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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Midnight Mass Cast: Previous Credits From Hill House to Bly Manor, Legion & Sherlock

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If you find yourself thinking ‘where have I seen that guy before?’ while watching a Mike Flanagan show or film, the answer may well be ‘in another Mike Flanagan show or film’. The horror writer-director is known for his rep company of actors, many of whom appear in multiple roles across various projects. Below is a spoiler-free rundown of the main players in the Flanagan gang’s new Netflix horror series Midnight Mass, about the ripples caused by the arrival of a mysterious priest in a remote North American island community. There’s also info on who they played in past collaborations, and a few other places you may have encountered them on screen. A good handful will additionally be seen in Flanagan’s next series The Midnight Club, on which filming is already complete, and which will be coming to Netflix next year. But first though, welcome to Crockett Island. Be not afraid…

Hamish Linklater – Father Paul

A newcomer to the Mike Flanagan acting family, Hamish Linklater is now fully ensconced so expect to see much more of him in future and rejoice, because he’s the absolute stand-out in Midnight Mass. Commanding, charismatic, intense, and utterly committed, this is a big performance that’ll be hard to forget. Previous to Father Paul, Linklater played Division 3 Agent Clark Debussy in trippy comic book series Legion, and IRS agent Larue Dollard in Fargo season three, both for Noah Hawley. Prior to that were recurring roles in sitcoms The Crazy Ones and The New Adventures of Old Christine, with Robin Williams and Julia Louis Dreyfus respectively, plus recent Amazon crime thriller Tell Me Your Secrets, with his partner Lily Rabe. Honestly though, Father Paul is the only role anybody’s going to be talking about for a good while yet.

Samantha Sloyan as Bev Keane

The villainous Bev Keane is another stand-out performance in Midnight Mass thanks to Samantha Sloyan, whom you might remember as Leigh Crain, the wife of novelist Steven Crain in 2019’s The Haunting of Hill House. Prior to that, she played Maddie’s neighbour Sarah in Mike Flanagan’s Hush, as well as the recurring roles of Jeannine Locke in Scandal, Dr. Penelope Blake in Grey’s Anatomy, and several appearances as Victoria in SEAL Team. Look out for her among the cast of Flanagan’s next Netflix series, The Midnight Club, which is already in post-production.

Kate Siegel as Erin Greene

Where would a Mike Flanagan project be without regular collaborator (and wife) writer-actor Kate Siegel? We barely have to know because Siegel is a bedrock of the Flanagan collective. In addition to the role of schoolteacher and former runaway Erin Greene in Midnight Mass, she played glove-wearing empath Theodora Craine in The Haunting of Hill House, 17th century Viola (who became the Lady in the Lake) in The Haunting of Bly Manor, Sally in Gerald’s Game, Jenny in Ouija: Origin of Evil, Maddie in Hush (which Siegel co-wrote) and Marisol in Oculus. Siegel wasn’t in Doctor Sleep, possibly because she and Flanagan welcomed their daughter Theodora to the world almost exactly to the day filming wrapped on The Shining sequel.

Zach Gilford as Riley Flynn

In Midnight Mass, Zach Gilford plays Riley Flynn, whose return to his Crockett Island family home coincides with the arrival of the mysterious new priest Father Paul. Gilford’s known to many as sensitive young quarterback Matt Saracen in Friday Night Lights, but he’s appeared in plenty since, recently including Greg in NBC’s Good Girls, Ben in LA’s Finest, a central role in The Purge: Anarchy and recurring parts in ABC series The Family and Off the Map. He’s also going to be back for Mike Flanagan’s next Netflix project The Midnight Club.

Annabeth Gish as Dr Sarah Gunning

Sarah Gunning is Crockett Island’s resident doctor who’s caring for her dementia-suffering elderly mother. She’s played by Annabeth Gish, who you’ll have seen in… well, loads of stuff, including The Haunting of Hill House in which she played housekeeper Mrs Dudley. Gish also played Jed Bartlet’s eldest daughter in The West Wing, Lt. Jarry in Sons of Anarchy season seven, the therapist in Pretty Little Liars, venture capitalist Diane Gould in season three of Halt and Catch Fire, and FBI agent Reyes in The X-Files revived seasons.

Midnight Mass: Cast and Details for Netflix Series from Haunting of Hill House Team

By Joseph Baxter

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Doctor Sleep Director Mike Flanagan on the Possibility of The Shining 3

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Rahul Kohli as Sheriff Hassan

British actor Rahul Kohli plays Crockett Island lawman Sheriff Hassan, following up his role as the internet’s boyfriend, chef Owen in The Haunting of Bly Manor in 2020. Prior to that, Kohli was best known for playing Ravi Chakrabarti on iZombie, popping up in a couple of episodes of Supergirl and recently voicing The Scarecrow on animated series Harley Quinn. He’ll soon be heard as the voice of Egill in Zack Snyder’s Norse mythology-inspired anime Twilight of the Gods.

Kristin Lehman and Henry Thomas as Annie and Ed Flynn

Here’s a fun fact: Kristin Lehman and Henry Thomas, who play Riley Flynn’s parents in Midnight Mass, are only 10 years older than actor Zach Gilford in real life. Another fun, but extremely well-known fact is that Henry Thomas, who played Hugh Crain in The Haunting of Hill House and Henry Wingrave in The Haunting of Bly Manor, started out as young Elliott in E.T. Thomas is a regular Flanagan collaborator and has also popped up in Doctor Sleep, Gerald’s Game, Ouija: Origin of Evil to name but a few. He recently had recurring roles on Stargirl and Better Things. Canadian actor Lehman has a similarly full back catalogue, featuring a great many TV and film roles from The Outer Limits to Altered Carbon and The Killing, as well as several TV directing credits.

Robert Longstreet as Joe Collie

Crockett Island’s town drunk Joe Collie is played by Robert Longstreet, who appeared opposite Annabeth Gish (see above) as caretaker Mr Dudley in The Haunting of Hill House, and in the Mike Flanagan-directed Doctor Sleep. You can also see him in horror sequel Halloween Kills and as Professor James in Aquaman, and he’s part of the cast of Mike Flanagan’s forthcoming Netflix horror series The Midnight Club.

Michael Trucco & Annarah Cymone as Wade and Leeza

Michael Trucco and Crystal Balint (not pictured) play Wade and Dolly Scarborough, parents of Leeza (above), Crockett Island’s sole devout teenager played by Annarah Cymone. Trucco will still be best recognised around these parts as Samuel Anders in Battlestar Galactica, but he’s done plenty more, including recurring roles in One Tree Hill, How I Met Your Mother and Netflix stoner comedy Disjointed. Balint has a similarly full back catalogue, with roles in Prison Break, The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco and recently Riverdale. She’ll be seen again in The Midnight Club too, along with Cymone, the actor who plays her daughter in Midnight Mass, whose TV debut this marks.

Louis Oliver, Igby Rigney and Rahul Abburi as Ooker, Warren and Ali

It’s unlikely you’ll recognise Louis Oliver, who plays teenage altar boy Ooker on Midnight Mass, from his first screen role as he’s grown up since then, but he was the young Sherlock Holmes in BBC episode ‘His Last Vow‘ (and also happens to be the son of Sherlock co-creator Steven Moffat and producer Sue Vertue). Igby Rigney, who plays Riley’s younger brother Warren, played the young Jesse in the recent film F9: The Fast Saga and will also be appearing in The Midnight Club. Sheriff’s son Ali is Rahul Abburi’s second TV role after appearing on YouTube Red series Good Game.

Matt Biedel as Sturge

Crockett Island resident and Bev Keane’s right-hand man Sturge is played by Matt Biedel (a little unrecognisable under a full and healthy beard), who’ll also star in The Midnight Club next year. Biedel is probably best known for playing Daryl in Narcos: Mexico, Sgt. Dale Chedder in The Umbrella Academy and Dimi in Altered Carbon.

Alex Essoe

Another Mike Flanagan rep company member, popular horror movie regular Alex Essoe played Charlotte Wingrave, mother to Flora and Miles in The Haunting of Bly Manor, and the Flapper ghost in The Haunting of Hill House, as well as playing Wendy Torrance in Doctor Sleep, a role made famous by Shelley Duvall in The Shining.

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Midnight Mass comes to Netflix on Friday the 24th of September.

The post Midnight Mass Cast: Previous Credits From Hill House to Bly Manor, Legion & Sherlock appeared first on Den of Geek.

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nightblightowl · 6 years

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Today my Nonno finally talked to me about where he and my Nonna grew up before they left Italy. When I was a kid he avoided talking about home. Not because he wasn’t proud, but because I think it hurt him to be reminded that he could never go back... The family was very poor he and his older brothers had enough for a one-way trip. He’d never see some of his siblings or his parents ever again. He was 24 when he left... He’s 86 now. He avoided the subject so hard he barely spoke italian around us or to my dad and his siblings for a long time, though sometimes he used to poke fun at my Nonna because he’d make fun of her dialect. And she would threaten to not make him lunch for it. I didn’t understand then that a language could sound different depending on the region they come from. The most I ever got out of him really, are his siblings’ names and our family’s sauce recipe... and that took me 20 years to get it out of him. He has mild dementia. But his long-term memory is still good. My Nonna on the other hand is in a home suffering from severe dementia for the last 5 years. She used to be more open about her childhood. She used to talk to me about the small barn they had and about her older brothers. She showed me how to make our own pasta like her mother did her. She told me about mountains and hills as we made meatballs together, but I was too young to remember the name of her town. Now she can’t remember anything at all. She cant speak or move. Nonno is our last link. I wanted to get this information out of him before he could no longer talk to us about it at all. He’s from the North, in Treviso in the Veneto region and she’s from the South in Chieti, in the Abruzzo region.

I know this is long and has nothing to do with anything I post here, but I’m just so happy to know this. No one in the family was ever really sure where we came from because they never spoke of it. But now we have names, we have places... I looked up these two locations and I got emotional. They’re such beautiful beautiful places.

And I now I know exactly where to go to start putting together the book of my family tree.

Also my Nonno was never known for being affectionate. At all. But the moment he had to start living separate from his wife he couldn’t handle being away from her. He lives with my aunt and they visit her every day, and every day he holds her hand, kisses her head and feeds her timbits and an ice coffee. XD

#family history #italia #personal #genealogy #famiglia

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mattness · 5 years

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Space Dementia

Hi, my dear friends. I got something very good for you. This is the beginning of my sloppy translation of my fanfic that you've been waiting. Sorry for silly mistakes, that meet in the text. I translated alone. So... I hope you enjoy.

OTP: Jennifer Wright/Robert Grey Genres: Romance, Angst, Drama, Detective, Psychology, Hurt/comfort, Humdrum, Horror, AU, Friendship Summary: She thought she had found salvation in him, but she didn't know she was at the mercy of a horrible monster who had own plans for her. //// Chapter I. 2007, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Stood may sunny day, heralding a warm summer. The blue sky was absolutely clear and the cool wind was sneaking into the small children's room. The curtains swayed from the easy impulses, sometimes forcing the fifteen-year-old girl to swear. They bothered her to collect items from red chest, who was standing right by the window made it difficult to find something very important and valuable. To find the room was a mess: everywhere littered with toys, crayons and school books interspersed with items of clothing. Now the reigning mess did not bother the hostess of the room at all because she's late. Parents waited in the car, putting before the fact that if is going to take longer than necessary, they will go to grandmother without her. But the girl couldn't go on the road without his beloved soft toy-bear, which has always been with her almost from the cradle. "Jennifer!" a stern voice was heard from her mother at the foot of the stairs in the corridor. "I'm coming!" shouted in the answer girl, finally finding the necessary and the most expensive thing from the entire his room. She hugged the bear cub tightly and threw her backpack over her shoulders and ran out of the room.

The door to the house slammed, and she enthusiastically jumped into the big blue BMW. Father, glancing in the rearview mirror, smiled at her daughter and started the engine. His wife constantly looking at the clock. She was very unhappy that they were already half an hour late. Dyed hair dark red waves falling on her sharp shoulders, slightly obscuring an oval face, which wore the grimace of discontent. Blue eyes constantly examined the interior of the car, as if not knowing what to stop. The woman pursed her full lips, fingering something in her hands. Little Jennifer always thought her mother was very beautiful, even when she was not in the mood. Although the girl never saw that Mary was happy. As if she's something has long been disappointed and now was upset with the whole world and their own lives. She is always cold treated her daughter like she was her non-native. Unlike Chester, the girl's father. He enjoyed spending time with Jenni, telling stories and tales. The black-haired man always tried to devote time to the daughter. His brown eyes radiated the most sincere love and kindness. This couldn't hide even the glasses, which he began to wear recently. Chester was quiet and peaceful man, he rarely raised his voice at anyone and kept all the anger in yourself. As soon as Mary throw another tantrum, he tried to silently listen to her and understand what was wrong. Probably because of his soldier's endurance and nerves of steel their marriage and Mary has still not disintegrated. Recently, however, the wife began to behave strangely, and something inside tells Chester that he's going to lose her. Jen never meddled with her parents relationship because she thought it was a personal matter. They'll figure it out fine without her help. Moreover, the girl didn't want after her words catching unhappy, angry and full of reproaches her mother's eyes. So now she turned to the window, inserting headphones into her ears to isolate herself from the outside world. Most of all she was like her father. She had the same dark hair, freckled face and neat nose. Plump lips and blue eyes, the girl got from her mother. Character she also largely took over from the father. Jennifer showed kindness and responsiveness, tried never to be rude, but sometimes she's very stubborn. The car moved smoothly from the place, going from Sunny Philadelphia to the North of the country, to the small town of Derry, located in Maine. The road promised to be long. In a way it is necessary to make some stops to fill a tank with gasoline, and also everybody to have a snack and to gain strength for the further road. Jennifer, as she's can remember, every summer went to Derry for two weeks to visit her grandmother. Her house was located closest to the city center, where almost no one was walking. The girl truly did not understand why parents doing this to her every year. No, of course, she loved to chat with her grandmother, who was always in stock a lot of stories. However, Jen continued to not understand parents until she was thirteen. It was then that she realized that all this time they were trying to spend alone with each other and to establish relations. Now at fifteen, sitting in the back seat of the car and vaguely hearing the curses of mother, Jen was really hoping for these two weeks, they will be able to love each other again. But with every trip to Derry for the last three years, she believed it less and less. Plunged into her own thoughts and music in her headphones, Jennifer closed eyes. The car began to seasick her, and the tenacious paws of Morpheus dragged the girl into the sweet realm of dreams.

* * * "Wake up, sleeping beauty," the gentle whispered of father, and Jen slowly opened her eyes and smiled. “Get up, Jenni. We're in Derry.” The girl nodded in response, getting out of the car and taking the backpack. She looked around, finding herself on the broad street of little Derry. Unlike Philadelphia, here was cloudy weather. The sky was overcast with gray clouds, and the treetops swayed continually in the icy wind. The girl shivered from the cold, deciding quickly to go to grandma's house. No matter how many times Jennifer was in Derry, she never liked it here. First, there was always no one to walk with. She didn't understand why this small and seemingly cozy town, so little children. And young here was a bit. All at once went to the big cities, to enter universities. Nobody wanted to sit in that hole. Jen with confidence can tell that this place is specially created for the elderly like her grandmother. Here, nothing ever happens, everyone knows each other and spread unpleasant gossip. In short, a real village, thought the girl to herself, looking around. "Jenny, go to the house!" shouted grandmother, already meeting its on the threshold of. "Hi, grandma!" Jennifer exclaimed joyfully, rushing into the arms of her beloved Granny. “I miss you. Are you?” "I am also insanely missed you, sweetie," smiled the woman and stroked her granddaughter's dark hair. “You're all grown up, Jen.” “Quit, granny.” "Let's go for a walk today in the supermarket, and then go on the swing?" she chuckled, suggesting a routine ritual she and Jen had always performed. The dark-haired girl nodded in response, paying attention to the parents who had left the house. Mary folded the bag of food they had brought with them into a small black bag. She serious looked around the whole area, as if looking for someone among the trees and bushes. Then the woman turned her attention to her mother Christine, smiling stiffly. "I put all the food in the fridge. Money on your desk, mom," cold said Mary. “If anything happens, call me.” "I know what to do, honey," Christine snorted, hugging Jennifer tightly and smiling at her. “We'll be fine as usual.” At this point, the house was left by Chester, also smiling. He didn't want to leave his daughter for a long time in Derry, because it is unlikely that anything will change in the two weeks of her absence at home: Mary was adamant and seems to be going to file for divorce. The woman approached her daughter, pulling an unnatural smile on her face again. It made Jennifer uncomfortable. She was too used to the stern expression on her mother's face. "Behave yourself, Jennifer," her mother said quietly, patting her cheek with a cold hand. "Bye." "Bye, mom," Jen quietly squeezed out. "Don't let her go anywhere, Mrs. Wheeler," said Chester, crouching on his knees in front of the girl. In the answer she smiled. "I've heard strange things about Derry." "Tales of clowns again, dad?" Jennifer smiled, rolling her eyes. "I don't believe in them. Especially since I spend all my time with grandmother. Too boring here." "It'll be all right, Chester," Mrs. Wheeler assured him. Chester smiled and hugged daughter. She snuggled into him, not wanting to part with him for two long weeks. The man released her and walked to the car where Mary already waiting him. Dad waved to his daughter, sitting in the BMW and starting the engine. Christine and Jen watched as the blue car headed away from Derry, back to Philadelphia. The girl sighed, feeling like every minute longing for the native home, for mom and dad becoming more and more. * * * In Derry the storm began again. Heavy rain poured outside the window, spoiling Jennifer's mood. Today she wanted to go for a walk with her grandmother around the city again, see all the few sights for the hundredth time and go to the supermarket for groceries. But the stupid rain ruined everything. Somewhere high in the sky lightning flashed, and there was a deafening thunder. In the living room TV for a moment ceased to catch a signal. Grandmother swore loudly, making Jen burst out laughing. Getting up from the sofa, an elderly woman came to the old ruin and knocked. The girl sighed, continuing to listen to her grandmother's curses and look out the window. Drops slowly dripping down the glass, dissolving into each other. The wide road was completely flooded, and the dirty water ran into a small storm drain, which was located at the bottom of the curb. “What's clown, granny?” suddenly Jennifer asked, continuing to mesmerize dark storm drain on the opposite side of the street. “Ah?” surprised grandmother. "Well... Dad said something was going on in Derry. He told me about some clown. Weird fairy tale. I vaguely remember", said girl, frowning. "I was five or seven." "No wonder that you don't remember." Jennifer was immediately distracted from the contemplation of the rain and sat down beside Christine on the couch. Grandma hugged her granddaughter with one hand over his shoulder, the other has lowered the volume on the TV. The woman sighed, sinking into his memories, and slowly start: "This clown appeared here when I was about twenty-five years old. Maybe a little less. It was during this period that children began to disappear. A lot of children are missing, and no one could find them", with each word, the elderly woman went into herself more and more. "The madman who disguised himself as a clown only got caught by the police once. But he escaped. Almost immediately. Many years have passed since then. I was hoping that psycho was dead." "He back in Derry?" cautiously asked Jen. "Yes. And I heard that from you. You told me you saw him waving at you from the bushes." said the grandmother, than scared girl. Suddenly Jennifer was confused, plunging into her own memories…

* * * In Derry came one of the few sunny summer days, and Jennifer, of course, persuaded her grandmother to go for a walk. They reached the main square, where many people always gathered. On the playground the kids were playing, which was quite a bit. Jen sprinted off to the Playground while her grandmother crouched down to rest after a long road. The left leg was treacherously sick. Jennifer happily jumped on the free swing to the face to trees and bushes, enclosed by an iron grating. There, behind the fence, was a small nature reserve Derry, and there were forbidden to go. On the grid could be seen a yellow plate with the inscription: "Private protected area. For illegal entry - a fine of 1000 $". The swing rose high in the air, and the girl was enjoying this wonderful feeling she flies. Such a clear and blue sky could be reached with your feet, which inspired even more. Seemed, even a bit, and Jennifer indeed going to fly. She fancied herself a bird, until she again turned her attention to the fenced trees. Among the bushes could see something white, and Jen, distracted from their fantasies, tried to see a strange spot. Behind the bars stood a man in a white clown costume. Red buttons-pompons did not look ridiculous, but rather gave a special charm to lush clothes. White collar, the same white makeup on the face and red hair. The lips, painted in red, is immediately stretched in a welcoming smile, it was worth the girl to draw a clown's attention. He waved to the girl, then motioned to him. Jennifer stopped the swing, wondering if she should approach the clown behind bars. The girl frowned and showed the clown a finger, indicating she'd be back in a minute. Clown subtly smiled in anticipation, but that baby hasn't seen. "Grandma, can I go play with the clown?" running up to grandmother, loudly asked Jen. "Which clown?" woman immediately distracted from their crosswords. "Well, he's there, at the gate", she explained and turned to point a finger at the clown, who is there already, of course, was not. "Oh, he's probably gone. Pity!" "Let's go home, Jennifer", frowning and saying no more, her grandmother said sternly, and taking the girl by the hand, led her to the side of the house. The girl turned back, noticing that the clown was standing in the same place. He pouted angrily and wiped the nonexistent tears from his face. Jennifer was confused, thinking, that made the right decision. Otherwise, the grandmother raised the whole district on the ears… * * * Two weeks visiting the grandma have passed for Jennifer unexpectedly quickly. She always found something to do: read books, in good weather, was walking with his grandmother in the bad watching TV with her, sometimes painted in your album. All the time the girl found something to do, and memories of that stupid meeting with a possible maniac Derry themselves out of my head. Again high in the sky the sun was shining and Jen first heard the birds singing, sitting on the veranda of the house. Grandma took out of the house on a tray of tea and cookies. The girl smiled at her when she sat down opposite and began to tell another story from his life. Christine traveled around the world a lot and saw a lot of things. She always had the opportunity to go from Derry to some metropolis to live in luxury, but she still remained in this backwater. Jennifer couldn't understand her. To which grandma replied that after many years Jen will understand it. Suddenly the girl was distracted from the story grandmother, noticing how the house is approached from afar the familiar blue BMW. Jen was confused, because parents usually pick her up on Sunday, and today was only Friday. Grandmother also drew attention to the car, which has already stopped near the house. For wheel as and always was Chester. He turned off the engine and got out of the car. Jen instantly fell from her seat, running towards her father with cheers. Chester picked up the girl in his arms, kissing her on the cheek and squeezed. "Why are you here so early?" Jennifer was surprised, already being on the ground. "I'll tell you everything, kitten. But first I need to talk to your grandmother", calmly replied the father, and together they went to the house. "Mrs. Wheeler, can I have a word?" "Sure, Chester." smiled woman, rising and heading for the kitchen. The man followed her, asking Jen to sit in the living room. Girl nodded in response, not knowing what happened. Dad rarely talked to his grandmother about something serious, she thought to herself. And it usually didn't bode well. Jennifer frowned, including TV and starting to look for something interesting among a long list of channels. After a few minutes, the adults came back from the kitchen, and Jen immediately noticed how gloomy grandmother. It was as if she was plunged into some bad memories from her life, which made the girl feel uncomfortable. All her attention turned to father, who sat opposite her. "Jennifer, listen to me carefully", quietly asked Chester, hard sighing. Girl sat down on the edge of the sofa with her hands folded in her lap. She was preparing to hear anything, if only not very bad. But severe and focused expression of papa's face she understood that it happened something serious. And it hit him really hard. Because he has always the cheerful face, but now it showing no emotion. "Your mom... She left." dad started gently, and her eyes immediately glistened with tears. "We're divorced, sweetheart." "Where she left?" sobbed Jen. “I don’t know”, Chester shrugged his shoulders in confusion. "She's coming back, right? Yes, dad?" no longer holding back tears, hoping girl asked. "I don't think so, Jenni." Christine, who was watching them, sighed. Heart sank in pain, desperately trying to understand why her daughter left her family. The woman herself was ready to cry, seeing as Jen snuggled up to daddy. Inside the girl something painfully broke, and instead of love to the mother, which and so it was always cold, had formed a black abyss of hatred.

#fanfic #my fanfic #fanfiction #it #it movie 2017 #robert grey #jenniwise #jennifer x robert #pennywise #pennywise x reader #romantic #love #bill skarsgard #megan fox #chapter #My characters #characters

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castaliareed · 6 years

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Will Jon remember Sansa?

I started writing a response to a meta from @lostlittlesatellites about Jon and Sansa’s reunion and realized that my response was going to be really long. I didn’t want to hijack the post. They talked about Sansa’s hair in TWoW in relation to her reunion with Jon. You should all read the post. I decided to respond here.

They’re on to something with the relationship to Rapunzel in Sansa’s arc. They discuss the importance of Sansa’s hair in her own arc. They say that Sansa could be very changed when she reunites with Jon. Yes to this! I’ve been meaning to write a meta about Jon’s hair kink for awhile...lol. This isn’t that. This gets into more detail about those changes in Sansa and how a resurrected!Jon might perceive them. So here go my very long thoughts.

The fact that Jon might not recognize Sansa at first is not farfetched. Fics write about this all the time. I, myself, have played with this in my Dark Sister, Dark Nights fic (forgive my shameless self-promo!) We also have precedent for after resurrection memory loss with Beric Dondarrion. Now, Jon will not have been brought back as many times as Beric. We don’t know how being in Ghost will affect him...he will be affected. Beric tells us his memory doesn’t work the same anymore. He knows he was betrothed (to Allyria Dayne) but he can’t remember what she looked like more specifically he can’t tell you her hair color.

Can I dwell on what I scarce remember? I held a castle on the Marches once, and there was a woman I was pledged to marry, but I could not find that castle today, nor tell you the color of that woman's hair. Who knighted me, old friend? What were my favorite foods? It all fades. Sometimes I think I was born on the bloody grass in that grove of ash, with the taste of fire in my mouth and a hole in my chest. Are you my mother, Thoros? - Beric to Thoros

I was reading about dementia patients somewhere on this site. The post talked about how the patient knows a person is important to them but can’t always place them. The person might be a son but they think it’s the father, or a brother or old friend. Jon could very well sense that Sansa is important to him. People could tell him that she is his sister. Except it won’t mean much to him because he won’t remember much.

Add the hair color thing. I think Beric specifically mentioning hair color will be very important when it comes to Jon and Sansa. Beric not remembering Allyria’s hair color is striking because the Dayne’s have striking hair colors. Often black with silver streaks. Allyria is said to have black hair.

It’s hard to say what color hair Sansa will have when/if/when she reaches Jon. Will it be brown or auburn or in-between. We’re told by Catelyn that Sansa’s hair shone like copper when she was young. By the time she is in the Vale, she has died it brown as part of her Alayne disguise. The dye is running out. The show gives as possible clues to what color she will have later on. Myranda is a name that carried over from the books. In the show, she is Ramsey’s lover instead of Myranda Royce. She is a clear antagonist on the show. She may very well become an antagonist in the books. Littlefinger warns Sansa not to trust her. Myranda Royce was hoping to marry Harry until Littlefinger started arranging for Harry to marry Alayne. To her, Sansa is Alayne the bastard daughter of Littlefinger, someone not worthy of Harry the heir to the Vale. In the show, Myranda washes out Sansa’s hair to reveal the auburn. Sansa/Alayne notes at some point (I can’t remember if it is the TWoW chapter or in AFFC) that she will be needing more hair dye.

[TINFOIL ALERT] I can see Sansa running out of dye. Myranda starting to notice and ask her about it. Maybe Myranda offers to brush her hair and gets a good look at those roots?

Here’s the thing hair dye as anyone who dyes their hair knows is a bitch to maintain even with the real good dyes we have today. Now, who knows what GRRM envisions Tyroshi dye to be like. Considering people in Medieval worlds wouldn’t necessarily bathe as much as we do, it wouldn’t just wash out. Hair dye tends to not completely wash out regardless. It does fade and the roots grow out. Hell Myranda could even offer to wash it and use some special soap that gets rid of the dye. This is a fantasy world. Let’s say the tourney in the Vale goes to hell in a handbasket and Sansa does go on the run. She may be forced to cut her hair. If people are looking for Alayne, Littlefinger’s natural daughter with long brown hair, why not cut it down to the roots? Or as the OP suggested perhaps it gets caught forcing her to cut it.

Even if none of that happens by the time Sansa would reach Jon (even if she leaves with a fresh dye job which she probably won’t have because we’ve been told she’s low on hair dye) the brown will be faded and her roots will be growing in.

resurrected!Jon will be confused as f*ck. Even before-resurrected!Jon would take a moment to register Sansa showing up in the North. Jon just isn’t expecting her. He will feel that she is important to him but have trouble placing her at first.

One of his last memories is about his Stark ‘siblings’ he thinks about all of them.

Of Sansa, brushing out Lady's coat and singing to herself. You know nothing, Jon Snow. He thought of Arya, her hair as tangled as a bird's nest. - Jon ADWD

Much has been made of this line. Imagine as again the OP suggests Sansa showing up to Jon looking completely different. Looking (my words) a bit of a hot mess. The above line relates Sansa, Ygritte and Arya. Sansa and Arya, Jon’s ‘half-sisters’ are being associated with his former lover in text! If that’s doesn’t scream Targaryen I don’t know what does. Sansa loved to sing, Ygritte also sang. She also said ‘You know nothing, Jon Snow.’ Here it almost appears as if Sansa could be singing ‘You know nothing’ or Jon could have inserted this thought in his own voice. It’s hard to tell. Next, he thinks of Arya and her tangled hair. Ygritte also had tangled hair. I’ve long said that Ygritte is an Arya and Sansa mashup. She even had blue-grey eyes for f*cksake! The presence of Lady in this memory is also significant. Um...when did this scene happen? We know Jon used to muss Arya’s hair. He mentions it being tangled before. But when did Jon see Sansa brushing Lady??? [TINFOIL ALERT] Jon totally has a hair kink and just wants someone to brush his hair...His disparaging thoughts of a Lady in a tower who brushes her hair all the time. Are a big sign that he’s got a bit of a kink for hair brushing...yes I said it.

Ok back to the topic at hand. At some point, Jon saw Sansa brushing Lady. Of all his siblings, she is the only one he thinks of with her wolf. Again this could be significant later on. Considering it’s pretty much accepted that Jon warged into Ghost before he died. When he comes back into his body, his wolfish senses could be heightened. This could help him recognize Sansa as someone important to him, more than important to him, as one of his pack mates. I also believe Lady is living on in Sansa to some degree. So we have a situation, where Jon’s memory isn’t working quite right. Sansa having grown up and gone through so much shows back up in his life. Except even if he wanted too, he can’t quite remember what Sansa was like, what she looked like before. And parts of her remind him of his ex, who was also his first lover. Even before he died, he was starting to confuse people. He thought Mel was Ygritte for one brief moment. They both have red hair albeit very different shades of red. This could be part of Mel’s magic or it could be one too many hits on the head for Jon. (Seriously all that fighting even in the training yard how does he not have CTE…)

All this sets the stage, for who Sansa is to be confusing to Jon. It won’t matter what color her hair is. At the same time, it very much matters. If it is brownish, he could confuse her for Alys Karstark or Arya. If it is auburn for Ygritte. Another important note, Alys Karstark on the show has red hair. Could be nothing, could be something.

Sansa being confusing for Jon is what the show implied in season 6. All those surprised glances at her when she said things he didn’t expect. The show doesn’t suggest that Jon has memory issues at all. That doesn’t mean he won’t have memory issues in the books or that Sansa won’t have an effect on him. The show does say that ‘Sansa twists him’ in ways no one can. That could translate to the books. Imagine, having this person who at times you confuse for your former lover, who is told is your ‘half-sister’ but you don’t remember that. You don’t really remember what any of them look like. Then there is this wolf-instinct telling you some things, too. That’s gotta be a head f*ck (excuse my language).

A Jon and Sansa reunion in the books will be in much greater detail with at least one characters inner thoughts on display. Sansa’s hair whatever color it is will mean something.

#jonsa meta #jonsa #jonxsansa #jon snow #sansa stark #TWOW predictions

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livinginlandmarketing · 3 years

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This story is Part 3 of a series

What actually happened to David O’Sullivan?

Two weeks into what was supposed to be a 2,650-mile hike of the Pacific Crest Trail, the 25-year-old from Ireland made it to the Riverside County town of Idyllwild. He stopped for a couple of days to resupply, checked out of his hotel room the morning of April 7, 2017, and was never heard from again.

After that, there are three broad possibilities.

One: He died somewhere in the San Jacinto Mountains north of Idyllwild.

Two: He died somewhere else.

Three: He’s alive, which would mean — unless you believe in sci-fi or soap opera plots — he disappeared on purpose.

“Oh God no,” his mother, Carmel O’Sullivan, said about the third possibility. “99.9% of my heart says no. … He wouldn’t have been so cruel to do that to us.”

Read the series

Part 1: The mysterious disappearance of Pacific Crest Trail hiker David O’Sullivan

Map: David O’Sullivan’s 180-mile Pacific Crest Trail journey

Part 2: Who’s looking for David O’Sullivan? At first, almost no one

More: Missing in the mountains: 4 families ache for those lost

Part 3: 4 years later, searchers seek an answer: What was David O’Sullivan’s fate?

A team of volunteer searchers who haven’t given up hope of finding answers are focused on the first option. But they face some formidable challenges.

No one knows which of the many possible routes he planned to take from Idyllwild back to the Pacific Crest Trail or how far he may have gotten.

“If we only had one haystack, we’d eventually be able to find the needle, but we have half a dozen different haystacks,” said Jon King of Idyllwild, a prolific local hiker who’s helped searchers try to figure out the likeliest scenario.

The terrain where the group believes O’Sullivan is most likely to have met trouble is steep and thickly forested, and quickly becomes inaccessible when you get off trail. Drones would be the best way to search, but the area is designated as state wilderness, where drones aren’t allowed, and federal rules say pilots have to keep their drones in sight at all times, which wouldn’t be possible. Even if the group could get permission, the trees and boulders can obscure objects on the ground.

One dark possibility that his mother worries about is whether O’Sullivan could have gotten lost and wandered into an area where marijuana was being grown — a significant problem in California’s national forests. Some of the people searching for O’Sullivan wonder, even if he met a natural or accidental death, could someone else have found him first? If people involved in illicit activity found his remains, could they have disposed of them so as not to attract law enforcement’s attention?

If O’Sullivan’s remains are out there in the wilderness, the forces of nature — from rain, snow and sun to gravity and animals — have had four years to claim them. Every season that goes by makes the task harder, and 2020 was a lost year because of the pandemic.

A photo taken during an aerial search of the San Jacinto Mountains shows Fuller Ridge, the portion of the Pacific Crest Trail where volunteer searchers believe missing hiker David O’Sullivan is most likely to have encountered trouble in April 2017. (Photo courtesy of FireWatch)

Still, the volunteer team has some reason for optimism. In late 2019 and again in early 2021, they found the remains of two other people they searched for: Paul Miller, a Canadian who went missing in Joshua Tree National Park in summer 2018, and Rosario “Chata” Garcia, a local woman with dementia who disappeared in July 2020 after getting her car stuck on a rocky trail 40 miles from her home.

Western States Aerial Search, a nonprofit group of drone operators based in Utah, was able to fly over the areas around where Miller’s and Garcia’s cars were found — they got permission from the national park, and none was needed in the area where Garcia went missing. Volunteer image searchers then began scouring the photographs. In both cases, a Missouri man, Morgan Clements, was the one who first spotted bones.

After Miller was found, Carmel O’Sullivan said the success gave her hope. But while she’s happy for other families to get good news, she’s a little jealous too.

Not knowing what happened to her son, not being able to bring him home and bury him, is an ache that won’t go away. She still hasn’t been able to bring herself to give away his clothes and books.

“The passage of time — in one way, it does ease (the pain), but in another, I don’t think it ever will,” she said recently.

Her son’s 30th birthday is this August, and it’s hard for her to think that as she and her husband and David’s brother grow older, David never will.

The force behind the search

After seeing the struggles of the O’Sullivans and other families, Cathy Tarr, the woman leading the volunteer search effort, was inspired to start an organization to help. The Fowler O’Sullivan Foundation achieved nonprofit status in 2020 — a bright spot for Tarr in a year that included not just the pandemic but a breast cancer diagnosis.

The foundation will use what Tarr and her team have learned to become a resource for families of people who have gone missing in wilderness situations, especially once the official search-and-rescue efforts end.

“When that’s called off, that’s when families are lost,” Tarr said. “They don’t know what to do — how to read a map, how to look for clues, how to attract volunteers. It becomes random. We do it systematically.”

The foundation’s other focus will be proactive safety initiatives. Tarr said they gave away six rescue beacons to Pacific Crest Trail hikers this year and partnered with Nomad Ventures in Idyllwild to offer discounts on microspikes, which go on hikers’ shoes to give them better traction in the snow.

Cathy Tarr stands at the Devil’s Slide Trailhead in Idyllwild on Wednesday, May 12, 2021. She considers that trail the most likely route that David O’Sullivan would have taken from town back to the Pacific Crest Trail on the day he went missing. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Cathy Tarr sits near the Devil’s Slide Trailhead in Idyllwild on Wednesday, May 12, 2021. Tarr is leading volunteer search efforts for David O’Sullivan, a young man from Ireland who went missing in the Idyllwild area while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in 2017. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Cathy Tarr holds a rescue beacon similar to ones that a nonprofit group she founded last year, the Fowler-O’Sullivan Foundation, gave away to six Pacific Crest Trail hikers this year. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Cathy Tarr’s research into the David O’Sullivan case and other missing hikers has included research on how people are likely to behave when they get lost. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Cathy Tarr walks to towards the Devil’s Slide Trailhead in Humber Park Idyllwild on Wednesday, May 12, 2021. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

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Tarr’s involvement in O’Sullivan’s case began with unrelated events in two corners of the United States far from Southern California.

Tarr, now 58, had been planning to hike the Pacific Crest Trail herself in 2017, and had been in New Hampshire training for the snow. Two weeks before she was supposed to head out, she was in a car crash.

She couldn’t hike, but she heard about another PCT hiker named Kris Fowler who’d gone missing in late 2016 in a snowstorm in Washington, and she figured she could help. She traveled there for a four-day search and ended up staying six or eight weeks, she said. (Fowler — the other namesake of Tarr’s foundation — also has never been found, though volunteers and the local sheriff’s department continue to search and Tarr remains involved in those efforts, too.)

While she was in Washington, word of O’Sullivan’s disappearance began to spread north up the Pacific Crest Trail.

Tarr had previously lived in Southern California and her daughter still lives here. Tarr was planning to visit and found out that O’Sullivan’s parents were coming from Ireland at the same time, so she arranged to have lunch with them after they met with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.

“They were very unhappy with the meeting they had just had, so I said let’s do our own investigation,” Tarr said.

She was surprised by how little was being done to search for O’Sullivan compared to Fowler’s case. “I thought, ‘Woah, this is weird. Where are all the flyers? Who’s searching for him? What’s going on?’”

Tarr knows the heart-wrenching feeling of having a son go missing. A year or two before meeting the O’Sullivans, she got a call in the middle of the night that her own son hadn’t returned from a hike to the mountains.

“I know that initial shock that a family gets,” Tarr said. “I’ve felt it. I remember pacing back and forth … I remember calling the police. I remember how scared I was.”

Thankfully, her son was found safe in less than a day. But even now, she visibly tenses up talking about it.

“Once you experience that, it’s something you never forget,” she said.

That feeling is part of what has motivated her in the almost four years since she first met O’Sullivan’s parents.

“If it weren’t for her, there probably would be no search going on,” Carmel O’Sullivan said.

Solving the mystery

Over the past four years, Tarr and the team of volunteers she assembled have done extensive research to narrow down the possibilities of what could have happened to O’Sullivan.

Working backward through that list of three broad possibilities, they don’t believe he could still be alive.

David O’Sullivan, then 25, of Ireland, took this photo of himself while he was hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in Southern California in spring 2017. (Photo courtesy of the O’Sullivan family)

Friends and family say O’Sullivan was as enthusiastic about the trip as he’d been about anything, and his messages from the trail showed someone who “had set himself a personal challenge and was enjoying the journey,” in his mother’s words.

Sgt. Sean Lawlor, a Murrieta police officer who first took O’Sullivan’s missing-person report, also did some investigating and doesn’t believe O’Sullivan survived. Knowing he was an inexperienced solo hiker and had a good family dynamic, he believes O’Sullivan probably got lost, maybe dehydrated or washed away by a river.

“I didn’t get any inkling of signs of foul play or that he would have run off,” Lawlor said.

Once word of O’Sullivan’s disappearance got out, his family received many tips from people who thought they saw him at points north of Idyllwild.

“He was even ‘found’ a few times, even to the point where we rang hostels to speak with ‘him’. None of these sightings were him,” Niall, his older brother, wrote in an online post in July 2017.

During the reporting of this story, someone Tarr’s volunteer team had never heard from before, despite all of their outreach, came forward on Facebook claiming to have seen O’Sullivan that summer in Kennedy Meadows, an area known as the PCT’s gateway to the Sierra. “I even joked with him and a few other hikers that he was the missing Irish dude. Guy basically told me to mind my business,” the commenter wrote.

Tarr believes sightings like those are cases of mistaken identity. She’s found at least three or four other hikers from that year who look very similar to O’Sullivan. The accent is what stood out to some people who thought they’d encountered the Irishman, but hikers came to the PCT from all over the world, including places with similar-sounding accents such as Scotland.

O’Sullivan had been stopping in towns and making financial transactions all the way to Idyllwild, but nowhere after that, including the next town where he would have needed to resupply, Big Bear, about five days up the trail from Idyllwild. Several thousand dollars were left sitting in his bank account. His Kindle was never turned on after April 5.

Why, Tarr reasons, would he have kept hiking without doing any of those things — let alone without contacting his family again. She’s convinced that he couldn’t have made it to Big Bear or else his family would have heard from him there.

While a hiker can run into trouble anywhere, everything that Tarr knows about the trail and the conditions that year tells her that O’Sullivan faced the highest risk on the trail just north of Idyllwild.

Heavy winter storms broke a five-year drought and covered the San Jacinto Mountains in snow that was still up to 3 feet deep when O’Sullivan was coming through. Multiple hikers reported trouble in the mountains, especially along a 5-mile stretch of the PCT that traverses Fuller Ridge. People were sliding downhill and enduring exhausting, injury-inducing battles to get back to the trail. Several hikers required rescue that spring.

A sign at the northwest trailhead to Fuller Ridge, part of the Pacific Crest Trail in the San Jacinto Mountains, warns hikers to be prepared for hazardous conditions. (Photo by Nikie Johnson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

When O’Sullivan set out, “He was very ill-prepared,” Tarr said. He hadn’t trained in the snow and, as far as anyone knows, didn’t have the proper equipment for safe snow hiking. He didn’t have a working phone, and his Kindle only connected over WiFi. He had paper maps but no GPS-equipped device, and no rescue beacon that he could have used to summon help in an emergency — something Tarr strongly recommends.

His last email to his parents indicated he was going to get a later start back to the trail the next morning because he had to stop at the post office again, so there may not have been anyone left behind him that day.

If he got hurt or lost, he would have been all alone out there.

Other PCT deaths

O’Sullivan wouldn’t have been the first Pacific Crest Trail hiker to die in the San Jacinto Mountains, and he wouldn’t have been the last.

In March 2020, 22-year-old Trevor Laher of Fort Worth, Texas, was killed when he fell about 600 feet into a ravine near Apache Peak, about 13 trail miles southeast of Idyllwild. The trails were snowy from a series of storms that had rolled through over the past week. Laher had been with two other PCT hikers he had befriended along the trail, and they were able to call for help with an emergency GPS device.

The risky mission to recover Laher’s body and rescue his two friends — winds were so strong that they grounded a helicopter, so searchers had to cut trail into the steep, hard snow slope to reach them — was one of several in just a two-day span. One PCT hiker slipped and fell in the ice and snow and had to take shelter under a rock through a snowstorm until rescuers could get to him the next day. Another fell 150 feet off the trail and also spent the night lost. Then two PCT hikers from France needed rescue when one fell about 60 feet off the side of the trail and the other got stuck in a section of ice.

Any of them could have ended up lost like O’Sullivan if just a few of fate’s dominoes had fallen a different way.

Then there’s the case of John Donovan.

John Donovan of Virginia, shown in an undated family photo. (File photo)

The newly retired Virginia man came to hike the Pacific Crest Trail in 2005. He was last seen in the San Jacinto Mountains on May 3, headed toward Fuller Ridge as a storm moved in. Despite multiple searches, it was a year before his remains would be found by astonishing accident.

In May 2006, a young couple visiting from Dallas rode the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway into the San Jacinto Mountains. Brandon Day and Gina Allen hadn’t intended to go for much of a hike, but took a few wrong turns while looking at the scenery and ended up hopelessly lost.

In an essay for their hometown’s D Magazine, Day and Allen described spending the next two nights trying to fend off hypothermia and the days clawing their way through thick vegetation and sliding down rock faces in terrain so rugged, they wondered if any human had ever been there before.

They ended up following a creek to a canyon where not just any human, but Donovan himself, had been until he perished.

Gina Allen and Brandon Day, both of Dallas, Texas, tell about their ordeal of being lost for two days in the San Jacinto Mountains in May 2006. (File photo by Rodrigo Pena, The Press-Enterprise)

“We couldn’t walk our way out,” Day told The Press-Enterprise at the time. The canyon was too steep. “We were stuck.”

Day and Allen used some of Donovan’s matches to start a small fire that attracted rescuers; they credited him with saving their lives.

They also found some papers that Donovan scrawled notes on, chronicling his final days.

According to an in-depth story in Backpacker magazine, Donovan described in the makeshift journal how he couldn’t find the trail back to Idyllwild amid the blizzard conditions, so he tried heading toward the lights of Palm Springs below. He ended up in the canyon, injured and down to 12 crackers. He spent more than a week there, including his 60th birthday. In his last entry, dated 11 days after he got lost, he wrote: “Goodbye and love you all.”

“Nobody knew where he was, nobody knew to come looking for him, so he was preparing for the end,” Day told The Press-Enterprise. “We were looking at the words of a man who was passing.”

Assuming Tarr is right that O’Sullivan never made it out of the San Jacinto Mountains, which scenario befell him? A quick death like Laher’s? Or an ordeal more like Donovan’s?

An image shows the flight plan for a plane hired to do aerial photography over the San Jacinto Mountains in 2018 by a group searching for the remains of David O’Sullivan, who came from Ireland in 2017 to hike the Pacific Crest Trail and was last seen in Idyllwild, Calif. The search areas were identified by previous helicopter flights. (Image courtesy of FireWatch)

Searchers will ‘never give up’

Since late 2017, Tarr and her team have conducted numerous ground and aerial searches north of Idyllwild. Always on the lookout for bright blue — the color of O’Sullivan’s backpack — Tarr jokes that they’ve become the mountain’s mylar balloon cleanup crew.

The Idyllwild area’s many hiking trails are well-used and have been searched thoroughly for signs of O’Sullivan. The group has been back out already this year, but Tarr is frustrated that the areas they have left to explore now are too dangerous to reach by foot.

“I feel right now we’re at a standstill, and that’s not where I want to be,” she said.

“I’ve always felt we could find him. Always. But, I don’t know … It’s the one case I have that I’ll never give up on,” she said.

Members of her team are equally committed.

“We will not stop,” said Gloria Boyd of Yucaipa, “because for me that’s the worst thing that could happen: Not only did the authorities walk away but the only people you have left who could potentially help walk away? I’m not going to stop. I don’t see an end in sight. If it’s 10 years it’s 10 years, but damn it we’re getting him back home.”

How to help

Anyone wishing to help the Fowler-O’Sullivan Foundation, whether by volunteering or donating, can go to www.fofound.org/joinourteam.

The O’Sullivan family asks that anyone who is hiking in the Idyllwild area and spots something potentially of interest leaves it where it is and emails information to [email protected].

Hiker safety

Here are some of the Pacific Crest Trail Association’s safety tips, which are good advice for hikers on any trail.

There is intrinsic risk in the wilderness, and you are responsible for your own safety. Be prepared, and learn first aid.

Let someone know your plans. If you’re on a day hike, tell someone where you’re going and when you expect to return. Long-distance hikers, leave a copy of your itinerary with someone, check in regularly, let them know when you’ll check in next and have a plan for what they’ll do if you don’t.

Be mentally prepared for the risks you may encounter. Think through scenarios ahead of time and decide how you might respond.

Travel within your skill level.

Always carry current maps and know how to use them.

Cellphones and rescue beacons can save lives in emergencies — but they don’t guarantee your safety. Rely on your own skills and intuition, not on your technology.

Use extra caution if hiking alone.

Be wary of people who make you uneasy.

Stay on the trail. The moment you leave, you’re in the wilderness. If something goes wrong, you may never be found.

-on May 26, 2021 at 01:01AM by Nikie Johnson

#riversidenews

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gordonwilliamsweb · 3 years

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Trouble Managing Money May Be an Early Sign of Dementia

After Maria Turner’s minivan was totaled in an accident a dozen years ago, she grew impatient waiting for the insurance company to process the claim. One night, she saw a red pickup truck on eBay for $20,000. She thought it was just what she needed. She clicked “buy it now” and went to bed. The next morning, she got an email about arranging delivery. Only then did she remember what she’d done.

This story also ran on The New York Times. It can be republished for free.

Making such a big purchase with no forethought and then forgetting about it was completely out of character for Turner, then a critical care nurse in Greenville, South Carolina. Although she was able to back out of the deal without financial consequences, the experience scared her.

“I made a joke out of it, but it really disturbed me,” Turner said.

It didn’t stop her, though. She shopped impulsively online with her credit card, buying dozens of pairs of shoes, hospital scrubs and garden gnomes. When boxes arrived, she didn’t remember ordering them.

Six years passed before Turner, now 53, got a medical explanation for her spending binges, headaches and memory lapses: Doctors told her that imaging of her brain showed all the hallmarks of chronic traumatic encephalopathy. CTE is a degenerative brain disease that in Turner’s case may be linked to the many concussions she suffered as a competitive horseback rider in her youth. Her doctors now also see evidence of Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia, which affects the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. These may have roots in her CTE.

Turner’s money troubles aren’t unusual among people who are beginning to experience cognitive declines. Long before they receive a dementia diagnosis, many people start losing their ability to manage their finances and make sound decisions as their memory, organizational skills and self-control falter, studies show. As people fall behind on their bills or make unwise purchases and investments, their bank balances and credit rating may take a hit.

Mental health experts say the covid pandemic may have masked such early lapses during the past year. Many older people have remained isolated from loved ones who might be the first to notice unpaid bills or unopened bank notices.

“That financial decision-making safety net may have been weakened,” said Carole Roan Gresenz, interim dean at Georgetown University’s School of Nursing and Health Studies, who co-authored a study examining the effect of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease on household finances. “We haven’t been able to visit, and while technology can provide some help, it’s not the same … as sitting next to people and reviewing their checking account with them.”

Even during times that aren’t complicated by a global health crisis, families may miss the signs that someone is struggling with finances, experts say.

“It’s not uncommon at all for us to hear that one of the first signs that families become aware of is around a person’s financial dealings,” said Beth Kallmyer, vice president for care and support at the Alzheimer’s Association.

Early in the disease, Kallmyer said, dementia robs people of the abilities they need to manage money: “executive functioning” skills like planning and problem-solving, as well as judgment, memory and the ability to understand context.

People who live alone may be the most likely to slip through the cracks, their lapses unnoticed, Kallmyer said. And many adult children may be reluctant to discuss personal finances with their parents, who often guard their independence.

About 6 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease, the most common cause of dementia. Dementia is an umbrella term for a range of conditions associated with declines in mental abilities that are severe enough to interfere with daily life. There is no cure. Alzheimer’s, which killed more than 133,000 Americans in 2020, is the seventh-leading cause of death in the U.S.

Many people have mild symptoms for years before they are diagnosed. During this stage, before obvious impairment, they may make substantial errors managing their finances.

In Gresenz’s study, researchers linked data from Medicare claims between 1992 and 2014 with results from the federally funded Health and Retirement Study, which regularly surveys older adults about their finances, among other things. Her study, published in the journal Health Economics in 2019, found that during early-stage Alzheimer’s, people were up to 27% more likely than cognitively healthy people to experience a large decline in their liquid assets, such as savings and checking accounts, stocks and bonds.

Another study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine in November, linked Medicare claims data to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York/Equifax Consumer Credit Panel to track people’s credit card payments and credit scores. The study found that people with Alzheimer’s and related dementias were more likely to miss bill payments up to six years before they were diagnosed than were people who were never diagnosed. The researchers also noted that the people later diagnosed with dementia started to show subprime credit scores 2.5 years before the others.

“We went into the study thinking we might be able to see these financial indicators,” said Lauren Hersch Nicholas, an associate professor of public health at the University of Colorado, who co-authored the study. “But we were sort of surprised and dismayed to find that you really could. That means it’s sufficiently common because we’re picking it up in a sample of 80,000 people.”

For decades, Pam McElreath kept the books for the insurance agency that she and her husband, Jimmy, owned in Aberdeen, North Carolina. In the early 2000s, she started having trouble with routine tasks. She assigned the wrong billing codes to expenditures, filled in checks with the wrong year, forgot to pay the premium on her husband’s life insurance policy.

Everyone makes mistakes, right? It’s just part of aging, her friends would say.

“But it’s not like my friend that made that one mistake, one time,” said McElreath, 67. “Every month I was having to correct more mistakes. And I knew something was wrong.”

She was diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment in 2011, at age 56, and with early-onset Alzheimer’s two years later. In 2017, doctors changed her diagnosis to frontotemporal dementia.

Receiving a devastating diagnosis is hard enough, but learning to cope with it is also hard. Eventually both McElreath and Maria Turner put mechanisms in place to keep their finances on an even keel.

Turner, who has two adult children, lives alone. After her diagnosis, she hired a financial manager, and together they set up a system that provides Turner with a set amount of spending money every month and doesn’t allow her to make large withdrawals on impulse. She ditched her credit cards and removed eBay and Amazon from her phone.

Though not a micromanager, Turner’s financial adviser keeps an eye on her spending and questions her when something seems off.

“Did you realize you spent X?” she’ll ask, Turner said.

“And I’ll be like, ‘No, I didn’t.’ And that’s the thing. I’m aware but I’m not aware,” she added.

In 2017, Pam and Jimmy McElreath sold their insurance agency to spend more time together and moved west to Sugar Grove, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. They worked with a therapist to figure out how to ensure Pam is able to continue to do as much as possible.

These days, Pam still signs their personal checks, but now Jimmy looks them over before sending them out. The system is working so far.

“At first I was mad, and I went through this dark time,” Pam said, adding: “But the more that you come to accept your problem, the easier it is to say, ‘I need help.’”

Jimmy’s gentle approach helped. “He was so good about telling me when I did something wrong but doing it in such a kind way, not blaming me for making mistakes. We’ve been able to work it out.”

Tips for Helping a Loved One

It’s not easy to broach financial management issues with an elderly parent or other relative experiencing cognitive trouble. Ideally, you and they will have these conversations before problems develop.

As an adult child, you might mention you’ve been talking with a financial adviser about managing your own finances to ease into a conversation about what your elder is doing, said Beth Kallmyer of the Alzheimer’s Association.

Or suggest that allowing a shared financial management arrangement would eliminate the hassle of tracking and paying bills.

“Often people are open to the idea of making their lives easier,” Kallmyer said.

Whatever the approach, it’s important to plan and take steps to protect assets.

“Part and parcel of any legal or estate planning is protecting oneself in the event of incapacity,” said Jeffrey Bloom, an elder law attorney at Margolis & Bloom in the Boston area.

Specific steps depend on the family and their financial situation, but here are some to consider:

Encourage the parent in need of help to sign a financial power of attorney.

These legal documents authorize you or another person to act on a parent’s behalf in financial matters. The terms may be narrow or broad, allowing you to make all financial decisions or to perform specific duties like paying bills, making account transfers or filing taxes.

A “durable” power of attorney allows you to make decisions even if your parent becomes incapacitated. In some states, power of attorney documents are automatically considered durable.

Put assets in a trust.

A trust is a legal vehicle that can hold a range of assets and property. It can spell out how those assets are managed and distributed while people are alive or after they die.

“We do believe in the power of attorney, but we believe in the trust as an even better tool in the event of incapacity,” Bloom said.

Trusts can be tailored to a client’s concerns and provide more guidance than a power of attorney document about what money can be spent on and who has access under what circumstances, among other things.

You might be a co-trustee on major distributions, for example, or there may be rules that provide for you or others to review and be notified of any changes, Bloom said.

The Alzheimer’s Association recommends working with an attorney who specializes in trusts to ensure all laws and regulations are followed, Kallmyer said.

Have your name added as another user on a parent’s bank accounts, credit cards or other financial accounts.

This may be a convenient way to make payments or monitor activity. But a shared account can be problematic if children are sued, for example, or wish to withdraw the money for their own use.

The funds typically belong to all parties whose names are on the account. Unlike a power of attorney, the child isn’t obligated to act in a parent’s best interest.

Each of these setups may help protect a parent’s assets. But parents may not welcome what they see as interference, no matter how well meaning family members are. Typically, they can refuse to permit children’s access to their financial information or revoke permission previously granted.

Finding a balance between protecting someone and usurping their rights is hard, said Bloom. The only way to ensure financial control is to go to court to establish guardianship or conservatorship. But that is a serious step not to be taken lightly.

“You only want to do that if there’s a major risk.”

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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stephenmccull · 3 years

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Trouble Managing Money May Be an Early Sign of Dementia