Hush, Hush: Chapter 19

[zelda_queen]

ZeldaQueen: Very, very sorry for the break there, ladies and gentlemen. I actually just started back to college a few days ago, so things are going to be a mite slower for a little bit. But fear not, we're back to our abusive angels!

Projection Room Voices: Starting Media in 3...2...1...
  

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Chapter 19

ZeldaQueen: We jump ahead to Nora in her bedroom, hiding the snow globe in her closet. Of course she finds it creepy now, even though it looked beautiful while Patch was around. And I’m not sure if that’s meant to just be OVERLY SYMBOLIK or something else, but we will find out a little more on why that might be in a few chapters. Anyway, Nora completely fails to bring up any reasons why it would be creepy as she apparently has completely forgotten the roller coaster incident except for her delusion that Patch somehow saved her during it. She also comments that she “wasn't entirely sure there wasn't a hidden camera inside”, which I’m pretty sure supposed to be a joke. Fitzpatrick, that’s not funny in the slightest.

Incidentally, see if you can guess what's missing from this picture. I'll give you a minute. *sits, humming* There we go. Anyone guess? There was no confrontation from her mother about Patch. Yeah. Her mother was clearly upset and suspicious of Patch and with good reason, given that Nora just ran off without even calling or leaving a note and came back with a guy who allegedly does all to emulate the bad boy look (and I say "allegedly" because yeah, rocking the trucker cap is soooo bad boy). Anyway, one would think that Mrs. Grey would at the very least want something from Nora. A promise not to do that again. A few more details on Patch. Maybe a phone number, so she can call if Nora runs off again. A lecture about dating safety. Something. But no, it apparently never happened and never does.

One pointless description of Nora changing into her Pjs later, she calls Vee to give her the juicy talk about that stupid date. Vee, for her part, seems quite determined to piss me off right away

"‘Well?’ she said. ‘How'd it go? Obviously he didn't kill you, so that's a good start’”

ZeldaQueen: Fitzpatrick I must ask you, was Vee originally written to be completely devoid of empathy? Or were you trying to write her as the most brainless blockhead I’ve ever read about? Because what the fuck? She believes that Patch brutally attacked her, landing her in the hospital. She continues to urge Nora to avoid him. And she just found out that Nora went off on a date with this guy and her first reaction is a casual “So he didn’t kill you, huh?”

No, Fitzpatrick. That sort of tone is appropriate when a kid takes a trip to the principle. Putting such a flippant, casual tone in regards to a situation which really is very dangerous is INCREDIBLY STUPID AND INFURIATING!!! Why is everyone in this book so determined to forget or downplay the nasty stuff going on? WHAT THE FUCK???

I’m sorry I just...gah! That really got me angry. Okay. *deep breath* Nora tells about how they played pool, and Vee reminds Nora that she (Nora) apparently hates pool. Besides the fact that that particular character trait was never hinted at or shown before, this just makes me even more squicked, because it feels like Patch is trying to model Nora to like what he thinks she should like. Thanks for that, Fitzpatrick.

Nora says that it wasn’t too bad because he gave her a few pointers, leading Vee to reply “I bet he could give you pointers in a few other areas of your life”. Oh, but hold your roars of outrage, ladies and gentlemen! Because the very next thing out of Vee’s stupid mouth?

“‘I know I've said this before, but Patch doesn't instill a deep sense of comfort in me,’ Vee said. ‘I still have nightmares about the guy in the ski mask. In one of my nightmares, he ripped off his mask, and guess who was hiding under it? Patch. Personally, I think you should treat him like a loaded gun. Something about him isn't normal.’”

ZeldaQueen: … She heavily implies that Nora can get sexy time tips from Patch and then immediately turns around and tells her to be extremely cautious around him.

I’m terribly sorry Mervin, but I need to borrow this

ZeldaQueen: Mm, that’s surprisingly therapeutic.

On another note, if I was having nightmares that a guy was attacking me in a graveyard, I would describe him in a stronger way than “doesn’t instill a deep sense of comfort in me”.

Anyway, Nora completely misses all of this batshittery and instead randomly asks why someone would have a V-shaped scar on their back. You have to ask Vee this…why? Is she the town’s authority on scars? Is she studying medicine on the side? Does she have some special connection because of her name? What could Vee guess that Nora couldn’t think of herself?

Well in any case, Vee takes this question very seriously and thinks of several reasons why someone would acquire scars like that. No, I’m just kidding. She really starts gushing because OH LOOK, NORA APPEARS TO HAVE SEEN PATCH NAKED!

I hate Vee.

Nora continues to insist that she hasn’t seen him naked, and Vee refuses to believe this. CHRIST, WILL SOMETHING HAPPEN ALREADY? I’m so freaking bored!

Finally, Vee comes up with some theories that include prison, gang-fights, and hit-and-run accidents. For no reason at all - and believe me, I mean no reason - Nora remembers the painted angels on the side of the Archangel cars and how there were convenient pictures of horned creatures ripping the wings off of some. And WHAT DO YOU KNOW, THAT LEFT V-SHAPED SCARES! ASTONISHING!!! *BEATS HEAD AGAINST WALL*

Vee, meanwhile, is squeeing for more details. When Nora explains that Patch lost his shirt in a fight, Vee says “This is what I'm talking about. The two of you are out together ... and he gets in a fight? What's his problem? It's like he's more animal than human”. Clearly Vee has never heard of dudes trying to impress their girlfriends. Not that Patch would resort to that, of course. He gets his thrills by threatening and scaring his girlfriend.

… I am very sorry.

Vee switches back to fishing for details, and this is so abrupt that I nearly got whiplash. She asks “Was he an angel?” or if he played up his bad-boy image which, besides being SYMBOLISM is an incredibly stupid question. Didn’t she just say that it was animalistic of him to get in a fight during the date?

Also, Vee is basically looking for details on whether or not Patch tried something on Nora. This is all described in the most gossipy way possible and not like Vee is worried that her friend was assaulted on the date or something.

Fucking a - I’m going to die if I dwell on this too long. Nora is still all BSOD-ing on her (stupid) revelation and says she has to go. Vee is pissed, because “I see how it is. You're going to hang up before I get the details on the big shebang”. Die in a fire, Vee.

After hanging up, Nora heads off to her mother’s office and gets on the computer. She boots it up, pulls up Google (and unlike Meyer, Fitzpatrick does give the actual search engine name), and types “angel wing scars” in. She steels her nerves, hits “Enter” and clicks on the first link. I’m going to post the entire thing in its entirety before picking it apart

“FALLEN ANGELS: THE FRIGHTENING TRUTH

At the creation of the garden of Eden, heavenly angels were dispatched to Earth to watch over Adam and Eve. Soon, however, some angels set their sights on the world beyond the garden walls. They saw themselves as future rulers over the Earth's population, lusting after power, money, and even human women.

Together they tempted and convinced Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, opening the gates guarding Eden. As punishment for this grave sin and for deserting their duties, god stripped the angels' wings and banished them to Earth forever.

[…]

Fallen angels are the same evil spirits (or demons) described in the Bible as taking possession of human bodies. Fallen angels roam the Earth looking for human bodies to harass and control. They tempt humans to do evil by communicating thoughts and images directly to their minds. If a fallen angel succeeds in turning a human toward evil, it can enter the human's body and influence his or her personality and actions. However, the possession of a human body by a fallen angel can take place only during the Hebrew month of Cheshvan. Cheshvan, known as "the bitter month," is the only month without any Jewish holidays or fasts, making it an unholy month. Between new and full moons during Cheshvan, fallen angels invade human bodies in droves”

ZeldaQueen: Right. Let’s start at the beginning and go straight through until we hit the end.

First of all, let’s pull up Google and type in “angel wing scars”. Let’s see what comes up.

Well, the first two hits I get are the Amazon entries for Hush, Hush. Other than that, the hits I get on the page are DeviantArt work for angels, tattoos people want or are getting, and someone’s roleplaying character. I get absolutely nothing for sites that are actually academic or otherwise providing factual information on fallen angels.

Now, let us look at that first part of the site Nora apparently found. It says that angels watched over Adam and Eve but grew greedy and lustful and incited the incident with the Tree of Knowledge.

Alright, there’s the thing folks - Fitzpatrick chose to build her angelic universe around the idea that the Book of Enoch is canon. It’s the thing that everyone here talks about, it’s the only Biblical text referenced. So when that’s brought up with fallen angels, I’d say it’s safe to assume that Fitzpatrick had in mind the fallen angels mentioned in the Book of Enoch.

So. Ignoring the rather loose interpretation of the Fall of Man up there, Fitzpatrick has failed in an even bigger way. Because she basically set up that the angels grew all greedy and lustful and fell around the time Adam and Eve were still in Eden.

Yeah, in the Book of Enoch, it’s pretty apparent that the events happened after Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden and that humanity had had a chance to get along. For those who don’t know, the Book of Enoch has a part about the Watchers (or Grigori), two hundred angels who “saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose” (Genesis 6:2-4), which lead them to leave Heaven and take human wives. Now I must ask, if Adam and Eve were still in Eden, how could there be other human women for the angels to lust over? Eve didn’t give birth until after they where kicked out! For that matter, why would the angels covet money or power at that time? There was none! Adam and Eve were the only two people there, and they had all of the food and things they needed provided for them!

And no, Fitzpatrick, the Serpent was not among the two hundred Watchers who fell in the Book of Enoch.

Finally, there is surprisingly little information on the Grigori (at least it’s surprising when you consider how popular fallen angels are getting in teen literature as of late). According to this website though, the Watchers were given the job of keeping an eye on humans and “their selflessness was beyond compare”. I can’t say how accurate that is, but it is in Biblical texts that they taught humans arts like the forging of weapons and the mixing of cosmetics, which doesn’t really make them sound as power-hungry as Fitzpatrick has them here. I mean, we don’t hear about them doing very much human domination, which is doubly stupid when we learn all the things fallen angels in this world can do.

Right. On to the next part.

See that first part there? The part that says that fallen angels are demons? Keep that tucked away in your mind. For now, we're going to remember that the fallen angels in this book are greedy, obsessed with power, possess people, and steal human bodies.

Now, I’m fairly sure that there were Biblical possessions that happened at times other than Chesvan, but alright. Fitzpatrick is giving her creations some sort of limitation. And yes, I do recall how that dude Patch mind raped in the prologue was told to meet him at the beginning of Chesvan. I’m saving my rant on that for a later chapter.

So yeah, Nora starts to freak out because of course she immediately starts to buy into the possibility that Patch is a fallen angel that may or may not want to possess her. I really fail to see any reason for her to jump to that conclusion. As Vee pointed out, there are a good many reasons why someone like Patch would have scars on his back. Given his determination to uphold his bad boy image, it’s entirely possible he got someone to carve that V shape into his back because he thought it would look cool. Nora really should be worrying about more pressing concerns, like the fact that Patch may or may not have beaten the holy tar out of Vee and could very well do the same to her.

Nora reads down and reaches the end of the article. Here it is

“Fallen angels who have a sexual relationship with a human produce superhuman offspring called nephilim. The nephilim race is an evil and unnatural race and was never meant to inhabit Earth. Although many believe the great Flood at the time of noah was intended to cleanse the Earth of nephilim, we have no way of knowing if this hybrid race died out and whether or not fallen angels have continued to reproduce with humans since that time. it seems logical that they would, which means the nephilim race is likely on the Earth today”

ZeldaQueen: Nothing wrong with that factually, seeing as it was in Biblical texts that the Nephilim were born of human/fallen angel union and that the Great Flood (And no, I don’t know why “great” wasn’t capitalized but “flood” was, nor do I know why "noah" wasn't. Let's chalk it up to an error in my copy, or else Fitzpatrick's writing skills suck worse than initially assumed) also served the purpose of purging the world of them.

Pause for a minute though, and look at that text. Specifically, look at how it’s written. It’s not very neutral, is it? Nor is it particularly straight-up fact. It’s written like whoever made the site really believes that there are giant angel/human hybrids wandering around on Earth today. There’s no quotes, no sources, nothing to particularly back up the information.

You know Fitzpatrick, considering Nora is supposed to have a scholarship to the Ivy-league school of her choice, you’d think she’d know how to find reputable sources for information. An online encyclopedia entry. The actual Biblical texts. Wikipedia, for fuck’s sake! That though? Doesn’t sound at all like a legitimate source to learn about anything. There’s clearly a bias slant, given how the author wrote the thing like it all really happened. And yes, I know that there are people who believe in that and I’m not knocking that, but a site like that would get you laughed at if you tried to cite it as a resource for a paper. It sounds like Fitzpatrick needed a neat and convenient way to get some more angelic information in and made a weak attempt to imitate a random website.

*sighs* Nora finally leaves the computer and thinks about how scary that all was. Why? That stuff wasn’t all that scary! I could understand being scared if there was more evidence that you were in danger of being possessed, but there really isn’t!

Anyway, Nora takes all of the information she just learned and…decides to think about it later. Really? She just learned that the guy pursuing her (in a manner, at least) is a fallen angel - a demon, by that site’s word - who possesses people and may be lining her up for the same and she decides to ignore it?

Well. And people wonder why this series is called “Twilight with Angels”. Hello thar, Bella and Bree!

Vee conveniently calls at this point, asking if avocados count as a yellow fruit or a green fruit. Ah yes, that stupid diet joke. I’ve totally not been missing that. Nora doesn’t answer the question, but instead asks Vee whether or not she believes in superheroes. Um… Fitzpatrick? Why does she ask that? I’m serious. There is no build-up at all to that question and it isn’t even vaguely relevant to the fallen angels bit. Unless…fucking a - no. Please, for the love of everything sacred and holy, do not tell me that Nora is starting to view Patch as a fucking superhero.

Well, if that is the case we never find out. Vee limits her response to “Tobey Maguire and Christian Bale are hot, so I believe in superheroes”. Vee, darling? No one asked if you had a costume fetish. The hotness of the actors is in no way relevant to whether or not you believe they can be real.

Nora gives no reason for that question, and instead jumps to asking Vee whether or not she thinks the Bible is accurate. Okay, fair enough question even if the Book of Enoch technically isn’t Biblical canon for most Christian denominations. Vee’s response?

“I think Pastor Calvin is hot. In a forty something way. That pretty much sums up my religious conviction”

ZeldaQueen: Passing over the fact that yet again Vee in no way actually answers the stupid question, I’m starting to think that Vee is extremely desperate if she’s eyeing up their forty-ish pastor.

Nora again does not elaborate, nor does Vee ask her to. It might just be me, but I’d have a few questions for both of them at that point, mostly along the lines of “Why are you wondering about this?” and “Your pastor? Seriously???” But nope, Nora just hangs up and goes off to bed with visions of fallen angels and Nephilim dancing in her head. And really, that’s pretty much how Fitzpatrick describes it. And with that, we end this chapter

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Onward to: Chapter 20

Back to: Chapter 18

Return to to: Table of Contents

Comments

[greenerygripes.livejournal.com]

We jump ahead to Nora in her bedroom, hiding the snow globe in her closet. Of course she finds it creepy now, even though it looked beautiful while Patch was around.
Not gonna lie, my first thought was "Oh my god, so Patch is using some mind-manipulation to control Nora and make her fall for him, but it only works when they're in each others' presence, and if this were a GOOD story Nora would figure this out and seek help that would serve whoop-ass on Patch!" But then I realized that no, it isn't so. This is just shoddy writing.

Good fucking god, can Vee just make up her mind? First she's all squeeing and begging for juicy details, then she's all "Ohhh if he got in a fight around you, should be careful" and then she's all "SQUEEE HE LOST HIS SHIRT!" Damn it, author, what is Vee, a squeeing idiotic fangirl who has no empathy whatsoever, or is she a stern girl who sees that some things are just Bad News? YOU CAN'T HAVE BOTH AT THE SAME TIME!

“FALLEN ANGELS: THE FRIGHTENING TRUTH
Sounds more like Nora hit a tabloid article than any real sort of research.

“I think Pastor Calvin is hot. In a forty something way. That pretty much sums up my religious conviction”
Watch it, Vee, you're making me think of Abigail Willaims, and you do not want that.

I hate these girls. I hate them so, so much.

[angel-renoir.livejournal.com]

Hello Bible fail.

And your usual research fail. I hate these so-called research scenes. You find ONE site and it's enough? And it SO happen to contain ALL the pertinent CORRECT information? THAT IS NOT HOW YOU DO RESEARCH!!! ESPECIALLY if it concerns mythical beings. There are bajillions of sites and articles and books out there that tells you of different things!

I remember when I was looking up Persian gods for my story I spent freaking HOURS online looking up relevant books, site, and info because really, they all say slightly different things. I went to Amazon and scoured through every single free-sample pages that you can look into and borrowed as much of the books as I could from the library coz I can't possibly buy them all. ARRRGGGHHH!!!!

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

And the worst part is, Nora is supposed to be a straight-A student who does writing for her school paper. She ought to know better about how to do research. -_-

[detritius.livejournal.com]

I love how the author outright admits that fallen angles are demons, not generally romanticized creatures, to say the least, but the next thing we know, Nora's framing Patch as a superhero. (And by love, I mean I want to smack the author with a book of classical mythology.) This is Twilight-level bubble-headedness, particularly in terms of the lengths Meyer went to not to acknowledge that Edward is, you know, dead. Why let a little thing like that spoil the sweeping romance, right? *rolls eyes*

Although, unlike Twilight, I kind of feel like Patch being a supernatural creature isn't Nora's biggest problem, here. In Twilight, if Edward hadn't been a vampire, he probably would have just been one of those creepy, awkward teenage guys that girls generally avoid. In this, Nora's concern shouldn't be whether Patch is a fallen angel; she should be wondering whether he's really a violent criminal who's going around assaulting people.

[albion-witch.livejournal.com]

Face, say Hello to Palm.

I remember when I was looking up Persian gods for my story I spent freaking HOURS online looking up relevant books, site, and info because really, they all say slightly different things. I went to Amazon and scoured through every single free-sample pages that you can look into and borrowed as much of the books as I could from the library coz I can't possibly buy them all. ARRRGGGHHH!!!!

True dat, Angel. Research is supposed to help give your story credence. I read that section and all I could think was "Bullshit!"

[winki-pop.livejournal.com]

God, Fitzpatrick! You cannot have it both ways: one minute who have everyone going 'oh noez, Patch is SOOOOO dangerous, y'all!' Then the next minute, just to ensure that we don't begin to view Patch as the villain in this piece (too late), you quickly backtrack and have everyone go 'oh wait, Patch is just a bad boy, that's all! He's hot, so he must be good!' and spout off crap from nowhere about him being a superhero. I guess some people noticed this in Fitzpatrick's first draft that Patch is a total creepo, so Fitzpatrick tried to shove in so much to slant it in her Sueish favour and ensure that we only view him as good. I actually find it insulting when a writer pretty much tells me how I should interpret a character when interpretation should be free for us to choose.

I can't understand the whole parents-asking-no-questions thing and not disciplining their kids in YA lit either. It's the same in VK as well and in one spork I do I bring the exact same point up! I think all these writers are taking one too many stumbles down Convenience Lane to make sure the Sue has it as easy as possible with no roadblocks in between.

Just like Meyer, Fitzpatrick has no bloody clue how to write an article. If it's a research article, it has to be free from bias and actual evidence to back up claims. There is no hint of the article saying anything like 'Theologians believe that…' or 'According to Father Smith of the Catholic Church of Whatever…' It was so badly written it made my eyes water! :D

Seriously, how many chapters of this book are there left? Because NOTHING HAS STILL HAPPENED AND WE'RE AT CHAPTER 19! :O You know there's a rule of thumb in writing where readers will only flip through the first couple of chapters of a story and if it doesn’t capture their interest then, it never will.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/God, Fitzpatrick! You cannot have it both ways: one minute who have everyone going 'oh noez, Patch is SOOOOO dangerous, y'all!' Then the next minute, just to ensure that we don't begin to view Patch as the villain in this piece (too late), you quickly backtrack and have everyone go 'oh wait, Patch is just a bad boy, that's all! He's hot, so he must be good!' and spout off crap from nowhere about him being a superhero./

Didn't Bella call Edward a superhero or make some similar connection in "Twilight?" I know that she suggested that Edward was bitten by a radioactive spider as an explanation for his weird behavior, but did she ever overtly call him a superhero? If she did, at least she had the excuse of Edward saving her from time to time. Patch, on the other hand, has done nothing but get Nora *into* trouble, not out of it.

But yes, Nora's random mood swings make no sense and are utterly contrived. I'm not even sure if we really should blame Nora for her bouts of stupidity, given how her author delights in twisting her character around just so that she can be with Patch.

/I guess some people noticed this in Fitzpatrick's first draft that Patch is a total creepo, so Fitzpatrick tried to shove in so much to slant it in her Sueish favour and ensure that we only view him as good./

*snorts* Fat chance of that. To paraphrase Confused Matthew from his "Star Wars Episode Three: Revenge of the Sith" review, sorry, Ms. Fitzpatrick, but we're not stupid. Patch being an evil creep and Nora falling in love with that evil creep are incompatible. And you can have Nora say, "Patch is a superhero/Patch is so sexy" all you want. No one's buying it.

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

"Patch, on the other hand, has done nothing but get Nora *into* trouble, not out of it."

For no reason at all, Nora is rolling under the delusion that Patch saved her from dying on that Archangel ride. She's an idiot.

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what Fitzpatrick wants with Patch. One minute she's (successfully) doing everything in her power to make him extremely frightening and creepy, but the next minute tries to imply that he has a good, noble side. That's what she said on her website, but I see no evidence of it yet! D:

"Seriously, how many chapters of this book are there left? Because NOTHING HAS STILL HAPPENED AND WE'RE AT CHAPTER 19! :O"

There are thirty chapters in this book, so we're about two-thirds of the way through. And don't worry. Something will be happening soon... -_-

"You know there's a rule of thumb in writing where readers will only flip through the first couple of chapters of a story and if it doesn’t capture their interest then, it never will."

Oh don't worry, Fitzpatrick already captured their interest when she introduced Patch as a stereotypical greaser in Chapter 1. >_< Actually, the publishers managed it with the shirtless guy on the cover.

[(Anonymous)]

The whole no-women-for-the-angels-to-lust-after - thing... What's with that mysterious box Cain's wife randomly fell out of? Maybe there were more of them?
Unless she WAS his sister, after all. I honestly don't know (I downright refused to read the bible in religion class), and given what kind of sites (and people)your lmtgfy-search produced I'm afraid to google it. The kind of person who writes serious entries about "facts" in the bible freaks me out way more than anything I've ever seen in THAT part of youtube. .___.

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

According to Wikipedia, his wife was indeed his sister. Which makes sense, since the older generation consisted entirely of Adam and Eve. The gene pool was a tad small.

Though really, that sort of thing is common in origin stories. Greek mythology, Japanese mythology, etc, you'd be hard-pressed to find one that didn't include at least one deity during the creation of the world who married a sibling.

[(Anonymous)]

Has nobody else noticed that at the start of the book Nora had a lap top, and then all of a sudden she only has use of the library computers, or a vintage I.B.M with cable dial up. So where did her laptop disappear to? It is mentioned on page 46 chapter 3. Did it just all of a sudden become to inconvenient for Nora to have a laptop, as she would never have to use the library computers to later be drugged and trapped in the room? Where no staff locking up found her, but then that is getting way ahead of my self, seems like security sucks there though.

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

Nora's laptop does seem to conveniently come and go, doesn't it? I suspect it's supposed to be that the old computer is for home, the laptop is for the coffee shop (where she gets free wi-fi) and the library computer is for classwork.

The trouble, of course, is that pretty much every library I've been in has offered free wi-fi. And unless she didn't have her research material with her (I don't recall it being mentioned either way), there's no reason why she couldn't have written that paper at home or wherever else she wanted, saved it to a USB stick (or e-mailed it to herself, if she really didn't have one of those), and take two seconds to print it out.

[(Anonymous)]

“Your pastor? Seriously???”

Hey, it worked for Meggie.

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

What's Meggie from?