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katelynrushe26 · 4 years

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Rereading “Remnants”

I want to start this review by adding to an idea from my Everworld review. I speculated that the Scholastic Corporation had been afraid to promote a young adult book series from the late 90's called Everworld, due to it being written by the same authors as Animorphs but possibly being too mature for the same audience. This seems all the more evident now that I've reacquainted myself with Remnants, a third book series that K.A. Applegate and Michael Grant also wrote together. The beginning of every Remnants book features a list of the pair's other Scholastic titles, and while that list includes Animorphs, it doesn't include Everworld.

This could be forgivable, since Remnants was also geared towards a younger audience than Everworld, but the final Everworld book actually promoted Remnants. The finales of both Animorphs and Everworld presented a full-page ad and a chapter-long excerpt from the first Remnants book, and yet only one of them got a shoutout in return when Remnants came out. I still can't say anything for certain, but this one-way "cross promotion" really suggests that Scholastic wanted readers to forget Everworld and embrace Remnants as "the other K.A. Applegate series" instead.

This is ironic for two reasons. The first is that despite its lack of adult content like swearing, sexuality, and alcoholism, Remnants is actually way darker than Everworld in tone. Multiple gruesome character deaths occur in almost every book, and most of the proceedings have a bleak, humorless, mean-spirited vibe to them. The second reason is that despite all of this favorable treatment from its publisher, Remnants really didn't fare much better than Everworld. It only ran for about two years with fourteen books, fell into obscurity afterwards, and has very little information about it available today.

And as someone who tried reading it once before as a teen but didn't get halfway through the series, I have a pretty good idea why.

Remnants tells the story of eighty humans who escape from Earth right before an asteroid destroys the planet. After five hundred years in hibernation, they wake to find they've landed aboard Mother, a deserted alien spaceship that can simulate any environment. The catch is that Mother currently has no operator, and three hostile alien species are fighting the humans to seize control of it. Totally unarmed, the humans have to dodge perils at every turn as they wander the ship's patchwork of environments in search of the command bridge.

At least that's what the first half of Remnants is about. The second half centers around the humans, now more or less in control of Mother, rediscovering what's left of Earth and trying to return to it so they can rebuild the world they lost — all while three mutants in the ship's basement try to overthrow them and use Mother to conquer the universe.

Notice that I didn't mention any character names in that summary. That's because when you get right down to it, Remnants isn't really about its characters. Unlike Animorphs, which was almost entirely character-driven, and Everworld, which was more setting-driven but still had an interesting main cast, Remnants is mostly plot-driven. It's about weird things happening and other weird things being done to resolve them. The characters' emotions are largely glossed over, and while some of them do grow and change throughout the series (at least the ones who survive), their primary role is just to witness and carry out all these bizarre happenings until the main conflict changes again.

To be fair though, here are some of the core characters. The main one is Jobs, a fourteen-year-old computer wiz and romantic idealist who just wants the group to have a home again. There's also his best friend Mo'Steel, a fun-loving adrenaline junkie with an easy-going, can-do attitude; 2Face, a girl with a half-burned face who wants to be a strong leader but is too aggressive, manipulative, and paranoid for her own good; Violet, a sophisticated, no-nonsense art expert who always does her best to help; Yago, a selfish, entitled bully who constantly tries to divide the others so he can control them more easily; Billy, a quiet Chechnyan orphan who goes mad during his hibernation and is the only human able to control Mother; and Tamara, a Marine soldier who gave birth to a creepy, possibly alien baby in hibernation that is now mind-controlling her to do its bidding. Like I said, bizarre happenings.

I should point out that unlike Animorphs and Everworld, which were written in First-Person with a different narrator for each book, Remnants is written in Third-Person with numerous shifts in perspective throughout each book. It could be that this different writing style just makes the Remnants characters seem less personal since it's not what I'm used to from these authors, but I also think that having a lot fewer characters would have done this series a world of good. Most of the characters that I didn't list above are either red-shirts who are just there to get killed or seat-fillers who have nothing to do half the time. Some characters die offscreen in between chapters or even in between books, and one who manages to live through the whole series doesn't get mentioned in the final book's epilogue. The story just seems to forget about him.

The most engaging characters are probably 2Face and Yago. We never quite get the full details of how 2Face got burned, but she sees her disfigurement as sort of a scarlet letter for the "ugly" side of her persona. Eventually, that inner ugliness alienates her from the group, and she becomes so desperate to redeem herself in their eyes that she'll stoop to any low towards the end of the series. She's tragic and despicable all at once, much like her supervillain namesake.

Yago, in contrast, is so over-the-top slimy and egotistical that it kind of gets funny after a while. You can actually love to hate this guy at times, especially in Book 6 when he makes Mother simulate a world where he's the president of the United States. Surprisingly though, the series manages to give him an arc towards the end that leads to some of its few legitimately poignant moments.

But since the plot is the real focus of Remnants, how does that hold up? Well, it holds up fairly well for the first half of the series. The mystery surrounding Mother, Tamara's baby, and the various alien species is all kind of intriguing, and we get just enough answers in each book to keep it that way. Other developments, such as Billy learning to harness Mother and some of the other humans learning that they've gained mutant superpowers, can also make us curious about where the story is going. The climaxes of Books 5-7 are imaginative and exciting, and while the characters don't quite resonate enough to give us an emotional connection to anything, the end of Book 7 still feels like a satisfying achievement.

The second half of the series is where the real trouble starts.

Again, I can't say anything for certain due to the lack of info, but I get the sense that sales for Remnants really started to drop halfway through its run. Books 1-8 have fancy, embossed, metallic lettering for their titles on the front covers, but Books 9-14 have flat, standard printing for theirs. The cover art also starts to look more slapped together after Book 8, and the books themselves start to get shorter on average. It feels like Scholastic saw the writing on the wall and started doing whatever it could to cut corners and wrap up the series as quickly as possible.

But getting back to the plotting, Books 8 and 9 are about the same in quality as the previous ones, even though Book 8 starts with a three-month time jump from the end of Book 7. Book 10, however, is hands down the worst book in the series.

See, Book 9 ends with a mid-battle cliffhanger, and instead of picking up from there, Book 10 jumps ahead another three months and just gives us a summary of how the battle ended. We find out that two somewhat important characters died in the fight, and then a third, more important one also dies pretty much offscreen with little fuss during the events of Book 10. We get two more massive time jumps over the course of the book as the humans sail Mother back to Earth, and then shortly after they land there, a fourth character who was finally starting to get interesting also abruptly dies. And then the book pulls a surprise twist that effectively throws everything the series was about into the garbage. I don't blame K.A. Applegate or Michael Grant for this, since I suspect Scholastic was starting to tighten the vice and I'm fairly sure Book 10 was ghost-written, but reading it made me furious.

Books 11 and 12 have the opposite problem; they try to slow things back down to establish the new characters, setting, and conflict, but they go too far and just drag. I was pretty much ready to pan the entire rest of the series after this point...but then Book 13 came along.

I've heard that this one was also ghost-written, but out of all the Remnants installments, Book 13 feels the most like Applegate and Grant's usual writing style. It's told almost entirely from the perspective of a girl named Tate who got separated from the other humans in Book 10, and it deals with her fighting for survival against the new villain trio in Mother's basement. Survival also happens to be the book's official subtitle, by the way.

This is a character piece first and foremost. It still has a lot of the weird, otherworldly elements you expect from the series, but we're allowed to single in on just one protagonist's view of them and see how she gradually comes to grips with them. The focus is on how those things impact her character, not on the mere fact that they exist and that they're weird. We also get to explore the protagonist's backstory in an open, honest, and meaningful way, and the things that we learn about her from her memories actually factor into her decision making throughout the book. Best of all, the ending throws more of those mind-bending Remnants twists at us, and while they could stand to be better explained, they have a genuine emotional resonance because the book let us properly get to know the character that experiences them. One of Tate's big discoveries at the end of the book even lends emotional weight to the entire scope of the series and makes us understand why it's so important for the characters to try and start a new life on Earth.

Book 13: Survival has Animorphs Chronicles levels of pathos. It's easily the crown jewel of the whole Remnants series, and I wish the rest of the series had been more like it. So it's only fitting that this wonderful exception to every complaint I've ever had about Remnants...is entirely skippable.

I'm not kidding. Everything that Tate accomplishes and discovers in Book 13 gets reexplained to the other characters in Book 14, so you don't even need to read Book 13. Good news for the superstitious readers, I guess.

Book 14, the finale, has the same problem as Books 11 and 12, plus it barely ties up any of the loose ends from all the mysteries that the series built up. One character gets a thought-provoking ending to their arc, another major one dies offscreen, and everyone else gets an ending that's earned, I guess, but the tone of it doesn't feel consistent with the overall series. In fact, I question if it was even Applegate or Grant's idea.

Despite this, I am glad that I finally went back and read all of Remnants. There was a gem or two in there, and when the series was imaginative, it was extremely imaginative. However, I think it's more interesting as a case study in how constant corporate deadlines and pressure can wear down a project. At least that's what I have to deduce it's a case study in. I'll always have the utmost respect for K.A. Applegate and Michael Grant, and while I do believe that Remnants could have been better under more ideal circumstances, I'm willing to view the series itself as the ultimate testament to its thesis: that no matter how disastrous things get, there's always a chance of something good surviving.

But seriously, Everworld is better.

#ka applegate #remnants #michael grant #book series #scholastic #animorphs #everworld #review #young adult #scifi #mayflower project #jobs #mo'steel #2face #yago

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thoughtsthatstray · 4 years

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The Night Before Thanksgiving Part 7

2019

I woke up this morning with a lyric in my head. I couldn’t place it to start with. One of those things that pisses you off because it is on the tip of your tongue but it won’t come to you. I fixed some coffee, turned the computer on and called on my old friend, Goo-gle, she’s still French and typed it in trying to knock that nugget loose from the back of my mind.

Not placing a lyric from one of my favorite songs. I need to be slapped.

The last few years, I’ve read through the previous entries, this year I simply copied and pasted, then put the images back in, so that everything is complete. I don’t want to read it. If there isn’t a storm hovering, that could easily cause one. It might storm anyway. I’m not even sure why I’m even typing this. Maybe a ritual. Forcing myself to spit something out. Nothing of any worth that is for sure.

Yeah those days are gone forever. That is for sure. At least, well hopefully, I’ll get to search for a Ron Green article (it appears this will be his final one, which simply sucks). Just another thing that will be gone forever.

Previous installments below

2013

thoughtsthatstray: Written 11/27/13

The night before Thanksgiving used to be one of my favorite nights of the year. Back in my hometown, it was a night when friends would gather at one of the few watering holes where said friends could share some adult beverages.

We’d usually start off at one place with dinner and beers. Note there was an s on the end of the word beer, but then we’d cross the street to a new place that had karaoke, more BEER, and more old friends. Well, truth be told a few old enemies would pop in here and there.

We’d share some memories, stretch some truths, tell some lies, and it was fun seeing old friends. Of course it was fun seeing old flames too. We’d have a ball, signing each other up for the previously mentioned karaoke and trying to find the most fucked up song or funniest song for them to sing. Oh how I wish it were modern day where every cell phone had a video, because watching an ole ball coach singing “Funky Cold Medina” or “Brickhouse” as his long hair swayed and his hairy little nubby feet attempted a bit of a drunken dance. Oh I’d pay good money to have footage of that, but of course if that were modern day, seeing a coach/teacher slightly intoxicated on youtube or some other form of social media would be grounds for his dismissal which is bullshit, since he was simply an adult having some fun with other adults. Like I said I would pay good money (if I had good money) to see that footage once again.

You’d see faces pop in of people you hadn’t seen since high school, or hadn’t seen in quite some time You’d see a bombshell walk through the door and you are like well I could always see some cuteness in that awkward teen from years ago. Of course at the end of the night you’d have the same two or three guys trying to sneak out on a bar bill. At times you’d have a group of them trying to bribe someone into trying to get on top of the bull in the corral. Yes, an actual bull in an actual corral out in front of the steakhouse. He wasn’t there long, but he was there.

An ex would walk up and whisper in your ear, “I’ve got something to show you”, and you simply respond what’s that? While she says come out here and you walk to the back side of the building and she takes your hand and slides it down her pants and you feel her freshly shaved pussy, which was definitely new. You make plans for Black Friday to spend the day fucking like you used to.

As I said, you hear some old stories, that 55 yard touchdown was up to about 63. You argue about beating a rival 43-34 when some former teammate is swearing on his Momma that it was 43-30. You simply say, look, I know what it was. That is my pin # and has been ever since. You flag down another teammate and he confirms that it was 43-34, and then he gives the other guy a hard time for forgetting it.

At this point you are 15-20 beers into the night and you know you could very well drink another dozen or so if the bar wasn’t closing. You crawl into a minivan which was basically a shuttle service. You drop the old ball coach off at his miniature mansion and tell him to cut his hair. He flips the group off with that stumpy middle finger and then he waves.

You come home, crawl into bed and think about the night. You think about the memories, you think about that freshly shaved pussy.

Oh I sure miss those days.

2014

thoughtsthatstray: Written 11/26/2014

It’s still one of the things I miss about my hometown. I don’t miss much, but I miss my friends, the old haunts, the stories that stretch the truth from time to time. Someone bringing up a time at party and someone trying to deny it ever happened. As I said in the original post it was a time for friends to see friends. That is/was one of the beauties about a small town. A part of it you didn’t really respect or understand completely when you were there.

I no longer have ties to my home town other than a few friends, with my parents being gone, and having moved away quite some time ago. A small part of me regrets leaving, but the majority of me is glad that I did.

Memories don’t die, but they sure can fade away.

2015

thoughtsthatstray: Written 11/25/2015

I wouldn’t call it writer’s block, I’d call it just not in the mood to reminisce. With that said, I’ll give it a shot, since this become some annual ritual. I do know I’ll be tracking down the Ron Green(former Charlotte Observer columnist) annual Thanksgiving article tomorrow.

Earlier tonight on the back deck while grilling some burgers I thought of some old friends, some old times. That made me remember that I have really neglected my YD&B side blog, but that happens.

Thoughts drift back 18-20-22 years. Thoughts drift to better times, happier times. Maybe it was being more carefree, not fully understanding responsibilities. Then it reminded me of a quote from a book I read this year year. “This is Where I Leave You” by Jonathan Tropper, it was made into a movie which was decent, but the book was better as books often are. I know I shared the quote, but here it is again.

“It’s just hard to see people from your past when your present is so cataclysmically fucked.”

The last time I saw most of my old friends was the summer of 2014 at the funeral of one their father’s. While I sit here typing this, half thankful that I’m not there at the moment, I know it would be like that July night. Wouldn’t miss a beat and it would be like old times. Telling stories, sharing memories, laughing till you are about to choke on a beer. So I’m torn. Part of me wishes I was there instead of typing this, but another part is glad that I’m not. The dreadfully sad part of it is that is one a handful of times that I’ve actually enjoyed myself. Past > Present, with the future yet to be in the equation. Really sucks.

It really sucks knowing that the next time I’ll likely see most of them will be at another funeral. But that is how the cookie crumbles at times.

2016

thoughtsthatstray: Written 11/23/2016

This is the 4th time I’ve sat here on Thanksgiving Eve slapping these keys trying to make sense. 2013, 2014, and 2015 can be found below.

Tonight, I had the opportunity to go back to my home town and hang out with some old friends, but I had to pass. I didn’t trust my car to drive the 30-35 minutes to Statesville to ride the rest of the way with another friend. I don’t trust it to go much further than the short trips that I generally take. It has two issues on it’s to-fix-list. One was quoted out at about 1k(and hopefully will be addressed shortly) the other yet to be determined. I’ve already thrown about 400 at that particular problem and that didn’t fix it. It’s frustrating. But, to be brutally honest, I could have had a 2017 whatever with 17 miles sitting in the drive way and I can’t promise that I would have gone. Well, maybe I wouldn’t be in the same mindset if the 2017 whatever was sitting outside.

This is where I could easily insert that Jonathan Tropper quote. Maybe it should just be my mantra, but it fits. If I didn’t mention it last year, I would quote it again, but if you read this whole jumbled cluster of letters you’ll see it, or you can click here.

It would have been nice to see them. In this little snippet from last year, I also wrote about the last time I saw them. I could quote that again since that hasn’t changed either. But it would have been nice to sit around with a cold beer or four and catch up, and spend some time with them.

Maybe I’ll wake up one day soon and shake myself out of this funk. I’m picturing a 75lb puppy coming out of a river and drying himself off. Maybe that would work.

I guess when I finish this I’ll sit down and read back through the previous 3 entries and I wish I could say I feel like I’m in a better place, physically, mentally, emotionally, etc, but that would be spitting lies.

I think at one point I made a post about being thankful for having an imagination but in the end, it might be negative thing. Hard to tell.

The night before Thanksgiving used to be a part of the Holiday festivities. Now it’s just a Wednesday.

2017

thoughtsthatstray: Written 11/22/2017

I’m sitting here typing this, mostly forcing myself to get something down, and It will be shorter than the others. I just have a haunted feeling engulfing my mind after reading through the previous 4 installments. Sitting back with last year’s installment knowing had I made that journey I would have had at least one more night with a good friend who took his life over the summer. That is hard to reconcile. I’m not thinking that the one night would have changed anything. There were a number of other friends at the get together, but selfishly it would have been a night where stories would have been shared. Memories rekindled and shared. …..A moment that is gone, that never was…. kinda reminds me of the Springsteen line:

Again,hard to reconcile and process.

Oh and those Jonathan Tropper quotes still ring true:

2018

thoughtsthatstray: Written 11/21/18

Sitting here beating on this keyboard. Trying to add something to this collection of whatever you call it. It’s hard for my mind not to drift to friends and family that have been lost and that are no longer with us.

I still have some regret about not taking that trip in 2016. Maybe it would have made a difference in the events that happened the following June 1st, but I doubt it. I’m sure we would have told some stories, some lies and stretched the truth like it was an old Stretch Armstrong toy. That is par for the course. The 138 yards rushing against a rival football team stretches to 171. The 51-8 ass beating of the 5th ranked team in the state will stay 51-8 since that is stamped deep in the brain.

I’ll wake up, fix some coffee and locate the annual article of retired Columnist of the Charlotte Observer Ron Green Sr. It’s a bit of a tradition. I’ll try to remember to come back and link it here. Not that anyone will read it.

I still pay to see some of that Karaoke action mentioned in a previous installment. It was better suited for “America’s Funniest Home Videos”, than “Star Search” at least all of that is stamped on the brain too.

The Springsteen line still hits home:

I guess it always will.

I’ll definitely have to fall asleep to a mindless sitcom tonight. Might have to have some Kenny Powers action.

#night before thanksgiving home tomorrow thoughts family friends old friends #NIght before thanksgiving #home #tomorrow #thoughtsthatstray #family #friends #old friends

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fakingitfanfiction · 7 years

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Her Latest Flame Chapter 16: Seven Days

Previous Chapters

Day One

Farrah does her best not to wake you, but you still hear her poke her head in sometime around seven. You can feel her eyes on you, burning a worrying, ‘I don’t know how to fix this because I don’t even know what this is’ motherly hole into your back and you resist, just barely, the urge to tug your blanket up over your head or toss a throw pillow in her general direction.

And yes, you know that's not why they’re called throw pillows. Lauren taught you something, after all.

(Clearly, she taught you nothing about dealing with your problems or facing them like an actual adult and yes, you’re still in the early stages of this, so you are going to blame everyone else.)

Your mother shuts the door quietly behind her and you roll over onto your back and, yup, that was a mistake (can’t blame Lauren for this one) (not that you won’t try to find a way) cause all it does is give you a good view of your ceiling, one you haven’t had since the last time Sabrina was here - and just fuck your brain, cause thinking about your ex, your other ex, doing that to you is exactly the way to start with the healing - and all that view is is just a good view of those stars.

Not the real ones. Farrah hasn’t gone totally nuts and installed a skylight or something, though she has started remodeling some spots - like adding a breakfast bar, which unfortunately is not a real bar - and you won’t be surprised when she gets to your room eventually and oh, you are just so fucking stalling right now.

Totally Farrah’s fault. She’s the one who gave the kitchen a makeover.

So…back to the view of the not the real stars. No, they’re the fake kind and not just the regular fake kind, but the glow in the dark and in your heart kind cause you and Karma hung the damn things and see? This is the problem, the problem with living in your head.

Karma hung the stars. You loved Karma. You always knew you loved Karma but then you went and kissed Karma and realized that you loved Karma. But Karma didn’t love you like that, she loved someone else, so what did you do?

You pined endlessly and got jealous and mopey and pulled some ridiculous scavenger hunt shit that you claimed wasn’t a desperate attempt at showing her how right you were for each other but even the Queen of the Oblivious saw through that bullshit and yes, you know that isn’t the fucking point cause that isn’t what you did (well, it is, but it isn’t the thing you did that you’re thinking of now, the one that’s the issue now, the one you’re trying so hard to avoid saying right fucking now.)

What you did was you went and found yourself someone else to love.

And there it is. There she is, as if she ever left except, oh, wait, she did. But she came back, sort of, and then you left and you’ve just kept right on leaving over and over and over again in every way one person can.

So, yes, you managed - in about the span of two minutes, that would have been a good ninety seconds shorter if you hadn’t gone off on that perfectly good stalling tangent, not unlike the one you’re on right now - to take the stars on your ceiling that you saw every day for years without even once connecting them to Reagan and connected them to Reagan.

And so, day one ends before it even begins, as you roll back onto your side, tug that blanket up over your head, and hope that sleep finds you quicker this morning than it did last night.

Spoiler Alert: It doesn’t.

Day Two

Netflix and chill is much more fun when there’s some actual ‘chill’ involved and not when it’s you, on one end of the couch, and your mother on the other end, and then - in the end - you alone on the whole thing cause she has a date and doesn’t come back in until sometime past three and no, she doesn’t notice that you're still on the couch.

And no, you don’t notice that she’s walking a bit… side to side, shall we say?

(Oh, God, how you wish you didn’t notice.)

Day Three

You have a new appreciation for all the mornings Farrah said nothing to you about the night before. You used to think she didn’t know, that all the nights you stayed up too late (Karma) or out too late (Reagan) or had someone else stay in too late (Sabrina), that your mother was just blissfully ignorant.

And now… oh, how you understand ignorance and bliss and - even more - the idea of things you just can't unsee.

Like, for instance, your mother staggering down the stairs at half past eleven, smiling to herself, her hand wandering idly over the spot on her neck, the one that would be just a hair below the neckline of all but the most revealing of her tops and yes, that is what you’re going to refer to it as from now until the end of time (which you would appreciate hurrying the fuck up): 'the spot’.

The word 'hickey’ will never pass your lips. Or brain. Never. Never ever.

Farrah spots you, sitting at the kitchen table, eating your fourth bowl of whatever the fuck those bran / fiber / wheat / oats / bullshit flakes she had in the cupboard are (and your sixth doughnut out of the dozen you went to get, and if she hadn’t come in when she did, you so would have gone back for seven) and her hand just sort of… stops. It’s as if someone hit the pause button on the Mom Remote (much like the spoonful of oaty not-goodness in your hand slows to a dead crawl) and you have the urge to point out that pausing only makes it stand out more.

But, since you know (cause you looked in the mirror) that it’s hard to tell the bags under your eye from the bruise around it, you also know you’ve got no room to talk.

Farrah settles herself in the chair next to you - surprisingly close, but also a considerably shorter walk for her and she still seems to be having some trouble with that, which prompts a somewhat appreciative ’damn’ to pop into your brain, unbidden - and you slide your cup of coffee (it’s your third) (in the last twenty) toward her and she damn near inhales it in a way that almost makes you (briefly) concerned for the well being of parts of her date from last night, which only serves to remind you that your mother had a date (that went well, apparently) while you spent the night watching Jessica Jones and counting the number of camera angles that focused almost directly on her ass.

Counting. Not complaining.

She’s staring at you in this way that makes you nervous, that reminds you of all the times she wanted to say something (usually about… 'lesbians’) (always with the pause) (and the dramatic whisper) but couldn’t figure out the right way - or even just a sorta right way - to bring it up. You could let it go, and maybe you should, but you’ve said all of twenty-three words to each other since you’ve been home (you’ve counted) and the silence is starting to bug even you.

“Sophie,” you say, answering the question you know she wants to ask. “She punched me cause she found out I lied to her about something.”

Right. Something. Not someone. Nope.

“Must have been a pretty serious something,” Farrah says, standing and gingerly making her way to the coffee pot for a refill. “Did you steal something from her? Cheat off her on a test?”

Steal. Cheat. Oh, for fuck’s sake…

“I fucked her girlfriend.”

OK, so you could’ve done that a little… better. But, really, you had to watch your own mother do the walk of shame (with no shame and a twinkle in her eye and a soft, contented sigh with every step) last night. Making her choke on her second cup of California Roast is the least you can do.

“To be fair,” you say - which is the first and last time you’re going to use that word for this, “she was my girlfriend, first.”

Farrah leans against the counter and stares at you. You can see the wheels spinning in her head and imagine - just for the hell of it - that the word 'thruple’ is running around in her mind, like a little pornographic hamster on a wheel.

It’s the first real smile you’ve smiled in days.

“She was… is…” You realize, for the first time, that you can’t put a tense on whatever Sophie and Reagan’s relationship is and that just makes things like a million times worse. “Reagan,” you say. “The girlfriend. It was Reagan.”

Your mother nods, as if that just makes all the sense in the world and, really, it does. If, you know, you’re living in a bad teen drama or one of those fanfics people write on the Internet and no, you haven’t spent most of the morning reading the Harry Potter ones and definitely not the ones where Hermione and Ginny end up together (cause redhead and just… no) and probably not the few where Ms. Granger and Luna cast a 'spell’ on each other.

And you just actually thought 'cast a spell’. Thought it and didn’t wince from it and wondered, however briefly, if there was some spell, some magic words that might bring your fondest wishes to life.

Expecto Reaganum!

Yeah… no.

More coffee. You need more coffee. Or more sleep. Or more doughnuts.

Or, you know, to stop imagining Emma Watson naked. With you. And Reagan.

Now who’s hamster-thrupling?

Farrah drops back down in her chair and reaches in front of you, snagging a doughnut from the box. She takes an overly generous bite, and has to wipe a smudge of raspberry jelly from her chin with your napkin. “The only man I have ever really loved was your father,” she says and you can only thank your lucky stars that you weren’t taking a bite of those God awful flakes or you’d be the one choking. “The rest were nice and good and Bruce was… he should have been perfect. But he wasn't…”

“Him,” you say, even as you think 'her’.

She wasn't her.

Your mother nods, taking another long sip of her coffee. You don’t think she even knows how her thumb keeps rubbing the spot on her ring finger where her… well… one of her rings… used to be. “I regret that Bruce got hurt,” she says. “And I regret that poor Lauren got hurt even more. But I can’t ever regret being with your father. Even if I knew, all along, he’d always pick the job over me.”

She finishes off her doughnut and drains her coffee and leaves you there, sitting at the table, wondering what life lesson you’re supposed to take from that. And all you can think is that this clearly means the fanfic that is your life needs better writers. Maybe one of the Potter-heads can lend a hand.

Cast a fucking spell, indeed.

Day Four

When Farrah gets home from work, there’s an empty bottle of wine on the kitchen table next to two takeout bags from Chipotle, another barely a third still full box from the doughnut shop, your cell phone, and your laptop. It takes one look at the computer, the browser still open to a Google search for her to understand the wine and the eats.

How to erase drunken texts messages you wish you’d bneber sent

She figures - correctly - that 'bneber’ is supposed to be 'never’ and her heart breaks a little for you, as she also offers up a silent thank you to the man upstairs (or woman) (or half cracked out monkey scripting this shit) that, back in her day (stone tablets, chisels, and torches for lamps day) there were no text messages or voicemail.

Drunk dialing was bad enough.

Farrah checks in the living room and the bathrooms and your room and her own room but you’re nowhere to be found. But you still haven’t gone to campus to get your car, and she had hers all day so, though she knows she should probably worry, drunk walking is better than drunk driving and so there’s no panic, not just yet.

And when you wander in a couple hours later - with no fresh bruises and walking normally (if still slightly drunkenly) - and head straight to bed, she says nothing.

Turnabout being fair play and all that.

Still… she can’t help worrying, and after all those years of being the least involved parent in the history of parents, she feels a sense of… duty? Responsibility? Parental obligation?

Sure. All of those. And a massive side dish of guilty, mixed with dash of guilt, marinated in a sauce of guilt and flavored with just a smidge of regret and, as you’re about to learn, an all that mixed together Farrah is an 'I didn’t know what else to do and please don’t hate me, I was just trying to help you’ Farrah.

And when her first call goes straight to voicemail, she can only think of one other option and see, this is why you really shouldn’t leave your phone laying around.

You would have thought you’d have learned that particular lesson by now.

Day Five

There are days when you wish you stayed in bed.

This is not one of those days.

And that is only because this is a day when you do stay in bed. All day. Like all day. Save for three trips to the bathroom - which is a considerably smaller number than you thought you were going to have to make, given the all new and all star levels of drunk you were last night.

You even left a hair tie on your bedside table. What with Sophie not… around… someone was going to have to hold your hair back. Might as well be Mr. Elastic.

You try, unsuccessfully, not to think of how much that sounds like a guy Shane would kill to date and you can’t help laughing, which means you can’t help spending the next five minutes actively wishing you could either pass out, die, or be swallowed whole by your bed, anything that would stop the ice pick of pain slicing through the back of your left eye.

A quick roll onto your right side does nothing but shift the pain and yes, that clearly makes no actual medical sense, but in the four or five seconds it takes the pick to find your right eye, you feel just enough relief to not really care.

Nor do you really care that you’ve now officially realized that wine plus doughnuts plus chipotle plus more wine (Farrah only saw the second bottle) plus attempts at picking up waitresses with great asses (but really sub par hair) (sorry, Becky) while still drunk (like, epically) (like not sure how you walked) does not equal your proudest moment.

When Becky of the good (great) ass posts a picture of it on Facebook, that moment will sink even further down the list. Probably right behind telling Shane you don’t even like to look at your own vagina, but definitely still ahead of your toast at Farrah and Bruce’s wedding.

Oh, and you know, getting punched in the face in the egg place and yes, that rhymes and no, you’re not a poet who didn’t know it.

You’re a hungover and surprisingly sexually frustrated adolescent, and no, your actual age doesn’t change that one bit.

Not only did you not get laid, and not only did you make an utter boob out of yourself (and, you think, tried to grab Becky’s) but you’re pretty sure you can never go back to Huan Cho’s and, really, that might suck worst of all.

Their noodles are to die for.

But maybe - maybe - that’s for the best. After all, that was yours and Sophie’s place and you’re not sure who gets custody of the noodle joint in the divorce, but (after last night) you’re pretty sure who Haun and Cho (and yes, they’re two different people, you've met them), not to mention Becky, would all choose Sophie.

Hell, you’d choose Sophie.

You roll back to your left - three more seconds of sweet relief - and try not to well up over the loss of the best noodles in Austin and yes, you very much realize that that is so not what the tears would be for, but it’s easier to think about losing the noodles than it is thinking about losing the girl.

Girls.

Fuck all… you should just stay in bed.

And so you do.

Day Six

If there’s one thing you’ve learned over the last (almost) seven days, it’s this:

“I should not be allowed to own a cell phone.”

The pillow muffles most of your words, but Lauren speaks fluent Amy (it’s a skill) and even now, she somehow understands.

Your words. She understands your words. You? That’s an entirely different issue.

“Yeah,” she says, her voice crackling through the laptop’s crappy speakers and vibrating the sheet beneath you. “Because the phone is the problem.”

She has a point. Damn her.

“You didn’t see the texts,” you moan, lifting your head up just enough to make a tiny head tent out of your pillow. “They were… ugh… no words,” you say. “No fucking words.”

Now, see? There you go again. Lying (sort of.) Cause, really? There were words.

I miss you. (There’s three of them.)

It was all my fault, I know that. I soooooooooooooo know that. (Twelve more and no, extra 'ooooo’ doesn’t count double)

I don’t deserve you. (Four. And no, you very much don’t.)

And you don’t deserve me. And I mean that in the you don’t deserve to suffer the horrible horrible horrible fate of having me in your life, not in the way I don’t deserve you.

(Thirty-five.) (And she probably knew what you meant.)

You probably knew what I meant. (Six) (And you’re right. You so should not be allowed to own a phone.)

I’m so sorry. Sorrier than I’ve ever been for anything. Even sorrier than when I slept with Liam, which is probably not a thing to bring up right now, but you know me, open mouth, insert foot and oh, please tell me you’re not thinking of other things I’ve put in my mouth and oh, I’m just making it worse and I am so deleting this before I hit send.

(Seventy.) (And you didn’t.)

I hope someday you can forgive me and I hope someday my feelings won’t be such a problem for us and I just hope you know that you are the best part of my life and I really do love you and I hope that someday

Forty-six. And final. You never finished the thought both because the first bottle of wine had finally taken its toll and you passed out face first into your burrito (which is why you needed the second one) and because, really, you don’t know what you hope for someday.

“Forgiveness,” you mutter into the pillow. “A second chance, maybe. Her, back in my life, even if it isn’t like it was before.” If there’s one other thing you’ve learned in the last (almost) seven days, it’s that you hate the word 'before’. “Is that too much to ask?” you ask, peeking out from under the pillow to stare at Lauren on the screen “It is, isn’t it? It’s too much, I’m asking for too much.”

She seems to consider it for a long moment and you have a very brief (like only the 'br’ and not the 'ief’) moment of hope that, maybe, she’s going to say it’s not too much.

“It probably is too much.”

Fuck, Lauren. Way to kill a dream.

“But,” she says, “I don’t think that’s the real issue here.” You consider - briefly, again - slapping the button on the computer and disconnecting the call before she finishes her thought. “I think the bigger question is why did you send those to her.”

You say nothing. You can’t. There’s no good answer, no right answer, and no answer that won’t get you a half hour lecture from your little (in size only) sister.

“I think that’s what you need to think about, Amy,” she says, interpreting your long silence for confusion and she’s not entirely wrong. “Why did you send those messages to Sophie, and not to, you know, the woman you claim to be in love with?”

If there’s one thing you’ve learned over the last (almost) four years, it’s this:

Lauren’s usually (read: always) right.

Fuck.

Day Seven

Farrah does her best not to wake you, but you still hear her poke her head in sometime around seven.

Yes, you feel a sense of deja vu, of a pattern forming, of a fucking full on Groundhog Day scenario starting up.

You can feel her eyes on you, burning a worrying, 'I don’t know how to fix this because I don’t even know what this is’ motherly hole into your back, again, and this time, you don’t resist the urge and you do tug your blanket up over your head and burrow in. Resistance may be futile, but that doesn’t mean you can't try.

This time she doesn’t shut the door softly. She doesn’t, in fact, shut it at all, but you can hear her closing it over, hear the slight clink of the lock knocking against the plate. She takes a few short steps into you room and settles on the edge of your bed. You spidey-sense some sort of attempted mother-daughter moment coming on and, after the last one, you’re pretty sure all it’s going to do is bring up repressed memories of Farrah and your dad and their days of canoodling (such a great word) (almost as good as 'shenanigans’ though you prefer it for the little bit dirtier connotation) and make you long for a cup of coffee to choke on.

But then she scoots closer and oh, she’s really going for the full court mom press this time, isn’t she? You haven’t experienced mothering like this since… um… well… since you saw her do it for Lauren, or maybe that time she offered to buy you boobs to get you over Karma.

And there was another memory you liked repressed, thank you very much.

She’s leaning over you now and all you can do is hope you’ve gotten better at faking sleep over the years, since it never worked as a child.

Then again, as a child, there were days you actually wanted to be awake for, but we digress…

She’s close now, like frighteningly close, like about to whisper in your ear that no matter what she says, we can’t ever call Nana a racist. Or that no, you shouldn’t mention step number two to potential step number four.

Except…

You don’t remember your mother ever wearing this much perfume and certainly not lilac scented cause she’s allergic (she used to try to bond with you over your allergies because pretty flowers that make you sneeze and nuts that make you die? Same difference.) And you really really don’t remember her breath ever being this warm or blowing this softly against your ear.

Or - to hell with softly - blowing on your ear, period. Like at all.

And then she says the magic words, the ones guaranteed to fix what ails you. “I love you, too.”

Wait. Too?

You know, even though in your case it's Farrah, that there’s nothing like a mother’s love. And when you say 'nothing’, you’re totally including that voice and those words cause neither of them belong to Farrah.

You roll over, damn near causing a midair two head pileup as you come face-to-face and then, seconds later, lip-to-lip, with just about the last person you expected to see, this morning. Or kiss, this morning. Or feel quickly straddling you and sliding a pair of very soft yet surprisingly cold hands up under your shirt, this morning.

Or any morning.

And oh, guess what? Karma’s home.

You barely have time to register that she’s there - and by there, you mean on you and by on you, you mean on you - or to try and pull your lips from hers (which takes a surprising amount of effort, mostly because she’s chasing you as you move and one of those so cold hands is now on the back of your neck and damn, Karma’s been working out) when you hear the sound of your door opening back up.

“Amy, your mom said I could just come on up…”

Your eyes squeeze shut as Karma’s lips disconnect from yours with a loud smack (and you can already sense another one of those, the slightly more painful kind, in your near future) as she turns to the door.

“Oh, hey, Sophie,” Karma says and oh, how you wish you were fucking deaf. “Long time, no see.”

#faking it #faking it fanfiction #reamy #oc #update #submission #secret-monkey #secretmonkey #Her Latest Flame

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ramialkarmi · 6 years

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We asked 100 teens how they watch television — and the results should horrify cable companies

Generation Z is moving away from traditional television.

Marketers say that's a major break from previous generations.

To sway these teens, some networks are collaborating with social networks and popular streaming options. It's not always successful.

Grace Clark, 17, doesn't like television. She says the episodes are too long.

"I like YouTube, because the content is shorter and therefore is able to hold my attention throughout the whole video," Clark told Business Insider.

Her favorite is the Vlog Squad, a group of YouTube-famous 20-somethings based in Los Angeles. Several times a week, the group posts instances from their daily lives like flying (but with a llama), going hiking, or rollerskating. "Their content is very comedic but is rarely over 20 minutes," Clark said.

The interest in short but frequent video content from younger, more relatable sources is widespread among Clark's peers. She's considered a Generation Z, the generational cohort of Americans born after 1997. Few of them remember life before social media, the internet, and smartphones.

In a recent Business Insider survey of 104 teens nationwide, only 2% of Gen Zs said that cable is their preferred choice for video content. Nearly a third said YouTube is their most-used source for video content, and 62% watch streaming excluding YouTube, including Netflix or Hulu.

Those who do watch cable television enjoy it largely as a means of bonding with family, the news, or falling asleep.

That's a remarkable aboutface from previous generations, according to MaryLeigh Bliss, Chief Content Officer at YPulse, a research and marketing firm focused on Gen Z and Millennials.

"It's a major, major shift that we've seen with these young generations," Bliss told Business Insider.

Among American adults, 59% say cable or satellite is their primary method of watching television, according to a 2017 Pew Research study. Less than a third depend primarily on online streaming.

The preference for cable is even more marked among older Americans. For those 65 or older, 84% use primarily cable.

"Honestly, I don’t watch many cable programs," 16-year-old Grace Serdula told Business Insider. "I watch whatever is on, but I don’t pay enough attention to them. But I find YouTube a better entertainment source. I can watch anything I want."

One key reason for the shift is the increasing use of mobile phones as a way to consume content. The majority of Gen Zs use smartphones as their primary medium to watch videos, while millennials primarily use actual televisions, according to YPulse data.

It's not because they don't have access to a television. If they're below the age of 18, they likely still live with their parents, who almost certainly have a TV.

Because of the decreasing emphasis on cable TV, this younger generation also has difficulty tolerating traditional ads. Variety reported in June that Fox outlets want to fill some of its commercial breaks with inspirational videos sponsored by pharmaceutical companies or other marketers.

"That's actively to try to appeal to younger generations," Bliss said of Fox's move.

Netflix is the top streaming choice for Gen Zs

Netflix, the favored option among Gen Zs for all video content, lacks commercial breaks. It's also primed for binge watching, which is how today's teens are acclimated to watching television.

Unlike previous generations who might tune in for a latest episode installment, Gen Zs told Business Insider that they enjoy watching older shows, too. Teenagers adore "Friends," a sitcom that aired its last episode when some of them may have been in diapers.

"There are more options than on cable, since you can rewind or fast forward and watch older shows like Friends easier," 15-year-old Sadie Madden told Business Insider.

Clark also shared that she loves Pretty Little Liars, which aired from 2010 to 2017.

"I like the fact that these shows are on Netflix because I am able to binge watch them without commercial breaks in between," Clark said.

YouTube offers a different experience than traditional media sources

When teens watch YouTube, they're not seeking fictional plotlines portrayed by Hollywood stars.

One popular usage of YouTube is niche, hobby-driven content. Isabel Lagando, 14, watches lots of beauty and cooking shows. Kay Parker, 15, enjoys watching gaming videos on YouTube.

"You can check out how a game looks from another person’s perspective before getting it," Parker told Business Insider. "Instead of waiting for something you like to come on it’s available on YouTube 24/7 and you feel like you can watch all of your favorite channels and their videos nonstop without getting tired of it."

Vlogs are also incredibly popular. One of YouTube's most popular vloggers is Zoella, who runs a beauty, fashion and daily life account with more than 12 million subscribers.

Vloggers like Zoella are as pretty and personable as any celebrity. But their transparency and frequent life updates makes subscribers feel more like they're spending time with a friend (albeit one who is an international runway model).

"I find and vlogging interesting because it feels like I’m ... spending a day with a close friend and traveling and whatnot," Serdula told Business Insider. "The videos provide background noise that I can tune into without missing any important plot devices."

How are traditional networks responding?

The amount of homes with cable, satellite, or telco is dropping, according to a 2017 Nielsen report.

Bliss said the landscape for cable and network companies is "bleak."

Cable is the fifth most-popular outlet for video consumption, according to YPulse data on teenagers. Gen Zs are more likely to watch video content on YouTube, Netflix, Instagram, and Snapchat.

In response, some cable providers have moved their content onto those more popular platforms. CNN had a Snapchat show, but that flopped after four months. More positively, NBC's "Stay Tuned" Snapchat news show accrued four million subscribers in its first five months — the majority of whom watch three or more times a week.

One notable success story is the ultra-popular Riverdale, the aggressively dramatic reimagination of the Arhcie comics aired through the CW.

As Vulture reported, the CW has a unique streaming deal with Netflix, allowing season one to appear in May 2017 on Netflix a week after the season ended. That gave swaths of viewers access to the show that they might not have had otherwise.

Riverdale's second season reached viewership numbers last fall that the CW hadn't seen since The Vampire Diaries 2012. And that was on their network — not Netflix.

That Riverdale could sway teens to tune in on an actual television with actual commercials is proof of one major point: The entertainment itself is more important than the platform.

"It's still about the content," Bliss said. "You have to make the content that they want to watch. You have to create the entertainment that they think is worth their time."

SEE ALSO: 104 Generation Zs reveal what it's like to be a teen in 2018

Join the conversation about this story »

#Tech Insider #Arab #Entrepreneurship #sillicon alley insider

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