TW - suicidal thoughts, mental health issues (esp. depression)

(written: July 9, 2021)
*inhales*

It's been a phat minute since I last posted here. Because surprise surprise, I graduated a few weeks ago!

(With a Bachelor of Arts, even though my major is Applied CS, and I double-minored in Math and Economics, but, oh well.)

(You can see the progression from my few CS classes in sophomore year up to basically all the time in senior year.)

I got through my capstone and the symposium. People seemed to like my project and what I did! And my poster got a 96%!!!!!

*inhales, exhales*

Okay. On to the main topic.

OH👏🏽 KAY👏🏽

OHHHHhhh my god. I'm very nervous to share this.

You know the time I said in a previous chapter that:

"Who else do you know that makes red-marker hearts all over their fictional crush's name appearing as a station on an old, tattered subway map from 2016?"

Yeah, that's - that's not a joke. 😳 (if you didn't already know that.)

*gulp, throws away pencil*

*slams head on desk* 😮‍💨

Let me tell you about Agatha Christie.

So. 😅

Over time, I've come to realize that out of her many books, I have grown to like 5-7 characters, from distinct books, in varying degrees of infatuation.

And they all follow a certain... archetype.

*exhale* I don't know why I'm nervous. I should be more nervous about my idiot self reading horror stories in my bed as I'm about to sleep.

Anyway. Okay. I've ranked the characters in order of my like of them. Seven being lowest, one highest. Number 1 comes with a total freakout in my journal, so I'll include that entry when I get to it. (Also, I'm not including characters from Mrs. McGinty's Dead! not because I didn't think the book was good (it was), but because I didn't like any of the characters strongly enough to warrant it being called an "infatuation." And I read it pretty recently, so.)

*Note: lowest like doesn't necessarily mean hate. I still like the characters, but I like some more than others.

📣🚨📣I WILL TRY MY HARDEST NOT TO INCLUDE PLOT SPOILERS BEYOND THE PERSON'S CHARACTER📣🚨📣

📣🚨📣I'LL DEFINITELY NOT TELL YOU WHO THE MURDERER IS BECAUSE THAT WOULD RUIN THE FUN OF KICKING YOURSELF WHEN YOU DON'T FIGURE IT OUT ON YOUR OWN 📣🚨📣

7️⃣ Philip Lombard, And Then There Were None

Okay. This might've been the first Agatha Christie book I've read that really implanted itself (horribly) in my brain (my first Christie was Orient Express for high school, and I'd already read that before we read it in class). I say "horribly", because this book is hella dark.

And I've read it several times, and listened to the audiobook several times. It's a good book. A classic, closed-circle nursery-rhyme mystery. Ten strangers on an island each with a dark secret, some psycho is killing off people one by one exactly according to a nursery rhyme. It's fricking insane.

Onto the character, Philip. I haven't actually seen any film adaptation of this book besides the Russian one from the 80s (it had English subs), and I've heard about the miniseries on Amazon Prime, but I can't watch it because I think it stays true to the play version of the book, not the book version of the book.

(In the miniseries, there's a romance between Philip and Vera, because of course there is. Vera isn't even revolted by Philip at all when he's searched by the others for weapons, not even after he once killed 21 East African men by letting them starve in the bush.)

That's why he's so low on the list. The only reason I like him—the only reason I remember him, really—looking back, is because he's smart and hot. He's so smart in fact, that he got the answer right by speculation, and he was *this* close to the truth in his explanation.

(And also him being played by Aidan Turner in the miniseries basically was exactly what he looked like in my imagination.)

6️⃣ Ralph Paton, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

It's been a hot minute since I read this book, but the man is described several times as a Greek god, using those words in the book exactly. He has an easy smile on his lips, he's apparently an army captain, aaaaaaand he's the prime suspect in the murder. Literally, the muddy soles of his shoes were on the windowsill of the study where Ackroyd was killed.

He's young, with really dark hair, dark eyes and a handsome face.

I just liked him for the reason that he was hot. It sounds shallow, but... yeah. I didn't really get to see much of his personality in the book, so I can't speak for it, but he seems like a nice guy. He's clearly one step above Philip Lombard because at least I can assume he isn't racist.

5️⃣ Michael Weyman, Dead Man's Folly

This is where it gets more exciting. I haven't heard the audiobook for this one, but what drew me to this book was the "murder hunt" (not a party of people who murder each other), but a scavenger hunt/outdoor escape room-type thing to find a fake whodunnit.

And then the victim who's supposed to play dead actually ends up dead. Fun! 🥳

Michael Weyman resented the owner of the house where the folly was built and where the murder hunt happens, because from an architectural standpoint (because he's a legit architect) you would not build a folly overlooking the nearby woods (abundant with trees).

According to him, you'd build it overlooking an open landscape or a vista. It would stand out more. Makes sense, right?

What's more, there's a scientist character who's jealous of him after Poirot discovers whodunnit, because he thinks that Weyman is crashing with the scientist's wife at her old apartment in Chelsea.

Weyman's only 5th on the list because I haven't read DMF for a while, and I like the further choices better. However, I was drawn to him because he was an architect.

4️⃣ Hector McQueen, Murder on the Orient Express

*grins and chuckles* Oh, yeah. This 👏🏽 dude 👏🏽

Secretary to the dead man! He's young, American, pretty likable, has a "rueful" sense of humor, and — in Poirot's own words — "sober [and] long-headed."

For some reason, I've always imagined him as brown, like me? Tall and sort of lanky, wearing a black suit, standing next to Ratchett (the dead man), holding a brown suitcase as they prepare to board the Orient Express. Black hair, cut short.

He is cool, calm, a bit uneasy when his compartment was being searched, a polyglot, quiet, smart, and respectable.

I think the 1974 version of the film fit at least my physical description of him almost exactly - I can't really imagine him as anyone other than Norman Bates— *cough* I mean, Anthony Perkins. He just makes sense.

It's weird how Bates and McQueen are pretty much complete opposites (idk, I haven't seen Psycho) in terms of personality... yet they were played by the same actor (I refuse to believe that the 2017 version of MOTOE exists, that was hot garbage).

DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON DAN STEVENS' INTERPRETATION OF HIM IN THE AUDIOBOOK. WOW. 🤯

Here's an entry from April 27, 2021 to sum it up:

He's #4 because maybe... well, I don't know. Maybe I just fangirl over the top 3 more.

🥉David Lee, Hercule Poirot's Christmas

YES. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

He is an artist. He is sensitive, quiet, thinks about the past a lot, an accomplished musician (he played Mendelssohn and Chopin on the piano in the big house and he cited Puccini's Tosca later on), and he's devoted to his mother.

I am very like him—especially in terms of his brooding nature. I felt myself in him, somewhat.

David is boyish-looking, he has blond hair, "appealing blue eyes", his hands are long and delicate, "his face had the mild quality of a Burne-Jones knight".

In Agatha Christie's own words, implicitly, this man is fucking beautiful. He's handsome, yes, but he's more beautiful than handsome.

And he says to his wife that "we're happy enough in this cottage... and if I die... well, my life's insured for you." I mean that's hella romantic. (His wife Hilda is cool too, no shade against her.)

Maybe I'm just naïve? Life insurance taken at face value isn't really romantic. BUT IT'S THE WAY HE SAID IT.

And his voice too! God, Hugh Fraser is really a master at bringing these characters to life. It was pretty different from what I expected coming from him, but it... fit. It grew on me.

Hugh Fraser did David Lee's voice in a deep and melancholy way, and it dawned on me that it fit his personality very very well.

🥈Nigel Chapman, Hickory Dickory Dock

This dude's a badass. Like... straight-up.

He's got brains for days. He's doing a double major at London University, writes essays and notes by hand (using green ink), loves to stir up trouble among his roommates and housemates, and he's a total agent of chaos.

He's a total Slytherin. I think. He frequently banters with his roommate, Len, who's a med student, and their exchanges and the students' interactions in the hostel on Hickory Road are some of the funniest moments of the book, and indeed, all of Christie's works.

He's pretty reckless, too. He does not give a single shit about himself in terms of defending himself—his friend Pat Lane says that. If someone says something against him, he'll just be like "let them say it."

Like damn, I wish I had that level of confidence! What the hell, dude.

FINALLY... 🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁

🥇Christopher Wren, The Mousetrap / Three Blind Mice

*SCREAMING* 🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

I DID NOT WRITE SIX PAGES IN MY NOTEBOOK ABOUT HIM FOR 👏🏽 NOTHING 👏🏽

OHHHHH MY GOD. 😭😭😭😭😭

(I held off on writing about Christopher because I knew I'd get too excited about him to write anything coherent. Also because I was busy.)

I HAVE LEGITIMATELY FALLEN IN LOVE WITH THIS MAN. HE HAS BEEN THE LIGHT OF MY LIFE FOR THE PAST YEAR AND A BIT, AND WE'RE GOING STRONG.

He is so extremely, utterly unique.

He fostered my love and appreciation for Victorian architecture. I mean before, I thought it was cool, but now... I think it's hella cool.

Recall, Who else do you know that makes red-marker hearts all over their fictional crush's name appearing as a station on an old, tattered subway map from 2016?

BOOM. RECEIPTS.

Every 👏🏽 time 👏🏽 I go out of my room, I pass that spot (it's near the door) and I automatically bring two fingers to my mouth, kiss them, and then press them over that spot. It's like a little good luck charm. 🍀💖 I feel terrible if I haven't done it, and I find myself backpedaling to do it SEVERAL TIMES and then go on with my day.

I have written (and am currently writing!) fanfictions about this man, and fanfictions about me interacting with the characters in The Mousetrap. Some of them are ones with all the characters (like playing board games or bloopers if there was a movie), and some of them are with only Christopher (because he's a fucking sweetheart). 

I think he's a little bi too! 🏳️‍🌈 he mentions SEVERAL TIMES that he thought one of the characters was "really very beautiful", and another one as "terribly attractive."

I think he's actually saved my life once. Like, I was feeling really truly horrible for a few days—not like normal, this was a lot worse, this was when I realized how bad depression really was 🫤. In the nights, I dreamt about him; and I'd wake up each day feeling both happy about the dream, and scared for the morning. It was like a constant storm cloud 🌩 above my head each day, and each night, Christopher and I would fight it off, with ✨the power of love✨

Basically, in a last-ditch attempt to dig myself out of the hole, I literally held a conversation in this journal between my Present Self (P) and my Future Self (F), as a way for my future self to convince my present self to... well, not die. 😞

I wasn't smiling or laughing that day, and if I did, it was fake. I couldn't... feel anything, except for the impending dread about my final programming assignment because my professor was hellish at the time (a nice person, but the assignments were so hard and he grades mercilessly). So, over lunch, F and P talked about... well, to put it bluntly, the things P would lose if P died. This included Christopher, to a large extent.

And... it worked. I'm still alive. 🥹

I labeled this chapter as March 24, 2021, because that was the exact day I fell in love with Christopher Wren. (God, it feels different writing that on a book-writing website instead of my journal...)

And that is the entry I'll be featuring, right here, right now. (I had to shrink the text size down to the smallest one just to contain it in 2 pages.)

March 24, 2021. Spring break. The day I fell in love.

*🤫THE FOURTH BULLET POINT HAS CHARACTER SPOILERS BUT NOT PLOT SPOILERS THOUGH SO SKIP OVER THAT IF YOU WANT🤫*

REREADING THIS HE'S SUCH A SWEETHEART OMFGGGGGGGGG—

I have written EXTENSIVE oneshots about:
• us two playing Mario Kart
• The Mousetrap cast, and me, playing Mario Kart
• ditto, with Beat Saber
• playing Up-Down (a card game)
• playing Twister
• battling it out in Smash Ultimate (Christopher wins even though it was his first game)
• us two in my favorite vacation place, Victoria BC
• us two doing strength training (weights for me, pull-ups for him)
• us two dancing slowly in my room
• me dancing in public to electroswing and him dancing with me when I offer my hand out to him
• us two zip-lining
• me fighting a behemoth of a monster with my light manipulation powers, winning, and then flying up to Christopher who's an onlooker and hugging him
• me waking up from nightmares and him comforting me
• him getting blipped by Thanos and re-appearing five years later
• me extremely nervous about the capstone symposium and confiding in him
• us describing each other's eye colors in really poetic terms
• us two on Vormir arguing about which one of us should be the one to sacrifice themselves for the Soul Stone (it's me)
• a cat appearing on the set of The Mousetrap and Christopher picking it up and running away with it and Molly chasing him
• giving each other anniversary gifts

So! That concludes my definitive ranking of archetypal Londoner murder mystery "book boyfriends" (dubbed by my best friend).

Back to my regularly scheduled journal reflecting next time!