A P.S.A. about AFTER

     *Deep breath*
    So I used to work at a movie theater. I used to work at a movie theater when the film After came out. I'm not really one for the teen-romance genre, so I didn't give it much thought. During theater checks (go in, make sure screen/sound was working and audience was behaving properly) I'd see little snippets of it and just roll my eyes in detached mockery/annoyance.
    But now I've noticed that the film (and it's original form, an online fan-fiction piece) has been getting more and more attention. Most notably for how terrible it is.
    A Youtuber I watch did a review on it with the full severity of judgement that the story deserved, but she used examples from the book that were rather... graphic in portrayal, so this is my cleaner, layman review for anyone who might be interested in/curious about the hypes surrounding this book.

(Please note, I haven't actually read the book or watched the full movie, but I've gathered enough information on it to have a fair understanding of the content. This isn't a review of writing style, word choice, or cinematography. This is a moral review of a book that should never have been written.)

    Basic summary: After is the story of a young woman going to college, meeting this mysterious bad-boy named Hardin, falling in love with him, abandoning her friends, family, and career goals, moving in with him, having sex, and then finding out that it was all a trick - in a game of 'Truth or Dare', he told his friends that he could make her fall in love with him. Yet in the end, our dear, darling, stupid protagonist goes back to Hardin after he sends her a sappy letter about how he really did grow to love her etc, etc, etc.

   It's bad enough that this was a Harry Styles fan-fiction.
   It's bad enough that the author was 22 when she wrote it.
   It's worse that it was published as an actual book, made into a movie, and advertised as some great romantic story for the young generation.

   All this book says is: "Hey, girls, you know what's some great boyfriend material? That one guy who gets really mad when you see other guys, who constantly lies - so mysterious! - and who says that Elizabeth Bennet was wrong to call Darcy a jerk for being condescending and insulting to her on a constant basis, because we all know that's how you know he REALLY likes you!!! *wink wink*"

     Or, to be blunt:

     - It's okay if your boyfriend is condescending and secretive
     - It's okay to give up all your life goals because you've entered a relationship
     - If a guy you know violently hurts himself because you went out with your actual boyfriend, it means he really likes you and you should give him a chance!!! Give that widdle sweetheart a kiss so he feels better!!!
     - Your boyfriend doesn't need to be held accountable for his actions
     - True love = Sex every other day
     - If a guy says he loves you - even if he manipulates, abuses, and uses you for personal gain and amusement on a consistent basis - then he absolutely loves you and you just need to give him a second chance!!!!!!

    This story sickens me. It makes me want to rip a punching bag open with my fingernails. It shouldn't even exist, let alone be heralded as something good.

   Girls, if a boy you know - boyfriend, friend, whatever - acts like this, GET OUT NOW.
   Boys, if a girl you know - girlfriend, friend, whatever - acts like this GET OUT NOW.

   You can still wish for someone to have a good life and find a good lifestyle, but if you're actively putting yourself in a vulnerable position and empowering them in the hopes that one day they'll wake up and treat you better, you're only hurting yourself and telling them that it's okay for them to act that way.
     YES! It's going to be painful! I KNOW!!! But in the long run, you're far better off without them controlling your life. Sometimes you've got to hit the breaks, stop being the giver, and make the decision that is good for you.
     Otherwise it'll never stop.
     It'll just happening, over and over and over.
     And after that, it's really hard to pick yourself back up again. But it is possible.

(If you'd like a more in-depth review of the movie, Alex Meyers on Youtube has an excellent video on it (He didn't pay me or anything to say that, he just does a great job pointing out the red flags and showing the essence of the story without it getting too sensual, etc. all the while in an entertaining and easy-to-follow style.))

A Short Explanation: My view of profanity/sensuality/etc in entertainment

     A small fact about me: I may fit in the Young Adult demographic, but I don't typically like YA literature.
    There are some exceptions to this, of course (Lunar Chronicles. Go read it) but about 89% of the time, it's just....

     For an example of what I'm talking about, I found a new YA book at the library and decided to give it a try. The first two pages go by, and it seems like it might actually be semi-interesting in plot and character, etc, and then we hit the third page.

                     "You don't have a boyfriend yet? What the *f-bomb* is wrong with you?"

                      (First off, the f-bomb doesn't even work grammatically in that sentence.)

      Now, does this mean that I think all books with profanity, lecherousness, etc. should never be written?
                         
      Contrary to initial belief, no. But perhaps not for the reasons you're thinking of.

      I just finished reading a very insightful and interesting book by the name of 'East of Eden'. It's the story of multiple families, but mainly the family of a wealthy man who moved west with dreams of grandeur who was hopelessly (and blindly) in love with his wife - who turned out to be a prostitute who absolutely gloried in her power and had conceived 'his' twin sons with his brother before the move.

     And I read this book all the way through and own a copy for myself.
     Yes, I liked it.

     So what sets 'East of Eden' and the standard YA book apart, to me?
     Purpose.

     'East of Eden' portrays the battle between a man's longing to be pure and his evil tendencies, accentuated by the insecurities that rise from his psychopathic parentage and the overall philosophical debate of whether man is inwardly evil or inwardly good.
     'Again but better' portrays the story of a girl moving to London because she wants to have a life during her college-years instead of study all the time and she inevitably meets 'a cute boy' and blahdiblahdiblah teen-rom-com-drama-stuff.
   
     In 'East of Eden', the f-bomb is used by a corrupt criminal to describe a woman who just died, to accentuate his disdain for human life and his personality.
     In 'Again but better', it's used like glitter. Pointless. Meaningless. Messy. Obnoxious.

    And to say, 'oh, that's just how the world is! It's not worth getting upset about!' would validate so many subjects. What if we responded to glorified rape like that? Or casual human trafficking? It'd be unthinkable. And, as vice is vice is vice, we can't really get away with saying that about casual profanity either.

     In short, my views on the entire subject can be summed up in one quote:

      "Vice, for vice is necessary to be shown, should always disgust." - Samuel Johnson

    So if that brands me as 'childish', why?
                                  -------------------------------------------------------------

PSA about Captain Marvel

Sooo I watched Captain Marvel. Twice. And I sort of liked it. It had it's rough elements (Carol sometimes came off as annoying/overconfident, lack of character arc, some feminist undertones) but overall I thought it was a pretty good prologue story for having been jammed in between possibly the two biggest MARVEL films in cinema history. The settings were nice, the Skrulls were very well portrayed, young Colson is essentially a puppy, Goose/Fury interactions were beautiful, and Ronan actually sounded like a normal creature instead of some hybrid between a cave troll and a garbage disposal.



Then I got on Pinterest.
.......................................................................................................... *deep breath *

So. Many. Posts. Saying Carol was lesbian.

But as I found no evidence of this in the film (EITHER time) I thought I'd just put this disclaimer out there: there is no. evidence. of. it.

So how could this pressumption have been made? What was the motive? Why should we care?

First things first, the actual content.

It is stated that Carol didn't get along well with her parents (in the comics, it's explained that her father was an abusive drunk and her mother just let her dad do whatever he wanted) so she lived with her best friend, Maria, who was a single mother (no backstory on that.)

This is probably where most of the rumors took their root. Two women, living in the same house for an extended period of time, both unmarried. But you know who else lived in the same house with a person of the same gender for a long period of time?

Owning/renting a place is expensive. I mean, I'm hoping to be able to share a place with someone when I move out! Everyone in my family has shared a house with someone else before getting married etc. Plus, the world is a dangerous place, and living with friends gives a good sense of security.

Also, Carol helps Maria raise her child. But really, if you're gonna live in the friend's house and she's a single mom trying to raise a kid, if you don't help out when you have the time for it, what kind of a person are you?

Through several flashbacks we see Carol and Maria's friendship, and that's basically what it is. A vibrant, joyful, supportive friendship. This will be discussed further in the next section, part A.

Second things second: what's NOT there.

For years, audiences have been begging MARVEL Studios to give us a female superhero story that doesn't revolve around a romantic relationship. MARVEL delivered with this film.

True, there is the beginning in which Carol and Yon Rogg (pictured) seem to have a relationship budding, but at the same time it's obviously not the cliche romance story. She's wants to prove herself to him, he's constantly belittling her. It's not really exploited as a 'Oh, I miss you and your smile and warmth' relationship, but a 'You can't possibly do this yourself efficiently/my idea is better you need me' relationship.

SPOILERS:
They break up in the end in a beautifully satisfying way :)

So, what was there for the internet to do but create a romantic relationship to jabber about?
We, as a culture, seem infatuated with romance, and not in the good, healthy way. We say we don't want our female characters to live with their lives revolving around the males, because they can be strong and independent and interesting without a romance subplot, but once that's taken away we scramble to put it in. Even if it's a subplot, it's thrown to the forefront, before everything else that's important.

'And why not make it a romance between Carol and Maria? They're so happy together and they care so much about each other and it's - it's -"
..... what a normal friendship should be? I mean, if you can't be happy with your friends, and have fun, and care about your friends, you have no friends. And you're cold. And need therapy.

"This imposes on me at the outset a very tiresome bit of demolition. It has actually become necessary in our time to rebut the theory that every firm and serious friendship is really homosexual.
      To say that every Friendship is consciously and explicitly homosexual would be too obviously false... Those who cannot conceive Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration of Eros betray the fact that they have never had a Friend... On a broad historical view it is, of course, not the demonstrative gestures of Friendship amoung our ancestors but the absence of such gestures in our own society that calls for some special explanation."
                                                                                                        - C. S. Lewis, the Four Loves

      Something also lacking in this portrayal of a female superhero is the sexualization of her appearance. For example:

Black Widow - Plunging neckline and accentuated posterior
Wasp - Accentuated breasts
Dora Milajae - Accentuated breasts
Scarlet Witch - Plunging neckline
Gamora - (Mostly in Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 1)  - Costume specifically cut to reveal cleavage + transparent cloth underneath that cleavage cut
Hela (yes, a villain) - Accentuated breasts and pelvic area
Valkyrie - Accentuated breasts

Now, Captain Marvel:

Breast plate melds seamlessly into the rest of the costume in a smooth, non-molded curve.  Colors in Kree uniform version are more subtle, admittedly, drawing less attention to the chest, but the lines in either case are both designed not to draw the line over breasts, but across chest. Clothes are somewhat form-fitting, yet still have breathability and the shapes of it are broken up so as to draw the eyes more towards her shoulders. This also works as in combat you would want to draw your enemies' eyes to the more armored parts of your body, rather than the less protected vital organs (Punisher actually uses this tactic in his outfit.)

Why should we care?

So it would seem that Captain Marvel, as a character, has given audiences:

1. No healthy male romantic interest
2. No interactions with protagonist males that seem to indicate romantic attration upon knowing them for two days
3. An outfit that is not designed to accentuate her sexual appeal, but to actually do it's job fairly well and draw attention up to her shoulders and face (where it belongs.)

And thus the internet took it upon itself to state that she's lesbian, simply because she doesn't fit in the cliche criteria of her predecessors.

Sometimes people are so desperate to see their politics represented, they invent them where they don't exist. I could give a list of dangerous, unethical, and plain disgusting examples, but I've probably already pushed a lot of family-friendly boundaries in this post and I think I'll leave it there.

In closing, if you haven't seen the film and have heard rumors about this, don't worry, they're all rumors and lies. If you have seen the film, let me know your thoughts, particularly if you saw something I didn't to prove the contrary. I have this problem of hyperbole and sometimes forget gaping holes in my theories (ask my writing partner.)

That's all for now, so onward and goodnight!

The flaws of the Jedi order

You know, it's really weird for a person who got a 67% Jedi result in a test to really despise the Jedi Order. Yet here I am, a freak of the Force, here to expound upon the world why I don't like the Jedi Order.

(First things first, we'll be tackling this from the prequels to the originals, as it makes more sense linearly, and even though we didn't like them, they're part of the story, so we've gotta deal with that reality. Sorry, guys.)

So here goes!

1. Emotions.
When little orphan Ani is brought before the Jedi counsel, their major argument for not training him is: "He's too old."
   This is because Force-sensitive children are basically harvested as infants. Even Master Obi-Wan was taken when he was 6 months old. The purpose for this was to prevent the children from having fully developed emotional attachments to anyone, be that hatred or love. In fact, part of the training was the intentional suppression of emotions in infants (official guide handed down through the siblings. Yeah, it had cool pictures.)
    If that reference proves wrong (as I can't find the book) then we can also take the Jedi code as a reference for it:

"There is no emotion."
NO emotion??? That's the ideal Jedi???
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm really bad at handling emotions myself and find them irritating a lot of the time, but to condemn them entirely is pretty extreme. Because if you don't have an emotional passion for something, then you would only fight for something with a sort of 'survival instinct' mindset, which would bring you down to a level lower than animals. Even lions came to save a human child's life, not because they had to, not because it would sustain their survival - in fact, it endangered them - but because they could and wanted to.

Now, put those same people - who actively strive to be detached and unemotional about life - in charge of law enforcement. Boy, I wonder how that could go wrong.

2. Power Split.
One thing that always sort of confused me as a kid was why there was a definite division between Jedi and Sith style powers. Why was it okay to essentially break into someone's will and mangle it, while giving them a zap of lightning wasn't?
  On the one hand, this could be because Jedi mind tricks are used for 'peace' (aka, the Jedi in the situation getting his way instantly without any discussion or dissection of the subject to find out what was really going or needed,) but on the other hand, one is effectively obliterating someone's will for however long you need, while with the other they may have a fighting chance. Therefore, lightning, while painful, is slightly more in the morally-proper zone.

(As a bonus, think of all the uses for Force lightning besides torture!)

3. Priorities
     So, in the Empire Strikes Back (spoilers if you haven't seen it) Luke is training with Yoda in the swamps of Dagoba when he starts getting the sense (probably via his Force bond with Leia) that his friends have been captured by Darth Vader. He prepares to leave, but Yoda tells Luke to stay to complete his training, saying that he needs to control the Force better before he can defeat Vader. While this is true - let's face facts, it is - he's basically telling Luke, "Forget your friends, you've got to become powerful enough to kill that guy." There's no option of him actually going with Luke to help - which was possible, he could've sat on Luke's lap all the way there, rode piggy-back, and crushed Vader like a grape - all the focus is put upon making Luke into a lean, mean, killing machine to assassinate this one guy instead of saving his friends. The only excuse they can give for this is:
"You don't actually know that Vader will kill them!"

Why yes, that does seem rather unlikely.

*Stage whisper * "Do you want another Darth Vader? BECAUSE THAT'S HOW YOU MAKE ANOTHER DARTH VADER, MAKING A MAN PRIORITIZE GAINING POWER OVER HIS LOVED ONES!!!!"

So yeah. The Gray Jedi has spoken her piece. If anyone has any counter arguments backed up by facts, please bring them forward, I like respectful stimulation :)
Ich leibe dich, y'all!

Book Review: Maximum Ride

*Deep breath* You know those instances where someone starts telling you a story, and it seems like it's going to be really riveting and insightful, but they just keep going on... and on... and oooooon without making any point whatsoever and nothing makes sense and the whole thing is great disappointment and waste of your time?
That's basically Maximum Ride.

Maximum Ride is a series of novels which begins with introducing us to six kids who have escaped from a secret laboratory where they've been held prisoner since infancy and had their DNA spliced with that of birds. Soon after we're introduced to the 'Erasers' - human/wolf creatures designed specifically to hunt these escapees - and the 'flock' have to run away from their safe house and try to find a new place to live.

Looking back, even that intro seemed sporadic and nonsensical - How come the erasers didn't find them before? Why isn't there some psychological conflict about the lab (I mean, if they lived there since infancy, you'd think they'd have a lot of propaganda from that place still in their heads?) - but at the time when I found it, it sounded worth a shot. And that's how I wasted several months of my existence. Reading these books.




Here's a rundown of why I don't really like these books anymore:

1. It makes literally no logical sense.
You say that the flock can hide their wings under jackets? But just a couple chapters ago you said that the older ones have huge wing spans! To add to that, erasers being able to hide among regular middle-school/high-school students? You clearly established that they have no shape-shifting abilities and are huge, hideous monsters in appearance! The villain lures Max and the flock into a lab just to have Max fight an evil clone of herself and when she wins he just lets them go? Just like that?!?!? The voice in Max's head is literally someone else speaking into her brain? And the mentor/villain can do the voice, but isn't the voice? First off, this technology was never presented earlier and never appears afterwards, so it's VERY unbelievable, but overall it just has no point. Bringing me to number 2.

2. There's no significance to anything.
(Please note evil clone scene stated above.) No matter what happens, none of the characters change, nothing about their situation changes for the long-term (they stay with a woman for a few weeks and go to school, but this doesn't change their perception of the world or anything, except they get a talking dog.) And to crown it all off, 98% of the series is about the flock running from scientists who torture them to learn things about them and treat them like animals, and in the end, what does the flock decide to do while this company is still strong and at large????? Become mascots for an environmentalist organization.

3. Nothing is ever explained.
Weird things happen, villains show up, etc, and we're given no explanation at any time of how or why.

4. Every plot point and plot twist is sporadic and nonsensical.
It's as if the author drank about 78 espressos then just shot off whatever his delirious mind came up with to the publishers, who somehow thought that it was a good idea. It's like, "hmmm, the plots sort of boring now. I know! I'll make the little angelic character seem to betray the others and have this whole plan with the villains, but THEN I'll reveal that it was a plan between her and the main character for about... hmmmmm ONE HOUR. YES!!! I am so smart!!!!"
That literally happened.

You can get away with a lot of things in writing a series - being biased and making blanket statements about people groups (J.K. Rowling - Slytherins,) characters being super-competent (Eoin Colfer,) heroes having no flaws (Brian Jacques - Redwall) - and have it pass as a pretty good series. But if you just write as if you're on drugs, vomiting out plot twists and doing nothing to explain your world or develop your characters at all, nothing good is gonna happen. I feel like this series could have been really good, but as it is, it was thrown in the garbage by the 3/4 mark of book 1.

The importance of cartoons

 

  Excuse me for going all Crawford Lauritz for a second, but I once knew an artist who hosted a workshop on painting and art in general for kids. He taught us about pointillism, the color wheel, angles, all the basics. Some kids were more realistic than others. Some kids got a lot of praise, others got more sarcastic criticism.

     Anyway, fast-forward a few months. A sibling of mine sent this guy a letter (they were a fan of everything art, so yeah) along with a drawing they had done.
   The response?

                                                     "Still drawing cartoons, I see."

   Okay, I'll admit, some art is more impressive than others. Not everyone can do this:

    But... really? Is the above art form the only acceptable, professional art form? I would disagree. And so would Picasso. So would Van Gogh. So would Munch ('Scream'-man.)
   I'm not saying that we shouldn't strive to get better with our art. This is an example of the growth of my art:

    
       Now, it's not a huge improvement, and there are still plenty of flaws, but it's an improvement, and you know what? It's the art form that makes me happy! I mean, sure, the masterpiece paintings are amazing (especially when you can see them in person) but I just like the cartoony/anime art form. It appeals to me.
      So, to cut a long story short, I don't think we should be so dismissive of art that isn't a 'masterpiece'. Sometimes it's even what makes the artist happy, so if you go: "Are you still drawing that?" it's like saying: "You're still eating pizza?" "You're still wearing non-skinny jeans?" "You still have a dog?" and you know how ridiculous and stuck-up that sounds?
      Besides, some of us want to do more than paint farm-life, and some of us should, I think, honestly. Because God has given us all unique interests and skills and the choice and opportunities to use them to glorify him. Some of us could be painters of masterpieces, others could be comic-book artists. And may I just say, Calvin and Hobbes had a greater impact on me as a kid than Rembrant did.

The Mortal Engines - A book review

Okay, so I saw the trailer for Peter Jackson's 'Mortal Engines' film adaptation coming out soon and thought "hey, they got Hugo Weaving to play the villain, how bad could it be?!"

so I decided to read the book and see beforehand.

It was that bad.

Allow me to shed some light on the subject.

Problem #1:
Coming from a purely authorly standpoint, the style is hackneyed and sporadic, being poetic at first then dissolving into repetitive phrases simply for emphasis and viewpoints that jump between characters from sentence to sentence with no real organization whatsoever.

Problem #2:
The secretive character who spilled her backstory to the protagonist within one day of meeting him (and that day had absolutely no bonding experiences either. Except for falling down the same garbage chute.)

Problem #3:
KATHERINE VALENTINE YOU SIMPLETON! YOU FOOL! YOU OVERDRAMATIC PRISS! YOU TRIS PRIOR OF STEAMPUNK! (and that is not a compliment)
HONESTLY I had so much hope for her and then she went and confronted the villain ALONE without a weapon or backup and told him "I know everything! and here are the names and positions of everyone who helped me learn this!" then ran away like a sniveling child.

Problem #4:
SPOILERS!
.............................. they killed the dog.

Problem #5:
Bevis Pod under-appreciation.
The boy is honestly the most intelligent, kind, and witty person in the whole book so far and this is what he gets:
           
                      "She (Katherine) had come to think of Bevis Pod as a sweet, clumsy,
                      rather useless person, someone who needed her to look after him, and
                     she suspected that that  was how the Historias all thought of him as well."
                                                                                                                - Chapter thirty-two

Katherine, you were planning to take down the 400+/- foot doomsday machine with a hammer. He was the one who suggested a bomb. And you only grow to respect him as you watch him make a bomb.

Problem #6:
The savvy, epic sky pirate who gets killed because she let the villain monologue instead of cutting to business.

Problem #7:
The hero learns....nothing about how his civilization's lifestyle could be wrong? Or at least he doesn't start questioning it at all? Even when he sees innocent people forced into slavery because of it?

Problem #8:
I'd like a little more info on these monstrous half-man-half-machine creatures, please. They're interesting, but sort of blurry on the details.

Problem #9:
It would have been 464364x more gripping if there had been a threat of the main characters being turned into said monsters for their 'crimes'.

Problem #10:
All motives were one-dimensional.

Problem #11:
The only two characters who were (a) intelligent and (b) cared for something besides themselves or dumb revenge missions DIED.

Problem #12:
(Okay, I hated it so much I don't care if I spoil it. You're welcome.)
The whole ending of "Everyone you once knew and loved is dead via nuclear explosion but at least *kiss * we're together."

Problem #13:
The doomsday device was destroyed by accident.

Problem #14:
The main villain was flat and boring and when he went completely insane, it was so absurd that it wasn't scary.

Problem #15:
Plot points were random and had no depth (other than perhaps some subtle message with the doomsday weapon being housed in St. Paul's Cathedral).

So in short:

Yeah. Save your eyes the reading and hope that Peter Jackson does a 180o of what he did to the Hobbit.