#Your experiences are not universal and your stereotypes are not nearly as funny as you seem to think they are sighhh

[timeturner-jay]

If you give characters from fantasy settings that decidedly don't speak English in the first place (and it only appears as English to us, the audience, for our own convenience) a Southern USA accent just because they're farmers or from a rural area, expect me to glare at you in weary exasperation.

[cy-cyborg]

I've read a lot of stories with disabled characters, and I've enjoyed some of them more than others. I'm wondering, can non-disabled people write disabled people in stories? Is it possible to do it respectfully and accurately?

I recently read the book "Me Before You" by Jojo Moyes. I really enjoyed the story, but I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed it as much if I had been disabled myself. The main character, Will, is a quadriplegic, and the story explores his relationship with his caretaker, Louisa. I thought the book did a good job of portraying Will's physical limitations, but I'm not sure if it did a good job of portraying his emotional and psychological journey.

What do you think? Can non-disabled people write disabled people in stories?

Sorry for the late reply, I thought I posted the answer to this already, but I saved it to my queue instead 😅

This is a really hotly debated topic in disability circles, but in my opinion, there's nothing wrong with non-disabled folks telling stories featuring disability, so long as you're respectful and do your research/hire sensitivity readers. Stories where a character (even the main character) is disabled, or becomes disabled during the story, but that's not what the core of the story is about. Disability is a natural part of life, the disabled community makes up nearly 20% of the total population according to some sources (though many people think this is an under-estimate and the real numbers are much higher, since what is considered a disability isn't universally agreed on), it's unrealistic to just straight-up not include it.

But stories that are specifically about the disabled experience, about what life as a disabled person is like, about learning to live with disability and learning how to adapt to it, where any of those themes are a part of the main plot, then I think that's usually best left to disabled people to tell those stories. There are some things that, unless you've lived through it, you can never truly understand, and I do think disability is one of those things (this doesn't just apply to non-disabled people, but also to people with disabilities different from your own. I know what life for an amputee with autism is like, but that doesn't mean I also know what living with DID or paraplegia is like). If you try to tell a story where those things you haven't lived through are the centre focus, the holes become very visible to those who have. I do say usually though, I've seen some exceptions where people still do a good job, but they're usually from very well-established writers who have a team of people like sensitivity readers, consultants etc, and a lot of them who are able to pull it off.

The irony that you used Me Before You as an example though is a little funny. I try not to talk about that story specifically because I couldn't even finish the movie, let alone the book 😅 but the online disabled community has made their thoughts on both known. The general consensus as I've seen it is it is a perfect example of the author doing everything wrong, but getting it close enough that most non-disabled folks won't notice, and the movie just following in its footsteps. Take this with a grain of salt of course, but I've heard that the author didn't even talk to anyone with Will's disability directly, she only spoke to and consulted with healthcare workers/carers who worked with people like Will, which will always give you a very incomplete view of life with a disability at best and a very jaded and pessimistic view of things at worst - both in regards to the emotional side of things and the ability of the disabled person. I'm not here to say you can't enjoy it, but it does play into a lot of very harmful tropes and stereotypes. I'm not the best person to discuss it in any real detail though, sorry. There's some great video essays on YouTube though, including a few from people with the same disability as will, so I'd definitely recommend taking a look at them if you want to know more!

TLDR: I don't think there's anything wrong with non-disabled folks telling stories that contain disabled characters, but stories about our lived experience should be left to those with that lived experience.

[just-sg]

The other day I was helping a friend (19) figure out how to set up a PayPal and he said it wasn't available, so I assumed he was getting a "not available in your country" type of error. When I looked on PayPal and it said they supported that currency, I assumed it was his ISP blocking him.

Anyway a little later we figured out that when he said "not available" he meant he couldn't find an app on the Google Play Store. "... Did you try the actual website in a browser?" He had not. It worked. He has a PayPal now. (There was also an app downloadable from the site itself.)

That's meant as kind of a Funny Story but honestly I'm...

I'm not trying to judge Kids These Days, I'm just genuinely baffled. I would think "no one taught them" but who... who really taught the average Millennial, or the older end of Gen Z? I was like 6 years old helping my grandpa figure out how to use a computer that was also new to me, and I know that experience isn't nearly universal but it also wasn't rare. And maybe-- hopefully?-- this is based on limited evidence and stereotypes. Maybe the reality isn't as bad as it looks/feels.

But so often I see people say "I don't see X" or "I don't know how to do Y" and then... leave it at that? And I'm sure planned obsolescence and lack of resilience with a lot of modern tech is at least some factor, making it harder to Fuck Around And Find Out without fear of breaking something, and of course it's a lot of things adding up, not just one clear answer.

But c'mon Zoomers. You all have so much passion. You don't have to go major in computer science, just when you run into a thing you'd like to do and don't know how, get in the habit of looking it up. Yes Google has gotten worse, but there are other search engines and Google is also still serviceable for a lot of stuff if you ignore the AI at the top. (Please ignore the AI.) And there's YouTube tutorials for almost anything now! Seek the knowledge, learn the things, fuck around and find out, and learn new and interesting ways to fuck around and find out. 🙏 You guys can become so powerful, I believe in you.

Telling young zoomers to "just switch to linux" is nuts some of these ipad kids have never even heard of a cmd.exe or BIOS you're throwing them to the wolves

[blkgirlcafe]

Professor Nasty

Professor! Florian Munteanu x Black! Reader

Warning: Public sex, unprotected sex, cheating, undefined age gap, dirty talking, slight degrading. 

I keep my description of the reader pretty vague, make her how you want, but she black fosho. I am trying to get better at writing from a Y/N perspective, so any constructive criticism is welcomed. 

Thank you @dersha98 for the inspiration and the ending. Thank you love!

University of Munich

Y/N tried to keep her eyes on the slides but it was nearly impossible. She never believed the hot professor stereotype until now. 

Somehow she had gotten her dates mixed up and ended up registering for classes late. Which means all the good electives were taken. Y/N had gotten stuck with the two worst electives one could think of and she was sure to be in for a boring ass time. Public speaking and Romanian literature. 

Public speaking was the worst to Y/N, because well it was public speaking. Every other week she was giving a speech, standing in front of a class of 30. It was nerve racking and she always needed a break after that class. 

Romanian literature on the other hand surprised her. The professor was gorgeous, a man if she ever saw one. 

Talk and built like a brick wall that she would happily run into. She sat up front, eyes tracing his each movement. 

“So reports are due, please pass them up.”

Y/N pulled out the report that she put together less than 4 hours ago after reading the spark notes online. She hadn’t read most of the book, getting bored within the first 4 chapters. 

Everyone knew that professors didn’t read these things, just grazed over and did a length check. 

She quickly passed it forward and began to pack her stuff, last class of the day. Y/N couldn’t wait to get home and watch Netflix. 

1 week later 

A big bright red F was stamped on her paper. Not even a C or D. This would tank her grade in the class which would tank her GPA. 

Y/N waited until the class was empty before approving Mr. Munteanu

Up close he was even more impressive of a man. He was solid built and smelled like mint and firewood. She liked it. 

He didn’t even get her a chance to talk, “Your grade is your grade, stop staring off into space and maybe it could have been better.”

Y/N was shocked not expecting that out of the normally quiet professor. 

“I’m sorry Mr. Munteanu, the book was just really hard for me to get into. Can I try another book? Please?” 

Y/N tried her puppy eyes on him, hoping it would work like it would on her boyfriend. 

“Read the whole book, cover to cover and instead of a 2 page report, I want 4. The highest you can get is a B.” 

“Yes Sir, thank you Sir.” 

The way he licked his lips made her look away, something inside her heating up at the thought of his tongue.

“When is it due?” She finally asked. 

“I’ll give you a week, and Y/N don’t tell anyone. I don’t normally let students make up work.”

“I won’t, thanks again Mr. Munteanu.”

Y/N declined an invite to drinks, and lowkey ghosted her boyfriend to finish the paper. Once she got past the first 4 chapters the book was actually good. Lots of drama and sex which she wasn’t expecting. 

She easily typed out a report after and printed it out. Excited to hand it back to him after class. 

Y/N waited silently as Mr. Munteanu read her paper. His tall frame was casually leaned against the desk at the front of the auditorium. She fidgeted in her seat. Having him read it in front of her was nerve racking. 

The paper dipped below his lips and Y/N found herself staring at his lips and how pink they were, wondering if they tasted as good as they looked. 

“Miss Y/N, Y/N!” 

Y/N snapped out her daydream, “Yes Sir.”

“I asked what is your favorite part of the book?”

Y/N chewed her lips, wondering if she should tell the truth. The book had a few steamy sex scenes and they were explained in graphic detail. 

Y/N kind of shrugged, not wanting to answer him. 

“Use your voice young lady.” His voice was stern, making her clench her thighs. 

“The sex scenes Sir, they were just so real.”

One eyebrow shot up on his face. 

Y/N felt her heart speed up, this was not a conversation she was prepared to have with him. 

“Come here Miss Y/N.” 

On shaky legs she made her way to where he was standing, he picked the book up off the desk and handed it to her. 

“Show me your favorite part.” 

Y/N flipped through the book she was handed. For some reason her hands were shaking, she found the part. 

“This is it.” Y/N squeaked out. 

“Read it Miss Y/N.”

Y/N gulped, praying her voice did not fail her, “ His soft touch sent flutters through her body, this is what it felt like to be touched by a man. An experienced man…”

Mr. Munteanu wrapped a large hand around her hip, Y/N gasped.

“Can I touch you?” 

“Yes...please.”

Y/N cursed herself, already begging. Mr. Munteanu stood and Y/N felt surrounded by him, he towered over her, his scent engulfed her. Y/N tilted her face up, to look at him. 

“Tell me you want this.” he barely whispered. 

“I want this sir.” 

Mr. Munteanu crashed his lips on hers, kissing her aggressively. Y/N kissed him back, biting back a moan as he grabbed her ass.  She needed more, wanted more. 

“Please Sir…” she broke the kiss. 

“Please what sweetheart.” 

Y/N wasnt sure what to ask, fuck my brains out sir, use me like a toy sir, do anything you want. The pad of this thumb traveled from her hip to her neck where he gently squeezed getting a moan out of Y/N.

“Don't make me ask twice.” 

“Please fuck me Sir.” 

Mr. Munteanu growled as his other hand yanked at her jeans, not even bothering to unbutton them, pulling them down. 

Cold air hit Y/N wet pussy lips she was absolutely drenched from the little he had done. What happened next happened so quickly, Y/N head was still swirling. She was face down on the hard wooden desk, Mr. Munteanu running a thick digit up and down her slit.  The clink of a belt was all that could be heard over both of their hard breathing. 

“Fuck I wish I had more time.” his thick accent broke her out her spell. 

“Please...I need you.” Once again begging like a whore to be fucked by an older man. 

“Don't worry sweetheart, I am going to fuck you like a man should.” 

His wet tip came in contact with her thigh as he guided the thick cock head towards her entrance. His pre cum mixed with her wetness as he pushed inside her, testing the limits of her walls. 

A gasp left Y/N as his thickness filled her up, a painful stretch that quickly turned into pleasure. Mr. Munteanu pushed until their bodies were connected, Y/N walls fluttered around him, reacting to having such girth in them. 

“Good girl, taking all of me.” he grunted. 

Y/N moaned as he begin to fuck her, slow deep strokes that left her breathless. Y/N let out a loud fuck as he hit a particular spot. 

“Have to be quiet for me baby, can't let them know what I am doing to you.” 

“I cant...It feels so good...please more.” Y/N tried to bite her lip, to keep from getting too loud. 

“You want them to know that you like older men, that you let me fuck and so quick.”

“Fuck Yes, please dont stop!”

“I'm not stopping until I flood that cunt.” 

Mr. Munteanu lifted one of her legs, setting it on the desk, hitting even deeper on each stroke, a tingling that started in her core finally let go, Y/N toes curled as she had her first orgasm, breath hitched in her throat. 

“Look at you, already cumming all over my dick. Imagine if I had you in a bed, the things I could do to you babygirl.”

Y/N head swam with the thoughts, the way he could use her body, she wanted that more than she wanted anything else right now. 

“Does your boyfriend make you feel like this?”

He knows I have a boyfriend, Y/N though. Mr. Munteanu picked up the pace, slamming his hips into her. 

“Tell me Y/N.” he said through clenched teeth. 

“No Sir, you feel better.” Y/N cried out. 

Y/N was being fucked so hard she swore the desk was moving, not that she cared, her second orgasm was sneaking up on her. 

Moans, skin slapping and the occasional grunt filled the empty auditorium. Mr. Munteanu pulled out, flipping her over before laying her back on the desk. All Y/N could see was him and his extremely chiseled chest. Her ass was pulled to the edge of the desk, her ankles by his ears, thick dick at her wet entrance. Y/N fist clenched around nothing, riding out her second orgasm. 

“Fuck, I am about to…” Mr. Munteanu never finished. 

He flooded her unprotected pussy, something she didn't even let her boyfriend do. He kissed her legs and thighs as he pulled her legs down. 

“I need more.” was the last thing he said as she rushed to put her pants back on and scurry out the door. 

Y/N rushed across campus, she felt like everyone knew what just had happened, she felt like everyone knew that her professor cum was staining her panties. She made it to her boyfriend's apartment, praying he was not there, still at the gym, or at the pub with friends.

The whole way up all she could think was, I just had sex with Mr. Munteanu! In the same class that he taught me in. Y/N was going to have to stare at that desk for the rest of the semester. She got to his apartment and mentally cursed herself, she could hear him on the game already. 

“Babe! Where have you been?” He asked her. 

“I had to turn in that paper and he had me stay while he read it.” Y/N tried to quickly get down the hallway but  Fynn wouldn't stop talking. Any other time he would be so engrossed in the game she could walk around stark naked and he wouldn't notice. 

“I waited on you for dinner though, I am hungry babe.” he whined. 

“Let me take a quick shower and I'll order your favorite.” 

She should feel guilty that her boyfriend was waiting for her to return while she was having the best sexual experience of her life on a desk, with her professor, who was also her boyfriend professor. But all she could think about was two orgasms in less than ten minutes. 

“Why are you walking funny baby?”

Y/N froze in her place, she just got fucked with the biggest dick she ever saw. 

“Sprained my ankle earlier in heels, I need to put it up.” 

Y/N quickly faked limped to the bathroom, turning the water up super high. She set her phone on the counter noticing a text from an unknown number. 

Be free Friday evening -Flo

[fellowstrangetownappreciator]

Curious and autistic-coded

Hello there! April draws to an end and with that I think it’s high time to hurry up and write this. What does April have to do with anything, you ask? April is the Autism Acceptance Month. So what better month to do this?

Unfortunately I didn’t make it. I failed. It’s already 1. 5. when I’m posting this. But at least I tried to deliver on time.

In this mini essay I’ll present my case about why I think the Curious brothers from TS2 Strangetown display autistic-coded traits and my personal takes on it.

It’s basically your average headcanon post but with a funny top hat!

0: Preface: What do I mean by “autistic-coded”?

When a character is coded as something, it means that they have traits that are associated with the demographics in question to make the consumer knowingly or not link the character with the demographic, although the character's "label” is never explicitly disclosed.

In the nutshell, it means that there are canonical reasons to read the characters as autistic, although you won't find the word "autism" anywhere in the game nor in the developer's commentary.

In this particular case I do believe that the developer may not even be aware of the code, as there is no evidence to suggest otherwise. If there is, I’m not aware of it and I would be happy to learn.

So, let’s start!

1: “The white male who is very good at science”

Unfortunately autistic representation in pop-culture has a long history of being rather straightforward in which traits the characters often have. This stems from the belief that autism is “a boy’s disorder” (that’s why some autism charities to this day use blue in their symbols). Among popular examples of autistic-coded characters are Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper and Death Note’s L and Near. I’m sure you can think of more but you’ll find that most of them are men and either explicitly white or racially ambiguous white-passing. They also tend to be gifted in tech, logic or other science-y activities.

There’s nothing wrong with that! Nothing wrong with being an autistic with those “stereotypical” characteristics and there is nothing wrong with people being represented. What is wrong is the monotony and afab people/people of color being underrepresented which leads (among other factors) to harder access to diagnosis and resources for those people in real life. But! That’s a topic for a different day. (and not for a simbrl, mind you)

Back to the Curiouses! I just wanted to say that autism in media is traditionally associated with characters whose gender presentation, race and interests align with theirs. Those characteristic thus make a very convenient template for autistic-coding.

2: Inconsistent performance, huge gaps between strengths and weaknesses

Pascal, Vidcund and Lazlo are very skilled Sims by default, extraordinarily even for their age. Pascal has a skill maxed while his younger brothers both near maxing theirs.

But as you can see in Pascal’s default skill panel, apart from Creativity, all his other skills are extremely low, 0 points for Mechanical, Body and Charisma, 1 point for Cooking and Logic and his second best skill, Cleaning, has only 3 points. The same situation can be observed in Vidcund’s and Lazlo’s, except their strong suits are Logic and Cooking respectively.

Huge discrepancies within performance in different cognitive areas is a common trait found in those on the autism spectrum. We’re often talking extremes here and the scale of the difference is the defining factor. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, it’s just in neurodivergent people those tend to be unusually noticeable.

I think that skills, simplified as they are, are the closest The Sims has to possibly simulate that because they track the character’s performance and expertise in different areas and allow comparison. In real life, of course, this comparison is not nearly as possible and exact, nor desired, but for all our analysis-loving enthusiasm, here we’re still talking fictional characters.

3: Struggle with social cues

It is widely known that one of autistic traits are difficulties with processing social situations, picking social cues and successfully replicating socially desired behavioral patterns.

But these three are Sims, are they not? They cannot possibly display this trait, since they’re programmed the same way as others.

Yes and no.

It is true that there is no specific in-game feature that would allow Sims to behave with explicit neurodivergency in mind* but with the right combination of traits they can simulate behavior that really hits close to home for neurodivergent players.

*at least not in TS2, TS3 has traits that simulate some possible neurodivergencies but their names tend to be rather... ableist unfortunate and they’re not relevant to this post since they’re not autism related, and even if they were, we’re focusing on TS2 exclusively

Let’s take look at Lazlo here. He is, indeed, a playful soul. He likes to goof around, tell jokes, make others laugh. And since he’s very close to his brother Vidcund, close enough even to Tell Dirty Joke (an interaction that needs quite a high relationship to unlock), he autonomously does just that.

And oh boy, does Vidcund disapprove.

From my personal experience playing them, their relationship usually takes quite a hit from every cheeky joke Lazlo throws Vid’s way. They usually autonomously repair it very quick but it happens often.

But that’s a standard behavior. Vidcund’s very serious, he doesn’t take well to jokes.

No. I mean technically yes, Vid is definitely a grumpy old plant dad but, at least in my game, he tends to accept Lazlo’s jokes. All kinds of them, actually, except for the dirty ones. And Pascal, who technically has even lower Playful points (0 in comparison to Vidcund’s 4), doesn’t seem to mind Lazlo’s poor attempts at grown-up humor.

But! What is it that makes Lazlo try still? What drives him to attempt to make Vidcund laugh with a dirty joke over and over again? (and fail?)

I my interpretation, Lazlo doesn’t do that on purpose, he is just really poor at evaluating “dirtiness” of a given joke and frequently misinterprets Vidcund’s cues. The animation of a dirty joke being rejected even supports that as Vid doesn’t signal his discomfort with any exaggerated easy-to-read facial expression until Lazlo gets to his punchline.

No only that but as I mentioned, the invisible lines between spicy and too vulgar are often hard to thread. I can recall many times I thought I was saying a witty quip on an “adult” topic and was met with awkward silence or someone shushing me because “that’s not how you speak in public”. I can well imagine myself in Lazlo’s shoes.

A situation of social cues being misinterpreted or ignored can be observed also in Vidcund. Programming-wise, those are just his low Niceness and extreme Shyness showing but combined they again paint a picture of a very neurodivergent-looking behavioral pattern.

He often behaves like the concept of politeness or social rules doesn’t exist because the combination of the aforementioned traits makes him come off very blunt (lecturing and shoving telescope-peepers with no warning whatsoever) and distant (having a high chance of rejecting simple small-talk socials).

(That’s Jasmine Rai casting the “Summon Vidcund” spell.)

Yes, I am fully aware that it makes a stronger case for him being an a**hole than autistic but... there’s no reason he can’t be both. Not all autistic people are sweet cinnamon buns, all personalities you can think of can be neurodiverse and, for some their neurodiversity can even amplify their inconsiderate ways, as I believe it is the case with our dear grouch Vidcund.

4. Their bios

“No matter what happens, Pascal believes there is a logical explanation for everything. In his free time, he practices home psychoanalysis and collects conspiracy theories.”

(that’s how I imagine practicing psychoanalysis looks like, sorry Freud)

“Serious and exact, Vidcund strives to fit the universe into a nice tidy package. He has an unnatural fondness for African violets.”

(let’s collectively pretend those are African violets)

“Not as studious as his older brothers, Lazlo got his degree in Phrenology. He likes to call phone psychics and spends hours trying to bend forks with his mind.”

*error: screenshot of Lazlo bending forks not found*

(but here he is hanging out with Erin Beaker, the closest thing to “calling phone psychics” you can actually do in-game)

Both Pascal’s and Vidcund’s bios point to a pattern-focused worldview with a strong emphasis on rationality as the center-point that anchors the way they understand the world around them and build their principles on. This “pattern-ization” of thinking is a common autistic trait, with rationality being a popular theme because emotions tend to be difficult to access and asses for many of us.

Lazlo’s biography is an outlier. But it still has something significant in common with those of his brothers: All three of their bios allude to a potential special interest of sorts.

Special interests as an autism-related term are very specific, in-depth and long-term hobbies or areas of expertise that make an autistic person happy and they tend to go to seemingly exhausting lengths, often at the cost of other areas of knowledge and most likely the person’s ability to talk about anything else for a long enough time. (a loving hyperbole, no disrespect meant) Mine are my characters and cats. An even more intense but a short(er)-term passion is called a hyperfixation.

Them potentially having a special interest is yet another possible autistic-coded feature.

5. Wait. Why does it matter?

Right. What does it matter if a Sim (A SIM) (or two or three) is autistic? What do I hope to achieve, pushing my autistic Curiouses agenda down your throats?

I got to write a long rant-piece about some of my favorite TS characters and I feel like I can finally die satisfied.

Apart from that and me sharing my happiness of finding some good pixels I can relate to, it is a matter of representation.

Remember by the very beginning I wrote how most of the representation our community gets in media tends to be just a one specific type of character?

And how the Curious brothers seem to fit the stereotype to a point?

There is something I omitted, something I saved for the last on purpose.

The role. The role in their story, the role in the society the piece of media portrays.

We often see neurodiverse, autistic or autistic-coded character as children, students, villains, lone savants, victims in distress, comedic relief sidekicks, either very vulnerable and needing protection, or detached and having their role defined only by their academic prowess or their special interest/profession.

What we rarely get to see them as, are... parents.

That’s what many of us autistics are or plan to be someday in the future. The dogma around autism has started to dwindle relatively recently and there are little to no examples of autistic adults being the care-givers for once in the media around us.

The Curious brothers are just that. They are chaotic, they are eccentric, they can be a little too much... but they are dutiful and loving fathers/uncles to their little aliens they raise.

They make it work. Even if they face difficulties, even if they don’t exactly fit the standard.

“Sometimes, a family truly can be three brothers raising alien babies, and it’s beautiful.”

It encourages us to define family by love rather than traditional structures and it shows us that portrait of a functional neurodiverse family we need to see.

And goodness, is it a powerful sight.

[thatyanderecritic]

i really like the yandere dynamic but i dont openly post or reblog about it anymore cuz i've had people give me a hard time over it being problematic. and i get told im terrible, get called a freak... idk. do you have any advice for dealing with this...?

Hey anon, sorry for not getting to you sooner. We have a lot of questioned queued up to be answered but I decided to put you first since this is a pretty big issue. 

To be a yandere fan, we’re in a rather precarious position. Like any fandom, we are plagued with bad apples that end up painting the community’s face as a whole. You know the type of bad apples that all fandoms have: the overzealous stans that either attack those outside the community for not sharing a view or catering to our fandom. We also suffer from infighting/bullying between yandere fans because not everyone shares the same views on what a yandere is or even for something as stupid as a yandere headcanon for a character that never was a yandere, to begin with. But unlike most fandoms, the works that we support tend to go against us at times. That is to say... since we’re a bit of an under “funded” (e.g. don’t have enough yandere media. Especially for male yanderes) fandom, people tend to quickly put CrAzY characters on a pedestal without question. And this hurts our credibility, ALOT.  Having group within the fandom worshipping some non-yandere, psychotic girl as a yandere just because she’s kawaii while the more “sane” fans try to explain, “No, we swear yandere’s aren’t like that” doesn’t look good for our case. 

Is there anything we can do about people attacking us for our preference? Not exactly, I’m sorry to say. The moment humans gained self-awareness and free will, universal mental unity became a myth. There will always be a disconnect, even on concepts that all humans should be in agreement on. Would you believe me if I say that some people don’t believe that people should be allowed to have a livable wage? Of course, people will have their reasons as to why they think a certain way regardless if it sounds logical or not. Just because they have a reason doesn’t mean it’s reasonable but in a world where emotions is king, logical will never win.

People who attack you for liking yanderes most likely were victims of abuse and went through some sort of trauma that yanderes are usually identified/linked with. If they weren’t direct victims then they know someone who is a victim. And if it isn’t either of these two, then they’re most likely a bleeding heart with a “higher than thou” sense of morality. Regardless of the reasoning, they all have their hearts in the right places but rigid in their perspective of the world. Already, the decision is cemented and may never change. To most, we’re as egregious as pedophiles and incest-lovers just because we like villains. After all: “How in the world could anyone remotely ‘like’ such awful people?! Clearly, there is something wrong with THEM.” Of course, we have our reasons for liking yanderes but most people close their ears and eyes since they already judged us based on our interest. For those who were victims of abuse or know someone, I understand that they’re reaching out to attack those who seem to defend characters that may or may not be similar to their assailant/abuser. They attack, they defend invisible victims, and in a way, looking for purpose... looking at how they can turn their trauma into a positive. But most of the time, they overstep their boundaries and try to enforce their authority in something they don’t understand. 

The only way we can approach these types of people is to send an open invitation for a diplomatic talk in trying to reach a middle ground. While a change of opinion would be nice, it would be nearly impossible since a lot of people are grounded in their personal moral compass. If they are open for a conversation, then all hope is not lost. Ideally, if a conversation is open then the most important thing is to validate their emotions invested in this situation. 9 out of time 10, people are stubborn in an argument because they feel like they’re getting personally targeted either by their identity, their pride, or their emotions. Therefore, they double down and become louder in their argument, not because of their view but because they believe they are defending themselves. From there, once the other recognize that you aren’t attacking them, you shift the conversation onto yourself and point out how they were making you feel the same away but they were actively attacking you; not only that, treating you as less than human just because you prefer villainous FICTIONAL characters. Ideally, at this point, the other recognizes their hypocrisy and you both agree in staying in your own lanes. If by some miracle they’re open of a different perspective, then you’re given a platform to say why you like yanderes... typical reasons being the idea of unconditional love or coping. 

But this is all hypothetical and the most desirable outcome. But more than often, people are more than comfortable at screaming at you every time you try to open your mouth... most likely something they learned because someone shut them down in such a way. Not only that, they most likely formed their own counter-arguments already since a lot of yandere fans have the same reasons as to why they like yanderes: unconditional love or coping. The counter-argument can usually be boiled down to two reasons: unethical and risking future victims seeking a “yandere” partner. Ethicality... this is a low hanging fruit to argue. Everyone (well the majority of people, again it’s universally impossible to be on the same page) would agree that it’s bad to stalk a person. Even a yandere fan would say never to stalk a person IRL. But because of this, they think they got you in an “ethical checkmate”. It’s a cheap argument and they’re just trying to make you feel like a monster for your preferences in fictional characters. Funny enough, this is a tactic that abusers would use to shame their victim into compliance... hm...

The second counter-argument people use is “think of the youths!” Let’s be real... it’s scientifically proven that kids and teens are easily impressionable because of their underdeveloped brains and lack of experience. Not only the concerns of the younger members of society, they fear that by allowing us to enjoy our media, we are “normalizing” abusive relationships in society. Considering the state of the United State’s government, I understand where the fear is coming from. But they’re barking up the wrong tree and especially using the wrong method in preventing this dystopian future. I always see these people bring up the ‘Jaws’ case as to why there should be no yanderes and no support for them. You know, the case where there was a sudden increase in shark hunting due to public fear which pushed certain shark species into endangerment. It’s always this argument, I swear... anyways, they always toss this without never diving in deeper as to why this happened. 

Before Jaws, people didn’t know anything about sharks in general. There just wasn’t any interest in sharks because we humans just didn’t find time interesting at the time. They were there and we can’t really eat sharks. But, there were already tales about sharks being “man-eaters” from those stranded out at sea or curious citizens. The stereotype was already there. But Jaws brought sharks to the forefront of public scrutiny and shark hunting competitions came up because “what’s the harm? Sharks are man-eaters”. This dropped the shark population, but because of this there was an interest in sharks, funding to research them suddenly increased. Scientist turned their attention on sharks while later on fed to informing the public, making them educated and less scared of shark attacks. Jaws came out in 1975... Shark Week on the discovery channel came out in 1988... there’s a reason, folks. People became interested in sharks. Yes, Jaws hurt the shark population but it’s slowly been going up. Damage takes time to repair. But it also brought about awareness. While the stereotype isn’t dead (that’s just humans at this point and it’s always been a stereotype ever since man was on a boat), it opened a conversation. And that’s the key point here. (Here’s a link. But you can go even further if you research)

Abusive relationships, manipulative people, toxic actions... these are nothing new. “Getting rid” of yandere fans will not solve this issue, just like telling your kid “there are kids starving in Africa��� will not end world hunger. For the Jaws example, I point to the argument that politicians make about how video games create violent people. We know that it’s nonsense, you know it’s nonsense. But there is a fear of the “unknown”. People back then thought that cartoons like Tom and Jerry would cause kids to grow up violent. And even further back, people thought that reading books created lazy people. The fear on what’s on TV is a fear people had since the beginning of time. People aren’t as soft as they believe they are but they can lack information... Instead of shutting down people and censor what goes on TV, use it as a stepping stone for the bigger conversation. It’s a lack of knowledge and fear of the unknown that killed the sharks but it is knowledge that is now protecting them. 

This is especially important for our younger peers. Raise of hands, who actually changed their minds as a teenager after someone called you stupid or told you “no” with giving a logical reason besides “because I say so.” I’m going to guess we got an empty room here. Attacking our younger peers or those who are older just because they like a character trope IS NOT HELPING THEM AND ESPECIALLY NOT MAKING THE ATTACKERS LOOK LIKE HEROES. THEY LOOK LIKE JACKASSES. Fuck man, the younger ones want acceptance and looking a supportive group by joining a fandom. Calling them toxic just pushes them to the edge these people never wanted them to be. The same applying to the older ones. We all got our issues and y’all never know what it is. That’s why I hate seeing people in our fandom gatekeep against our younger peers. They’re going to come in even though you say crap like “Lmaooo, my blog/game is 18+! Okay, byeeeee!” If you want to protect them then be their fucking guide, my dudes. You can have a mature conversation with them and explain the difference between fiction and reality and what’s wrong and right. “Yanderes are pretty cool, ay sport? But notice how that guy gaslighted the girl? That is a common tactic people do IRL. Be sure to recognize it as a red flag.” Fuck, is that so fucking hard for everyone? Some people act like they never grew on the internet during the early 2000s.Y’all were a teenager once. If what you’re doing wouldn’t help teenage you in the past, then you’re doing it wrong. Smh. 

Finally, I do want to make a point for those who use coping reasons. While I do understand where you’re coming from, you guys are our most vulnerable to these attacks but also the reason for the attacks as well. It’s the mindset of “How could you support something like this?! You must be a horrible person.” I know a lot of people aren’t like that but also, we got bad apples... people who take this for coping reasons way too far. To them, I ask them to come back from the edge and let’s look for help together. Using yanderes to embrace “yandere tendencies” or rationalizing your abuse as normal isn’t the way. Use it to help you breathe and help you feel grounded but don’t let it define you... especially don’t make it a lifeline. As for those who know the difference and can separate fiction from reality, I applaud you but you got some work in helping those who are too deep. I’ve seen some of the yandere Tumblr group chats on the app. I’ll be real... YIKES. It’s a bit of an echo chamber. I ended up having to message a user on a side since I saw red flags in the group chat when I was lurking. People were trying to give the wrong help by encouraging their actions. Just... don’t do this y’all. I get you relate but don’t get your homie in jail or a court date for a restraining order. 

Anyways, I’m sorry anon for pulling farther and farther away from you specifically since this is a big issue that everyone tackles and I’m also sorry that I can’t give you an “end all” answer. First, you can try having a civil conversation with these people. Try for the middle ground and if you feel like you can push further, then try to do a change of mind. But I know this is hard, especially when tensions build and emotions get heated. But it’s important to never explode that anger... or at least direct that anger into a logical response. The moment you explode and made an error of judgment, you will lose and suffer publically. If a conversation isn’t possible, then encourage these people to stay in their lane and unfollow you. Why the fuck are they following you if they hate the things you reblog? Sounds unhealthy... suggest some hobbies or blogs to follow instead. From there, if they try to continue the hate, just block them and delete the messages. As they say, don’t feed the trolls. Y’all may think you’ve seen all the hate anons we get but we get a lot more than what we answer. We just delete them because they’re typically incoherent or stupid. They don’t come back lol. 

From there, anon, surround yourself with people who you find agreeable and who you relate to. A lot of yandere blogs are down for a talk, I’ll be real. Just be sure you open up that you want to be friends lol. So... yeah. I’m sorry this isn’t perfect, but I hope it helps. Don’t be afraid of being yourself!

[afterourhearts]

Eyeliner Tears

Why are Asian eyes so ugly? I thought to myself as I outlined their shape with the blackest liner I could dig out from the free Lancôme makeup samples Mom never used. This was my daily routine since I first discovered the beautiful black pencil when I was 12 alongside lip gloss, mascara, and blush. But eyeliner was my favorite – changing most dramatically what I hated most passionately. • Monolids are ugly because they make eyes look like slits. • Double lids are ‘mutant’ because, as my white medical professor once so aptly described, “Epicanthic folds are a prominent feature of Down Syndrome. If you don’t know what they are, Asians commonly have this feature.” Let’s face it: we can’t win, at least not in the beauty arena. But with my eyeliner adding the illusion of a larger eye, I felt halfway there. Not everyone, however, appreciated my foray into adolescent self-transformation. The Chinese beauty culture operates very differently than American beauty culture: pale skin, small mouths, soft bodies, and youthful innocence are prized over glowing tans, wide smiles, athletic frames, and sultry seductiveness. To achieve the Chinese beauty ideal of youthful innocence, heavy makeup such as eyeliner is unacceptable, and makeup at all is frowned upon for younger girls. Mom called them “raccoon eyes” and told me I looked uglier with it on but I never heeded her advice. She also said respectable girls did not waste their time on vanities like makeup, but rather immersed themselves in their studies. She especially hated when I wore makeup to church, a place where teenage girls are supposed to look extra pure. I rolled my raccoon eyes. One year, I met a new girl at our Chinese Christian Church. She was talkative, witty, similarly loved makeup and rebellion, and we became fast friends. This same year, a new youth pastor arrived at our church. He was funny, fluent, and finally our first youth pastor who wasn’t middle-aged. So how do they tie back to eyeliner? Prior to their arrival, I dreaded attending church, paranoid that the judgmental eyes of multitudes of Chinese parents hated my appearance and shared the Chinese cultural views held by my mother. Was it paranoia, or was I just observant? Adults would enthusiastically praise my younger brother’s handsome features and say nothing about my appearance other than, “She is tall!” Their smiles seemed disingenuous and their attitudes towards me distant. Or maybe I was just overly sensitive. Regardless, much of that paranoia melted away with the arrival of a new friend and youth pastor – two characters who seemed more attuned than the other members to the Asian-American dichotomy that was my life. I began to loosen up at church, smile more, and even happily greet the adults. I felt … safe. Maybe not enthusiastically accepted, but also not frowned upon with disdain. One might wonder why I was so concerned for approval from within my Chinese church. When you live in a country spearheaded by people who don’t view you as truly American, you cling onto the safe spaces that still might take you in and consider you a member. I wasn’t aware of how shaky my walls of comfort had been built, though, until one sentence caused them to tumble back down again. “He said he doesn’t like you because you wear so much eyeliner.” She told me. She being my new best friend and he being the cool and young youth pastor we both adored. “How do you know this?” I asked, disbelief and doubt at each other’s throats in the battleground that was now my mind. “Because he told my mom. And my mom told me that it’s not just him who thinks this way, but a lot of other parents. They tell their kids to stay away from you because you are a bad influence.” Bad influence. Me, the introvert who rarely speaks, a bad influence? I let that sink in. That night, I considered giving up my eyeliner. I thought all my fears about being hated by my friends’ parents were unfounded and paranoid. I thought my youth pastor would especially not judge me by something so exterior – actually, why would he judge me at all? Why would a grown ass man concern himself so heavily with whether a teenage girl wears eyeliner? Anger and sadness bubbled up around me. How did one of my greatest fears, one I thought had been pushed away and laid to rest for good, one which only my new friend knew so intimately, suddenly come to surface all over again? And that’s when it hit me: maybe she lied. The seed of thought that this supposed best friend might not actually like me at all was planted. And over the next few months, it thirstily drank up water and sunlight. I befriended other girls and began to uncover bits and pieces of the horrifying truth: she did hate me, and they had evidence. Screen captures and chat conversations were forwarded to my inbox. Not only did she tell others about how terrible I supposedly was, she also told them I disliked all of them and fabricated statements I had never uttered nor so much as thought. I could not believe it – why did she want to destroy my life and capitalize on my insecurities? What did I ever do but consider her my friend? Sometimes, you never get answers. Not too many months after, she moved again. We stumbled across each other’s Instagram accounts a few years later. She had dyed hair, tattoos, piercings all over, eyeliner wings bolder than I had ever applied, false lashes nearly reaching her thickly painted eyebrows, the same deceptively sweet smile as when we first met, and was surrounded by other Asian girls. I once burned with the anger of her betrayal, but all I could think about now was her new embodiment of the criticisms she claimed were the reasons for my rejection from our community and how ironic our appearances were now – me being the studious medical student who sometimes forgets to wear eyeliner and she being the girl who refuses to be seen in public without it - the pictorial epitome of the bad influence she once used to mark me for social abandonment from our only remaining community. Irony, Karma, or Hypocrisy? Today, I won’t know if sprinkled between her lies were grains of truth, and if her comment about my reputation was one of them. I won’t know if my eventual submission to certain Asian cultural values drew its main roots from my teenage experience of potential two-fold community rejection. I won’t know if she ever realized the extent to which she hurt me or if she continues to hurt in similarly sneaky ways our other Asian sisters struggling to find acceptance and self-love in a land which has subjected them to unwarranted rejection. What I do know is this: We All Cry The Same Eyeliner Tears Yes, we do. They trickle down from our unmistakably Asian eyes, glide along our sunscreen laden faces, and leave smudgy black streaks to remind us of both our perceived physical imperfections as well as our efforts to conceal the ugliness we feel inside. 

Feeling ugly is not just some manifestation of low self-esteem as these American schools/media/counselors might tell us in order to erase from our mutual history and from their responsibility the ‘chink’ comments that we heard or the fingers-pulling-eyes-upward-to-mimic-us that we saw.

Our damaged self-esteem is not some personal mental and emotional disorder or a reflection of our weakness but a collective experience caused largely in part by the pervasive belief that some belong here but we don’t and that some are beautiful but we aren’t. Don’t think that just because dating apps are now asserting, “Asian girls are the most desired race!” that the girls who come after us are protected from the less-than we endured. The American dating scene did not just become more “accepting” of us – we changed to look more like them. But underneath the beautifully and extravagantly drawn eyeliner wings, the perfectly filled in eyebrows, the time-consuming application of fake lashes, the hours spent at the gym to avoid ‘Asian flat butt’ stereotypes, and the sharp cut of the surgery knife on our eyelids, we still cannot help but wonder: is this beautiful yet? And when he says, “Yes”, we still worry, was I not beautiful before? Do we really want to be with the ones who only want what is made-to-order, and overlook the ones who saw the original, in all its imperfections, as worth discovering? So while I have every right to be mad at my Asian sister for the hurtful actions she made against me as a result of her wanting to be more accepted by our community than I was, I cannot lose sight of the more formidable barrier to our collective inability to self-love: not the lies she told before, but the lies they still tell today. Why are my Asian eyes so ugly? I used to think to myself constantly. And if you’ve read this until the end, I think you know the answer.

_____________________________________________________________

Comments: Friends who have read this far or read my shared thoughts at all, I know my experiences are not isolated. My past shared posts related to familial pressures and relationships have shown me just how overlapping our experiences can be. The feelings of low self-esteem and self-image at some time or another in your life is probably a universal one. Experiences of betrayal are sadly quite common. Hopefully you enjoyed this short piece - it’s a bit different from the other posts I’ve written (a little more cleaned up and narrative when compared to my usual frenetic ranting) ... anyways, I wanted to share that I’ve been working on putting together some more shorts + poems in my free time (this is how I destress from school haha) and something I hope to achieve through writing with this project (and since day one) is unfiltered and unapologetic storytelling highlighting the Asian voice that is so often completely ignored in discussions of race and discrimination. I’m not saying our experiences are to be equated to the experiences of other minorities because noo, but I am saying we should at least be included in the discussion. 

This brings me to my next point: I want to continue to share your stories too. If you have experiences you want to share related in any way to your identity as an Asian-American female, I want to hear them and with your permission, try to make prose or poetry of it. Text me, message me, or call me and let’s get in touch :) Thank you for being a part of this whether as a reader or direct contributor. Let’s shape our collective voice!!!

[flos-timore]

hahahahaha the more i delve into habit the more horrifyingly tragic he is oh no- 

- Habit is unhinged. No, I’m not saying he belongs in an insane asylum or that he’s a complete lunatic; we’re not going the stereotypical demonizing route of “oh this person’s crazy!! there’s no reasoning with them, they must be stopped!!”. He’s a mentally damaged man who feels as if he’s in the right. Years of abuse and torment have led him to ENJOY causing others the same pain he’d been dealt. He RELISHES in being mean; he plays his role as the villain WELL. He acknowledges this fact, and he will go to any means necessary to continue to do so. 

- You’ll find he laughs. Often. More often than not it’s just a reflex so he can maintain his happy smiley “calm”, but once he has you strapped down, right where he wants you.... THEN his cackles tend to have a bit more meaning behind them. :-) 

- He fully believes that he’s finally choosing his own destiny and taking what’s his. The Habitat is HIS domain, and he’ll be AWFULLY keen on reminding you of it. Everything is intentional, everything is monitored, and he’ll Know if you’ve done something he doesn’t approve of. He’s running a sick sort of “business”, here, and he isn’t about to let his hard work go down the drain because of ONE pesky little nuisance. 

- Passive aggressive. OH MY GOD IS HE PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE. He won’t even hide it if he thinks you already Know/he hates you enough. The fact that he won’t outwardly admit that he’s insulting you to your face just makes it all the MORE insulting and infuriating. He knows this and it’s funny to him. 

- He’ll Absolutely make sure the door Literally hits you on the way out. He’s also not above SLAMMING doors as hard as he can when leaving rooms/a conversation; either to make a point, or just be an asshole. 

- He talks to himself. Sometimes even inanimate objects will become his focus as he holds entire conversations as if he’s Actually talking to other people. This has become a habit (no pun intended) of his over the years due to the sheer isolation and lack of anybody ELSE to talk to. He can’t STAND prolonged silences. This man is UNGODLY sociable; he needs other people around him. 

- Adding onto that: he DOES get auditory and visual hallucinations. His mentions of his lily “talking to him” is an example of this. I felt the need to clarify that since inanimate objects CAN sometimes talk and be sentient in the SFM universe. 

- He will eavesdrop. He WILL Eavesdrop On You. He feels the need to know EVERY LITTLE THING going on at ALL times- even if it doesn’t concern him in the least. If you Try to have any semblance of privacy or you confront him about this, he’ll be flippant and try to paint YOU as the one in the wrong for being upset in the first place. Yes, he’s good at gaslighting.

- While he has next to No actual fighting experience, he has PLENTY of experience with dodging blows. Should you ever try to physically... ahem... CONFRONT the good doctor, sure, he won’t try to fight back, but this doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll make being taken down EASY for you. Have fun as he dances and twirls around to dodge your blows, mocking you all the while. 

- It’s nearly EFFORTLESS for him, too. Habit might not be the athletic type, but he’s naturally flexible. You’re not really “FIGHTING” him, and he’ll surrender once you gain the upper hand, but catch him in the right mindset and he’ll literally pull you into a deadly tango. 

- TORTURE METHODS. He knows Many. He’s found ways to do his research. Psychological, physical, mental- you name it. He’ll take Any opportunity to flex this knowledge, too, and he ISN’T afraid of things getting.... “gory”, once he has you where he wants you. Though he might throw up a few hours or days later, looking back on his actions. 

- He makes certain to differentiate “Boris” from “Dr. Habit”, in his mind. What I mean by this is: growing up, BORIS was the pushover. BORIS sat quietly at the dinner table while his parents argued and insulted him. BORIS was the silent kid in class that cried in the bathroom over the other kids bullying him. BORIS was the soft nobody who had a heart too big for his body, and goals too optimistic for the cruel outside world. BORIS is the person that Dr. Habit has fought TOOTH and NAIL to choke the life out of and replace. He wants other people to realize this, too. 

[tessatechaitea]

Justice Society of America #10 (1993)

Fact: Golden Age heroes didn't have penises.

I was starfished on my bedroom floor tonight staring at the ceiling and thinking about how in my teens and twenties, I could revel in it, thinking, "Who am I? Who will I become? What does life have in store for me?" But a grown ass man doing that simply thinks, "This is it, isn't it?" At least I can lose myself in reading comic books I've already read and which I didn't really enjoy that much the first time. It might sound like a waste of time but it gives my life meaning! The most shallow of meanings, sure. But at least I'm not growing old watching conservative news because I need anything at all to light my passion. I'll say this about Fox News: they understand how old people are so bored they'll watch the dumbest shit and then get mad about it. I know other people who aren't old also watch Fox News. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with them. I guess they have fears and hatreds I hope I'll never truly understand. I just don't understand watching Fox News (or any of the other non-propaganda 24 hour news sites). People do understand there are channels which show programs that make you laugh or feel merry or that simply entertain the other non-lizard parts of your brain, right? How do you pick Fox News when you can watch Sci-fi or Buzzr Comedy Central or the Ru-Paul's Drag Race all day channel? I just realized that the people who watch Fox News basically use Twitter the same way. The majority of my feed are funny people so even when they're discussing politics, it's always entertaining (or fiercely intelligent because witty people are smart. Dumb people think they're witty (see Mike Huckabee)). But when I check out the Twitter feeds of conservatives I know, at best they'll retweet a sports tweet sandwiched between forty retweets of Ben Shapiro and Dinesh Souza. Maybe they think some of the right wing pundits they follow are funny. But calling somebody a mean name or tagging everything "liberal tears" isn't funny. It's the kind of funny that the bully's weasely sidekick guffaws over and then says, "You tell 'em, Jimmy!" Speaking of things bullies would say, it's now time for me to criticize Len Strazewski's Justice Society. Previously, some old fart named Kulak made everybody in the world begin to hate. But they aren't just randomly hating everybody else. They really seem to be bonding over their hatred for the Justice Society of America. Is this story a metaphor about me and my hatred of this comic book? Because that would be a terrible metaphor seeing as how I don't really hate this comic. I wish I did though! I'm old and I need to feel passion! I bet if I hadn't dropped cable eighteen years ago, I'd be addicted to Fox News too! No, I wouldn't be. I'm as liberal as you can be while still making offensive jokes. So not really that liberal, I guess? Maybe I'm socially, economically, and politically liberal. But I'm a complete asshole when it comes to punchlines. Don't get me wrong! I don't make offensive jokes at the expense of people different than me. I make offensive jokes about myself and those Goddamned fucking babies. Fuck those parasitic monsters. This issue begins with Starman finally reappearing.

It really wasn't exciting enough for an announcement of his return. He's just another half-balding old guy. But it lets me talk about the DC Universe show, Stargirl!

I decided to watch Stargirl because what else am I going to do with my life? Finish reading Gravity's Rainbow? I mean, I am going to do that now that I'm done re-reading those awful Lando Calrissian books. But I can't spend all of time reading Pynchon! Just too much of it! I mean, I'm only 18 pages into Gravity's Rainbow (which is further than I've ever gotten on my previous three attempts!) and I'd estimate I don't understand 5% of the words he's used. And that's me being an English Lit major who has been a voracious reader his entire 48 years (minus the ones where I couldn't read yet. Like ten or something?). I was in bed reading and didn't have a dictionary at hand so I just powered through. But I think I need to go back through and learn all of those words so I can impress the local Starbucks barista! Or are people not impressed when you use a word they have nearly zero chance of knowing and don't know you enough to keep the conversation going by asking you what that means and instead just smile and nod and glance occasionally at the tip jar? Anyway, so I've watched three episodes so far and I'll tell you how I feel about it after I mention how I've actually watched four episodes. The first episode I watched, I was impressed with because Courtney was already palling around with a bunch of legacy JSA members and the Injustice Society was trying to tackle the "Who is Stargirl?" problem and I watched it thinking, "This is really impressive how they decided to start in the middle of the story like this. I like it!" Then I went to watch episode two and I was confused because it didn't seem to follow after the previous episode. So I kept thinking, "Maybe this is a flashback?" And then eighteen minutes into it, I thought, "Maybe I didn't watch the pilot episode. I'd better check." And I started watching the first episode which I totally hadn't seen. So I guess I started with Episode 7 or something. Here are some of my tweet-thoughts on the show for those who don't follow me on Twitter (why don't you follow me on twitter? What is wrong with you? Is it because you don't know I'm @GrunionGuy?): Tweet #1: "Sometimes you think maybe you're having inappropriate thoughts but then you check to make sure the actress playing a fifteen year old Stargirl is actually 21 and then you breathe a sigh of relief and think, 'I won't be cancelled today! Unless I tweet this experience, probably.'" Tweet #2: "Sometimes you think maybe you're having inappropriate thoughts but then remember it's okay to fuck a car that's been converted into a giant robot with Luke Wilson inside of it." Tweet #3: "3rd episode of Stargirl begins with a dying white woman's final wish to her white husband that he make the world safe for their white son. She dies and he goes out into the enormous hedge maze garden of his mansion to scream into the sky about the injustice of it all. All in all, a pretty good villain origin!" That third tweet was the only one that really makes any sort of socially acceptable commentary on the show. Saying things like "Stargirl's butt doesn't look like my mouth should be inside of it because she's fifteen although the actress is twenty-one so maybe it actually does look like that?" aren't the greatest things to admit even if you're just joking (which I am but just adding this statement makes it sound like I'm not but I totally am (that "totally" doesn't help but I assure you, I'm joking (did the hole just get deeper?))). I mean, sure, her body is super fit because she's a super hero (or will be?). But she has such a baby face! And even at twenty-one, she's just a baby! If I were younger, I'd totally have a crush on her. But I'm 48 and I just don't consider young women proper targets for my sexual deviance anymore. The only interaction I should have with young women these days is warning them against going out to the summer camp at the lake where that boy drowned so many years ago. The girls I had a crush on when I was younger (Christina Applegate (Kelly Bundy), Winona Ryder (Veronica Sawyer), and Stacie Mistysyn (Caitlin Ryan)), I have even more of a crush on now. Judging by the crushes I've had my whole life and not society's stereotype of women, women definitely get better looking as they get older. And probably as I get older. I'm sure that's part of it although I like to think that fifteen year old me would still look at these nearly fifty (or maybe fifty? I'm not so obsessed I know their ages but they're all around my age anyway) year old women and think, "Holy fuck mommy." I'm sorry for that last comment. But I'm only sorry to God not anybody who was reading this. Oh, I forgot to mention that Joel McHale is the original Starman (I mean original in the show although he's Sylvester Pemberton who was never Starman but only Skyman although in the show he was at one point the Star-Spangled Kid and Luke Wilson does mention Ted Knight at some point). And he's funny in his death scene just like he should be because I've obviously decides Sylvester is Jeff Winger's new superhero secret identity alias. Starman heads off with his Cosmic Buttplug to stop Kulak in Gotham City. He doesn't know it yet but the rest of his pals are currently battling Kulak and probably losing. Although Kulak is even older than they are so maybe it's a fair fight. I'm just surprised that a comic book where old men battle other old men has made it ten issues.

I think some editor was fired last issue and the new editor's only job was to make sure it didn't look like Thunderbolt had been speared through the asshole.

Although this editor seemed to think it was okay to have Hawkgirl fucked from behind by Kulak.

I hope this isn't a terrible conservative take on women that exposes how terrible I am at sex but even mind-controlled, I can't imagine licking a woman's shoulder would elicit that response. Although she could be "Ummming" from his pee-hee in her bee-boo.

I know conservative talking points are generally fucking idiotic but Ben Shapiro somehow thinking women can get "too wet" from sexual excitement might be the most hilariously idiotic. I don't think I've been with a woman who was all, "Yes! Yes! Lick my shoulder blade!" and I then I got super into it and then suddenly she was all, "Nope. Too wet. This isn't working for me anymore. I need a doctor, I guess?" Who am I kidding? I know I've never been with a woman who did that because that would mean I've had to have been with a woman! Also, women get wet down there? What's that about? Is it because the vagina cries at the sight of the penis? Kulak takes away all of their super powers but I guess he forgets that Wildcat doesn't have any so I'm hoping Wildcat just punches him in the face soon. Although that Starman bit probably was a hint at how the coming fight might end. You know, with Starman shoving his Cosmic Buttplug into Kulak's third eye, if you know what I'm saying. You probably do because I called it a Cosmic Buttplug. I should try to be more subtle. Kulak's entire purpose is to get revenge on the Justice Society for defeating him way back in 1940. Can't even one super villain just accept defeat and move on with their lives? Or are writers just always going to be so inherently lazy that they'll never give up the crutch of the villain attacking the hero directly out of revenge for that one single time they tried to actually commit a crime and were stopped? The JSA puts up a fight that helps to drain Kulak's power but it isn't until Starman arrives and does that thing I mentioned with his Cosmic Buttplug that Kulak is defeated.

This is the grossest orgasm I've ever seen and my computer is riddled with viruses from all of the previous ones I've watched.

After Kulak's defeat, Jesse Quick wraps up the issue with her super hero dissertation which is less a dissertation and more of a thorough cleaning of all of their asses with her tongue. She's all, "I didn't really do much research or define heroes too good but the Justice Society of America are my heroes so I deserver a degree, right?" Justice Society of America #10 Rating: B. This comic book was as average as they get. I suppose that should garner a C grade but a B grade just seems to say decent but mediocre. By the time I get down to a C grade, I feel like the comic book needs a lot more faults than "I don't really care about stories with heroes who are having strokes during the battles." It's a valid criticism but it's probably too subjective for a critical review. I know, I know! When has that ever stopped me before? Well, I feel charitable today. It probably has something to do with Mars being so close to the full moon earlier this week. My blood is all riled up and wacky!

[lothirielswan]

Writing Introverted Individuals: Guide and Sources

Hi Awesome Adventurers! So I’ve had to write about a few introverts on my journey through writing so far, and I’m sure you can find a butt ton of stuff like this, but I wanted to make this easier for you guys and offer up some things that I’ve found. Scroll down to see insightful videos, characters, tips, and more!

First off, here is a list of well-known characters in fiction that are incredibly introverted to study (no, there are no spoilers listed with character descriptions):

Ron Swanson — from Parks and Rec. Ron is definitely very far down the spectrum and could be considered the “stereotypical introvert.” Ron Swanson avoids and nearly despises any social conduct with people, yet he does it in a comical way. If you are writing an incredibly antisocial introvert with zero respect for other life forms, I’d look into Mr. Swanson (bonus: you get to watch Chris Pratt, our lovable extrovert, at the same time!).

Loki — from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The star of Tumblr. I’m sure all of you are familiar with him, and the best thing about watching Loki is seeing his introverted nature compared to the biggest extrovert in the nine realms: Thor. This gives us both sides of the spectrum, and it’s a great thing to watch when you’re trying to differentiate the traits of extroverts and introverts. Loki proves that introverts can be funny and witty, but most accurately shows the con of being the introvert: constantly feeling neglected/left out of things.

Everyone from the cast of The Big Bang Theory, besides Penny — well, not quite, but this show has tons of introverts and is one of the best sources to watch. One thing to keep in mind from this is that The Big Bang Theory is focused on a group of close friends—introverts have social circles, too. Introverts can be loud and boisterous around people they know well (the show has multiple examples of this). However, when these introverted individuals are put in a more crowded setting, some get social anxiety, some can’t talk to women, and some find it exhausting. This show is a landmine for studying introverts, and I extremely recommend it for this topic. 

Tyrion Lannister — from Game of Thrones (I’ll repeat this again because I know you: NO SPOILERS). Tyrion is more social for an introvert, but it’s been shown that he likes to spend his free time in solitude. Tyrion is a very independent thinker (a big introverted trait) and is very well read. However, he jokes with people, he is gifted with words (just because introverts have a reputation for talking much does not mean that they are not witty), and is sexually active.

Hope Van Dyne (the Wasp) — from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Hope has a very direct way of thinking, and prefers getting stuff done instead of dealing with “fluff.” Hope also had a very cold, loveless background, and while introversion can be considered genetic, it’s interesting to note how the background/backstory of a character plays a role in the level of introversion. 

Bruce Banner — from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (played by Mark Ruffalo). This little cinnamon roll keeps to himself, I recommend watching him onscreen and how he interacts with his Avenging coworkers (when he’s less green!). Especially in social situations, where you’ll notice that Dr. Banner is very quiet and keeps to himself.

MARINA — No, Marina, is not a fictional character; she is a singer that is very real, but she deserves a spot on this list of “introverts to watch”. I’ve listened to Marina’s songs for years, and every album shows the struggle of how introverts struggle to just be in the world. One of her most famous albums, Electra Heart, actually describes her trying to change herself to fit in with this extroverted world. If you want to know more about introverts, I suggest listening to one—and this one sounds like a goddess. 

Some of you may be new to introverts, so bring over some books and blankets to wrap yourself in like a burrito as we explore/review this: what is the introvert?

Okay, there are a lot of myths associated with the Introvert that we should dispel here: NOT ALL introverts are stuck-up or shy, however, their independent nature sometimes leads people to make these assumptions. Instead of thinking of introverts as the Grumpy Cat and extroverts as the excited golden retriever, let me differentiate them a little:

The main difference between introverts and extroverts is how their bodies react differently. When people hang out with friends, it releases a “happy” drug in our body called dopamine. Introverts and extroverts react differently to this.

When extroverts hang out with friends, this releases dopamine in their body, which energizes them and makes them feel good. However, with introverts, dopamine can be overstimulating and overwhelming, making most introverts start to feel tired after hanging around people. This being said: introverts do not hate people. Interactions have a tendency to fatigue them over time. But this reaction can affect introverts’ opinion on social activities, and can discourage them. Back to sciencey terms, there is a drug that introverts experience that they cope better with than dopamine: acetylcholine. This drug is more of a “slow burn” feel to it, that is turned on when you focus on something or are doing something creating like drawing. Introverts favor this chemical reaction, hence their desire for independent activities. (You can find more about this here)

Introverts also tend to be decisive thinkers, and are at peace when in solitude. As the writer, it’s up to you to decide how sensitive your introvert is, but please, do not make the mistake of assuming your beautiful creation hates people for no reason! 

I’ve written about a couple introverts by now, and I am one myself, so here are some experiences, tips, and suggestions on what introverts go through:

What I said above is true about getting overstimulated: I met a good friend of mine about a year ago, and I remember we were hanging out at a Wendy’s (this was back when I was just getting to know her), and after 1-2 hours I just started to feel tired, out of it. There wasn’t anything wrong with her, or me: over time, I could spend more time with her before that tired feeling set in again. Other introverts also experience things like this, but it may not be at the same rate.

Now you understand introverts, and that is awesome! But most people don’t. And that’s a good thing to keep in mind when you’re writing: when you have your introverted character interacting with others, depending on the other character, they may be critical of the introvert’s natural ways. One thing introverts face the most is getting talked over/interrupted when they try to speak. Be aware of your introvert’s unique presence!

Introverts are also very perceptive: they are brilliant observers, and catch more things than the average bear. This seems like something quick to dismiss, but hear me out: introverts can be as perceptive as the deaf. Another personal experience: I cannot tell you how many times I’ve spoiled shows for myself, not because people tell me outright, but because I simply browse the internet (with no intent at all whatsoever), I see pictures, I overhear little details; I start picking up little clues that don’t say it outright but it hints, and eventually I go, “crap, not again.” This is how the introvert’s mind works: it can catch the smallest things, and they’re usually smart enough to stumble onto the right conclusions (this sounds cool, but it can be a real pain in the ass). 

I hope this has been helpful so far! Here are a few links I found to videos on Youtube that have some more insightful information about introverts: 

8 Strengths of Introverts

The Power of Introverts: Susan Cain (TED talk)

A Day in School as an Introvert (the Struggle)

Thank you so much for reading, Awesome Adventurers! I’d love to hear what you think about introverts or if you have anything to add, and if you’d like to talk more about this, go ahead and shoot me over something! I hope this helped you out before you go write your fantastic story that will light up the world! Love, fortune and glory to you!!

[speaking-from-the-abyss]

Thoughts about LGBTQA representation

If you wanna write or portray a LGBTQA character, first off, thank you.

It's important that the community has more and more representation in any type of media. Every time you hear someone saying that "there's no need to keep including LGBTQA people in series/movies/books/anything because we already have representation in a lot of them, and so, our 'battle' is over" is incredibly wrong. Representation is not nearly as much as they believe, specially if we talk about trans, ace/aro, non binary people and other queer identities/sexualities. We need to keep pushing for more representation in mainstream media, because in the long run that'll help normatization.

But that doesn't mean all representation is good.

For example, something that uses a LGBTQA character just for comedic purposes is not okay, because stereotypes, outdated info and a good dosis of lgbtphobia in the form of insensible jokes and passive aggressive behaviour are normally added to the mix.

And yes, sometimes they are funny, but for people of that identity/sexuality they might be just. Awful. Hurtful. And that's not ok.

Bad representation just keeps the discrimination ongoing, the prejudices, the missinformation. This becomes specially relevant when we talk about people who are just discovering their sexuality/identity, because we're just making the whole process of realization and self-acceptance (which is never easy or pleasant) even worse.

The best way to change this is by asking for more accurate characters that represent our community and a better work with the whole LGBTQA discourse. So, if you wanna make a LGBTQA character, thank you. Here are some considerations you may have in mind if you wanna portray a LGBTQA character:

Do research, specially if you're not part of that identity/sexuality. You can't just. Write based on what you think a person from an identity/sexuality might be like. Internet is an amazing place and if you ask, you can find a lot of people willing to share their experience with you.

Every experience is personal. That is, it's subjective. All experiences are valid, but they are not universal. Ask a bunch of people the same question and you're gonna get a bunch of different answers. This will help you gain perspective and a better understanding of what you're dealing with.

Be sensitive. You can't just go and ask a total stranger about personal stuff like this. They have to be willing to do so, and even then, please mind your words. For a lot of people, it's not an easy topic to talk about, and they might even have their own inner demons regarding it, so try to be reasonable and don't push them. And let me warn you: saying "it's for research" it's not an excuse.

Ask for advice. Once you're done with your character, ask someone to check it, so you can make corrections if needed. It's better asking for help than making a mistake.

People are not defined by one trait. It's great that you want to make an LGBTQA character, but being a LGBTQA person should not be the center of it. The character needs to go beyond that, to have a personality, dreams, fears, habits, interests, etc. that are not influenced by the fact that they're gay, or ace, or NB. Remember: you're writing a person. And a person is a universe. Beign LGBTQA is just a part of that universe.

Do even MORE research. What are the common stereotypes regarding this character's identity/sexuality? What is the history of the label or the movement? How cishet people see them? How about people from this or that religion/country/time in history? How do they see themselves? If the character comes from another world, how are they perceived there? These are questions you should ask yourself depending on what your story is about.

:3

[margridarnauds]

LGBT asks: 2, 24, 25, 30 (Also, I like this new theme, I can read it much more easily!)

Ah, thank you! My unfortunate, TEMPORARY new username aside, I’m glad it’s much more legible, since it was really bothering me as well. 

2. How did you discover your sexuality, tell your story?

It’s odd because it really IS one of those things that always been lurking in the background. Like, I very distinctly remember, when I was about 7, telling my highly conservative babysitter while we were driving someplace, “I don’t like boys. I wish I didn’t have to marry one. I wish I could marry a girl instead.” And her daughter mentioned something like “Sometimes people do” and, in hindsight, I remember a bit of a hush around it. Now, I kind of wonder how she did know, what she’d been taught about it. Because I KNOW that household was not a gay friendly environment. (I mean, they banned Harry Potter for endorsing witchcraft. And Wizards of Waverly Place.)

When I was in Middle School, the environment changed. People KNEW that you could be gay, but it was an insult. I used it as an insult and I had it used as an insult against me. I’m not PROUD of that, it’s something I feel more than a little sense of shame over, but it really was the culture of growing up in a small, conservative town in the Midwest where there’s such a HUGE pressure to conform. During that time, I really wasn’t sure where I stood, because on one hand, I wanted to fit in (at least with THAT, with everything else, I chose to stand out as much as I could because, well, why not? They’d hate me anyway.) I do remember some girls pestering me about “What are you?” and saying “I’m heterosexual” just to get them off my back (and because I got the delicious joy of watching them try to spell it.) To be honest, even when I said that, I wasn’t SURE, because it didn’t feel 100% right, but, well, it was a RESPONSE, and that’s what they needed. 

After 7th grade, I had to move out of state, because the bullying had just gotten that intense (technically speaking, the move wasn’t JUST for that reason, but my family had already decided that they would scrounge up the money to send me to private school if needed, which means there’s a parallel universe where I had to figure out I’m queer in CATHOLIC SCHOOL). And I was homeschooled for years afterwards. I was just. Too traumatized to deal with other kids, after that. To this day, I still feel a certain amount of anxiety around teenage girls. Since my social interaction really was limited to a certain extent, I don’t think I REALLY had a lot of the formative interactions that a lot of queer people have to come into their own. 

It was funny because sometime around when I was 14-15, my mom RUSHED into my room and was like “RACHELIWASGOINGTHROUGHYOUREMAILSANDJUSTKNOWTHATI’LLLOVEYOUNOMATTERWHAT” and I was just like “Mom...I still haven’t decided yet..let me sleep...” Turns out, she had, WITH MY PERMISSION, been looking through my emails for something I needed, saw that I was on GLSEN’s mailing list after participating in one of their anti-bullying campaigns (because I’ve ALWAYS been a firm advocate against bullying after what I endured), and jumped to the wrong-right conclusion, depending on how you look at it. And that was my Dramatic Coming Out-Not Coming Out. 

I experimented with labels; for AGES I ID’d as a member of the ace community and to this day I would still ride or die for them because they were SO helpful as far as stressing “You can change your mind as time goes on/There’s nothing wrong with you/etc.” To this day, tbh, I’m not sure whether I fall on the asexual spectrum. In no small part because I’ve never. Actually. Dated anyone. Or kissed. Or held hands with. I had a former best friend who was interested, but there were MULTIPLE issues with that one, so. No. Which does kind of put a damper on the old ego, but oh well. 

Around when I was around 18-19, I think it FINALLY clicked in for me that, actually, I just had no idea what sexual attraction WAS but that I definitely felt SOMETHING on occasion, and that’s when it really clicked. Watching Takarazuka shows since then’s actually been hugely helpful as far as figuring things out (look, it’s stereotypical, especially for the western fandom, but it’s true. And it’s not just the more openly suggestive scenes, but just....seeing EVERY role being played by a woman really does help open your mind as far as the possibilities.) It was around this time that I actually started developing CRUSHES which...hurt. A lot. Like, I used to make fun of all my friends who were going completely bananas in Middle School and then it came back to bite me HARD. I’ve never gone for a straight girl, thankfully, but just people who, for a variety of reasons, are utterly unattainable and who USUALLY end up in ridiculously happy relationships shortly after I realize I have a crush. 

24. How do you self-identify your gender, and what does that mean to you?

It’s odd because on one hand I don’t REALLY identify with womanhood PER SE. I like dresses, I like looking at them, particularly in a historical context, I like certain ASPECTS of femininity, but I’m not particularly interested in performing them. I’m not interested in putting on makeup or shaving every single section of my body. Growing up, I DREADED developing boobs, because I did ! Not ! Want ! Them ! (I can definitely appreciate them on someone else, but NOT ME.) The constant radfem THING they do where they plaster vaginas all over the place just kind of creeps me out, tbh. I’m not interested in IDing as a man, either, and most pronouns don’t really fit me any more (or even less) than she/her does. I’m just....ME, you know? I don’t want to be defined by one of my LEAST. FAVORITE. PARTS. OF. MY. BODY. If I was going to actually apply a label to it, I would probably say that I lean towards agender, but at the same time, I don’t really....feel like it’s NECESSARY, in a sense? So, I stick with “Woman/she/her” for simplicity’s sake. 

25. Are you interested in having children? Why or why not?

I’m not interested in childbirth. That is a no-go. There is no way that I am EVER going through that process, given that I was born to my mom very late in life, I very nearly died in the process, and I grew up seeing the scars. I know that not ALL childbirth’s like that, but I won’t put myself through that. The entire thought is a little nauseating, tbh. If my partner was interested in it, then I could spring for it, because I’m actually pretty good when it comes to HANDLING kids, though I would be terrified to accidentally traumatize them. My family doesn’t necessarily have the best track record when it comes to abuse and I can’t imagine accidentally hurting a tiny person, or being involved with someone who would hurt the tiny person. 

30. Why are you proud to be lgbt+?

It’s a part of me, and it’s one that was heavily stigmatized in the past. I’m always VERY conscious of how relatively lucky I am to exist in the cultural context I exist in, because even though I push back HARD against the idea that LGBT+ people COULDN”T be happy pre-20th century, it was still...difficult given that the terminology wasn’t generally there, at least in Europe, and there was such a heavy stigma against women who didn’t produce childbirth via a “legitimate” marriage. It’s been a difficult road in some ways and an easier one in others, but it’s really fantastic to live in an age where there IS a community and you know that there are others LIKE you. 

[fernham]

Not Quite Feminist Punk

It’s funny how sometimes, a confluence of events offers up a little epiphany. This is the story of one about feminism & punk rock that I’m still processing.

A week or two ago, I was on a long car ride with my daughters and a pop song came on the radio. Talking about our love of pop, my nearly-16-year-old said that she thought it was unfair that many put pop music down and that she suspected that it’s because pop is designed to appeal to young women. Not a new argument, but fresh to hear it coming from her mouth—as it came from mine decades ago. I got mad all over again at the way that, without vigilance, we let patriarchal culture tell us that our taste, whatever it is, is second best.

Last week, I read Claude M. Steele’s wonderful 2010 book, Whistling Vivaldi, which details, for a general audience, his decades of research on stereotype threat and how to combat it, especially in colleges. Stereotype threat, if you’re not familiar with it, is that phenomenon when your performance will falter just because you know that the stereotype is that people like you (people who share a salient identity category with you) don’t do well on the task at hand. Again and again, Steele and his colleagues have shown that making, say, women aware of their gender before a math test, or whites aware of their race before athletic competition, decreases performance. At the same time, performance goes right back up if you tell test-takers that the test shows no differences along gender lines, or offer some of the growth-mindset affirmations that Carol Dweck (who’s cited many times here) espouses.

One of the things Steele talks about is how, when you’re a minority, you become really adept at reading the context clues of the room—of counting if you’re alone or if there’s only one other member of your group, etc.

So, on Friday, I went to a meeting of a group of English professors from around the city who all work in my field. Some of them I know well, some I’ve only seen or met in passing. They’d been meeting as a group for a while, but I had missed the first two or three gatherings. NJTransit was not my friend and I was late as it was. In short: this meeting had all the ingredients to make me just a touch more nervous than usual about entering an unfamiliar room.

I got in, I counted: yup—I was the second woman. I sat across from her and smiled. We were two. Not quite critical mass, but not horrible. The meeting went well. My colleagues are, in fact, lovely and thoughtful and interesting and not interrupters and, when the convener invited us all to join for lunch, I confirmed that the other woman was going and I went.  

At lunch, two men about my age started talking about the punk shows they went to back in the early 80’s and I could feel my blood pressure rising. I love music of all kinds. I have been to some really fun shows. I wanted, so badly, to participate in the conversation, but I couldn’t figure out how to put my oar in without their mockery. I sat there, racing through my options from all the shows I saw in Seattle. What would they think if I told them the one about how disappointing Grandmaster Flash was? Or how my friend that I had a crush on made us miss the Thompson Twins, which was the main reason I’d wanted to see The Police at the Tacoma Dome? Or that I used to go to SubPop when it was a record store and get mocked by Bruce Pavitt (who was such a snob) for buying OMD and Culture Club while my friends bought the real punk? Or just how cool it was to be friends with the Bernstein boys and go to their dad’s club to see a local band? Or to see Joe Newton’s posters around town? Or seeing UB40—a show newly tainted by the newest Justice-cum-sexual-assaulter-and-drunkard at a roller rink? Or the Ramones, way after their prime but still amazing, in New Haven? Or how amazing Black Uhuru was at the Paramount? I sat there laughing at their stories—which were good—but frustrated at myself for being so tongue-tied.

I knew my transcendentally happy time seeing the Psychedelic Furs with a girl I’d met at a writer’s conference for high school students was out—but why? I had gone away for a week on a writer’s retreat for high school kids. I’d lived in Port Townsend and made friends with a girl—I don’t remember her name—from a tiny town, a couple hours outside Seattle. She and I both loved the Psychedelic Furs and she got her parents to drive her to the show. We met, sat together and it was great. In those days before cell phones and email, arranging such a meeting was not easy and it felt so cool to be the cool city kid welcoming her cool country friend to this amazing show. As anecdotes go, this seems pretty acceptable & worthy of sharing. Why is it that my story felt less good to share than my colleague’s story about knowing that some punk shows were too dangerous to attend?

To the rescue came my friend, who had cool punk stories, but also listens to himself and he said, “God, we sound so old.” And then, another colleague, younger than us, made a joke about going to see Dickens speak and that turned into a riff that was an actually deeply hilarious mash-up of a story of a punk rock brawl (“they were unscrewing the lightbulbs and breaking them to use as weapons”) and Bloomsbury—“and then, John Maynard Keynes beaned Leonard with the andiron….”

That was a relief.

Then, yesterday, just to make me feel less a fool, a made a joke about the Butthole Surfers in a very high-level meeting at my university and got a high five from a VP for my quickness.

L’esprit de l’éscalier.

My tentative conclusion has to do with analogies. I was glad to read Steele’s generous assessment that analogies do, in fact, help our understanding. In my experience, analogies are critical to our understanding, but they need to be wielded with care. It can be too easy to say “I know just how you feel,” when really, what we can know is “I am better able to imagine how you feel because I felt something similar.” My stress at lunch was real, but extraordinarily low stakes, but I might not have noticed it absent the conversation with my daughter about what music gets to be cool and my reading of Steele. But it was stereotype threat and it did mean that, for ten minutes of a really lovely and pleasant lunch, I was anxiously flipping through the rolodex of my brain, trying to figure out how to join the conversation, desperately wanting to, and, in the end, never figuring out how. Boy, it’s amazing how complicated life is.

[aion-rsa]

Best Movies Coming to Netflix in July 2021

https://ift.tt/2UQ1B1r

Movies are back. It at least feels that way when you see the numbers that films like F9 and A Quiet Place Part II are earning. But more than just the thrill of going back to theaters, July signals what is typically considered to be the height of the summer movie season. On a hot evening, there are few things better than some cold air conditioning and a colder drink of your choice while escapism plays across a screen.

That can prove just as true at home as in theaters. And as luck would have it, Netflix is pretty stuffed with new streaming content this month. Below there are space adventures, comedies, dramas, and more than a few epics worth your attention, either as a revisit or new discovery. And we’ve rounded them up for your scrolling pleasure.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

July 1

When the first Austin Powers opened in 1997, it was intended to be as much a crude love letter to the popular cinema of the 1960s as a modern day raunchy laugh-fest. Now with the benefit of another 20 years’ worth of hindsight, Mike Myers and Jay Roach’s spoof of Bondmania is itself an amusing time capsule of 1990s comedy tropes. There’s Myers’ cartoonishly larger-than-life characters—beginning with Powers but most dementedly perfected with Dr. Evil, the comedian’s riff on Ernst Stavro Blofeld—as well as the pair’s embrace of what they considered to be the defining trappings of the late ‘90s.

The film’s nostalgia for the ‘60s and its value as a piece of kitsch ‘90s nostalgia makes this Austin Powers (and to a lesser extent the second movie, The Spy Who Shagged Me) a fascinating relic, as well as a genuinely funny lowbrow symphony of sex gags, bathroom humor, and multiple digs at British stereotypes, including bad teeth. In other words, it’s a good time if you don’t take it too seriously. Just avoid the third one, which is also coming to Netflix.

The Karate Kid (1984)

July 1

1984’s The Karate Kid is the cultural apex of Reagan America’s obsession with martial arts movies and Rocky-style underdog stories. It offered ’80s kids the ultimate fantasy of learning martial arts to defeat local bullies and finding time to squeeze in a love subplot along the way. Granted, the Cobra Kai series has thrown a wrench into this film’s seemingly simple morality tale, but just try not to root for Daniel by the time you reach arguably the greatest montage in movie history.

There’s also something eternally comforting about watching Pat Morita beat-up ’80s thugs while validating parents everywhere by suggesting that you to can one day grow up to be a great warrior if you just sweep the floor, wax the car, and paint the fence.

Love Actually

July 1

Christmas in July? Sure, why not. This Yuletide classic likely needs no introduction. Writer-director Richard Curtis’ Love Actually is the ultimate romantic comedy, stuffing every cliché and setup from a holiday bag of tricks into one beautifully wrapped package. Perhaps its greatest strength though is it mixes in a touch of the bitter with its sweet, and doesn’t hide the thorns in its bouquet of roses. Plus, its use of “All I Want for Christmas” is still a banger nearly 20 years on.

Admittedly, we aren’t particularly inclined to watch this in July ourselves, but if you don’t mind the Christmas of it all, there are few better rom-coms in your queue at the moment.

Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)

July 1

This adaptation of the Arthur Golden novel of the same name was one of the highest profile literary adaptations of the early 2000s. It’s the story of a young girl sold to a geisha house in the legendary Gion district of Kyoto who then grows up to be the most famous geisha of 1930s imperial Japan… right before the war. The film (like its source material) had controversy in its day due to having a somewhat exoticized view of Japanese customs, as well as for the casting of Chinese actresses Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi in the roles of icons of Japanese culture, with Zhang playing central geisha Sayuri.

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But whatever its shortcomings, Memoirs of a Geisha is still an exquisitely crafted melodrama that provides an often delicate window into one of he most graceful and misunderstood arts. The film won Oscars for its costumes, art direction, and cinematography for a reason. Plus whenever Zhang and the actually Japanese Ken Watanabe share the screen, unrequited sizzle is hot to the touch.

Mortal Kombat (1995)

July 1

Look, 1995’s Mortal Kombat isn’t a great movie in the classic sense of the word. Those looking for notable ’90s schlock might even have a better time with 1994’s Street Fighter and Raul Julia’s scene-stealing performance as General M. Bison.

Yet at a time when video game movies still struggle to capture the magic of the games themselves, Mortal Kombat stands tall as one of the few adaptations that feel like an essential companion piece. It might lack the blood and gore that helped make 1992’s Mortal Kombat arcade game a cultural touchstone, but it perfectly captures the campy, shameless joy that has defined this franchise for nearly 30 years.

Star Trek (2009)

July 1

The idea of a Star Trek movie reboot wasn’t greeted with universal enthusiasm when it was first announced but then J.J. Abrams delighted many fans by creating a Trek origin story that was both familiar and new. Chris Pine shone as the cocky Kirk, bickering with Zachary Quinto’s Vulcan Spock while trying to save the universe from a pesky Romulan (Eric Bana). This was a standalone that could be enjoyed by audiences completely ignorant of the Star Trek legacy which also achieved the feat of not annoying many long-term followers of the multiple series. It was a combination of humor, heart, action and a zingy cast that won the day – it’s still the best of the three Star Trek reboot movies to date.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2005)

July 1

Alongside Step Brothers, Tallageda Nights remains a a biting snapshot of the 2000s zeitgeist from writer-director Adam McKay. Eventually he would drop (most of) the crude smirks in favor of dramedies about the excesses of the Bush years via The Big Short (2013) and Dick Cheney biopic Vice (2018), however Talladega Nights remains a well-aged and damning satire of that brief time when “NASCAR Dads” were a thing, which is all the more impressive since it was filmed in the midst of such jingoistic fervor.

So enters Will Ferrell in one of his signature roles as a NASCAR driver and the quintessential ugly American who’s boastful of his ignorance and proud that his two sons are named “Walker” and “Texas Ranger.” He’d be almost irredeemable if the movie wasn’t so quotable and endearing with its sketch comedy absurdities. There’s a reason Ferrell and co-star John C. Reilly became a recurring thing after this lunacy. Plus, that ending where adherents of the homophobic humor of the mid-2000s found out the joke was on them? Still pretty satisfying.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

July 1

This is the movie that changed everything. Filmmakers had been experimenting with computer-generated visual effects for years, including director James Cameron with 1989’s The Abyss. But Cameron, as usual, upped his game with this 1991 action/sci-fi epic in which the main character — the villain — was a hybrid of live-action actor and CG visuals.

Those of us who saw T2 in the theater when it first came out can remember hearing the audience (and probably ourselves) audibly gasp as the T-1000 (an underrated and chilling Robert Patrick) slithered into his liquid metal form, creating a surreal and genuinely eerie moving target that not even Arnold Schwarzenegger’s brute strength could easily defeat. There were moments in this movie that remained seared into our brains for years as high points of what could be accomplished with CG.

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This writer prefers T2 to the original Terminator. It’s fashionable to go the other way, but the first movie, while excellent, is essentially a low-budget horror film, Schwarzenegger’s T-800 a somewhat more formidable stand-in for the usual unstoppable slasher. The characters in T2 are far more fleshed out, the action bigger and more spectacular, the stakes more grave and palpable. It was the first movie to cost more than $100 million but it felt like every penny was right there on the screen. And Cameron tied up his story ingeniously, making all the sequels and prequels, and sidequels since irrelevant and incoherent. We don’t need them; we have Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Underworld (2003)

July 1

Is Underworld a good movie? No, not really. Is it a scary movie, what with the vampires and werewolves? Not at all. Well, is it at least entertaining?! Absolutely. Never before has a B-studio actioner been so deliciously pretentious and delightful in its pomposity.

Every bit the product of early 2000s action movie clichés, right down to Kate Beckinsale’s oh-so tight leather number,  Underworld excels in part because of the casting of talent like Beckinsale. A former Oxford student and star of the West End stage, she got her start in cinema by appearing in a Kenneth Branagh Shakespeare adaptation, and she brings a wholly unneeded (but welcome) conviction to this tale of vampire versus werewolves in a centuries-long feud. Shamelessly riffing on Romeo and Juliet, the film ups the British thespian pedigree with movie-stealing performances by Bill Nighy as a vampire patriarch and Michael Sheen (Beckinsale’s then-husband who she met in a production of The Seagull) as an angsty, tragic werewolf. It’s bizarre, overdone, and highly entertaining in addition to all the fang on fur action.

Snowpiercer (2013)

July 2

Before there was Parasite, there was Snowpiercer, the action-driven class parable brought to horrific and mesmerizing life by Oscar-winning Korean director Bong Joon-ho in 2013. The film is set in a future ice age in which the last of humanity survives on a train that circumnavigates a post-climate change Earth. The story follows Chris Evans‘ Curtis as he leads a revolt from the working class caboose to the upper class engine at the front of the train.

Loosely based on a French graphic novel, filmed in the Czech Republic as a Korean-Czech co-production, and featuring some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, with dialogue in both English and Korean, Snowpiercer is not only a truly international production that will keep Western audiences guessing, but it packs an ever effective social critique as we head further into an age of climate change and wealth inequality. Also, there is a scene in which Chris Evans slips on a fish.

The Beguiled (2017)

July 16

Sofia Coppola’s remake of the 1971 film of the same name (both are based on a Thomas Cullinan novel) is a somewhat slight yet undeniably intriguing addition to the filmmaker’s catalog. It’s the story of a wounded Union soldier being taken in by a Southern school for girls–stranded in the middle of the American Civil War–with salvation turning into damnation as the power dynamics between the sexes are tested. It is also an evocative piece of Southern Gothic with an ending that will stick with you. Top notch work from a cast that also includes Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, and Colin Farrell makes this a bit of an underrated gem.

The Twilight Saga

July 16

In July, not one, not two, not three, not even four, but all five of the movies adapted from Stephenie Meyer’s young adult phenomenon book series will be accessible on Netflix. Indulge in the nostalgia of Catherine Hardwicke’s faithful and comparatively intimate Twilight. Travel to Italy with a depressing Edward and Bella in New Moon. Lean into the horror absurdity of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part 2. Or marathon all five for maximal escapism into a world where vegetarian vampires are the boyfriend ideal, the sun is always clouded, and the truly iconic emo-pop tunes never stop. 

Django Unchained (2012)

July 24

The second film Quentin Tarantino won an Oscar for, Django Unchained remains a highly potent revenge fantasy where a Black former slave (Jamie Foxx) seeks to free his wife from Mississippian bondage and ends up wiping out the entire infrastructure of a plantation in the process. Brutal, dazzlingly verbose in dialogue, and highly triggering in every meaning of the word—including quickdraw shootouts—this is a Southern-fried Spaghetti Western at its finest.

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Perhaps its other great asset is a terrific cast of richly drawn characters, including Foxx as Django (the “D” is silent), Christoph Waltz as German dentist-turned-bounty hunter Dr. King Shultz, Leonardo DiCaprio as sadistic slaveowner Calvin Candie, and Samuel L. Jackson as Stephen. While Waltz won a deserved Oscar for the film (his second from a Tarantino joint), it is Jackson’s turn as a house slave who becomes by far the most dangerous and cruel of Django’s adversaries who lingers in the memory years later… 

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[rairun]

Last Saturday @quietroomineedyounow and I watched It's Always Right Now, Until It's Later by Daniel Kitson. It was my third time - I was there when it was filmed in 2012 (you can spot @nymeth and me in the audience!), and then we saw it again a couple of years later when Kitson did a cinema tour. Now he's finally made it available for rental on Vimeo, and YOU SHOULD ALL SEE IT. [Spoilers ahead] It goes like this: Kitson stands alone on stage with light bulbs hanging all around him, as he narrates different moments in the lives of Caroline Carpenter and William Rivington. Each light bulb represents one of those moments. He starts from his death and her birth, and then alternates between them as he moves towards his birth and her death. I remember I had trouble following the story the first time around - the fact that I wasn't very familiar with his Yorkshire accent at the time didn't help, but the structure of the play doesn’t make it easy either. Whereas later shows like Tree and A Show for Christmas give you time to breathe - if you get distracted for a moment, you can easily regain your bearings - It's Always Right Now, Until It's Later can be pretty unforgiving. It's densely packed and fast-paced, and the moments Kitson tells us about are years apart: if you miss a few lines, you might end up having to make sense of a completely different scene, in a completely different place, often with completely different characters, with few visual cues to help you out. The performance is great; it’s just difficult to follow at times. A kinder way to put it is to say it rewards multiple viewings - and I do want to be kind here because the show displays so much generosity, and such an incredible openness of heart, not only towards its characters but all of us who are here in the business of living and breathing and dying and being forgotten. After we watched it, as she was walking me to the bus stop near her flat, Sophie said that Kitson was really good at picking up on and describing experiences we could all relate to, and I think she is right. He knows how to zoom in on those mundane experiences to show exactly why we still want to be here experiencing them. Or why sometimes we don't. Sometimes we are confused, and we fail to see how any of this is worth living at all. When he's nearly 40, Kitson tells us, William goes on a dinner date with a woman. In the middle of the date, William launches into such a misguided tirade about how it is all bullshit - the way they talk, and the way they exchange pleasantries and small talk, hiding all the ways that four decades of living on this planet have left them scarred, and scared, and hungry for connection, while repeating the same safe conversations they've had with countless other people. Kitson is great here because he exposes a sense of loneliness and frustration so many of us experience privately, but his way of telling it is really funny - and the joke is on how self-important it all can be. The joke is on the sense we are different and privy to some truth no one else can see, and he sets it up in a way that shows how men in particular tend to condescend even as they are trying to connect. Caroline too experiences similar feelings in her 30s, even though she has a husband and a little boy. The scene starts when she asks her husband to sit down, and she confesses she's had an affair. Now, I'm as tired of stereotypically straight relationships as anyone else - I'm tired of the repetition of dilemmas that don't have to be dilemmas at all, of all the love triangles, of the refusal to see alternatives to heteronormative modes of living. But even in a relatively traditional context, Kitson has a way of peeling these layers away and showing sentiments that are common to us all. Benjamin feels shattered, but "he takes her hand, he tells her that it's all right." And when she says that it's not all right, he asks her "what she wants him to do, to storm out, to smash things, to hit her, is that what she wants? What does she want him to say? That it's over? That he hates her? That she's ruined it?" And when she says of course not, he just asks her why. Caroline feels so guilty, but over the weeks and months and years, she finds herself telling her husband things about herself she never thought she would tell anyone. This is the type of connection that William wanted so desperately, and here we have Caroline experiencing it exactly when things go off track, when she allows herself to explore the feelings a wife and mother supposedly shouldn't have. And sure, maybe Benjamin could have had an easier time shaking off the feeling that it only happened because he was not loved enough. Maybe he could have seen love as something else entirely. Maybe Caroline never needed to have felt so guilty for so long. But despite all the useless suffering, and all the feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness he might have felt, Benjamin listens to her because he loves her, and deep down he knows that this openness is a rare and precious thing. One of my favorite parts of the show takes place a few years before that, when Caroline has her first baby, and she's tired, and the baby won't stop crying. As she tries to make her way to the hospital in the rain, she starts sobbing herself, and an older woman on the street looks at her and tells her that it's all normal, it's going to be all right, and it's all so simple and kind and profound at the same time. There are a couple of other moments in the show where a person tells another that whatever is happening is normal, and they are so full of compassion for people who can feel just as alone and scared and singled out as us. And these small pieces of kindness, these moments of human connection, are passed on and on in the most unlikely ways, in the most unexpected yet necessary situations. And then there's the scene where William is on the bus, holding a gift for his father (and he's been noticing for a while now that the gifts he gives are better than the ones he receives from him). Kitson does a wonderful bit of observational comedy here - and this is something that is lacking from all my descriptions so far, the sense of how funny he is all the time. He describes how annoyed William feels about a boy who keeps pressing the bell, and how William keeps hoping his mother will tell him off. But once she actually does, William starts rooting for the boy instead; and when she finally loses it and humiliates him in front of everyone, slapping his legs until they're red, it dawns on William that this is how she is teaching the boy to be a person. He realizes the ripples and consequences of this personal trauma, and of all the ones like it, connecting hurt and abuse over the span of years and generations, and suddenly he is aware that the gift sitting on his lap "is barely even adequate." Meanwhile, after Caroline goes to university, she develops a sense of displacement in relation to her home, like it is only a place that she visits now. Kitson talks about how your relationship with your parents changes over the years, how things aren't necessarily worse, but they are different, and at some level there's a sense of loss. The people who shaped so much of your personality, and the place where you learned how to be yourself, no longer occupy the same space as they once did in your life. It made me think of myself at twenty-seven, with my eyes wide open at 4am in a dark flat in Manchester, realizing for the first time that I would never again go down the stairs in the apartment where I grew up, long after my parents had gone to sleep, tiptoeing to my room and into bed, aware of all the city noises outside the window. I would never live somewhere where my parents ate dinner and watched TV and slept every night, while I went online and spoke to people from all of the world, and saw my life stretching out in front of me like a long road to who knows where. That night was when it hit me, and I was thousands of miles away, and I didn't know there was even a road leading anywhere anymore, but I was grateful that my parents had been kind to me and that I had become me. Another thing that I found very well done was how William's stories felt different because we already knew where his life was going. When we get to his late 20s, we find that he's friends with a really lovely couple who had just had a baby. And you feel happy but also sad, because the moment the three of them are sharing together is so sweet, but then it dawns on you that it's also so fleeting - the story of his life is moving backwards, so if his friends had never been mentioned before, that must mean they lost touch. This works really well because it's not heavy-handed: no one is there reminding you that it is going to be over soon, but you know. And finally, there is also a beautiful part towards the end that I found so moving. Caroline dies, but it isn't moving just because she is gone. We get a lovely scene that shows Benjamin doing something that she had wanted to do not too long before her death. And after they both die, that one action of his, so unassuming and so imbued with love, creates a ripple that outlives them. But no one has a freaking clue about it - not even the people who are there, seeing it with their own eyes and having their own significant moments, made possible only because of those two elderly people who no longer exist. This scene could have been really clichéd, but it isn't. It's so well written and delivered. It really makes you feel like you're part of something much bigger, with a deep joy and a deep sadness, with an awareness that our love for things and people is so meaningful and so insignificant at the same time.

[mst3kproject]

609: The Skydivers

I kind of wanted to start out by saying something about how this is the long-awaited third installment in the Coleman Francis Trilogy of Tedium, but that doesn't work.  First of all, The Skydivers is actually Francis' middle movie, made in 1963 (The Beast of Yucca Flats was first, in 1961, and Red Zone Cuba third, in 1966).  Second, that would make me sound like an Argento fan waiting twenty-seven years for The Third Mother, when actually my reaction to seeing The Skydivers pop up in my randomizer was “oh, right.  There's another fucking Coleman Francis movie.”

Like its two sisters, The Skydivers is a bleak and disjointed experience.  A married couple, Harry and Beth, run a skydiving school.  Harry is having an affair with a woman named Suzy (if the name of her boat is anything to go by, the 'z' is supposed to be backwards).  Beth retaliates by almost having an affair with Joe, the airfield's new mechanic.  Joe was hired to replace Franky, who was fired for being drunk and now wants revenge on his former employer.  When Harry spurns Suzy, she and Franky sabotage his parachute, and Harry goes splat.  Suzy and Franky are gunned down by the FAA(?!).  Beth feels guilty and breaks up with Joe before leaving the skydiving school to do something else that probably won't involve airplanes.  Crow gets destroyed a lot, and I conclude that people whose names end in 'y' probably shouldn't get involved with skydiving.

If anyone's interested, there is at least one recorded case of a skydiver being murdered by sabotaging his parachute, that of Steve Hilder in 2003.  The saboteur was never found and the case remains unsolved.

As for the movie itself, there's very little in The Skydivers that would be of interest to... anybody, really.  The movie is dull and badly-lit, featuring boring people in awkward situations.  About the only thing that really caught my attention at any point was the fact that there is some actual footage of skydiving, although you can never see the jumpers' faces up close and I suspect Coleman Francis borrowed it from some other film ('parachuting' footage featuring recognizable characters appears to involve actors hanging from the rafters by a backpack, which I can only imagine as being terribly uncomfortable).  The closest thing to a theme I can find in this celluloid coma is the idea of thrill-seeking. Various characters search for a way to brighten up their colourless lives, and end up suffering for it.

The character Pete seeks thrills by skydiving – he claims it's the only thing that makes him feel alive and free, and he tries ever more dangerous stunts until finally he is unable to pull his parachute cord and falls to his death.  In terms of the actual plot, however, Pete's fate serves no purpose except to ensure the FAA are on hand to witness Harry's murder later.  It seems to have inspired Suzy's revenge plot, but sabotaging a skydiver's parachute is such an obvious idea that this wouldn't be necessary.  His death feels ultimately pointless, not even Grist for the Wheels of Progress.

Harry and Beth each seek a thrill in the form of an illicit affair, but the results are very different because their partners respond differently to their ultimate rejections.  Joe respects Beth enough to accept her rejection, not once but twice: when she initially tells him this can go no further and they must be content to be friends, he accepts it with grace.  At the end, when she tells him she can't stay at the skydiving school, he accepts that too, even though it means he will probably never see her again.

Suzy, on the other hand, has no respect for anybody, even as she expects other people to respect her – witness how she attacks Harry when he calls her a 'broad'.  She was spoiled as a child, and never learned to see other people as anything but a way to get what she wants.  When she can no longer get the sexual excitement she wants from Harry, she kills him.  Franky is nothing but a tool she uses to exact this revenge.  Beth, who has nothing to offer, means nothing to her.

I guess it's mildly noteworthy that The Skydivers is the only Coleman Francis movie in which more than one woman has lines.  In The Beast of Yucca Flats the only woman who talked was the mother of the vacation family, and she didn't have a whole lot to say.  In Red Zone Cuba I think Chastain's wife had a line or two, but I can't remember a word of them.  In The Skydivers, both Beth and Suzy have a fair amount of actual dialogue, and manifest distinctly different personalities.  They are stereotypes, being the 'femmy fattily' and the long-suffering wife, but they make decisions as individuals rather than as 'women', with comprehensible reasons for doing so.  So, uh, that makes Coleman Francis better at writing women than Tommy Wiseau, I guess.

I feel like the universe owes me a cookie for putting me in a position to write that sentence.

I really don't think the consequences of thrill-seeking are the point of the movie, though – the fates of Harry and Beth have more to do with their partners than with the actual illicit sex, and Pete's death seems far too pointless.  The whole movie seems pointless, really – as Beth leaves the airfield at the end, we have no idea why we were just told that story, and what, if anything, we were supposed to take from it.  That seems to be a theme of Coleman Francis movies in general: nobody gets a happy ending and when all's said and done there's no point to any of it.

Consider The Beast of Yucca Flats.  At the end the monster is dead, but a family has perhaps been destroyed.  Or Red Zone Cuba. The villains don't get what they want, but neither do the good guys, and a half dozen other lives have been ruined along the way.  Life is nothing but a series of misfortunes.  Happiness is fleeting when it appears at all, and death is neither release nor justice, it is merely death.  The bare, inhospitable landscapes of the American southwest where Francis filmed seem to underscore the idea: the world is not an inviting place, and does not differentiate between the guilty and the innocent.  All of us, sinners and saints, are equally likely to be gunned down by a guy in a plane for no goddamn reason.

This is where we start to see glimmers of a personal philosophy through the cracks of these movies.  Coleman Francis' work suggests he believed that humans and our institutions are all basically chaotic neutral, doing whatever will benefit us at the moment without much thought for how it affects those around us.  Even Beth, when she rejects Joe's advances, does so for selfish reasons: she believes she will be happier as Harry's wife than Joe's mistress.  'Justice' is arbitrary and cruel.  Doing evil rarely avails us anything, but neither does doing good, and at the end of the day we're all just brief candles in the void.  This is a really depressing way to live your life and makes for some really depressing movies, and I doubt Francis actually thought like this.  Rather, I think he made this kind of movie because he thought that's what important movies should be.

Our entertainment culture seems to believe that tragedy is somehow 'more important' than comedy.  Quick, name three Shakespeare plays! I bet two of them were Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, right?  Even if those aren't the ones you came up with, I bet at least two, if not all three, were tragedies.  Shakespeare wrote nearly twice as many comedies as he did tragedies (eighteen to ten, by most scholars' counts), but it's his tragedies that are endlessly studied and analyzed, that attract big-name actors and win awards to this day, because they're considered more meaningful than the lighthearted comedies.

This is strange, because comedy is important, too.  I think Dustin Hoffman's character in Stranger than Fiction had the best explanation of why: it is by affirming the continuance of life (comedy) that we deal with the unavoidable certainty of death (tragedy).  The ancient Greeks knew this, and would finish up an afternoon of tragedies with a comedic performance called a Satyr Play, so that the audience wouldn't leave the theatre depressed.  Shakespeare knew it, too.  Even Hamlet has jokes, and Horatio is left at the end (continuance of life) to pass on the moral of the story (don't wander around making long-winded speeches like Hamlet – get off your butt and overthrow your evil uncle the way your father's ghost told you to... like Simba!)

Stories can accomplish a lot of things.  They teach us to deal with hypothetical situations and our own emotions, give us information about places we've never been and people we've never met.  One thing that they really shouldn't do, however, is make us feel terrible for no reason, but that's exactly what Coleman Francis' movies do.  That's what you get when people are taught that tragedy is somehow meaningful just because it's tragic.  It might be sad, but unless it has characters we identify with and situations that are somehow significant, it's still not good.

If you haven't seen Stranger than Fiction, you're missing out.  It's a very funny movie about coping with one's own mortality and might just make you cry over the death of Will Ferrell.  If you haven't seen The Skydivers... you're good.  Don't bother.