Hello dear readers! Welcome to the debut post of a new blog series I’m rolling out today here at Girl Meets Monster. This new series, which I am calling Fiction Fragments, will have new posts each Friday. So…Fiction Fragments Friday is totally a thing now.
I’ve been writing for many years, and at some point along that journey I came to terms with the fact that not every project has a clear path or end. Sometimes, you get an idea in your head and you start drafting a piece and then you just stop. Maybe you start working on something that has a clearer purpose, or maybe you’re juggling too many other projects, or maybe it never really was a fully formed idea to begin with. For whatever reason, you started writing something, maybe you wrote 200 words, maybe more, maybe less, and then you set it aside and just never came back to it.
Hands up if this has ever happened to you.
I should see a lot of hands right now.
At least, I’m hoping to see a lot of hands, because not only will I be sharing my own fiction fragments, but I’m hoping to enlist some of my amazing writer pals to do the same – poetry, short fiction, chapters, etc. I want to see projects that people began and abandoned. And, it might be cool to ask them a few questions about their writing process, why they chose to submit a certain piece, and if they ever plan to finish their fragment.
So, without further ado, here is the first installment of Fiction Fragment Fridays. I hope you’ll come back to read more, and better yet, I hope you send me your fragments.
The Wood, by Michelle R. Lane
When I was a child, I knew all of the flowers, plants, four-legged and winged animals of the Wood by name. I spoke to the Spirits of the Wood, and they answered. I slept in the trees, bathed in the brooks, and ate bramble berries off the bush. I walked through the Wood all day until my legs grew tired and then at dusk I would make my way back to the small house at the edge of the Wood where I lived with my family.
My parents were an unlikely pair. My father was a prince, banished from the Moorish Empire, and forced to live far from his Muslim brothers. He wandered the European countryside for years, making his way from Spain to the heart of the Black Forest. He liked the Wood, the magic was strong there and food was plentiful. For weeks he camped in the open air, then decided to make the Wood his home. He hunted wild game, butchered the animals for meat and cured the pelts to sell in the open air market of the village nearby. He saved enough money to buy the tools he needed to cut lumber and build a house.
As a huntsman, he made a comfortable living, but he was lonely. Sometimes he would venture into the village and drink the honey mead the village was famous for in those parts, and he would listen to the villagers talk and tell stories of the past. But, he rarely engaged in conversation with them, because he was seen as an outsider. His dark skin, his strange way of speaking, and his manner were odd to them. Aside from trading pelts and wild game, and the odd drink in the tavern, he kept to himself.
Then, one day, while selling pelts in the market, he overhead a crowd gathering in the town square. There were warriors from the Northern lands of ice and snow, a tribe of people he had encountered in his younger years as a soldier, selling captured people from other lands as slaves. As he approached the auction, he could see that there were men, women, and children of all ages and hues, bound with rope, and looking underfed. Among the people being sold that day, there was a young woman with a mane of wild red hair trying to chew through the ropes binding her hands. She cursed and kicked and spit at her captors. Bondage had not quieted her spirit. She continued to fight. He liked that about her. When the auction began, he decided he would buy her and give her her freedom that day.
She was a wild creature, but she could sing beautiful songs, tell haunting stories, and she could speak to the Spirits of the Wood. Among her people she was a healer and a caster of bones. A young woman wise beyond her years. He taught her to hunt, skin animals, and butcher the meat, and she taught him the names of all the herbs, mushrooms, and berries that were safe to eat in the Wood. They became good friends and built a partnership in which they shared everything equally. She sold healing balms and tisanes in the market while he continued to make a comfortable living as a huntsman.
My father told me he fell in love with my mother the first time he saw her, but it took her a few years to realize how much she loved him. Once she opened her heart to him, it wasn’t long before they brought me into the world.
I’d like to think that this fragment could become the beginning of a short story, or possibly the first chapter of a novella. Who can say? Maybe this will become my next WIP.
Stay tuned for next week’s installment and, if you have something to submit, I’m happy to see what you’ve got. Comment below or contact me at chellane@gmail.com. Your fragment doesn’t have to be polished, just interesting. And, if you have a reason for why you set it aside, I’d love to hear about that, too.
Back on January 23 I started a #100HappyDays Challenge. The homepage of the site asks you, “Can you be happy for 100 days in a row?” I believe most rational people would probably say no. And, if like me, you suffer from chronic depression you’d be even more skeptical.
The second question the site asks you is, “You don’t have time for this, right?” Again, most of us would agree that we don’t have time to make an effort to be happy every single day for 100 days. But is that true? Why don’t we have time? Is it because we don’t believe we’re worth the effort? Or is it because we don’t believe that you can find happiness that easily? Or maybe, and I know this sounds a little crazy, we don’t really understand a) what makes us happy, b) what happiness really looks and feels like, or c) how to begin to find happiness in our everyday lives.
The challenge itself is simple. Each day, for 100 days, you simply take a picture of something or someone who made you happy and then follow the steps on the site.
So first you register in the challenge >here<, then choose your favorite platform for submitting pictures. Here you can decide yourself on the privacy of your participation & happy moments:
Share your picture via Facebook, twitter or Instagram with a public hashtag #100happydays;
Come up with your own hashtag to share your pictures with to limit publicity. (Don’t forget to tell us how to find your pictures though)
Simply send your pictures to myhappyday (at) 100happydays.com to avoid any publicity.
The 100happydays.com site claims that “71% of people tried to complete this challenge, but failed quoting lack of time as the main reason.” Studies have shown that most people are not just busy, but overwhelmed with responsibility – work, housework, school, family, and other social obligations – that keep them running nonstop and afford little time for anything else. People typically don’t make time to take care of themselves, or just check in to see how happy they are with the life they are living.
Believe me, I get it. I’m a divorced single parent who works full-time. I’m a part-time writer trying to become a full-time writer, which means I write fiction in the hopes of being published and farm myself out for freelance projects because my day job doesn’t pay enough. I’m not currently dating, but I have a fairly active social life. I rent, so I don’t have a lot of home repairs to tend to, but there’s still housework, errands, cooking, and child rearing. To be honest, housework doesn’t get done very often, but we always have clean laundry and dishes, and my son never misses a meal. My son is involved in activities outside the house, and he has behavioral/emotional issues that we manage through therapy and other strategies. I’m not going to win any awards for my parenting skills. However, I make a point of showing up and being present when my energy and own mental health issues are balanced. I’m actively seeking employment, because I’m not sure if I’ll be able to stay in my current job after June. So, yeah, I’m busy. Like mind-numbingly, soul-crushingly busy some days. Depression has been an ongoing issue for me since I was a kid. I was diagnosed in my teens and have sought the support of therapists and medication on and off throughout my adult life. I’m not just busy. Some days are harder than others. Some days I have #zerofuckstogive. Some days I consider it a win if I get out of bed, get dressed, and make it to work.
Despite all the challenges I face day-to-day, I managed to find something to be relatively happy about for almost every single day of the 100-day challenge. I chose to post my pictures, thoughts and reflections on social media – Facebook and Instagram. Each day, beginning on January 23 and ending on May 2, I posted a photo, a meme, or simply an observation about that day and what brought me joy.
100happydays.com also asks the question, “Why would I do that?” Good question. I’m sure lots of people would ask that question. Well, here are some answers.
People successfully completing the challenge claimed to:
Start noticing what makes them happy every day;
Be in a better mood every day;
Start receiving more compliments from other people;
Realize how lucky they are to have the life they have;
Become more optimistic;
Fall in love during the challenge.
Need help figuring out what makes you happy? Here are the top 10 things that brought me happiness during my #100happydays challenge (in no particular order). Perhaps, you’ll recognize some of the things that make you smile too.
Booze. Let’s face it, adult beverages are delicious and when they are drunk responsibly, they can have amazingly curative properties. When I was younger, I was hell-bent on self-medicating. I drank too much and too often. I also was careless about mixing drugs with alcohol, and usually in questionable company. That’s a story for another day. At this point in my life, I don’t drink very often. I keep some booze at home, typically bourbon, which is my favorite liquor. Occasionally, I’ll drink rum. Booze appeared in my social media feeds on Day 1 of the challenge. It was a rough day. And, booze played a role in bringing me happiness 4 out the 100 days, 5 if you count the codeine cough syrup I drank when I was sick. Fun fact: Because of my love of bourbon and booze in general, I gained roughly 20 new followers on Instagram who are either bars with specialty cocktails, bourbon aficionados, and distillers of small-batch spirits. So, I guess you could say that booze has the ability to make me popular and interesting.
Coffee & Tea. I don’t know about you, but caffeine is 90% responsible for keeping me conscious most days. It’s no secret how much I love coffee, but I also enjoy drinking tea. Coffee and tea have been staples in my life since childhood. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania in the 70s and 80s, and my grandmother didn’t see a problem with putting iced tea in my bottle when I was a baby. I drank my first cup of coffee when I was five. But don’t worry, she cut the bitterness by adding a tooth-decaying amount of sugar to it. Essentially, my grandmother was my first drug dealer. She hated alcohol. Most likely because her father and one of her brothers were alcoholics. People who drank alcohol pissed her off, but she was the poster child for coffee, sugar, and cigarettes. When I was a poor college student and couldn’t afford to maintain my cigarette habit (I smoked between the ages of 14 and 35), my grandmother would either give me money or buy my cigarettes for me. By the carton. In fact, when I was a junior, studying abroad in England for a year, her biggest concern, aside from my safety, was that cigarettes were so much more expensive there. She sent me care packages on a regular basis, and I could always count on finding at least one carton of Camel Lights in the box of goodies. In a related story, after my first week of living in England, I discovered that I was getting headaches almost every day and was feeling lethargic even though I was drinking between 6 – 10 cups of tea a day. Eventually, I realized that I was suffering from dehydration. Basically, I lived on tea, beer and cider, scones with clotted cream, packets of cheese and onion crisps, and Camel Lights. Once I figured out what was wrong with me, I kept a plastic cup near my sink and I would drink 2 – 3 cups of water before going to bed and upon waking. By the way, I had purchased the cup with Camel Cash, and the cup featured an image of Joe the Camel wearing a leather biker jacket, circa early 90s.
Food. I love food. I love to cook it. I love to eat. I see food as something beyond a means of nourishing my body. Food conjures memories of childhood. Food comforts me. Sharing a meal with family and friends is one of my favorite ways to interact and be social. Learning a new recipe is akin to learning a new spell. Food is a perfect marriage between magic and science. Cooking allows me to express myself, get creative, and heal myself through healthy foods. During the #100happydays challenge, food appeared in my social media feeds 34 days out of 100. Foods that appeared the most were fruit salad and tacos. A lot of the foods were healthy and involved my crockpot and meal prep that allowed me to cook once and eat for several days in a row. Some of my most popular posts dealt with food and the recipes I featured, and these posts got some of the most comments, including requests for recipes. Food is the glue of cultural and social interaction. The healthier I eat, the happier I am.
Friends & Family. I have a small family. For the most part it’s just my mom, my son and me. I also have aunts, uncles, and cousins. For the most part, I am close with my cousins. We’re all around the same age, grew up in the same generation with access to the same elements of popular culture. I saw my cousins during the summer at family picnics most of the time when I was a kid, and now I make time to see them when I can. I spend a lot of time with my cousin Tara. I think of her as a best friend and sister, not just a cousin. She’s 1 of 4 kids and I’m an only child. Her sister and I are the same age and get along well too, but we don’t hang out as often as I’d like. Tara and I have similar tastes in music, movies, television shows, art, food, and enjoy mean jokes at the expense of others. She’s a talented artist, a supportive and loving person, and she can always make me laugh or think more clearly about something happening in my life. I will happily tell you that I am blessed with an amazingly diverse and interesting collection of friends and acquaintances. One of my best friends, Pat, has been my friend since we were 14 or 15 years old. He has an uncanny ability to zero-in on what is at the source of the negative feelings I might be feeling about any given situation. Sometimes it’s spooky how well he knows me, but I don’t know what I would do without his friendship. His ability to make me laugh never ceases to amaze me and he is always brutally honest with me when I find myself in crappy situations. He’s usually the first to tell me that I can a) overcome the problem, and b) if I look at a situation a little differently and take full responsibility for my own actions, 9 times out of 10, things will be just fine. I have other amazing friends, like Sarah and Isabelle who have been in my life as long as Pat has, and I have newer friends, like Stephanie who I feel like I’ve known just as long. And, I can’t forget my friend Danielle. She always has a way of making sure I’m taken care of, even if it’s just getting together to talk over dinner. Friends and social occasions really make a difference in my life. Typically, I prefer one-on-one interactions or small gatherings, but every now and then I attend larger events. I have a touch of social anxiety, so that’s where my good friend Booze comes in to play again. Out of 100 days, 31 of my posts were about friends and family.
Film & Television. I’m obsessed with popular culture and have long-loved the escapism of watching movies and TV shows. My preferences for genre tend to be Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction, Black Comedies, Historical Dramas, Mysteries, and Romance, but usually the Paranormal variety. I love vampires, werewolves, demons, ghosts, and other things that go bump in the night. And, I love superheroes. Marvel’s film franchise has provided me with hours and hours of happiness. And, I’ve been known to fall in love with fictional characters. Here’s a short list: Loki, Magneto, Wolverine, Captain America, John Constantine, Elijah Mikaelson, Hannibal Lecter, Francis Dolarhyde, Damon Salvatore, Simon Bellamy, Lucifer, Preacher, Lawrence Talbot, Rupert Giles, Spock, John Mitchell, Captain Ross Poldark, Spike, Doctor Who…well, you get the idea. In fact, if you’ve read my blog before, you’re familiar with my obsessions and may even share some of them. 12 of 100 posts referred to films or TV.
Books. Reading is important to me. I don’t remember a time in my life when books were not available to me. Bookshelves filled with books, trips to the library and used books stores, talking about new books that a favorite writer had written – these were all common occurrences in my childhood. Before I could read, family members and teachers read to me. Once I could read on my own, I read as many books as I could get my hands on. Stories bring a certain richness to my life that I often can’t find anywhere else. My love of stories, books and words led me to become an English major in college. Why? Because I love to read and write (I’ll get to that shortly). I’ll read just about anything, but like my preferences in film and television, my taste in genre and to a certain extent literary fiction, are the speculative genres – Horror, Fantasy, and Science Fiction. I also enjoy nonfiction. Over the past few months, I have been consuming Roxane Gay’s books, An Untamed State, Difficult Women, and Bad Feminist. Her writing speaks to me in so many unexpected ways. Not only does she show me the different parts of myself that would normally seem disconnected, but she also shows me how they relate to each other to make me a whole and complicated person. And, more importantly, she makes me want to be a better writer. Books appeared in at least 12 of my posts.
Writing. Writing has been a part of my life almost as long as reading. Narratives have always been an important part of my life. Whether I was watching a Hitchcock film or favorite Western with my grandfather, an epic Romance or Soap Opera with my grandmother, “Creature Double Feature” or “Dark Shadows” with my mother, “King Fu Theater” or “The Prisoner” with my father, or enjoying the ridiculous premises you’d find in 80s music videos, and later an obsession with foreign language films, I consumed a lot of narratives in and out of books growing up. Stephen King’s books lined the bookshelves in almost every house in my immediate family. A year or so ago, my aunt bequeathed her Stephen King collection to me. I hadn’t read a lot of his books, but I had seen film adaptations of them. In the last few years, I took the time to read Carrie, The Shining, The Gunslinger, Misery, Salem’s Lot, and I just finished listening to Doctor Sleep as an audio book in my car. I tried reading IT at one point, but I couldn’t get past the clown. It’s weird. I can watch the film starring Tim Curry and I can’t wait to see the remake with Bill Skarsgård, but the book scares the shit out of me. One day, I will read that book cover to cover. Today is not that day. As much as I love Stephen King’s fiction, my favorite Stephen King book is On Writing. It is the only craft book that ever brought me to tears. I have two copies. A copy I bought to read while earning my MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University, and the copy I found on my dad’s bookshelves after he died. My dad was a writer. He wrote a lot, but never finished writing his novel. I finished writing my first novel after his death in 2015. I’ve since started writing 2 more novels, and I’ve been writing poetry and short fiction since I was 12. I’ve only had one short story published, but I will have more of my work published, damn it. I owe that much to my dad. And, I can’t talk about writing without talking about Anne Rice. She is probably one of the biggest influences on my writing, and I must give her at least partial credit for why I write about vampires. Her novels gave vocabulary to some of the things I thought and felt as a teenager, and her vampires made me feel more alive than any characters I’d find in the fiction geared toward teenagers at the time. Thanks for all the good books, Anne. Your work gave me the courage to write about taboo subjects in a way that allowed me to talk about the beauty I found in them.
Self-Care. Technically, participating in the #100happydays challenge is an act of self-care itself. Taking the time to pay attention and make note of the things that make you happy really is an enlightening exercise. In doing so, I found myself seeking out more ways to care for myself. I ate healthier foods. I spent more time in the company of people I love. I tried to develop better habits, like exercising regularly, getting enough sleep, and scheduling downtime so that I could do the things that recharge me and fill my brain with creative ideas. Don’t want to take my word for it? Try the #100happydays challenge for yourself and see what I mean. Self-care and self-love are not selfish acts. Doing nice things for yourself, taking care of yourself, enables us to care for the other people in our lives without killing ourselves to do so.
Art. I’ve talked about several art forms/crafts in this post, namely writing and visual media. I’d also include culinary arts in that list. However, I also like to go to museums and galleries to check out the work of mixed media artists – painters, sculptors, ceramicists, collage makers, and several other mediums. During my 100-day challenge, I visited two galleries, CALC in Carlisle, PA, where my son had a drawing in one of the local student art shows, and Metropolis Collective in Mechanicsburg, PA, as well as The Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. In each art space, I got to see some wonderfully beautiful, disturbing, and thought-provoking art. I need to go to more museums, and I need to create more of my own art. Perhaps there are projects I can work on with my son this summer to get us both creating and spending more quality time together.
Michael Fassbender. Laugh if you must, but Michael Fassbender’s work as an actor brings me happiness on a regular basis. I had enjoyed his work in films prior to last summer when I went to see X-men: Apocalypse, but for some reason, his portrayal of Magneto in that film struck a chord with me that caused me to not only revisit X-men: First Class and X-men: Days of Future Past, but I also rewatched Inglourious Bastards, and then began making my way through his entire body of work. I’m particularly fond of Shame, 12 Years a Slave, A Dangerous Method, Jane Eyre, Jonah Hex, Macbeth, Prometheus, Slow West, and I loved him in the TV show “Hex”. His characters make me laugh, cry, think, feel shame, and I’m not going to lie, ignite my desire. He is a beautiful and talented man. Eventually, I will see all his film and television performances. His Magneto breaks my heart, and makes me question right and wrong. After watching 12 Years a Slave, I went through a period of deep meditation and self-reflection based on my confused feelings of repulsion and attraction for his character, Edwin Epps. His Carl Jung left me feeling sexually frustrated, and his Rochester made me realize how many toxic relationships I have been in and examine why I keep returning to those doomed relationships. He is a master of his craft, not just a handsome face.
This was not my first #100happydays challenge rodeo, so I can attest to the fact that most of the claims made by the folks at 100happydays.com are true. Are they true every single day of the challenge? No. I don’t think anyone is happy every single day of their life. However, I will say that by taking the time to notice the things that do make me happy, I have a better understanding of my own happiness (or lack of happiness). I understand that happiness is a choice, and we are responsible for creating it for ourselves. And, like me, you might be surprised to find that happiness is all around us. All we need to do is take inventory and remind ourselves that happiness is not completely out of reach. In fact, it may be closer than you think.
So, you know how yesterday I mentioned that whole feeling of pastiche I experienced while watching Misfits (or something to that effect), well, if you know me at all (or bothered to read my blog), you know I have a special place in my heart for the mentally disturbed, the outsiders, the creepy kids, weirdos, the unstable…well, you get the idea. Some of my favorite fictional characters are monsters who have a sad, or at the very least pitiable backstory. This didn’t happen by chance. I’m not going to delve too deeply into this personality quirk of mine, but I will say three things:
My father was a mental health professional and I respected the work he did.
As a child, I was led to believe that my differences would make me difficult to love.
I fell in love with a schizophrenic punk rock music journalist and human rights activist while studying abroad in the UK as a college student (who, by the way, didn’t find me difficult to love).
I couldn’t help but be drawn to the attractive, overtly-nerdy, somewhat off-putting, yet well-meaning young man with the creepy stare. Simon Bellamy, played by Welsh actor Iwan Rheon, is a first-class weirdo of the most endearing kind. Yes, he has the potential of becoming a psychopath, but instead he uses his knowledge of Science Fiction and Fantasy films and comics, his understanding of how to cover up a murder, and his geeky sex appeal to win the love of a girl. I mean, look at him, he is super-fucking-adorkable.
ATTENTION: UNADULTERATED #FANGIRLING AHEAD
OH, AND SPOILERS
LOTS AND LOTS OF SPOILERS
SO MANY SPOILERS
At the beginning of the series, when we slowly get to know each character and why they have been assigned community service, the strange quiet boy appears to have the most depth. Nathan Young, the self-centered prick who has some of the best lines of dialog, has an almost psychopathic preoccupation with making fun of Simon. Nathan is so self-absorbed that he often forgets other people’s names, including the people he spends every day with doing community service.
I mean, honestly, nothing is sacred to Nathan, but he seems to zero in on Simon, which eventually, I believe, is one of the reasons he steps out of his comfort zone of shyness. He has no choice but to defend himself against the onslaught of name calling.
We soon discover that Simon is very smart. To be fair, his nerdy tendencies lead us to assume that about him, and like most weird kids, his intellect has led him down some culturally-specific paths. He’s well versed in genre fiction (Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy) in the form of films and comic books. When weird things start happening, he usually has an answer that he pulls from one of these areas of interest.
Simon is not only a great resource for fun facts about monsters and super heroes, but he also has an uncanny ability to figure out how to get away with murder. As if, he’s been planning quite a few. I mean, he did attempt arson which is why he’s doing community service, and you get the sense that he’s been picked on a lot. So much so, that he really has a hard time trusting people.
He not only provides insight into how to dispose of the first probation worker and the kid with the cap, but he also ends up killing the second probation worker in order to protect himself and his fellow Misfits, who he considers his only friends in the world, from being connected to the first murders.
The second probation worker, Sally, was engaged to the first probation worker, Tony. She’s convinced that the weird kids doing community service have something to do with his disappearance. But, she has no proof. She observes them individually, and then focuses on Simon, whom she believes will rat out the others. She begins by stalking/befriending him online under an alias, and then seduces him in an attempt to learn more about Tony’s whereabouts.
She manipulates an awkward lonely boy with promises of affection and then is surprised that he gets upset when he learns the truth.
Not only does he end up killing her accidentally while fighting to get his cell phone with incriminating evidence from her, but he conceals the crime by hiding her body in a freezer at the community center.
He visits the freezer almost daily to spend time with her dead body. You know, to touch her, and look at her, and eat pizza while hanging out alone with her corpse. Now we’re in potential necrophilia territory. I told you he was weird. Without his true calling, Simon could have easily become a serial killer.
At this point in the series, Simon is still a virgin, so we know very little about his sexual preferences beyond very weird things that come up at inopportune moments. Like, when we discover Alisha’s power, which as I mentioned yesterday, is really more of a curse. When people touch her they have an uncontrollable desire to have sex with her, and most people say extremely disturbing things in reference to what they’d like to do to her.
Okay, he had me at “I tried to burn someone’s house down,” but he lost me at golden showers. Of course, he won me back when he was actually in the shower.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Okay, we can stay right here for another moment or two.
A…N…D…moving on.
Before we can get back to that super sexy shower scene (and I promise you, we will), Simon has to go through some other harrowing adventures that would probably make a normal person lose their mind. But, since Simon is already at the questionable end of the sanity spectrum, he’s able to find humor in really dark situations and uses kindness and intellect more often than force to win out over terrible circumstances. And, he seems to have better control over his ability than anyone else. Which makes the superhero name Nathan assigns him really unfair.
Aside from the fact that Simon’s destiny is leading him to become a hero, there are lots of reason to like him even if creepy cute guys aren’t your cup of tea. Here’s a short list:
He likes to dance, but especially after someone spikes his beer with MDMA.
His eyes are big and dreamy and somewhat reminiscent of Peter Lorre‘s.
Even Nathan thinks he has…something.
He’s kind to the mentally ill. Even when they’re scary-as-fuck shape-shifting stalkers. (That sentence right there, that makes you want to watch the show. Right?)
Scary-as-fuck shape-shifting stalkers seems like a good place to jump back into Simon’s character arc. As to be expected with well-developed shows that slowly unveil their secrets to us, each episode we get to know Simon a little better and begin to understand where his darkness is coming from. For instance, in the first episode he blurts out why he’s been assigned community service. He tried to burn someone’s house down. Later, he confides to Sally the probation worker that it was his neighbor’s house. He was upset because the boy who lived in the house stopped being friends with Simon once they got to school. This boy not only denounced their friendship, but participated in the cruelty Simon experienced at school for being an outsider. Simon’s last straw was being humiliated after turning up at a club thinking he’d been invited by his neighbor, but soon learns he received the text message by mistake. With no apology from his ex-friend, Simon leaves the club, and apparently decided arson would solve his problems. A few episodes later, we learn that after committing arson, (which he didn’t actually succeed in doing), he was sent to a hospital for psychiatric observation. While at the hospital Simon acquires an admirer.
As it turns out, Lucy was also effected by the storm, and now she’s a shapeshifter. When she sees Simon at the community center she’s disappointed that he doesn’t wish to rekindle their friendship. She becomes jealous of his new friends and tries to sabotage his relationships, going so far as to threaten to turn him into the police for killing his probation worker(s). One of the first things Lucy does to disrupt the circle of friends is to transform into Alisha who is dating Curtis, and give Simon a surprise blowjob. Simon’s O-face is adorable.
Of course, Simon doesn’t know it’s Lucy pretending to be Alisha, and he assumes Alisha is interested in him. Later, when he approaches the real Alisha and awkwardly asks her out on a date, she laughs in his face. Confused and hurt, he demands to know why she’s toying with his emotions.
Soon, the group realizes something is wrong. Of course, Simon immediately guesses that Lucy is a shapeshifter, so they have to devise a way of knowing if they’re talking to her or each other.
After Simon is violated and mislead to believe that Alisha finds him sexually attractive, she ends up meeting a future version of him and can’t help falling in love. Okay, at first she falls in lust.
See? I promised we’d get back to that shower scene. It is here when things get confusing for Alisha. I mean, the Simon that she knows is hands down one hell of an adorable guy, but this Simon? Hot damn! This Simon is sexy, cool, and mysterious. He can travel through time, and he dresses and acts like a super hero. When you find out why he does all of this, it may just break your heart.
Alisha isn’t immediately smitten, but she is intrigued by the fact that he can touch her without being effected by her power. No one has touched her since the storm without wanting to have sex with her. So, even though she’s been dating Curtis, it hasn’t been the most satisfying relationship. She begins to wonder if she’ll ever be able to have a normal relationship. I’m not gonna lie, I really wanted Alisha to get together with Future Simon. If only to live vicariously through her amazingly good stroke of luck.
When she meets Future Simon, he makes her swear not to tell anyone his secret. And, he tells her that eventually they will fall in love with each other. But, she’ll have to be patient with Present Simon, because he’s not quite ready.
While she’s trying to figure out how to deal with the secret, she realizes that she does have feelings for Future Simon and since he already has feelings for her, things heat up pretty quickly.
It’s amazing what a little confidence and a slightly different hairstyle can do for a guy. Not to mention a little sexual experience.
And, he knows the way to a girl’s heart.
So, while Alisha is dating Future Simon, Present Simon meets a nice girl with an overly protective father. She’s immediately attracted to him and they decide to lose their virginity to each other.
But, they don’t have any dates after that night, because it turns out Jessica’s dad has been killing everyone who shows an interest in his little girl. It’s a classic love story. Invisible boy meets pretty girl, and pretty girl’s homicidal maniac father tries to stab him to death. Oddly enough, Alisha is jealous of Jessica, especially when she realizes Present Simon has lost his virginity to her. But, she’s still seeing this guy.
Who tells her to fall in love with this guy (who’s listening to The Killing Moon by Echo & the Bunnymen in case you were wondering).
So that he can become this guy.
Confused? Don’t be.
All you need to know is that these two make a beautiful couple. Even when he has feelings of inadequacy compared to his future self who is apparently better in bed. But, as we all know, practice makes perfect.
Lots and lots of practice.
And, they have some pretty great dates as well, it doesn’t take long before they are in love. Sweet, sweet interracial love.
And, they continue to have some dangerous adventures along the way.
Sometimes the stories we feel closest to and enjoy the most are the ones that create a feeling of pastiche in our hearts and minds. A cluster of false memories in which we long for an imagined past that reminds us of who we wished we’d become. Who we wished we had known, friends and lovers that well-developed fictional characters make us crave. Through them we revisit our own feelings — real or imagined — of the highs and lows in life. And, if those characters happen to have supernatural abilities they can inspire feelings of longing we can’t even explain. Alongside the lust, love, pity, fear, and loss we feel for them, there’s this added dimension of wishing we could become invisible, immortal, turn back time, or simply read other people’s thoughts. Any of us who have had the experience of being an outsider can relate to the overwhelming desire to be accepted, even if it’s by a group of misfits like you.
I’ve been dying to talk about the BBC television show, Misfits, which is currently streaming on Hulu. My desire to talk about the show is two-fold: First, the show itself is a wonderful SFF dark comedy about young adults facing unexpected complications in an already complicated time of their lives. And second, I’m going to discuss a very fuckable fictional character, Simon Bellamy (stay tuned, post coming tomorrow).
If you haven’t watched the show, I highly recommend it, because it has a lot going for it. It’s darkly funny and chock full of dick jokes, and oddly enough commentary on the spectrum of sexuality and gender politics. It’s necessarily violent, and people die. Violently. It has a wonderfully diverse cast of young actors you will grow to love. At the heart of this SFF show about young adults gaining superpowers from a freak storm, there’s a love story. Several love stories. And most importantly, an interracial love story.
ATTENTION: SPOILERS AHEAD
The show opens with a group of young people showing up for their first day of community service. They don’t know each other, and at first glance, you can tell that they all lead very different lives. Obviously, none of them want to be there, but each of them has committed some offense and now must work off their sentences by picking up trash, scrubbing graffiti off the walls of the community center that acts as their home base, painting benches, and participating in other community events like dances for the elderly, and art therapy for the mentally ill, while wearing orange jumpsuits.
We begin to get a picture of their personalities as they complain about being forced to do community service, show disrespect for their parole worker and each other. Curtis, an athletic dark-skinned guy complains about having to work with the other people, saying over and over that he shouldn’t even be there. He thinks he’s better than the rest of them. Kelly is a Class-A Chav with an attitude and a taste for violence. Initially, she doesn’t seem especially smart, but turns out to be an excellent problem solver and survivor. And, aside from Simon, she ended up being my favorite character.
Alisha is a pretty light-skinned black girl who uses her good looks to manipulate people and get what she wants. However, she was unable to talk her way out of a drink driving stop when she fails the breathalyzer. She is desperate for attention and uses sexuality in place of personality until people start treating her with kindness and respect. Nathan is a hysterically funny and morally corrupt prick who ends up making us feel a lot of sympathy and pity. He’s a wanker with a heart of gold. And then there’s Simon. A painfully shy, comic book reading nerdy boy with his shirts buttoned all the way up to the neck. He’s cute and delightfully creepy in his social awkwardness that borders of psychopathic behavior. Initially, we don’t know why any of them is there, but slowly, their stories unfold.
On their first day, a freak storm comes out of nowhere, dropping hailstones the size of soccer balls that are heavy enough to cave in a car roof and break through pavement. Their probation worker, Tony, yells for them to take cover and they run toward the community center for shelter. Before he can unlock the door, each of them is hit by lightning and knocked silly. At least, five of the young people and Tony are hit. Another young offender misses the storm, because he’s hiding out in the men’s room smoking a joint. He stomped off after getting paint on his cap, and never came back to finish his assigned task.
Kelly is the first to notice that she’s developed a power. A few weird things happened the night before, but now she’s certain something is different. She can overhear what people are thinking. And, like Sookie Stackhouse, she realizes that people are twisted and disgusting, and you really don’t want to know what most of them are thinking. Especially their thoughts about you.
The next day they show up at the community center and the kid with the cap isn’t there. Their all a bit too self-absorbed and freaked out by the storm to even really notice that he’s missing. While getting ready for the day, Simon discovers his ability in the locker room. Ironically, the one that everyone tends to ignore is able to turn invisible. No one notices him disappear and we get our first peek at the anger and frustration bubbling beneath Simon’s quiet surface.
Tony gives them their assignment for the day. No one notices that Simon is missing, but he eventually becomes visible again and joins the others outside. While cleaning graffiti off a wall, Kelly asks if anyone else is experiencing anything weird since the storm. Nathan makes fun of her, but Simon speaks up and says that he was able to turn invisible. No one believes him either.
At some point, someone thinks the wrong thing about Kelly and she storms off, overwhelmed by her feelings and her fears about this new ability. Whiles she’s off having a smoke and a good cry, we soon realize that the parole worker has also been affected by the storm. He developed an uncontrollable need for violence that looks a lot more like the Rage Virus in 28 Days Later rather than the Hulk wanting to smash. Running for her life, Kelly seeks the safety of the community center and tries to warn the others. She’s terrified and locks the door behind her, but none of them believe her. Nathan is a smart ass know-it-all, and opens the door just as Tony approaches and he kills Kelly by hitting her over the head with a sharp-edged piece of metal.
That’s when Curtis discovers his power. The emotional overload of seeing Kelly murdered triggers his power, and he is able to turn back time and warn them about Tony. He still gets in the building, but Kelly has enough time to hit him over the head with a paint bucket. Repeatedly. Tony’s murder was admittedly self-defense, but Kelly knows that no one will believe them based on their records. In the process of figuring out what to do, they find the kid with the cap stuffed into one of the lockers. Now they have two dead bodies to deal with, and while everyone is freaking out, Simon calmly says, “No body, no crime.”
Bound together by a freak supernatural event and murder, they hide the bodies and prepare for whatever happens next. Amazingly enough, they deal with the unusual circumstances pretty well, and even manage to laugh at themselves and each other. Of course, we soon discover that their problems are only just beginning. Alisha’s power is more of a curse than an ability, and we don’t discover Nathan’s until we’re well into the first season.
After burying Tony, their new probation worker, Sally, arrives and suspects them of killing her co-worker and fiance. It is through this character’s interactions with Simon that we begin to see the darker sides of him, but also develop an emotional connection with him that makes him one of the most interesting characters. Despite his creepy good looks and spooky intelligence, he has the best character arc in the series. He goes through a personality transformation that made me want to pay closer attention to the beautiful Welsh actor who plays Simon Bellamy, Iwan Rheon. Apparently, I need to start watching Game of Thrones again.
As the series progresses, we get to see how these supernatural abilities change each character and the society around them. The characters experience a variety of outcomes at the extreme end of the consequences spectrum based on the choices they make out of selfishness, for the sake of love, or the belief that they’re helping others. The show is a lot of fun to watch, but the it also gives you some tasty food for thought. I dare you to watch only one episode. I bet you can’t.
The other day, while looking through some of my folders of old writing and abandoned projects, I stumbled across an essay I wrote back in May 2015 for my Readings in the Genre: Contemporary Mysteries course at Seton Hill University as part of my MFA in Writing Popular Fiction program. Of late, I’ve used this blog as a way of kick starting myself into writing on a more regular basis; something I struggle with on an almost pathological level. My friends will tell you that I’m writing all the time. This year, since February I have written a total of 27 blog posts about fictional characters I find sexually appealing, and since around May, I’ve written over 120 haiku poems. I’ve drafted chapters in a novel I’m writing, and I’ve written a few short pieces of fiction here and there. So yeah, I guess I have been writing. But, I don’t feel like I’m writing enough.
And, although I had a short story published in an anthology back in November 2014, I haven’t been able to sell my first novel, Invisible Chains, acquire an agent, or get any other bites on the poetry I’ve been submitting. I currently have poetry out to three publishers and I’ll be submitting three short stories within the next month to different publishers. I’m going to participate in NaNoWriMo 2016 in the hopes of completing that second novel I mentioned, A Marriage Made in Hell. I WILL finish the first draft of Marriage by November 30, come Hell of high water.
Anyway, if you’re interested in reading some of my writing that doesn’t involve lewd comments about my favorite fictions characters, read on…
Battling Our Demons: Fighting the Influence of Evil in Charlaine Harris’s Dead Until Dark and Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
In his famous study on human behavior, Beyond Good and Evil, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche warns us to take care to not be influenced by the intrinsic and often seductive nature of darkness when confronting our demons. He proposes, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you” (Section 146). Sage advice, but is it possible to confront Evil and not be somehow changed by it? Can you keep company with monsters without becoming like them? This is the dilemma faced by both Sookie Stackhouse in Charlaine Harris’s Dead Until Dark and Lisbeth Salander in Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Each character must face her demons. Tempted as they may be, each character still manages to avoid becoming Evil.
Evil can be a very subjective concept. Each of us defines it a little differently based on our own personal experiences, but we can usually agree on the difference between “right” and “wrong.” The mystery genre uses this dichotomy as one of its central themes or plot points, and while an amateur sleuth or police inspector may be driven to solve a crime in order to uphold the law, at the heart of most mysteries is the desire for Good to win out over Evil. “Crime fiction in general, and detective fiction in particular, is about confronting and taming the monstrous. It is a literature of containment, a narrative that ‘makes safe’” (Plain 3). The battle between Good and Evil has been fought in fiction since before written communication. In the oral tradition, people told tales of epic battles between men and monsters – Beowulf, The Epic of Gilgamesh. With the advent of writing, the popularity of monster tales never waned – The Odyssey, The Iliad, and The Inferno. Monsters have always been with us. They are creatures of myth and legend, and they often stand in as metaphors for the less palatable human behaviors and emotions. Judith Halberstam suggests in her book, Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters that even though our desire for stories about monsters and villains never seems to fade, the appearance of those monsters evolves to meet cultural needs. She says, “The body that scares and appalls changes over time, as do the individual characteristics that add up to monstrosity, as do the preferred interpretations of monstrosity” (8). Monsters change as our society changes, and the monsters of our current fiction, which is especially true in the mystery genre, tend to be humans more so than the beasts of Homer and Dante’s creations.
Like Sookie and Lisbeth, we sometimes find ourselves in less than ideal situations and come face to face with monsters. For some of us, the monsters we must face are people we thought we could trust who later betray us, or worse, cause physical as well as psychological damage in the form of abuse, rape, and ultimately murder. In her essay, “Vivid Villains,” Sandra Scoppettone tells us that “the nature of the villain, and how absorbing a character he or she is, will affect the flavor of the whole rest of the story” (86). The nature of the villain should definitely determine the nature of the protagonist. Whether we’re talking about a serial killer, someone seeking revenge, or jilted lover who commits a crime of passion, as we gain a better understanding of human psychology, we also understand that we are the monsters represented in the fiction we read. Darkness lurks within all of us, but for most people, it will continue to lie dormant until some violent act or traumatic experience awakens the beast within. The real challenge then for any protagonist facing such a worthy opponent, as Nietzsche warns, is to avoid becoming a monster. Sookie and Lisbeth are sexualized others who both fall victim to violence at the hands of human monsters.
“Forty-six percent of women in Sweden have been subjected to violence by a man” (Larsson 139). In his novel The Girl with Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson wishes to make it very clear to his reader that violence against women is a cultural reality in Sweden, and to most Swedish women, much like his protagonist, Lisbeth Salander, the threat of violence, sexual or otherwise, is an expectation if not an inevitability. Lisbeth is a ward of the state and becomes the victim of rape at the hands of a man assigned to her case. She is an adult, but due to her designation based on a history of aberrant behavior as a youth, she is treated like a child, mentally deficient, and then taken advantage of due to her abuser’s belief that she is somehow stupid. While Lisbeth has experienced quite a bit of emotional and psychological trauma, some of which is not revealed to us, she is far from stupid, and definitely not mentally ill. In fact, she is uncannily smart and more than capable of looking out for herself, except at the hands of the sadistic monster Advokat Nils Bjurman. Over the course of several meetings, Bjurman makes it very clear to Salander that she is at his mercy if she would like access to her bank accounts. Each encounter with Bjurman becomes more and more inappropriate until he forces Salander to perform oral sex on him in his office. Larsson reinforces his point about the violent nature of Swedish society by making Salander another statistic. “In her world, this was the natural order of things. As a girl she was legal prey, especially if she was dressed in a worn black leather jacket and had pierced eyebrows, tattoos, and zero social status” (249). Later, when Salander seeks revenge for this assault, Bjurman restrains and rapes her at his apartment. It is this second act of violence that pushes her to her limits and flips a switch that begins her own transformation. She falls prey to the desire to do monstrous things herself. “Bjurman felt cold terror piercing his chest and lost his composure. He tugged at his handcuffs…He could do nothing to resist when Salander bent over and placed the anal plug between his buttocks” (282). Salander reverses the tables on Bjurman. She assaults and humiliates him much like he did to her. She attempts to restore balance through an act of revenge, pushing her closer to the edge of the abyss. Lisbeth unleashes her darkness to reclaim her power and walks a fine line that could easily transform her into a monster worse than Bjurman. She threatens Bjurman with blackmail and bodily harm to prevent him from hurting her again—an act of self-preservation. By marking him, she hopes to save other women from becoming his victims. Justice is served.
On the surface, Sookie Stackhouse and Lisbeth Salander couldn’t be more different as protagonists go, but when you take a closer look at these two strong female characters, you’ll begin to notice some commonalities. First, they are both amateur sleuths with unique abilities that allow them to have access to information others aren’t privy to in the narrative. Salander’s abilities are half-heartedly explained through the eyes of Salander’s lover, Mikael Blomkvist, who assumes that the young hacker has a form of Asperger’s. Since Sookie’s world has paranormal elements, she has the benefit of being able to hear other people’s thoughts. Calling this ability a benefit is debatable, as Sookie herself sees it as a handicap.
Second, both women often find themselves at the mercy of men who threaten them with violence. Or, at the very least, objectify them sexually. Although they come from very different cultural backgrounds, they both have “zero social status” (249) in the economy of sexuality and gender equality. In Dead Until Dark, a serial killer targets young women who seek out vampires as sexual partners. Sookie not only shares this in common with the victims, but she also fits the profile with her high school education and minimum wage job.
Monsters exist in Sookie’s world – vampires, weres, and shifters – all of which can be quite dangerous. In fact, her boyfriend is a vampire. Despite the fact that there is trend in fiction romanticizing relationships between vampires and humans, vampires are still monsters. Even if they don’t kill you outright, there is always the chance that things might get out of hand, and a moment of passion may end with the human’s funeral. Even if the vampire poses no direct threat to his partner, the secret lives of vampires seem to be violent by nature – ancient enemies, unresolved love affairs, power struggles with other supernatural beings. All of this adds up to danger for any human who meddles in the affairs of monsters, much less falls in love with them.
Sookie could literally become a monster if she continues to drink vampire blood. Bill Compton gives Sookie his blood several times to speed up the healing process. But when Sookie is recovering in the hospital after her encounter with the serial killer, she refuses to accept Bill’s blood for fear of losing her human qualities. “‘I’ll heal you,’ he offered. ‘Let me give you some blood.’ I remembered the way my hair had lightened, remembered that I was almost twice as strong as I’d ever been. I shook my head” (Harris 310). Sookie resists the urge to become monstrous by refusing to act like one. Sookie reclaims her power by maintaining her humanness.
Sookie and Lisbeth are victims of violent crimes. Both women fight back to protect themselves. They are survivors and each play an important role in vanquishing the monster, or at the very least, identifying the villain. They both realize there are too many villains in the world to fight. Even though they have temporarily restored the balance in their worlds, they know the fight between Good and Evil will continue. Not only externally, but internally as well. Each time you gaze into the abyss, the abyss changes you. So, to answer my earlier question, is it possible to associate with monsters and not become Evil? Yes, but only if you remain vigilant to protect your humanity, and in Salander’s case, the humanity of others.
Works Cited
Halberstam, Judith. Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995. Print.
Harris, Charlaine. Dead Until Dark. New York: Ace Books, 2009. Print
Larsson, Stieg. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. New York: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2009. Print.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good & Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future. New York: Vintage Books Edition, 1989. Print.
Plain, Gill. Twentieth Century Crime Fiction: Gender, Sexuality and the Body. New York: Routledge, 2014. Kindle.
Scoppetone, Sandra. “Vivid Villains.” Writing Mysteries: A Handbook by the Mystery Writers of America. Ed. Sue Grafton. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 2002. 86-90. Print.
On Monday I wrote about my fondness for Mr. Spock while I was growing up, and mentioned that I was still waiting for a dark-haired stranger from far away to whisk me off on an adventure through outer space. Well, Mr. Spock isn’t the only alien welcome to share my heart and bed. The emotionally complicated Vulcan will always remind me to be proud of who I am and never allow anyone to tell me I’m less of a person simply because of my mixed ethnicity. Difference makes us interesting. Being different teaches us to be strong. Embracing our differences gives us the power to do anything we set our minds to. So, once again, thank you Mr. Spock for making me want to be a better human.
While I was watching Star Trek and daydreaming about joining Star Fleet Academy and smooching Mr. Spock, I was also watching public television and developing a life-long love of the BBC. I think I mentioned in one of my previous posts that I would sometimes pretend to be sick so I could get home early from school to catch a glimpse of another of my favorite aliens. An alien with a space ship that functions as a time machine. Or is it the other way around? Either way, it’s bigger on the inside and despite the fact that its chameleon circuit is broken, the TARDIS can still take you just about anywhere you wish to go in space and time.
February 24: Doctor Who
The Doctor cosplaying the Doctor.
I have a confession to make. I’ve been putting off writing this post because I’m worried that I’ll never be able to say all the things I want to say about this fan-fucking-tastic fictional character who has been a part of my life since I was a girl. When I was younger the only people who talked about Doctor Who were nerds and weirdos, and since they were usually male, they didn’t think I had anything to say on the subject of regenerating Time Lords with an unusual dress sense. So, for most of my life I was a closeted Doctor Who fan.
Guess what? I’m out of the closet. Fuck you, misogynistic losers. I’m here to talk about the Doctor!
Which Doctor? Well, you never forget your first Doctor, and mine was the fourth. Tom Baker traveled the universe from 1974 – 81. I loved him so much that I never really got attached to the actors who came after him, and pretty much ignored the sixth through eighth regenerations. Does that make me less of a Whovian? You can think whatever you like, but most fans of the show have their favorite(s) and don’t need to apologize about liking one over another. Until 2005, I loved only one Doctor.
Look at that face. Handsome, yet a bit goofy. Gorgeous curly hair. A big toothy grin. And those clothes are simultaneously scholarly and hedonistic. He kind of looks like an over-educated hobo.
As a kid he reminded me of a live-action cartoon character. He’s an adult with a unique skill-set and an unwillingness to grow up. And he wears many hats. He’s an astronaut. A time traveler. A scientist. A detective. A gentleman of education and leisure. An advocate for people’s rights, no matter what planet they live on. An anarchist. A trouble-maker. A charmer. A hero. A friend. And with each regeneration, his personality becomes a bit more complex and interesting.
In 2005, something wonderful happened. The BBC brought Doctor Who back to our living rooms, gave it a bigger budget, and made the character much darker than I ever remembered.
This Doctor is scary.
And his companions are pretty damn hot.
Hi. I’m Jack. Who’s up for a threesome?
Should the companion be sexier than the Doctor?
Rose is an interesting young woman in need of adventure. She’s bored with her daily routine. Even though she loves her mum and best friend Mickey, something is missing from her life. When she meets the Doctor it doesn’t take long to convince her to go traveling through space and time. Shortly after her adventures with the Doctor begin, she meets one of the most fuckable fictional characters of all time, Captain Jack Harkness.
Okay, I have to stop talking about Jack. For now.
The ninth Doctor had only one season before he regenerated. But in that short amount of time a lot happened, and some of my favorite episodes were created. The first Christmas episode of the 2005 reboot, “The Unquiet Dead”, features Charles Dickens and some very scary aliens. Nothing says Christmas like a good ghost story. It is one of my all time favorite episodes, because it amplified the element of horror in an already well-established science fiction landscape. And I’ve always believed that science fiction and fantasy need a good dose of horror to make them even more compelling.
Number 9. Number 9. Number 9.
I really enjoyed watching the episodes with the ninth Doctor, but the fourth Doctor was still my favorite. And then came the tenth Doctor.
I already mentioned how I feel about David Tennant. It doesn’t matter how many times I watch the episodes he appears in, my heart always flutters when he appears on screen. He quickly became my favorite Doctor.
Rockabilly Doctor Who
Much like the fourth Doctor, he’s handsome and little goofy. His dress sense is a bit more respectable since he’s essentially wearing a skin-tight pinstripe suit that is reminiscent of something between Rockabilly and 1940’s Hollywood gangster. He’s funny, irreverent, intelligent in a way that makes you realize that he’s irritated if you aren’t keeping up, but also weirdly forgetful and scatter-brained. As always, he’s a hero, and he inherited the scariness of the ninth Doctor and takes it up a few notches.
And those glasses. I often make passes at Doctors who wear glasses. Instant sex appeal. What can I say, I like geeky science-obsessed types. You have to admit, he really is adorable. He sticks his tongue out when he’s concentrating really hard, and from time to time, he licks things to figure out what they are. Oh, and kissing. He likes kissing. A lot. It’s one of the few things that distracts him to the point of confusion.
When he isn’t making out with Earth women, he’s usually saving the universe.
Or flirting with famous playwrights.
Or possibly having a nerdgasm over a new kind of technology he’s never seen before.
When things get crazy, the best place to be is at his side.
But whatever you do, don’t piss him off.
Of course, if you’re a sassy bad-ass lady you can push his buttons to your heart’s delight.
The tenth Doctor has his fair share of companions. All of which are wonderful characters who compliment his eccentricities with just the right amount of love, friendship, and a willingness to trust a madman in a blue box.
And then there’s Donna Knoble.
Get in the box!
Speaking of gingers…
David Tennant manned the TARDIS from 2005-10, and when it was his turn to regenerate (um, the second time) I mourned the loss for nearly a year. I was so upset that I refused to watch any of the new episodes with his replacement.
But then one day a friend convinced me to give the new Doctor a chance.
The eleventh Doctor, Matt Smith, made me laugh and helped dry my tears. He was funny, but in different ways from David Tennant. The tenth Doctor was cool and sexy, but Matt Smith somehow managed to make geekiness sexy in a way that I never thought possible.
Befuddled, easily embarrassed, a bit narcissistic, and deeply loyal to the people he cares about, he makes all things uncool seem super cool.
Remember what I said about glasses? Yep. Men become instantly more attractive when they put on a pair of specs. Weird hats are cool too.
You know what else is cool? Just about everything this Doctor does. Like helping his artistic friends who suffer from crippling depression see the value of their creations.
But seriously, though.
I will never not cry while watching this scene.
Or the intimate relationship he has with his time machine that places us somewhere in the Uncanny Valley.
Anthropomorphic time machines create unsettling sexual tension for Time Lords.
Or the fact that he falls in love with and marries a psychotic archaeologist who happens to be the daughter of his companions in a weird wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey plot twist. SPOILERS, SWEETIE!
Fuck Nazis!
Best. Companion. EVAH!
Okay, these companions are pretty freaking fantastic, too.
Mum and Dad
Oh, alright. These companions aren’t too shabby either.
And don’t even get me started about Mark Sheppard.
Dr. River Song (Melody Pond) appears unexpectedly, but not randomly throughout the Doctor’s timeline, and is always full of surprises. Like when she meets the tenth Doctor.
Would kissing the tenth Doctor count as adultery?
But the eleventh Doctor is her Doctor.
On your wedding day, the greatest gift a bride can receive is the name of her groom.
And this. This. I can’t even. MORE SPOILERS, SWEETIE!
It’s true. I totally have the hots for the twelfth Doctor.
But before I start talking about the twelfth Doctor, let’s talk a little bit about one of my favorite days ever. “The Day of the Doctor.” Not one, not two, but three Doctors in one story line, and a glimpse at the Time War on Gallifrey. Shut the front door! We meet the War Doctor and witness his actions the day he stole the TARDIS. And, the legend begins. Or ends?
Back to the fact that the War Doctor is joined by ten and eleven in this feature-length episode I got to see in a MOVIE THEATER! It was like a mini Doctor Who convention, and I will cherish that memory forever. This episode was a love letter to fans all over the globe to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who.
I have a lot of favorite scenes in this episode, but the tenth Doctor’s reaction to the new interior of the TARDIS is priceless.
His expression reminds me of something…
Ten and eleven showed off a bit more to remind us just how cool they are.
Oh, and then there was this thing that made everyone get a little choked up.
And even this guy showed up.
Let’s talk about this guy.
A lot of people were skeptical about Peter Capaldi’s ability to man the TARDIS, but this wasn’t his first time at the Doctor Who Rodeo.
I’m the fucking Doctor.
Some people were upset about the fact that he wasn’t as young as 10 and 11.
The thing about older men is that they used to be young men. If you’re lucky, they mature into handsome devils like this one.
Okay, perhaps he did seem a bit senile after his regeneration.
But all of the Doctors go through a period of confusion as they readjust to their new bodies and personality quirks.
Some are just a bit funnier than others.
Seriously, this Doctor is totally whacked out. But, as funny and cranky as he is, he also has some good insight and wisdom that comes with age. As an older Doctor, he’s still energetic and fun and interesting, but he’s a little darker. A little more jaded. And seems hesitant to grow too attached to people. He makes it clear that he is not like the eleventh Doctor. A fact that makes Clara a bit unhappy. Unsettled.
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The twelfth Doctor is a bit more serious. He seems to be doing a lot of quiet reflection. At times he seems more alien than human as we’ve often come to perceive him.
Maybe he is old enough to be her father, but still sexy.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he observes people a bit more closely. He’s watching. Gathering data.
I love a man of science.
He’s more of an introvert.
Socializing is overrated.
The point is, I love this Doctor just as much as I’ve loved the others. Sometimes a bit more, because I know how the other personalities and experiences have shaped him. It’s appropriate for him to be an older man. After all the things he’s seen and felt, perhaps we need to listen to his wisdom and think about where we’re going in our own lives. Besides, as I get older, older men seem even more attractive now than they did when I was having inappropriate thoughts about them when I was still jailbait. Now there’s no harm in having inappropriate thoughts about them.
I’m speechless, too, River.
Loving a fictional character with many faces and personality quirks has been exciting and rewarding. I’ve learned that I don’t have one particular type when it comes to appearance, but no matter what face the Doctor is wearing (so far), I fall in love with him time and time again. It’s his values and beliefs and intelligence and heroism and dark sense of humor that make him so attractive. So positively fuckable. And while each of the five actors I’ve mentioned (six if you count the War Doctor) is uniquely attractive in his own way, it’s the character that makes me weak in the knees and giggle like a school girl and cry like a baby. Doctor Who has been setting the bar for me since I was in elementary school. If I’m lucky, some day, I’ll meet a man half as amazing as he is. He doesn’t even need to own a TARDIS. But it would help if he had a sonic screwdriver and maybe a nice suit.
Girl Meets Monster 
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