Open the Windows and Stand in the Sunshine

Fan fiction

2007-01-09T14:23:00.000-06:00

I love fanfiction. It's so hilarious. Really. Read some. Especially when it's deep.

Paper flowers hanging from a noose
This life I had to choose
Poisoned sweets upon my tongue
All my life has come undone
Locked away inside an attic
My whole life had turned to static
You look at us with your cold eyes
But its her that I despise
Locking us away for your own pleasure
My hatred is something that I treasure
Is money so divine?
Myself, lost and I cannot find
I’m just waiting to unwind
My brother’s love, a sin divine
Lying awake on that old mattress
With him, I’m his princess
Don’t let there be life
Please, dear God, don’t let there be life.
Little boy, his life had ended
Wasted away while she pretended
Lying in a shallow grave
No one will ever know his name
All my life has come undone
Locked away inside an attic
My whole life had turned to static
You look at us with your cold eyes
But its her that I despise
Locking us away for your own pleasure
My hatred is something that I treasure
Is money so divine?
Myself, lost and I cannot find
I’m just waiting to unwind
My brother’s love, a sin divine
Walking into the sunlight
Limping away from endless night
No more bars, no more God!
I love you, you did say
When the time comes, I’ll make you pay
I’ll make you regret
Planting flowers in the attic.

Oh god.

Chapter 11, or Christopher's Exploration. And Its Repercussions.

2006-12-31T20:36:00.000-06:00

The title of this entry is the actual title of the chapter (the others haven’t been). It’s just so perfect in every sense. Anyway.

Cathy’s asleep when the chapter opens, but she is quickly grabbed out of Dreamland by her mother’s rough hands. She demands to know where Chris is. When Cathy tells her that he went to explore, Momma flips out. She’s about to go look for him when he comes through the door. She smacks him around a little, and threatens to whip both the older children, as well as keep them locked up in the attic forever. Then, like every good abuser, she covers him with kisses and shoves him against her heaving bosom, letting him “drown in the sensuality of being cuddled close to that creamy flesh that must excite even a youth of his tender years.” Uh, he’s like 15. Yeah, I’d say he’s probably excited by that. Most 15 year olds, maybe not. But seriously, let’s not forget that the Dollanganger family definitely believes that the family who sleeps together, stays together (until members of the family start dying and the rest of the family needs to be locked up so no one knows about them, that is). Momma leaves in a flurry of apologies and promises to come back and tell them everything they want to know, and while they forgive her, I can’t believe they believe her. Except I can, because these kids are really dumb. I guess that’s what being a product of incest does to a person.

Cathy and Chris climb into bed together (a definite no-no), and the two of them talk. Cathy is officially losing faith in her mother, upset that Momma is spending money on fancy clothes and jewelry instead of squirreling it away for their new house, and for giving them a TV, but only after her father gave it to her first. They argue pretty much over whether to love their mother or not, before Cathy makes Chris tell her about everything he saw. He tells her that the house is massive, but come on. If she didn’t know that already, she’s even dumber than a he-man-woman-hater like him could imagine.

Chris snuck back to the party, which was just peaking, to look for their mother, but couldn’t find her. Hearing voices, he ducked behind a suit of armor. Who should be coming up the stairs, though, but Momma and her handsome suitor! The man, what a rogue he was!, was trying to pressure their mother into letting him into her bedroom, to see “that fabulous swan bed.” I had no idea fabulous swan bed was slang for that kind of thing… Anyway, Momma agrees but says they can only be there for a minute, lest the other guests start gossiping. The man challenges her, asking her to tell him what, exactly, they would think. What’s next, he’s going to tell her that if she doesn’t show him the bed, he’ll get blue balls and that is SO bad for a guy!

Chris stops there, and Cathy pushes him for more information. He finally admits that they were kissing, and Cathy gets all… descriptive over it. She totally just KNOWS that they were passionate kisses, where “he kissed her, and she let him, and maybe he even touched her breasts, and stroked her buttocks, like I once saw Daddy do when he didn’t know I was in the room and watching.” Yeah, uh, ew, right? These kids need to get out more. Chris admits, without saying what he saw them do, it was pretty intense, because it made him feel sick. And man, if something can make these kids feel sick, it must be pretty gross.

Eventually, Bart hits a double but gets out at second, so he and Momma head back down to the party. Chris takes the opportunity to explore a little bit more. He makes it into the “monster room,” where he’s surrounded by dozens of eyes, all different colors. Jesus Christ, how old is Cathy? It’s like he’s telling a story to the twins, and she’s just eating it up. The more I read these books, the more I realize why mothers don’t want their daughters reading these books. It’s not because of the scandalous content. It’s because it completely reverses every single thing that each wave of feminism ever achieved. It’s reversed all the way up through Twelfth Wave (and if you’re counting, we’re up to the Third Wave right now). I mean, seriously Cathy! Grow some balls!

After discovering that the “monster room” is, in reality, a trophy room where the greatest trophy of all is a life-size portrait of the Evil Grandfather when he was around thirty, Chris sneaks around the house some more, eventually finding Momma’s room with the soon-to-be-infamous Swan Bed. It’s palatial and a little overblown. It’s the kind of thing you’d find in a Disney princess’s bedroom. Momma has a suite of rooms, and in the bedroom there’s a bed shaped like a gigantic swan. Head about to tuck under the wing, an oval mattress, and somewhere there are curtains hung, held back by the swan wing. Every time I read another part of the book, I wonder how VC will top it. And then, somehow, she does. It’s truly amazing, truly.

Cathy presses Chris for some more information, but being the tease he is, he totally holds out on her. What a dick. Cathy realizes, though, that she’ll just have to find this stuff out on her own. And this, my friends, is what we in “the biz” call foreshadowing.

Oh, hello! I didn't see you there!

2006-12-25T23:20:00.000-06:00

Hey what's up cats? I wish cats could be spelled with a "w," a la "dawgs." Oh well.

I know that there are still people checking this sucker out, because the internet tells me so. Internet is pretty magical that way. So as you can tell, I've been super slacky. Yeah, I know. You just don't know what it's like! I moved, then I spent a month focussing on getting a job, and then I just felt weird reading Flowers in the Attic in public. Like, before I moved, I guess I wasn't so self concious, even though the chances of me being embarassed in front of someone I knew were so much higher there/then. Plus, let's not forget the greatest factor of all - I'm lazy and have a short attention span.

Anyway, I'm back reading VC, and am working on posts. Expect some new stuff up in the next few days. What with the me having a job and all that, I can't promise a post a day or anything, but I will work on getting something up around once or twice a week. Consider it a New Year's resolution, one which, along with showering three times a week (instead of once every 5-7 days... yeah, I'm gross. But I don't smell).

Chapter 10, or Fun at the XXXmas party!

2006-08-18T12:32:00.000-05:00

It’s still Christmas Eve, and the grandparents are having a grand old party. Considering they’re such Bible-thumping apparent Protestant types, I find it hard to believe that they would have a huge party like that, but according to Momma, even though they don’t consume alcohol, they also don’t mind if other people do. Momma promised to sneak down Chris and Cathy, and for possibly the first time in the whole book, she actually keeps her promise. She shows up to their room and leads them downstairs, into a cabinet with a mesh cover. The kids have a perfect view of at least part of the ballroom, and its guests. As they gaze down at the guests, they see their mother. There she is, in all her glory, with a man. Described as tall, dark-haired, mustachioed, and handsome, all I can think is, “She’s dating Tom Selleck?”

Just then, the Grandmother walks in, wearing a non-gray dress. This is an important thing, because she always wears gray. Apparently gray is cheap, and she buys it in bulk and has her clothes made by a seamstress in the village. I don’t really know how this is cheaper than buying clothes, and I think V.C. Andrews is a little… unaware. The kids are so shocked to see their grandmother in a color, it takes them a while to notice their grandfather. But there he is, frail and ancient (67), in a wheelchair. Despite his being a million years old (or 67), he still looks like their father. Just really really old (67). They expected him to look much scarier, but apparently by the time you’re 67 you’re too old to be scary.

The children are soon distracted from their grandparents, however, when several people come by the cabinet. They set their drinks on the cabinet and strike up normal party conversation – gossiping about their hosts. Apparently everyone (or at least everyone in this group at the party) know about their mother, specifically that she married her half-uncle. Obviously they don’t know about the children, but still. No wonder it’s so hard for her father to forgive her. The woman marvels that “those two narrow-minded bigots down there” have forgiven her, while her male companion claims that they have to, what with their other two children being dead. While the woman thinks it’s ironic (without using the word ironic, of course) that the despised child is the one that will inherit everything, the man totally admits to the woman (who is, apparently, his wife) that Corinne is a rich plum and he’s jealous of Bartholomew Winslow (Tom Selleck) for having her. Yeah, Al, that’ll go over really well.

Another group of partiers wander over to the hiding spot, and as soon as they’re gone, Cathy and Chris race back to their room. They sit together to talk about what they saw, and whether or not their mother will really marry that Tom Selleck looking man. Just then, Chris has his most brilliant idea yet – go explore the house. Cathy is afraid of being whipped, and won’t go, but Chris heads up to the attic and digs up a suit that almost fits him and wig. Quite the disguise, but he thinks it will work. He says goodbye to Cathy, and even kisses her goodbye. Before he left, he “seemed impressed and dazzled, just as he had when he gazed so long at Momma’s swelling bosom.” No wonder he kissed her voluntarily, Cathy marvels – it must be because she looks like a princess in her new nightgown. Hm.

The Chicago Public Libraries file their books strangely

2006-08-16T17:23:00.000-05:00

I can't even figure it out. It's alphabetical by author's last name, but not by author's first name. So, for example, the V.C. Andrews books aren't all together, they're all around different books by different authors names Andrews. And I don't think they even use the Dewey Decimal System for nonfiction! Strange, strange. I've lived in a lot of places and gone to a lot of libraries, and I've never seen this before.

Anyway, I finally got down to the library with Flowers in the Attic, and will work on writing tonight. I have to go to the library to post it (no internet at home, but the CPL has free wifi!), but I've been going to the library every day anyway. Got to apply for jobs, you know? If you know of anything good in Chicago, let me know! I don't think I've ever applied to so many places! Although, I did get a phone call from one the other day, and had a phone interview. That's a good sign, right?

Stepping out into the fresh air

2006-08-09T13:33:00.000-05:00

Alright. It pains me, but I'm going to have to take a break from updating for a few days, at least. I'm moving to another city - I'm actually taking a break from moving ut all my stuff/cleaning my apartment to bask in the miracle of air conditioning and try to not fall asleep because I am so tired in every sense of the word, particularly the physical senses. On top of that, I owe my copy of Flowers in the Attic to the library, so I should probably return that, especially since I just realized that I lost a video somewhere and will owe them money. Never lose library items.

And now, I guess, to finish moving out. This sucks. I'd rather live in an attic for the rest of my life.

Chapter 9, or it's the most incestuous time of the year

2006-08-07T07:30:00.000-05:00

The kids have been up in the attic for 100 days now. It seems so much longer than that, only not really. Not that I’ve ever been locked in an attic with nothing to do but lust after my older brother, so maybe I just don’t get it. It’s getting near winter now, and all the plants Momma brought them have died except for their amaryllis. Because they name everything, they named the plant. And what, pray tell, did they name it? Amaryllis. These kids are nothing if not creative.

Soon it’s Thanksgiving Eve, and Momma comes to visit. She brings decorations for them to make the room festive, and promises of a hot turkey dinner, before leaving. The next day, all four children decide to play house. Hardcore. The twins sit on Chris’s lap and listen while he tells them the story of the first Thanksgiving, while Cathy “bustled about like any hausfrau.” I’m so glad that VC is giving young women a strong female character, someone they can look up to. Cathy really is a great role model for a growing girl. She sets the table using all the fancy shit Momma brought them, except for the pilgrim-shaped candles. Cathy just can’t stand the idea of melting such pretty candles. I don’t know why she’s saving them. She really seems to believe that they’re going to be out of the attic soon. What a dumbfuck.

That afternoon, the kids are all sitting around waiting for their turkey. The twins are getting hungry, and apparently Grandmother didn’t bring them a picnic basket that morning because there’s nothing for them to snack on. The older kids sit around reading and letting the twins starve. It’s 1:00, and if this was a movie, the candles would be lit but not melted down too much. Soon it’s 2:00 and they’re all starving. By now, the candles would be about half melted. Momma comes in after 3:00, when the candles would be barely alive in their pools of wax, bringing cold turkey dinners and excuses. Her evil father threw a wrench in her plans by deciding to eat with everyone else, so she wasn’t able to bring their tray up with his. Instead, she had to sneak off every once in a while to take some food and hide it, in order to bring it up stairs. For the third time in a row, I have to ask – how the hell is she sneaking this stuff up there? How does no one notice? Especially on a day like Thanksgiving when they have guests over. This makes no sense. After all her hard work and sacrifices (like making a fool of herself in front of the guests), the twins won’t eat any of the food. I don’t blame them. I don’t like cold turkey either, and some of this food sounds gross – cranberry jelly with nuts and sour cream. This must be some kind of fucked-up Southern family delicacy. After the meal, Cathy starts cleaning up. This is actually a shock, because we know how he can be, but Chris helps her pick up the dishes and wash them, and he even picks up his dirty socks. Once everything is clean, the twins eat some PBJ sandwiches, and Cathy wonders why they like that “junk.” I don’t know, because it’s not cranberry sauce covered with sour cream?

The next day, Cory gets sick, and Carrie follows two days later. They get worse quickly, and Momma takes a week off from secretarial school. This is like the sneaking things upstairs thing. How does she explain this? “Oh, hey Dad. I don’t need the car this week. I’m going to spend the next 7 days up in the attic. I’m going on a spiritual journey. Sort of a vision quest. I’ll see you next week, or at dinner. We’ll see!” Whatever excuse she uses, Momma spends lots of time taking care of the sick kids, and wants to take them to the hospital. She and Grandma argue over whether it’s a cold or the flu, and Gran says they’ll be better in nine days. She’s only a syllable off; their raging fevers break after nineteen days. Yeah that week at the beginning really helped. By the end of it, the twins are asking why Momma doesn’t visit anymore and if she hates them. Because you’re evil, and yes.

Once the twins are better, Momma wants to stave off future illness by having the kids eat bananas and take vitamins. Or is it breath mints? Diet pills? Diet pills! Cathy gives her a hard time, saying that the twins got sick from being inside too much, and thinks that it’s time Momma get the money to move them into an apartment of their own. Momma tells her that they can’t afford to because Cathy stole the money out of the safe and took it to Atlantic City where it’s now recirculating, and that money was going to buy their new house. Then Cory takes off his top in front of Rex Manning. Oh wait, no. Instead, Chris yells at Cathy for giving Momma a hard time. He’s all “Be nice to her! I want to do her! Besides, do you think she’s happy with her kids locked in the attic?” Uh, yeah, I think she is happy that way.

A few more days have passed, and it’s Christmas Eve. The kids decide to make their grandmother a Christmas present. They spend all day gluing rocks to a piece of cloth. It sounds beautiful. It sounds like if you took the Christmas ornaments I made when I was 7 and covered them with dog poop, it sounds that lovely. When they wake up on Christmas morning, they find a room full of goodies. They all get candy and new robes and lots of toys. This must suck. I mean, it’s awesome getting new things, but since the room is stuffed with new things, it’s going to suck when they have to move everything out for the maids to clean at the end of the month.

Soon Grandmother comes in, all bitchy per usual. They sit there in silence (they’re not supposed to speak to her first, remember?) while she brings them their picnic basket. Cathy picks up the present they made for her (and wrapped!) . It takes like 5 pages, but basically Cathy takes it to her, and Grandmother looks at it, looks at Cathy, looks at the package, and walks out. Cathy flips her lid. She throws the package on the ground and starts stomping on it.

Not long after that, Momma comes in with their biggest presents. First is an old dollhouse that originally belonged to the grandmother, and then to her. It’s very old and very valuable, because it’s full of scale things that are like the real thing. That makes no sense. Okay. All the stuff is real – the Persian rugs, the Bible all of it. She also gives them a TV that was actually from her father. Yeah, she regifted. What a bitch. Her next big present is the news that, because she’s now become the dutiful daughter he always wanted, her father is going to write her back into his will. She’s pleased him so much, in fact, he’s throwing a party for her reintroduction to society that night. Cathy and Chris beg their way in, and she tells them she’ll help them sneak out and spy on the party.

The chapter ends with the twins playing with the dollhouse. When it was their grandmother’s, it was kept in a glass case and she couldn’t play with it. When it was Momma’s, she was whipped for breaking one of the dolls (and trying to see it naked). Cathy wonders what the twins will break, and what their punishment will be. I’m guessing nothing because this dollhouse obviously isn’t checked up on too much if Momma can bring it up to the kids in the attic.

Chapter 8 (part 2), or things heat up while the weather gets colder

2006-08-06T03:05:00.000-05:00

When we last left off, Cathy was in shock that Grandmother disapproved of her fetching things for Chris. If you’ll remember, Chris was up in the attic and asked Cathy to get him some water. It was when she ran down the stairs that she met Granny. Obviously, Gran’s tirade against being subservient to a man is totally correct. But then she starts talking about how all men are perverts and stuff. I mean, I’m sure it’s true, but when you ask a girl if her brother has asked her to pose naked so he can paint her, what do you expect to happen? Eventually, they’re going to get naked and do it. It’s just common sense, right?

After the kids have been in the attic for about two months, they decide that they need to do more than just start to entertain themselves. Yes, that’s right, they start having relations. No, just kidding! Haha, got you! Actually, they decide to keep up their dreams and goals. Chris starts studying the medical books he found in the attic. I’m sure that even though they’re 90+ years old, they’re still totally accurate. Cutting off the leg at the knee is still the proper treatment for a stubbed toe in the 1950s, right?

Cathy wants to be a prima ballerina, but she’s not as driven as Chris is to be a doctor. On top of that, she maintains that she can’t dance without a dancing costume. I’m pretty sure that you actually can dance without a “dancing costume,” which I’m pretty sure is just a leotard. I’m not sure, though, since this book pretty much turned me off of becoming a prima ballerina myself. Actually, it both turned me off and made me believe I was entirely under-qualified, not having a brother with whom I could have sex in the attic. I guess I kind of figured that incest was a requirement. Anyway, Cathy throws a temper tantrum and everyone comes to comfort her and tell her that she can become a ballerina and whatever. The twins give her their most prized possessions to make her feel better; these include a book and some crayons. Life was simpler back then. Chris installs a barre in the attic so she can practice, and Momma brings some “dancing costumes” for her. Okay, I was wrong. They’re not just leotards. They also have toe shows and tutus. Okay now maybe Cathy has learned to dance on pointe before, but since it’s never been mentioned before, I’m assuming she doesn’t know how. That just seems like begging for disaster. Good. Disaster makes for good drama; I think I saw that on one of those TNT “we know drama” things.

Now that Cathy has her ballet costumes and her barre, she starts dancing up in the attic every day. She dances until she’s so sweaty her hair is wet and all her muscles ache. Well no wonder all her muscles ache from dancing. She’s doing the leaps and stuff you do with a partner, without a partner. Instead, she just pretends. Hey newsflash: pretend dance partners don’t actually keep you from falling, dummy.

One day she’s dancing and she notices Chris standing in the shadows watching her, with a creepy look on his face. Let’s remember what Granny was talking about, how all guys are perverts and stuff. Hmmm I guess she was right about that. This is what I imagine Cathy saw smiling at her from the shadows:

It’s then that Cathy realizes that Chris is quickly turning into a man, just in time for his 15th birthday. But rather than be creeped out like a normal person (the house is already working its incestual magic on her), she decides to teach Chris to dance. She wants to teach him to dance ballet, but he refuses to learn anything but the waltz. Cathy starts this monologue about how he’s so sweet and whatever with his clumsiness. She teaches Chris the waltz and the foxtrot, and tries to teach him to Charleston. I guess in the 50s, doing the Charleston was like in middle school gym class when they’d teach you the Electric Slide. I don’t really know why they would teach us the Electric Slide, but they did. Every year. Maybe it’s so you have something in common with your parents? Chris is just as flabbergasted by the idea as I am, and he refuses to learn. That’s when Cathy tells him that he has to learn to dance to rock and roll or no girl will fall in love with him. “Rock ‘n’ Roll, Chris, you’ve got to learn how. Listen to the beat, let go, and learn to swivel your hips like Elvis. Come on, half-close your eyes, look sleepy, sexy, and pout your lips, for if you don’t, no girl is ever going to love you.” #1 I’m sure he can find an uptight girl to love him. #2 ew don’t tell your brother who stares at you when you dance in your leotard to look sexy. That’s just leo-tarded.

Soon it’s fall and they take down the flowers in the attic, replacing them with fall-colored leaves and geese, again made of construction paper. Once all the plants (the real ones, not the construction paper flowers) died, they realized that the attic wasn’t actually all that healthy. Every morning, they all lie on old mattress in front of the east-facing windows, with the windows open, to get as much sun as possible. In order to make sure that as much of their bodies get as much sun as possible, they do this naked. Yeah, that’s normal. I mean, little kids, fine, but a 13 year old and a 15 year old? In the 1950s? This is why your Grandmother thinks you’re filthy little sinners!!! Then they start talking about genitals and why the boys and girls have different ones. I’m not going to pretend that the topic of arousal doesn’t come up, although it’s specifically in relation to birds. I don’t know, it just grosses me out reading about it. And yet, I can’t stop…

It starts to get colder, as the weather often does during fall and getting closer to winter. The children run around in the attic to try to stay warm, and wear ski suits that Momma sneaks up to them. Again, this begs the question of how she’s sneaking these things upstairs. This is not normal, guys! It’s not the boxes of raisins she was bringing up at the beginning of the book! This is four ski suits! Maybe I’m imagining these weird, but I can only assume that they look like the snowsuit Ralphie’s brother wore in A Christmas Story. It’s pretty big. Does she just stuff it under her shirt and pretend no one will notice? If they do, what does she say? “Oh, I’m just a little bloated. That time of the month and all”? Regardless, she gets the ski suits up to the kids and they wear them to keep warm all day up in the attic. One day, they go up stairs and play hide and seek. Carrie gets bored and decides to go downstairs, but Cory won’t come out. They call his name over and over (how big is this house that four kids can run around in the attic and shout all day and no one notices?), to no avail. Finally Chris finds him, trapped in a trunk. I’m a horrible person, but I can’t help but think of R. Kelly at that point. Sorry.

They run him downstairs, and rules be damned, boys and girls go in the bathroom together. Cathy and Chris stick Cory in a hot bath, and rub him to warm him up. I know this is dramatic, but I don’t want to think of the two of them rubbing anything. Yuck. The real drama comes when Cory wakes up and asks for Momma. Cathy’s response? She’s Momma now. And I thought Chris was creepy. It gets worse, though, when Cathy is cuddling Cory and Carrie, leaving Chris to feel left out. So he sits down on the rocking chair, and the others all pile on top of him. Am I the only one that thinks that’s a little icky?

Chapter 8 (part 1), or the kids start getting filthy while they clean

2006-08-05T16:47:00.000-05:00

This is the first half of the chapter. It was pretty long, and I didn't want this to be tl;dr so I cut it in half. The second half should be up tomorrow (unless I'm packing, which I do need to do).

Now that the kids know they’ll be up in the attic until their grandfather dies, they set about entertaining themselves. I don’t know what they were doing before that, but apparently it wasn’t anything entertaining. Which is fine, because I’ve read this book before and I know exactly what sick things they end up doing to entertain themselves. But since they’re “bored” now and “need things to do,” they decide to make the best use they can of the attic and all it’s treasures. By treasures, of course, I mean junk. I know a thing or two about junk. I’m getting ready to move right now, and so far I’ve given 8 bags of stuff to Goodwill (mostly clothes and yarn, in case you were wondering). The Foxworth family should take a page from my book and sort through their shit. You may recall from an earlier chapter that they found Civil War uniforms up there. I know the book takes place in the 1950s or 60s, but even so that’s really old.

Using these old Civil War uniforms, as well as other old clothes, Cathy and Chris put on plays for the twins. The first one is Gone With The Wind, and Cathy can’t wait to play Scarlett to Chris’s Rhett. Get this: “I followed Rhett onto the ‘stage’ and was ready to taunt and tease, flirt and bewith, and put him on fire before I rushed off to some pale-haired Ashley Wilkes…” Not only is this foreshadowing for the rest of the series (I read about it on a fan website), ”Rhett” is her brother. Ewwwwww.

After Cathy falls on her face (I think she was really nervous around her crush, although she plays it off that she tripped on her dress), Cory complains about the attic. Chris comes up with the bright idea to clean it up. These kids must really be bored if they decide to clean an attic that is allegedly the size of a football field. Whatever it takes to pass the time, I guess. Their mother brings them cleaning supplies, and even helps them clean. This is, apparently, the first time she’s ever cleaned anything. The family had a maid come twice a week when Daddy was still alive (they weren’t rich or anything), but Momma helps clean anyway, and that’s how Cathy knows she really cares about them still. Once the attic is cleaned, Momma sneaks them arts and crafts supplies, and they begin making construction paper flowers (in the attic – get it?). This leads me to a point. The book literally says Momma is sneaking up mops and brooms and things, and then the stuff to make the flowers, as well as toys and food and stuff. How would one, exactly, sneak a mop into anywhere? Stick the pole down your back with the mop over your head? “Oh, I’m just trying out a new hairstyle, Crippled and Dying Father.”

In the meantime, like a typical teenage girl (and since I was one, I can say mean things about them), Cathy quickly forgets and Momma was scrubbing the floor with the rest of them to prove her love. Whenever Momma visits, Cathy gives her a hard time about secretarial school. She’s all “how many words a minute can you type? Why don’t you have a job yet?” It’s like listening to my mother. No, I’m kidding. My mother knows exactly how many words a minute I can type. Chris, of course, flirts with their mom, asking questions about the school and the teachers. Apparently, men take typing classes too – journalists, writers, or [men who] have some good reason for wanting to know how to type (VC-speak for homos?), and one of the teachers wants to bone one of the guys. But this guy keeps looking at Momma, who rebuffs him because he’s tiny and frail. Yeah, I guess I cracked the code!

While the kids have been up in the attic so much, they’re pretty much out of the sight of the Evil Grandmother. She’ll randomly come upstairs and look around their room, to see if they’re sinning yet. According to Momma, she won’t check in the attic because the stairs are so narrow and she’s claustrophobic from being locked in a closet as a child. Cathy’s response? She can’t imagine the grandmother as a child. My response? Uh somehow lock her in a closet and then escape. Durrrrrr! Anyway, I’ve decided that Grandma is the smartest character in this book (yes, I know, somehow even smarter than Chris), because Cathy comes rushing down the stairs to get Chris some water. She runs into Grandma, who then yells at Cathy for being subservient to a man. Granny’s all “stand up for yourself! Don’t do whatever a man wants you to do!” Somewhere, Geri Halliwell read that and discovered Girl Power.

Chapter 7, or Momma sends the kids cruisin for a bruisin, and Cathy wants to deliver it.

2006-07-31T17:34:00.000-05:00

The kids are still stuck upstairs in the attic (I know, this probably comes as a shock and I should have told you to sit down first, but I figure, why hide the truth from my loyal and lovely readers?). For some reason, they’re unhappy and say they’re “bored.” Whatever that means. To try to appease the masses (aka keep them from escaping and letting the world know they exist), Momma brings them all kinds of games. Growing up as a games kid, I definitely understand how rad this is. I loved games then, and I still love games now. They’re fun! They get Monopoly (if there’s ever a way to fill up a few hours, it’s ~~Monotonous~~ Monopoly), Scrabble (I didn’t realize they had Scrabble in the 50s), Chinese checkers, and White people checkers. I mean plain. That’s what they’re called in the book. Plain checkers.

In addition to board games, Momma brings her devil spawn some cards and a book of card games. I know it’s not a rule from Grandma, but in the last chapter, when Momma tells them her story, she tells them about how she and her brothers would be whipped for playing card games because that encouraged gambling. Gambling, of course, being a sin and all, the parents wanted to ensure that their kids didn’t waste their time on the more minor sins so that they could skip straight ahead to dirty, sexy, dirty incest. Bringing her children cards and card game directions, this begs the question: is Momma trying to get her children whipped? I’m not mad if she is. Heck, I understand it and agree with her. I’m just curious, really. That’s all.

Anyway, while they’re stuck in the attic, Momma has been taking secretarial classes (as already established). To help her get there – so she doesn’t have to hitch with truckers? – her father has given her the use of one of his cars. I would make a crack here about women drivers and how he must be senile, but then I remembered that I’m not a sexist stand-up comic from the 1950s, so I won’t. They’ve been there for two weeks, and Momma admits that she hasn’t told her father about the kids yet. I’m beginning to get suspicious. Didn’t she say it would only be a few days? Oh nooooooo!

Cut to two weeks after that. The kids are stuck inside, and are waiting for Mom to come visit. She usually comes everyday, even if it’s just for a little bit. But it’s Sunday. She’s free all day Sunday. Where is she, right? She comes all breezing in that evening, rosy cheeked and happy and healthy. Turns out, she’d been out sailing. We know this because not only does VC describe a white top “with a sailor collar trimmed in red and blue braid, and an anchor design,” Cathy calls them sailing clothes and tells us that she knows them. How? I don’t know. These are really just tricks of a writer to help the slower (products of incest?) readers. Cathy’s all surly to her mom. What do you expect? She’s like 13. It turns out that Momma hasn’t been entirely honest with her children. She basically admits that she’s never telling her father about them, but since the kids are the product of incest and retarded devil spawn, they don’t realize it. The chapter ends with Chris sucking up to Momma. I can only assume that, like all men (according to Freudians, at least), he has an Oedipus complex. Chris is just lucky enough that he can probably score with his actual mother. “Lucky” enough.

Sorrrrrry!

2006-07-30T23:48:00.000-05:00

I just want to apologize about my pokiness with updating. Real Life, that dreaded thing, has been taking over lately. I've been busy looking for an apartment in a new city (I'm sure you can imagine how daunting that is), but now I have one! Now I have to pack up and move. But I will do my best to keep updating. There will be an update on Monday for sure, and I will try to write up a bunch of posts in advance so that I can just post them everyday or so. Again, I apologize! I have been getting complaints, so I know they're wanted!

Chapter six, or the family that lays together, stays together (until Daddy dies)

2006-07-21T13:13:00.000-05:00

Granny has left, so that Corrine can tell her children the whole story of why her parents hate her, and why the kids need to be locked up in the attic. In the last chapter, their parentage is really vaguely alluded to, when the grandmother says “you and your half-uncle did make exceedingly beautiful children.” Obviously, this is very vague and only the most psychic of people will understand what that means without reading ahead. For the rest of us, though, we have a whole chapter where it’s laid out in the simplest terms possible. Long story short, Corrine and her half-uncle fell in love, eloped, got kicked out of the house, settled down, and had four kids before he died and she had to go crawling back to her parents to beg forgiveness and be rich again.

Corrine blames her parents hatred of her children and her lifestyle on their religious conservatism. Yes, they’re very religious. Apparently, her father gives a tithe every year, which must be shorthand for insane about the Bible. I wouldn’t really know; I was raised a Unitarian. But even as a lifelong Unitarian, I’d be willing to stake a claim that it’s not religious conservatism that makes people hate incest and think it’s gross. I mean, I’m into a lot of weird stuff (college radio, Flowers in the Attic, talking about anal fisting), and even I think incest is pretty gross. It’s one of (hu)mankind’s oldest taboos. Not to mention, when Christopher’s mother died his brother (Corrine’s father) took in the boy and raised him as a son, to replace the two sons who died before that. So they’re sort of raised as brother and sister, sort of.

While Corrine is telling her story, Chris gets a “queer” look on his face. In my notes (yes, I keep notes on this. It helps me remember what I should write about!), I wrote “#1 I’ll say he looks queer. #2 he’s probably like ‘No wonder I want to do my sister, it runs in the family!’” I think that’s still pretty accurate, especially the queer part. Then, maybe seeing the queer look on Chris’s face, Corrine decides to tell the kids that before he was born, she and her husband/uncle where afraid that her parents would be right and their children would have horns and tails and look like demons. Yeah, that’s sure to calm the kids and reassure them that everything will be alright. “Don’t worry kids, Grandma and Grandpa can’t be right about this. They said you would be born with cloven hooves, and that’s just wrong!” Corrine also tells them that she’ll be enrolling in secretarial school, so that she can get a good paying job (as a secretary) to get them out of here. I’m just impressed that she knows how to read.

Chapter Five, or BDSM runs in the family

2006-07-20T12:45:00.000-05:00

While the younger kids play on the floor and the older kids ~~mess around in the bed~~ play checkers, their grandmother comes in. Apparently they’re breaking several rules, but I’m not really sure what they are. I think having a mess on the floor is one, but does a mess even count when you’re still using it?

Their mom comes in, and she’s walking all funny. I can only think of one thing that makes someone walk that funny. It starts with an “a” and ends with an “nal-fisting.” Something tells me that if that happens, it’s not going to happen in the fifth chapter. I figure we’ll have to wait until at least chapter nine for hardcore anal play. Ew. I’m done thinking about that now. No, no I’m not. Anyway, Carrie starts screaming bloody murder, and naturally the grandmother doesn’t want to hear it. Would anyone? Mother won’t get her to shut up because she’s horrible at everything related to parenting, apparently. Grandmother’s solution? The aforementioned lifting Carrie up by the hair. I’m not sure that that’ll really stop a little kid from screaming like a banshee, but eventually she shuts up. Grandmother also smacks Cory across the face and sends him flying, when he goes to defend Carrie. She is my hero.

Grandmother makes Mother take off her top in front of the kids. No, this isn’t turning into a hot incestual prison movie (that comes later). She wants the kids to see what happens to people who disobey in this household – they get whipped. Mother has received 48 lashes; 33 for each year she’s been alive, and 15 for each year she was married. That’s why she was walking funny (see, I was right. No anal fisting in chapter five). This freaks out Cathy, but it enrages Chris. He stands there, fists clenched, thinking about “what kind of damage he could inflict if he attacked.” I’m pretty sure that’s two rules he’s breaking right there. Grannie best get that whip out and punish quick, or she might lose control of the kids. I’m thinking, oh, 42 lashes. Fourteen for each year of his life, and fourteen each for the rules he broke. Sounds good to me!

Chapter Four, or the Dresden Dolls like to exxxplore in the attic

2006-07-19T13:03:00.000-05:00

It’s after ten AM on their first day in the room/attic, which means the Dresden Dolls (not the band) can head up to the attic. In a sort of vague foreshadowing, the kids go upstairs to “explore.” Sure, they’re just checking out what’s up there and all, but in the coming days/weeks/months/years they will find many things to exxxplore. Specifically each other’s young, nubile bodies. Specifically the genitals on said bodies.

Upstairs, the children find a ton of old shit. Old furniture, chamber pots (I wish one of the kids had put one on his/her head, a la Vincent’s hat on the first episode of this season of Project Runway), old trunks, and clothes from the Civil War. I know I’ve addressed this before, but wtfuck is with Christopher? Cathy’s like “wow do u think these clothes r frum da Civil War?” to which Christopher responds, “The War Between the States sounds better.” What? This is the d-bag Cathy falls in love with? He doesn’t even answer the question. I mean, sure, she’s an idiot, but still. He’s awful. The kids find an old schoolroom at the end of the attic, which according to Wikipedia, suggests that these kids aren’t the first to be held prisoner in the house. Or it just means that the kids were taught at home?

The twins hate being in the house and want to go play outside, so Christopher decides to build them swings in the attic. When they went upstairs, the floorboards were described as rotting, so I would naturally assume that the ceiling beams were, too. And since I’ve been waiting and waiting for them to drop or knock over something incredibly heavy, or fall and make a huge noise, I figure this is my chance. I just want their grandmother to come running upstairs to set them on fire or do something equally cruel and biblical as punishment. But no, life (and be life I mean VC Andrews) just isn’t that kind to me, and the kids just play until they get bored.

It really bothers me, but it appears that Carrie never learned any personal pronouns. I know she’s a little kid, but all she does is scream and whine, and all her character does is make me empathize with the grandmother. I concur with her that the kids (or Carrie, at least) must be at least partially retarded, and I desperately want to lift her up and hold her by the hair. Any method of cause her the pain of having to read about her. Fucking VC Andrews.

Cathy takes a bath before lunch, and even though it’s totally against the rules, Chris hangs out with her in the bathroom while she’s in the tub. Um, ew. No wonder the grandmother has really crazy strict rules about this kind of stuff. Could someone with a brother please tell me how often they took baths with their brother (or sister) in the room? Especially when they’re 12?? Anyway, the two talk about what they’re going to do with their money when they’re rich. Chris wants to be a playboy before he’s a doctor, and Cathy will be a ballerina, of course. This is because now she’s too old to have a pony. My favorite part is when Cathy says that when she’s a ballerina, she will eat only ice cream and cheese because if she doesn’t pig out on stuff, she’ll be nothing but skin and bones. Now, I haven’t taken a dance class since the third grade, unless you count the country line dancing class I had to take for a quarter in high school, but I’m pretty sure ballerinas want to be nothing but skin and bones. If I remember correctly from that Babysitter’s Club book where a girl at Jessi’s dance school was anorexic, it’s so they can jump higher or something. Maybe that was Center Stage, or both. But I definitely remember seeing some movie (probably on Lifetime) about how fat dancers don’t dance. And by fat the teacher meant dancers over 111 pounds.

Chapter Three, or Brother Chris is well on his way to a fulfilling career as a freaky BDSM dom

2006-07-18T23:41:00.000-05:00

This chapter is kind of short, and sort of boring and dumb. The kids wake up in their room in the old, unused wing of the house where the servants only clean once a month or something. Their new grandma comes in with their food for the day, and their list of rules. The kids read the rules, the twins whine a lot, and Chris is a total dick. I’m pretty sure that I’m supposed to like him, and maybe I did when I was 13, but when he calls his sister “sit-down females” and when he’s appointed the new father, he starts talking about how all the sit-down females need to wait on him hand and foot and be his slaves. I’m not really supposed to like this kid, am I? Or maybe I’m just reading too into this book, which bring new meaning to the idea of the beach read or throwaway book.

Because there’s not much else, I want to mention something about the copy of the book that I’m using. I got it out of my public library (shout out), and it is… not exactly well-loved, or necessarily well-read. But it has certainly been handled a lot. It’s been in circulation for almost twelve and a half years now (at least), and a bunch of pages are torn straight across. In the past twelve+ years, someone read (I assume) this book and underlined random words. I can’t for the life of me figure out why, though. It reminds me of the movie Heathers, when Christian Slater underlines passages in Heather’s copy of Moby Dick, to make her look really troubled and suicidal. Only this just makes whoever it is look dumb.

Chapter Two, or to Grandmother's house we go

2006-07-17T19:41:00.000-05:00

Okay, so Daddy’s dead now, right? What to do, what to do? Oh, of course, they’re all going to go to stay with the grandparents the kids never knew they had. Actually that sort of makes a little bit of sense (this is, I think, they only little bit of sense in the entire series). But they have to leave RIGHT NOW. It’s like on America’s Next Top Model, when they have to leave the house as soon as they’re kicked off at the judging ceremony. They have like, 20 minutes to pack their bags and then they’re taking the train to Virginia where Momma’s parents live. How many bags? Four total, and Momma needs two of her own. Yeah, four kids (two of whom are like 4) are sharing two small suitcases. I mean, I know I’m a ridiculous over-packer, but I can’t even fathom that. For some reason, I think the fact that four kids are sharing two suitcases is the most unbelievable part of this story. Something must be very, very wrong with me.

They get on the train, and it’s very late at night. They’re getting off the train at 3 in the morning, the conductor calls their mother Mrs. Patterson (Patterson is not their last name), and the kids only just start to question what’s going on. Because escaping into the dead of night is totally normal. The family gets off the train in the middle of nowhere, with only the kids’ suitcases. Mom’s have been sent on to Charlottesville. Apparently this is the train stop near her parents’ house, and it is an hour away. I don’t understand why they didn’t just get off there. Because they’re going walk to the family homestead at 3 in the morning with 4 year old twins. Maybe it’s an hour walking, but this book makes no sense so I should really stop searching for some.

They get to the family house and are greeted by their heretofore-unknown grandmother. She shows them to their room, and asks if they’re retarded. The mother denies it, but the grandmother and I know the truth. They’re more retarded than a Downs Syndrome baby that was dropped on its head nineteen times. These kids - nay, the entire family - make Paris Hilton look like a genius.

Chapter One, or why our life is so great and we're totally normal (which means it's obviously not because VC Andrews "wrote" this)

2006-07-14T15:12:00.000-05:00

Within a few paragraphs of Flowers in the Attic, I think I figured out why 13 year old girls have loved these books for the last 20 years. We’re talking, really, about two generations of young, impressionable American women. Obviously I’ve read a significant chunk of the V.C. Andrews repertoire before today, so I’m well aware of the rampant, dirty, delicious, nasty-ass incest. That’s the biggest factor. There’s rape, there’s sex with a guy who I at least always imagined looked like Colonel Sanders, it’s basically a puupuu platter of taboo fetishes. And let’s not forget the murder! These books have everything! Through my immense research of the subject, I’m basically positive that this is the reason that rates of the therapy and psychotropic medications have gone up over the last 25 years or whatever.

Anyway, the other reason, right? Right. These books (or at least this book, but I’m assuming it’s true for all books written by “V.C. Andrews”) seem like they’re written by a pretentious 15 year old with an Author of Classic Literature complex. It’s all big words and long sentences, and bad structure. Ohmigod, am I really saying the Flowers in the Attic isn’t the high point of history’s great literature. I think I just shocked myself. I’m not really hypercritical of books and stuff, mostly because I don’t read enough of that great literature to know what I’m talking about, so hey. Everyone needs a target, I guess. But seriously, this is written so badly. Not even the actual writing, but the writer obviously didn’t check what s/he had already written, to see if things matched up, and I guess his/her editor was lazy. On page 5 it talks about how the family had no luxuries. Then we find out that every Friday (every SINGLE Friday) the dad comes home with presents for the whole family. Non-luxurious gifts like sterling silver jewelry boxes. Oh, yeah, totally not special.

I’m pretty sure that this book was allegedly written before the “real” V.C. Andrews died and they brought in a ghostwriter, but if that’s the case, I’m pretty sure she was either a dude or an only child. Apparently, when Cathy, the main character, finds out that her mother is having twins, she decides that she hates the babies already. But once the babies come, she races home to take care of them, including changing their diapers. Now, I had a baby sister, and while I don’t remember it exactly, I also don’t remember running home from school to change her diaper. Yeah, I’m pretty sure no one races to do that.

The best part of the first chapter (it’s a long first chapter, okay??) is definitely when the dad dies. First of all, it’s his birthday. The whole family and all their friends are gathered for a party, and he doesn’t show up! Dad’s BFF says he must be having an affair, which seriously is kind of fucked up, but whatever. Then Cathy sees a car coming up the drive. Is it Daddy? No, it’s marked State Police, and Daddy is a PR man for a computer company, not a policeman. The policeman comes in and tells the mother that Daddy is dead. There was an accident. But it’s great because it’s pretty much that comedy classic of telling someone something bad, but then good! Oh but then there’s bad again. Here’s what happened:
-There was a car accident, but it wasn’t Daddy’s fault.
-A drunk driver was swerving between lanes
-Daddy swerved out of the way, using a “correct defensive driving maneuver” (see what I mean about the 15-year-old’s writing style?)
-There’s something in the road to keep him from properly completing the “correct defensive driving maneuver”
-The car turns over several times, and he might have been able to live
-A truck crashes into his car
-The car turns over again
-The care catches on fire

Is this not the most ridiculous thing ever? Also, it brings me back to my point about not rereading things, because in one paragraph, “V.C.” says that the drunk driver crashed into Daddy’s car, but that Daddy managed to avoid a head-on collision. What?

The Prologue, or how not to effectively begin a fiction book if you don't want people thinking it's about your actual life

2006-07-13T15:18:00.000-05:00

To start this thing right, let’s establish that everyone who counts at all has already read at least one V.C. Andrews book. Flowers in the Attic is basically the best, because it was the first to the oft-regurgitated format of a young girl, who’s very rich but for whatever reason doesn’t like it, and then has sex with a close relative. According to the back of the book, which was printed sometime after 1987, this “is the novel that began V.C. Andrews’ extraordinary career, winning her an immediate, fiercely devoted world-wide following,” made up of 12-16 year old girls. Seriously, these books are not great, but apparently “more than 4.5 million readers have been captivated by this strange, dark, terrifying tale of passion and peril in the lives of four innocent children, locked away from the world by a selfish mother.” God this stuff is great.

A few years ago, I read somewhere that Flowers in the Attic and one of V.C.’s other books (My Sweet Audrina) are partly autobiographical. I guess, actually, that means all her books are semi-autobiographical, because every other book "she" "wrote" is pretty much just a total rip off of those two books, right? I don’t know if this is true, but I’m pretty sure I know where and how this rumor got started. The prologue to this book lays it out like it’s a memoir. It’s written “in character,” but I’m pretty sure we all know that the C in V.C.’s name stand’s for Cathy, which is the main character’s name. Okay I’m guessing about that. But anyway, the book is written like it’s an autobiography, starting from the first page of the prologue, where Cathy talks about coming up with the title ("Open the Windows and Stand in the Sunshine" was in the running. What?) and how she would like to start the story like Charles Dickens, with the birth of the protagonist, but he was a genius and she is very slow due to the fact that she and her siblings are the product of incest. And then it ends with a paragraph saying that she’s using a false name, like Dickens (I did not know that Charles Dickens hid behind a false name because the stuff he wrote was so shameful). Gee, wonder where that rumor came from? There’s also no “about the author” section, because why would you put an about the author section on a memoir? That’s like reading the Cliff’s Notes version. This, though, is more like reading a biography through the lens of the Weekly World News, which just makes it even awesomer.