel a sense of satisfaction with the way they live their lives in their 20s, while the originals had time to reach that point in life.

In the end, we are all mortal.  Whether we choose to deny/avoid it or face it head on, death will eventually catch up to us.  Whether we use our clones' organs to live longer and healthier, or we are the ones being slaughtered for the greater good, we will all eventually die and we need to come to terms with that.

Things to think about:

the tiktok that asked what you would do if you were chased by a snail that would instantly kill you if it touched you

The movie It Follows

Humanity

Humanity is another big one.  It kind of overlaps with the third one though.

What does it mean to be human?

While the general "original" public knows the existence of the clones, they choose to ignore it because they are being used to serve the greater good.  The clones' organs are being used to save humans and prolong their lifespans and cure illness.  The also choose to ignore it to avoid confronting the cruelty of raising clone humans just to slaughter them. The originals would rather tell themselves that their miracle organs come from some mysterious place rather than from a clone.  They refuse to acknowledge that clones are just as human as them.  However, the way the clones live their lives defies that.  Like normal people, the "originals", they sing, play sports, paint, sing.  They dream of romance, have passions, and are creative.  Whether you're a humanities girl or STEM person, you have to admit that passion and creativity make people feel alive.

Things to think about

what makes us human?

what makes us better than animals that were bred to be slaughtered?

are we any better than animals?

Factory Farming/Exploitation

The humanity of the clones, however, also give an illusion of control.  The creativity and freedom they have, make them feel that they have freedom over their lives.

At the end of the day, the clones are nothing but farm animals being exploited.  Hailsham is a humane farm, meaning they are raised comfortably, with good food, environment, and access to enrichment.  Tommy states that the other schools were like battery farms, a.k.a. factory farms where animals/clones are raised in poor conditions, in over crowded, dark spaces with minimal nutrients and enrichment to grow comfortably.  So while Hailsham treating the students as humans instead of incubators could be applauded, you could make the case that they are simply attempting to justify their exploitation because they aren't as bad as the other farms.

If you're still here

1. The Hailsham students never rebelled or ran away because it's all they've ever known.  If a random stranger randomly told you that your mom kills and eats children, you wouldn't believe them immediately.  That's because you've never questioned your mother's existence before.  It's liek that.  Hailsham is all they've ever known.  How would they rebel if they have no idea what they're rebelling against.

2. They didn't question the fact that they're organ incubators because, according to Tommy, they were told these things before they were mature or smart enough to fully understand what they meant.  And by the time they realized, it would be too late.

3. The guardians don't donate their organs because they aren't clones.  They're just normals people working in that industry.

4. The guardian names are important.  Miss Lucy was a bit strict and brutally honest about their fates because she believed that while they weren't "humans", they had every bit of humanity to make them worthy of respect and honesty.  Miss Emily was the kind, headmistress who gave the students the illusion of autonomy over their lives.  She wasn't evil though.  She ran a humanitarian farm where she gave the students some freedom before donating their organs.