#when i say that pick me culture is good ol' sexism

[moghedien]

Could you recommend some adult sff? Love your blog btw!

Thank you! 

And ok, I could give you better personalized recs if you give me some idea of what you’re looking for or what you like, but I’m gonna give you some general recommendations. Also I only really feel comfortable recommending books that I have personally read, and there are tons more out there than what I have read. If you want to find more, looking at recent Hugo nominations over the past few years might be helpful. Also one of the reasons why I know anything at all about the SFF world is that I’ve been listening to the Sword and Laser podcast for like, a decade. I never really mention that podcast, but its literally why I started reading at all and also they have a pretty active goodreads group as well. 

So recommendations: 

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie: 

This is one of my favorite books period. This is a far future space opera about an artificial intelligence who used to be a spaceship and now is only one human body, and she is ANGRY ABOUT that. I don’t really want to say more than that, but if you like AI shenanigans and being sorta confused as to what is going on the entire time, then this is the book for you! It’s the first book in a completed trilogy.

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan: 

Obviously I’m gonna recommend the Wheel of Time. This is the first book in a 14 (actually 15) book series and if you need something to do with the next 1-5 years of your life *motions toward EoTW*. 

So the Eye of the World, I think is uniquely good as a book if you kinda want to get into adult fantasy for a few reasons. For one thing, its kinda considered to be one of those “classics” of the genre but its not too old to be offputting to some readers. It’s a 30 year old book, so its not reflective of the genre now, but you can definitely see its influence all the place, even outside of just books. The Eye of the World specifically, also goes out of its way to make readers comfortable. It leans heavy on Tolkien references and tropes at first without being a straight up copy of Lord of the Rings like some classic fantasy books are. Its done very purposefully, in my opinion, to make the reader feel like they have some idea of what’s going on, and the series quickly drops the Tolkien references as soon as its established itself enough. 

Also the Gandalf parallel for the series is a smol bi lady and there is 24 year old rage healer who wants to fight everyone with her own two fists.So many women to stan. 

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

This is the first book of the Expanse, which is a nearish future space opera that takes place in our solar system. Mars has long ago been colonized and is a completely separate government entity than Earth, and conflict between the two planets has been stirring. The Asteroid Belt has also been colonized and have long been little more than tools of corporations that run their colonies. A group of ice haulers working in the outer planets get in the middle of one of the biggest secrets in the solar system and find themselves in all kinds of trouble. 

I don’t really want to say more than this, but this is probably the only SF series that I actively keep up on when a new book comes out. There are 8 books our currently, and the 9th and final book will be out sometime in the near future. There are also several short stories and novellas set in the world, and there’s a TV show that I really like though I need to catch up on it. 

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

Hello, this book comes with content warnings for literally everything, but it is such a good book/trilogy. This is book about a woman trying to find her daughter again in the middle of the apocalypse. Definitely a heavy read but absolutely brilliant. The world has a magic system based on geology and the people that can use that magic....saying they’re discriminated against is an understatement. I don’t want to say much more about it, but if you have any kind of content you can’t read for whatever reason, I’d check before picking this up. This is the first book in a completed trilogy

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

So this isn’t really super SF heavy and is actually sold as a literary book, but it takes place after a flu pandemic has wiped out a large portion of the population...so maybe this is a bad time to read this book, OR its the best time to read it. Depends on how you’re dealing with *motions at the world*

The book flashes back to before and during the pandemic a lot, but is largely about art’s importance and is actually quite optimistic in its messaging, and this is another of my favorite books ever. But yeah, might be a bad time for you to read it of you can’t deal with the content now. 

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon 

I just remembered that this book also has a plague, but its a subplot and not the major thing. So this is a big ol’ chonky standalone book that is high fantasy, deals with multiple cultures having to interact and work together, and has dragons. Also there’s a genunine slow burn f/f romance and *chef’s kiss*. I can’t really say much else, mostly because I struggle to explain this book, but its very good and probably my favorite book from last year. 

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal 

In this house we stan Mary Robinette Kowal, ok? 

So this is a science fiction that is more an alternate history that poses the question, hey, what would have happened if an asteroid slammed into the east coast in 1952 and the world had to scramble to colonize Mars so that everyone didn’t die on earth when the climate got catastrophic, because that’s the inciting action of the book. The main character is a Jewish woman who was a WASP pilot in WW2 and is a computer for the space program when all this happens. The book deals with sexism, and racism, and xenophobia, and all the social issues that are gonna come up with it being set in 1952, but Mary Robinette doesn’t flinch away from addressing social issues in any of her books, even when it makes her main characters look bad. (Also if you like Pride and Prejudice, she has a series that is just Pride and Prejudice with magic and like, yeah, its good). 

A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan

This is a book which poses a question, what if dragons were like weird animals that were real and an eccentric woman spent her entire life traveling the world to study them and then told the stories of that in her memoirs when she was too old to care about the consequences of publishing all her scandals. That’s what the book is about. This one is probably actually the weakest in the series, just because it deals with so much set up. It’s a great series to get on audio because Kate Reading is a fantastic narrator, and the prose works so well as audio, because it’s just someone telling you her life story. There are five books in the series. 

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

So this is a novella and is the first in the murderbot series. Basically a killer robot gets addicted to television shows and accidentally became sentient. I haven’t read the others in the series, but I really need to reread this one and get to the others. 

Jade City by Fonda Lee

This is a fantasy set in world sorta inspired by the early 1900s but is in a fantasy world. It’s like a mafia movie and kung fu movie had a baby and it was this book. The sequel is out currently, but the third book is set to release next year.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon 

This is another heavy read. This is a SF story set on a generation ship that has a society very heavily inspired by the antebellum south. There’s class issues, race issues, gender issues, mental health issues. All kinds of things intersecting here. Its fantastic, but a heavy read.

Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb

This is another fantasy classic, and is the first of the Farseer Trilogy. The title is sort of also a description of the book, so like. I’m not sure what else I can say. I haven’t read further into the series, but people I trust love it, and honestly I need to reread this and read more of the books. 

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

So if you think that Station Eleven might be a bad book to read at the time, then this is THE WORST POSSIBLE BOOK TO READ RIGHT NOW. Or, maybe the best. Depends on how you cope. This is a book about time travelers based in Oxford and the main character accidentally gets stranded in the past right as the Black Plague is about to hit. And it hits. The book is horrific. The second book in the series is much funnier. This one ain’t funny, but is good. Just, oof. 

Mistborn or Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

So if you want to get into the Cosmere, which is a series of series that interconnect and will ruin your life, then then my personal opinion is to either start with Mistborn or Warbreaker. People might not agree with me, but that’s my personal opinion. 

Warbreaker is currently a standalone (a sequel will come out eventually but its not set up for a sequel so you can 100% read it as a standalone). The magic in this world is based on colors, and the story revolves around two sisters. One of them is betrothed to the horrific God King of their neighboring kingdom. The other sister ends up being sent in her place because their dad hates her. I adore Warbreaker so much. It has it all. Two women discovering their true places on the prep/goth spectrum. Talking swords. Vivenna. Everything you can need right there. 

Mistborn is a trilogy that is very emo and will ruin you. Its about people who swallow metal to get magic powers and live in world where the dark lord won already, so they’re all emo. And that was the worst description of Mistborn I ever could have written, but I find it too funny to change. 

So if you’re interested in the Cosmere, but are afraid to commit long term, pick up Warbreaker. If you want to get into a series right away, pick up Mistborn. 

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Jaws

I never claimed to be a film scholar, and that’s why I was almost 33 years old before I saw Jaws the first time (and yes, it is my birthday next week thank you so much for asking!) It’s not that I never wanted to - but by the time I had overcome my fear that Jaws was going to eat me in my bathtub, I didn’t want to watch it cut up by commercials on a Saturday afternoon on TNT and we didn’t own it and if you think I was going to waste my one pick at Blockbuster on a movie from 25 years ago instead of renting Now and Then for the fifth time, you are just a plain fool. So here we are in a quarantine and I’m doing some much needed catching up.

One thing I’ve discovered about these classic completely-permeated-in-pop-culture films is that they’re not immune to the phenomenon of high expectations->very disappointed. I was a little worried that, because I’ve had the “you’re gonna need a bigger boat” scene imprinted on my retinas since I was about 7 years old, the film just wouldn’t have the same oomph as it did when it became the world’s first true blockbuster. So, to an avid movie-watcher like me, does Jaws still have teeth? Well...

This is not a controversial opinion - yeah, it does. Jaws is pretty fucking awesome. Sometimes things really are that simple. For the uninitiated (although honestly who doesn’t know the plot of Jaws), it’s pretty simple. There’s a shark. Like....a really big one. He’s feeling peckish, and starts looking for snacks around Amity Island, a touristy (fictional) beach community somewhere off the coast of New England. The local chief of police, Brody (Roy Scheider) is staunchly anti-shark attack but the mayor is like “we’ll just have to accept the risk that the weak ones will die because we can’t shut the economy down!” But because this is a fantasy movie, after 4 people die, the authorities do everything they can to stop the threat, including hiring a scientist named Hooper from the Oceanographic Institute (Richard Dreyfuss), and a crusty ol’ sea captain named Quint (Robert Shaw) to hunt the shark down and kill it. 

Some thoughts:

That John Williams score just kicks you in the teeth right from the beginning, doesn’t it.

It’s interesting, regarding all the scenes I’ve seen just in the context of living in a world where Jaws is part of pop culture - they always come in these little 30-second bursts without the context, enough to suggest the dread and terror but not really sit in it for long. As a result, this first initial shark attack scene goes on for SO MUCH LONGER than I was expecting. I was genuinely disturbed.

I’m seeing many Very Good dogs, which is fantastic news. There’s the Chief’s cocker spaniel, there’s a frisky black Lab on the beach chasing a stick, a couple more when all the fisherman are arriving, and many puppers in boats!

WAIT IS PIPPET OK

I mean, I know it’s sad that kid Alex got eaten on his raft but why haven’t they given us reassurance that Pippet is ok??

This intro to Quint is truly one of the best character introductions I’ve ever seen. What an iconic and instantly memorable performance, this salty, grizzled fisherman/bounty hunter who literally never stops talking. He’s a walking sea shanty, a collection of dirty jokes held together with sheepshank knots and moonshine. I love him in spite of his vague, amorphous sexism and relentless repetition of the same terrible song.

God, I had no idea how young Richard Dreyfuss is in this!

I already knew a lot of the parallels existed, but Wife wanted me to point out explicitly that watching this film is deeply upsetting in the time of Covid-19. The same willful ignorance, the same disregard for public safety, and the same reverence for “the economy” at all cost to human life is relevant, to say the least.

It’s easy to forget, but having watched more of his early stuff in the past few months, I completely get why Steven Spielberg was such an absolute lightning bolt to the film industry. The naturalistic way everyone talks, the overlapping dialogue, the use of light with the moon on the ocean and these spotlights in the fog, that iconic dolly zoom shot - it really is unlike any other director’s films, especially in this era. 

Who the fuck does this mayor think he is? If the people are at the beach, isn’t that enough? Why do you NEED them to go in the water? How does that help you? If they’re on the beach and not swimming, you get the best of both worlds - people are there spending money and they’re also y’know, not dead.

I’ve seen the moment dozens of times, and everyone knows the line, but goddammit when we first see the shark in all his glory and Brody says “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” it honest to god made my heart nearly leap outta my chest. 

What I didn’t know about in all the familiarity I had with Jaws before this was this long night scene with the three men drinking and singing and comparing battle scars and stories and bonding the way men in wartime do. Quint’s monologue is especially haunting. This is all just...it’s really good. 

I’m a little uncomfortable (especially in the time of Covid) with this class warfare, working class grunt knows better than the academic tug-of-war going on between Quint and Hooper. For a long stretch it seems like Quint has a point, that Hooper doesn’t know what he’s doing out there in the dangerous reality of a fickle ocean and a murderous predator. But once they get on the boat, Hooper proves himself more the capable. Maybe the man who is actually like, a doctor of sharkology can know just as much - or maybe more?? - than the man who has been hunting and killing them for years. Aaah fiction. It’s a good thing you have nothing to teach us about reality. 

Did I Cry? No, and I kinda thought I would when Alex Kitner’s mother confronts Brody about how he did nothing to prevent her son’s death, but I was too preoccupied with the fact that she and her husband looked about 60 and I was trying to figure out how they could be the parents of an 8-year-old boy. 

In all the clips I’ve seen, I really haven’t been exposed to shots of the shark for that long, and that’s for the good. The only thing that isn’t quite pitch perfect about the movie is how, in the longer sequences, the shark robot begins to quickly lose its authentic feel. The shadows, quick glimpses, and brief chomps really do have a much greater impact. Thank goodness Bruce (the shark robot’s name) malfunctioned as much as he did, because if he had been seen up close from the very beginning, there’s no way this film would be the icon it is. 

Oh damn, that ending really comes at you quick, huh?

I love that “this is gonna be the beginning of a beautiful friendship” final exchange. 

I don’t know what to tell you, guys, this movie is just really, really good. The scares are scary, the characters are interesting, memorable, and have a lot of emotional heft to them, and the shark is sharky. There’s nothing not to like. Even if you think you know what it’s gonna be like, it’s worth it to take a couple hours and really absorb it the way it deserves, because it does deserve it.  

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[dollflynn-blog]

Ref #6

Reflection #6: Radical Heterosexuality,

Relationships and sexuality,

and The Proud Boys

Some women may roll their eyes in response to Naomi Wolf’s plea to educate the men in our lives and convince them that sexism is real.  Women already get paid less and even in today’s “modern” society are still second-class citizens.  Why must we prove ourselves again?  Why must we teach?  Why do we have to hold men’s hands through the process of our struggle to alleviate social inequalities? The answer is simple: If we don’t form an alliance and do this together, someone else will.  They will happily fulfill that role of mentor for us ladies and gentlemen; and we may not like or agree with what they have to say.  

There will always be a resistance to change, especially when it threatens the current power system and the ones who benefit most from its structure.  Intellectually we can understand this on a human level.  People like routine, consistency and reliability.  What happens to the dominate members in society when they are told the way the are doing things is wrong?  Many can view this as a welcome change.  They happily step up to the plate, eager to learn the new rules.  Others balk and resist quietly.  Others not so quietly.  

Case in point: Gavin McInnes, founder of the Proud Boys.  This is an example of what can materialize when men feel that they are under attack.  McInnes was the initial co-founder of vice news but his tenure was cut short due to “creative differences.  With his newly found free-time the “Godfather of hipster-dom” fostered a men’s club for the displaced, over looked, chauvinistic, predominately white male. [Insert sarcastic eyeroll here] He calls it: Proud Boys.  Members that pledge to this frat-like club are initiated through a verbal declaration and good ole-fashioned hazing.  Prospective members are required to recite the following: “I am a proud western chauvinist who refuses to apologize for creating the modern world.”  In addition to this declaration, pledges are then punched by at least five members while trying to recite five cereals, after this they refrain from masturbation, get the groups name tattooed on their bodies and are encouraged to pick a fight that they know they will lose to symbolize their “suffering.”  This recipe yields the rest of the North American population with 20,000 servings of sexually frustrated misogynists with a side of traditional sexism.  Enjoy.  

The founder stresses that the group doesn’t want to apologize for being male and that tradition holds value.  “Tradition” is code for the days of yore when women stayed home and raised the children while men “worked the assembly lines.”  McInnes rhetoric includes statements like “Feminism is cancer” and “venerate the house wives.”  There is nothing wrong with choosing to stay at home to a raise a family.  Human beings should indicate what they want based on their own desires and not through social obligation or conditioning.  If men truly did venerate their “homemaker” we wouldn’t have so many stories like the one exemplified in the article ��Exploring Major Areas of Tension in Heterosexual Relationships.”  We are introduced anecdotally to one woman’s experience of building her life around her husband.  She gives up her career for her husband’s, has children because he wants them (she had been ambivalent about the choice), and stayed at home to raise them while he worked.  Ultimately, he ends up having many affairs with women he finds more exciting and independent than his dull stay-at-home wife.  This is just one women’s experience, but it exemplifies the realities of many couples in more “traditional” arrangements.  If the housewife were truly honored and respected, wouldn’t we expect to see less of these behaviors?

And effective alternative could be to reframe the current system and reveal that there is a better way of structuring our society by appealing to the interests of those at risk of losing their throne.  Men are more likely to drop out of high school, be diagnosed with a behavioral disorder, binge drink, go to prison, commit a violent crime and to die by suicide.  It is in men’s best interest to reevaluate this structure they are so desperate to maintain.  Perhaps if the flaws of current masculinity were looked at more closely, they too would embrace the change.  These statistics reveal that tradition gender roles in modern society do not seem to be working for men either.  It is understandable that many men may feel confusion around the “me too culture”.  Perhaps even remorseful.  They may think: “Have I ever done anything like that?  Is telling a woman I see on the street that she looks good not a compliment?  Don’t women like those?”

Men are socialized not to discuss these things, not to ask questions, so they internalize them.  They may even begin to feel threatened and turn to radical right-winged clubs like the Proud Boys.  If men are not invited into the conversation and given a safe space to ask questions candidly, they will seek other outlets of inclusion.  We are all looking for our tribe and a sense of belonging. Maybe one day it will include every human being on the planet.