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Padme Amidala part one; why did the madonna/whore complex give this woman sharpshooting skills?

This is going to be part one of a two part post about the star wars prequel films (sorry in advance about that), specifically Padme and her role as the only important female character in the 90s triliogy. This post will talk about the first two films, and the next post will talk about the third and final film. Keep in mind that I did not see the prequel films until I was an adult (which is kind of weird, since the prequels have a lot more kid oriented jokes (from C3PO getting assembled wrong on the assembly line in film two and making a series of bad puns to everything about jar jar binks (which, as a side note, YIKES we dont stan racist comedy here, but the "humor" with him was clearly directed at kids)). That being said I think the three films over all are a hilarious product of the 90s and I'm not trying to start discourse about wether they're objectively good or bad-- they are both, and that's okay. What I'm interested in is Padme. The "Madonna"/"Whore" dicotemy is a freudian idea. I don't neccisarily believe that it happens with all men in real life, and I certainly don't think we should excuse it in real life, but I DO think it is previlant in writing, and the way female characters are written (both presently and in the past). The madonna/whore dicotemy basically boils down to the idea that men view women either as "good" virtuous people (the madonna, a maternal figure and an eternal virgin) whom they love but could never sexualize, OR as sexually interesting companions (the whore), whome they desire but could never love. This of course, in the real world is a bullshit excuse for putting women into patriarical boxes based on their outwards apperance and if any man ever gives you "well now I genuinely care about you so I feel like I can't sexualize you" it's time to go because that sexualization inherently included violence if he's now worried about thinking like that around you. There is plenty of feminist literature written about this concept and I highly reccomend a look into it because it's fascinating (try starting with even just the abstract for this paper: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-04940-001). However! What I'm here to talk about today is how writers unconciously use this dicotemy with their female characters, and why, specifically, when Padme gets graduated from Madonna to Whore in Attack of the Clones, she suddenly knows how to fight when she couldn't before. My aim is not to conclusively say why, because I've been analyzing these films for the past couple days and I still have no idea why, but rather just to bring the question up, and provide evidence, as it is a fascinating phenonmeon of the 90s that I feel many female characters got treated to (with Padme as a prime example). Lets talk about Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones and the Madonna/ Whore. In Phantom Menace we're introduced to Padme (Natalie Portman) as an intellegent diplomat. When she's not done up in her planet's traditional leader's dress, she's in long sleeved simple dresses, tights and braids. She wears natural make up in her "maid disguise" for which she is in ninty percent of the film, and in the famously creepy "tucking in anakin" scene she is for some reason in the whole royal maid getup which includes gloves and covering her hair. Cultural modesty for the royal maids was written in to the worldbuilding, but it seems to have been done larely so that they could get away with having Natalie Portman play young Padme in this film and not be "sexy" until film two in which she is teenage Padme. Padme plays an extremely maternal role for Anakin in Phantom Menace, from physically protecting him to the aformentioned tuck in scene at 1:19:30 where she quite literally tucks him in for bed. This of course has been analyzed all to hell already as exceedingly WEIRD because the two eventually marry and have children together (so the freud analysis here is valid). We'll take a quick break for a digression here on Padme's age. I've refered to her in Phantom Menace as "young Padme", but realistically she is just Portman minus the makeup she's allowed to wear in later films. We know that she's the "child-ruler" of her nation, but she also realistically feels like she's in her early teens in Phantom Menace, and is certainly treated like an adult by her peers; we see her throughout the film making decisions on foriegn policy, wartime politics and wartime sacrifices. Anakin was most definietly a child in the first film, and was replaced by an adult actor in the subsequent films as his character aged, and this difference makes it feel like there's a very large and very weird age gap between the two characters. But fully back to the matter at hand, Padme is a very maternal, modest character in Phantom Menace both in apperance and in dialouge, and she clearly establishes that she views Anakin as a child. In Attack of the Clones, when the romance plotline starts, suddenly Padme is allowed to be sexy (by 90s standards anyways). She gets jewlery, she gets makeup, and she gets a whole lot more ARMS and shoulders showing that she was previously allowed (specifically see 44:30 when they travel back to Naboo). Of course this is to coincide with her growing up, but the fact of the matter is that Padme gets to be attractive when the script calls for Anakin to be attracted to her. There are still some traditional queenly outfits, but by the time they're ready to go rescue Obi Wan, she's in a skin tight white jumpsuit (which eventually, at 1:47:06, becomes a crop top when a monster somehow slices her back and makes her entire shirt cut in half). For the next 15 minutes we then see Natalie portman running around in a white crop top while fighting). We get such lines from Anakin as "I am in agony... if you are suffering as much as I am, please, tell me" and "we could keep it a secret" at 55:10 in a darkly lit room with Padme's weird black leather dress and gloves combo. (Yes, I know Padme tells Anakin she doesn't want a relationship with him in this scene, but the scene's whole function is to establish why society says they shouldn't be together, but why Anakin is attracted to her anyways, and for this Padme is presented to the viewer as an inherently sexual object which Anakin can't have which A) gross but B) fits into the whore achetype of characterization). In both physical presentation and characterization Padme flips to the other end of the dicotemy and Attack of the Clones now gives us Whore Padme. The other huge character change that happens at the same time for Padme is her ability to fight. In Phantom Menace she's primarily a diplomat; she has a few moments of sprinting around and brandishing a weapon, but she almost never uses it. In Attack of the Clones we get a direct quote from her at 1:36:00 that she's "not interested in getting into a war" and that she'll find a "diplomatic solution out of this mess". However she then proceeds to pick the lock to her shackles, pick up a gun she's never used before, and fight off not just monsters, but also hold her own with the literal jedi against the enroaching droids. The movie leads up to this scene in terms of their relationship, and when Padme admits to Anakin that she loves him too she is somehow also graced with the ability to fight. Again, I'm not really sure why; my best guess is that the other female love interests of the 90s were extremely capable women (ie. good at things like fighting and even fighting in crop tops), and that the capable women who was still romantically submissive was so dominant of an archtype it just bled into her charactization without any writer stopping to consider that she's never cannonically been trained to fight like the jedi characters and therefor should be way out of her depth in this battle. I'm all for female character who are physically strong and capable (obviously), but having her develop fighting skills as a side effect of wearing sexier outfits is very weird writing. Padme of course goes back to falling off things and needing saving during the climax of the film and indeed she'll do it again in film three, but for this moment of romantic tension finally resolved and Padme fulling moving from motherly figure to sexy love interest, she can suddenly fight. Food for thought and I'd love to hear any suggestions as to why you think it might be.

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The movie twilight might be eh, but the soundtrack absolutely slaps

I will start this off by saying that this is in no way a hot new take. That twilight is an objectively bad movie with a good soundtrack is an opinion that has been expressed before, and will be expressed again, I’m sure, but I have some thoughts on it. (And when I say bad movie I’m not talking about the fact that it’s marketed primarily for preteen girls. Twilight the film receives a lot of hate for being “frivolous” and “contrite, which is an educated way of saying that it holds teenage girls attention well and nobody else’s— but this is an opinion largely routed in misogyny (thing made for teenage girl = stupid and meaningless” is a misogynist take) so that’s not why I’m saying it’s bad. I’m saying it’s bad because the dark and morally grey dialogue that s. Meyer was clearly going for never quite made it into the books, and then film version does an even weirder job of dialogue, so ultimately none of the characters talk like real people do, which makes for a very weird watch). HOWEVER. The soundtrack? Slaps. Soundtrack is excellent. Two paramore songs (two good paramore songs at that), linkin park, blue foundation AND muse? The songs are all objectively all bops of their time, AND they all tie in both aesthetically and thematically to the vibe of the Twilight story (which is, for those who do not know, a sort of modernized Wuthering Heights. A story about love that is as dark and possessive as it is ascendant and life changing. Eyes on Fire by Blue Foundation (“I'll seek you out/ Flay you alive/ One more word and you won't survive”) speaks immediately to the morbidity of the relationship, and both characters struggles to come to terms with Edward’s moral ambiguity. Although unlike Heathcliff, Edward’s moral ambiguity comes from his vampirism, the dark edge that comes from his past as a morally grey character is clearly heavily inspired. Decode by Paramore which apparently plays twice in the film, both the original and the acoustic cover (“The truth is hiding in your eyes/ And it's hanging on your tongue/ Just boiling in my blood/ But you think that I can't see/ What kind of man that you are/ If you're a man at all/ Well, I will figure this one out”) very clearly lends itself to Bella’s discovery of Edward’s darkness. If you’re making a movie about a girl finding out her lover is a vampire, Decode by Paramore is overall an excellent choice. The first two lines which are heard by the audience: “How can I decide what's right?/ When you're clouding up my mind” speak again to that possessive and destructive aspect of the romance in it’s all consuming nature. However the song that inspired this post is the absolute bop “Supermassive Black Hole” by muse. Objectively far too good of a song to be found in a movie about a girl finding out her lover is a vampire and yet.... somehow still aesthetically and thematically relevant to said film: (“Oh baby, don't you know I suffer?/ Oh baby, can you hear me moan?/ You caught me under false pretenses/ How long before you let me go?/ Ooh/ You set my soul alight”). Perhaps it’s a stretch or perhaps every top 40 love song includes longing and deception and love, but Supermassive Black Hole applies very well to a story about a vampire who is trying to keep himself away from the girl he loves lest he hurt her. All this to say that the person who did the music for Twilight clearly spent more time with the original book and the inspirations for the book than whoever wrote the script.

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This post will contain spoilers about the entirety of the Star Wars Christmas Special, if you’ve never seen it I HIGHLY recommend you do so with fresh, unknowing eyes because it is an absolute experience. Link here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hH8rxarVG8&t=1278s

This post will also contain spoilers for other Star Wars films, but if you've uhhh ever been on the internet you will have already seen such things.

We open on a black screen and a straight to TV movie announcer voice establishing that Chewie needs to get home to his family for life day (Wookiee Christmas). We seen Han and Chewie in the falcon for like, 5 seconds, and then we sit through 5 minutes of including an add for General Motors. Apparently Chewie’s father’s name is “Itchy”, his son’s name is “Lumpy”, but his wife gets the normal name of Mala.

Also, Chewie having a family completely changes the moral values of his character. Sure, after the events of the first film he’s involved in war so he has to be away, but before the first Star Wars film are we to presume that Chewie is a dead beat father who left his wife with their young son to go be a smuggler with Han? Or is the economy on the Wookiee planet so bad that this was a necessary move? Mala’s house seems quite middle class but perhaps that’s only because she’s been provided with Chewie’s smuggling money? But him and Han are in debt? Or is only Han in debt? There are a few ways this could shake out but it’s more likely than not that Chewie willingly chose a life where he rarely sees his kid, Lumpy (I can’t type Lumpy without laughing) and, what the hell, man?

!!! After writing this I remembered than Chewie has a life debt to Han as of the recent Solo movie canon. So in fact it is Han who's dragged this poor man away from his family and allows him to visit only once a year. The questions about the wookie economy remain however.

Then we get like ten minutes of the three Wookiees speaking Wookiee to one another with no subtitles. This will set the tone for the film, I’m afraid. Lumpy watches a hologram circus for a few minutes and then refuses the do the dishes. Mala checks the TRAFFIC report even though Chewie and Han are? In space? And being chased by imperials? And then skypes Luke on a hidden tv that seems to be just for Skyping Luke’s garage.

Luckily for us, Luke is in his garage, in an orange jumpsuit and ten pounds of eyeshadow. He’s condescending to the Wookiees for about 5 minutes while staring directly into the camera and not blinking and then tells Mala to smile which she does, in a terrifying manner, and then I guess Mark Hamill had to go because something explodes in his garage and then Skype connection is conveniently lost. (And no, we don’t ever check on him until the final scene, which is more likely than not a communal drug trip and not an actual confirmation that Luke is okay).

Mala checks the traffic again and this time gets direct footage of the Wookiee planet trading post? There, a discount Vader says “I hate fish” very passionately, after being handed a minuscule aquarium which is just apparently for if you want a pet fish you can keep in your pocket at all times?  

We cut directly to actual Vader, who says he’s going to search “every household in the system for the rebels”. The implication here is that this could ruin Mala’s Life Day, which is HILARIOUS because what about the other implications of Vader having enough men to search “every household in the system”?

We cut directly from the enemy starship to mala cooking. Not in a juxtaposition way, but in a “we forgot what genre this film is”, “four minutes of Chinese medical drama inserted into iron man three for the Chinese release” kind of way.

(https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.hollywoodreporter.com/amp/news/iron-man-3-china-scenes-450184)

Mala watches a cooking show which features a British drag queen, and Chewie and Han fight a handful of imperial fighters in the middle of nowhere in space.

An imperial soldier skypes the Chewbacca residence reminding them that he’ll be coming around to look for rebels (and WHY is Chewie coming home if he’s going to endanger his family?) The guy who runs the trading post arrives with a part so they can tell him about how Chewie’s late. He also makes Chewie’s wife kiss him on the cheek which is.... a little weird. Lumpy gets a present that’s basically space lego, Mala gets some sort of sewing machine and old man Itchy gets a virtual reality headset that shows him 10 minutes of some lady in space posing, whispering and singing erotically and saying things like “I am your fantasy, I am your pleasure”. Which we of course have to watch as well for 10 minutes. Occasionally we cut back to Itchy’s face in the VR and he is concerning my into it.

As one review aptly pointed out “I wonder what Chewie’s father fantasizes about is not one of the things I wanted to know after watching A New Hope”.

Sexy space hologram actually has quite a powerful singing voice, but watching old man Itchy watch VR erotica while Han and Chewie are fighting for their lives is.... weird.

We immediately cut to Leia and C3PO who Skype in the Wookiee residence. Leia ends up speaking to the guy who runs the trading post who’s.... still at Mala’s house, because she’d rather speak English than have C3PO translate for Mala and her. Leia decides Mala is in “good hands” with this trading post guy, and Carrie Fisher’s first cameo is over.

They turn on the TV and an imperial reminds them that he’ll be coming around soon to check their houses for rebels (why is Chewie coming home if he’s a wanted man here?). As the man on the tv says this him and storm troopers show up at the door (so I guess it was recorded). There’s some casual anti-Wookiee racism and then they guy from the trading post covers for them by saying the husband of the house ran out after a fight. The imperials decide to wait for the man of the house.

The trading post guy shows them mala’s sewing machine which is, in fact, a small tv shaped like a sewing machine. We watch the imperial soldier watch a music video on the mini tv. This goes on for 6 minutes and even I skipped ahead.

The music video is so dope the imperials deicide they’re going to leave, and then they don’t. And then they search upstairs. The leader loudly announces he wants them to find evidence to connect this house to the alliance (even though they don’t even know chewy lives here, I guess they just don’t like Lumpy and Itchy?)

One of them nearly shoots Lumpy just for being annoying (which, fair, his childish Wookiee noises are annoying as hell). Mala turns on a cartoon for him, which is A CARTOON ABOUT THE REBEL ALLIANCE, which Lumpy then watches WHILE THE IMPERIALS ARE IN THE HOUSE SEARCHING IT I...???

And also when was a cartoon about the rebels produced and how was it distributed when the empire is still in charge. It’s only been a few months since the distraction of the Death Star— even if they were going to make a propaganda cartoon about the rebel leaders wouldn’t they? Make it about what happened? Why make a cartoon about events that didn’t happen?

Also the cartoon just feels like somebody by was vaguely described the original Star Wars franchise while drunk.

Boba Fett is in the cartoon too, for some reason, and is actively working with the empire as opposed to Jaba.

The imperials search through ONLY Lumpy’s room, and find nothing (who would hide their rebel alliance stuff in their kid’s room anyways?) Mala is undisturbed by this destruction, happy that Lumpy will be busy cleaning for a bit, which is pretty fucking cold if you ask me.

Then we get to the famous instruction tape scene. Lumpy watches an instructional video for a “transmitter” part that does not exist in real life and we watch him watch it for 8 minutes.

We switch to an “imperial made” program about the moral evils of Tatooine, which is actually a short rom-com about the canteena. This naturally spirals into an anti-empire musical number.

Chewie and Han arrive just in time to save Lumpy from a stormtrooper and then Han tells Chewie’s family they’re “like family to him” with the deadest eyes and they all stare at each other for an uncomfortably long amount of time.

Mala and Chewie have as sentimental of a reunion as two Wookiees can have. We transition directly from the threat of the empire to the Wookiee family of four holding their life day candles which, of course, cues up the weird psychedelic music video that is all the Wookiees of the planet singing silently and then walking slowly in their red robes through space into the light.

The Wookiees of the planet then, all sharing this fever dream together, greet in front of the great tree to murmur and hold their candles. Unclear whether there was a quick costume change or if they’re all astral projecting together. We get a small speech from C3P0 and then the main trio absolutely steal the spotlight, with Leia singing a long song and Han staring into the middle ground like he has no idea where he is. The Wookiees, whose holiday this is, get to say basically nothing. A Wookiee baby seems to have been baptised, but it’s unclear. Leia also stands next to Chewie and pets his chest weirdly even though we have literally just spent the last hour and a half establishing that he’s a married man. As the Wookiees all gather at the tree, Chewie has a flashback that basically recounts the first film, including events he was not present for.

Chewie and his three family members pray over life day dinner, and credits roll over the drawing of his house.

So what does all this actually change about the Star Wars canon? Not much, especially considering that the actors involved genuinely refuse to admit that it ever happened. It was an obvious cash grab after the success of the first film, that much is obvious. But it does imply a few things about the characters in canon, and it has created a few good memes.

The implications:

- Han is a uncle-ish figure to Chewie's kid, despite being a terrible influence

- The economy on the wookie homeplanet is NOT GOOD considering they only have one trading post. Either nobody has thought of the concept of exporting raw materials like all the funky trees with funky lumber that they have, or the empire is just exporting what they need without paying the wookies anything.

- Either Han or Chewie is responsible for Chewie's kid having an absent father figure.

- Leia learned how to sing at one point

- Between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back when they reach Hoth Luke went to live somewhere with a garage? Instead of training for imminent war? And Han and Chewie fucked off to go back to smuggling.

- Leia is like, a little racist? Possibly unconsciously because of her upbringing? But she calls Chewbacca's house to say hello and then when no English speakers are there says she might as well go despite having a translator. Which is weird because as a diplomat you would think she'd sit through translated conversations all the time.

- Owning a pet fish is still a thing in the future. (If you're about to say "actually it's all set in the past, not the future, because it says "a long time ago"!" screw off, you know what I mean).  

- VR softcore porn exists.

- Hair metal, as a musical genre still exists.

- There is a cartoon about Luke, Leia and Han in canon which presumably Luke, Leia and Han would be able to watch.

- The empire is able to keep tabs on how many Wookiees live in each residence on the Wookiee home planet, but are not able to keep tabs on which Wookie it was that was spotted with the rebels.

- Han is even more of an asshole in A New Hope than previously established, because he says he doesn't by into religion and that anyone who does is stupid but he KNOWS Chewbacca is a religious man, and Chewie is sitting right there.

The memes:

- THIS lovely face from Lumpy:

- The Wookies all walking into the light.

- Mark Hamill not blinking for 5 straight minutes.

- Bantha Loin.

- Life day itself.

- and of course, Harrison Ford denying this movie ever existed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7TGWOHTdac

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Yuri Katsuki does a better, more nuanced job of the "clumsy girl" trope than any female character I've ever seen

I will start this off by saying that I DO NOT think the 2016 anime about figure skating "Yuri!!! On Ice" is in any way "good cinema". It's 90% fanservice, fetishization of mlm relationships, and one 16 year old antagonist/ comic relief character being way over-sexualized (Plisetsky, where are your parents?)*.

It has some problems to say the least and I'm certainly not here to hype it up as an example of good writing or an example of good representation.

HOWEVER, Yuri Katsuki's character (the main character of the show) does an interesting thing by very closely conforming to what I would describe as the stereotype of the "clumsy girl".

My childhood and teen years were FULL of "makeover stories". Of narratives in which a nerdy, clumsy, bookish girl gets a makeover by the popular kids, gets contacts instead of glasses, and suddenly becomes a member of this societal elite, escaping former bullying. From the music video for "Last Friday Night" by Katy Perry, to (the classic) Mean Girls, to the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer, to the Heather's Musical (although Heather's pokes a bit of fun at this trope and how popularity might not work out for you), narratives about a dorky girl who suddenly gets swept up by somebody popular and "taught" how to "be" popular permeated my youth.

Besides just giving my entire generation the incorrect impression that glasses had to be taken off in order of the makeover to be complete, these stories had the strange reverse effect of appealing to girls who felt like they were the "before" of the makeover. If Bella Swan, self described as "too clumsy to play badminton without sustaining an injury" and "too awkward to have friends" could be swept off her feet by the hottest vampire in town because he saw something in her, then there was hope for the rest of us. This sort of idea of "potential" untapped permeates the genre, because the clumsy girl was always pretty, she just needed to take off her glasses, put on some makeup, and gain some self-confidence.

The concept of "untapped potential" is also quite prevalent in the world of sports anime. Again, this makes sense, since a story about a winning athlete just continuing to win would be boring, so naturally works within this genre often start with the athlete at their lowest, and then follow them on their journey to a comeback or newfound fame. The mentor character who gives the athlete life-changing advice is also a staple, and it's easy to see how that mentor character might be similar to Regina George holding the makeup brush in "Mean Girls".

However, the creators of "Yuri on Ice" seemed to want their (questionably fetishizing) romance to over conform to the genre standards so they drop-kicked the mentor character archetype out the window and had Yuri's dreamy coach do much more makeover-ing than athlete-training. Some of this rests at the intersection of the fact that the sport of choice in the series is figure-skating, where your image matters quite a lot, and Viktor being implied to be in love with our fair protagonist Yuri**, but neither of these aspects fully explain how well the writers made this sports anime series fit into the "makeover" genre instead of the "sports anime" genre.

But back to Yuri Katsuki himself. In the first episode, we see him crying in a bathroom. We learn that he has serious issues with self-confidence in his sport and his personal life, and that this materializes in insecurity about his weight. Episode one Yuri fits nearly every aspect of the "clumsy girl" trope: he's socially awkward, quiet, and... well, clumsy. He narrates a lot of the first episode with his own voice, saying he's "a dime a dozen skater" and "totally awkward", a kind of self-narration reminiscent of Bella Swan. While the other characters are dressed in modern clothes, Yuri's in an oversized, comfortable sweater, and has a generally very outdated wardrobe. He doesn't seem to care about how the world perceives him, (or more likely won't make an effort because he's afraid of rejection). Were he a female character, this is what I would call the "not like other girls" trope. We immediately elevate him to a pedestal as the viewers because he's relatable, and in comparison, the other characters seem to be trying too hard. While this is not as prevalent in male characters from the time (because the other male characters surrounding them are rarely well dressed except for maybe one jock the viewers are supposed to hate), it's hard to find a piece of media between 2014 and 2016 with a female lead without this opposition of "main character can't dress but all other female characters are well dressed, clearly they're try-hards." (Ironic, because that main character is about to be well dressed after their makeover, but I digress).

(Yes, this is an issue that's been in media for a long time and will be for a long time still, and yes there are plenty of good examples of stories where the male main character is just "not like other boys" and has to compete in a world where the other boys are all well dressed, but cases of writers doing this to their female characters SKYROCKETED in the few years while I was a younger teen and it was slightly ridiculous).

Anyways, Yuri is insecure and undressed. But he has a heart of gold! Who can help?

Enter mentor character Viktor (who is.... very naked for some reason. Mitsurou Kubo, was that really necessary to subject my eyeballs to?). Viktor is the epitome of high class. He's good-looking, rich, and successful at his sport, and we're told that Yuri has personally idolized him for a long time. While not exactly a Regina George, he does present his offer to help Yuri in a way that implies that Yuri would be a fool not to accept his help; he's the best of the best and he knows it, he's used to hearing it.

Over the next few episodes Yuri is basically forced into a position acting outside his comfort zone preforming a figure skating routine called "Eros". There's a weird but somewhat comedic moment where a frazzled Yuri, hard-pressed to explain what the concept of eros means to him, says that eros means his favourite food, pork katsudon. While comedic, it is to me the very epitome of "clumsy girl": while other female characters might be alluring in their experience, the clumsy girl is appealing to the love interest and appealing to the male gaze because she doesn't "get it", she's not tangled up in the politics of sex like many female characters are written to be, she's different. (I could talk for hours about how problematic this aspect of the "clumsy girl" trope is, the implication that childishness/ lack of experience is attractive is so gross, but I will spare you).

As a whole, this fanservicy nonsense is fairly par for the course, but it's two aspects of the journey to completing the "Eros" program that interests me. We see him eventually go to his friend, who is a dance teacher, and ask her for help on how to move more femininely. This in part is a nod towards his future realization of his sexuality (or not, depending on whether you watched it before or after they retconed his and Viktor's relationship). But as his dance teacher friend shows him how to move with confidence, he fulfills one of the first steps of getting the clumsy girl makeover: somebody shows him how to move in a "sexy" way, and he is miraculously no longer clumsy. The other thing about this figure skating program is his literal makeover: as Regina George had given to Katy before them, Viktor gives Yuri one of his old outfits, which symbolizes the high-class and success that he's supposedly preparing Yuri for. Yuri switches his glasses for contacts (an iconic aspect of the trope), slicks back his hair, and is suddenly more confident.  

As the show progresses Yuri gains more confidence, symbolized not just by his body language but also by his clothing and presentation. He meets a fan of his and has a character changing moment when he realizes that he has a fan who idolizes him like he once idolized Viktor. This realization of new societal power is often a turning point for the clumsy girl finally feeling like she has self-worth, and indeed, Yuri immediately ties a new sense of self-worth to the knowledge that he has fans.

After quite a lot of figure skating animation, fanservice, and a weird subplot about a poodle, Yuri finds a sense of self-worth in the life he's building for himself as a member of "high society" and leader in his sport, no longer relying on outside validation. This, I think is the part that differs from other clumsy girl stories.

Why is this interesting? I think because I'm so very used to seeing female characters get shallow character development in the form of taking their glasses off, letting their hair down, and suddenly being hot, and male characters getting character development in the form of working out in a montage to the eye of the tiger and then getting hot. Despite Yuri basically only doing what female characters often do to become "popular" and no longer nerdy, his character development feels genuine, fuller, and less shallow. For him, his new look genuinely ties to internal character development, whereas in media with women it's usually all about the looks, and the assumption that a changed style must equal a changed character.

Bella Swan from Twilight, Katy from Mean Girls, and Veronica from Heathers all experienced a makeover and new look and implied character development because of a rise in social status (whether they asked for it or not), but ultimately all of them realized the popularity was not what was important to them and they went back to how they "looked" before to symbolize their identity and values shifting back to what they were at the beginning. Yuri ends the series in the fanciest suit we've seen him in yet, dancing with Viktor and excited about the prospects his new high-society life will present him with. His transformation into being self-confident is genuine, and his changing appearance was just a reflection of that internal transformation. Ultimately, I think this plotline is what the original genre of "clumsy girl gets makeover was aiming for", because it is what's most appealing to the viewer: genuine growth and happiness. But all the female "clumsy girl" stories I've seen fell flat of that in one way or another, leading me to very much dislike the trope until "Yuri on Ice" quite accidentally did a good job of it.

* to anyone who's seen this show: yes, I do know what is implied to have happened to Yurio's parents. I'm just a) quoting that vine where the kid goes "wouldn't you like to know, weatherboy" and the reporter goes "where are your parents?" and b) I'm mad that this over-sexualization of Yurio (even within the plot of the series) is something that happens relentlessly to young female characters who've "carved out a place for themselves in an adult world" and also apparently happens to effeminate (implied to be queer) male characters who have done the same thing, and that's not cool either.

**For the sake of my sanity I'll say implied, because though they kiss onscreen, there is apparently much room for debate. The original Japanese cut had them exchange engagement rings near the end of the series, but then both the Japnese version and the English dubbed version ended up having them show off their rings and say "look at our friendship rings". (Ah yes, because I love wearing a matching gold band on my left ring finger with my buddy to show the world what good homies we are (/sarcasm.))

As an interesting aside, in an Uno reverse card moment, the "clumsy girl" trope was made for the male gaze (proof: any trope that talks that much about women putting on less clothing and suddenly becoming hot is 1000% for the male gaze), and was accidentally latched onto by teenage girls. Yuri on Ice was made for the teenage girl gaze (proof: the fetishization of queer men, the pre-existing "boy love" genre that's so popular it has a name), and accidentally fell into the trope of the "clumsy girl".

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y/a literature is valid, and you can fight me on it

I had a student in my creative writing lecture this morning insist upon the idea that "literary" writing is, has always been, and will always be, superior to genre writing, and that genre writers are simply impersonating the importance of literary writers but will never be as important.

And the prof. agreed with him.

This frustration of mine is not to say that I don't think literary writing is important or excellent, I know it to be both. And indeed, when I questioned this student on his opinion in the open discussion, his first and only point was that I had probably never read the literary works he was talking about and thus shouldn't be allowed to speak at all on the topic. I got to rattle off the titles of the Ernest Hemingway, the Virginia Woolfe, the H. G. Wells ect ect that he had been referenced in the past fifteen minutes and watch his face drop, which was quite enjoyable. Only then was I allowed to get another few sentences in without being talked over (which quite frankly the prof. should've moderated, but that's a story for another day).

My main problem with the idea of literary writing being better, (besides the notion being classist, obviously), is that "better" in that context is wholly unquantifiable.

And I think this is relevant to the way we talk about film too. We talk a lot about "high art" film versus "low art" film and the idea of festival films versus popular media, but all these notions tie closely to the debate that is continually going on in regards to books.

The "better" here is only in that literary writing requires a certain amount of thought and consideration to consume, as opposed to genre writing, which takes less concentration. But this assessment doesn't even begin to account for the fact that people read for different reasons. While many people do read to become more educated, to introduce themselves to new ways of thinking, to new connections (in which case of course literary writing is the better fit), many people read for entertainment, to experience a story (in which genre writing is clearly better, since statistically, more young adult fiction novels are purchased each year than anything else).

In this context young adult fiction novels are clearly the "better" pursuit for young writers, since they are in most demand by people.

But this just circles back to notions of class and education making for "better" people that are pretty inescapable in today's society. Instead I want to take a second to think about film.

This student claimed that all genre writing and film is overdone, using the example: "if I've seen one zombie film, I've seen them all." This is a fair assessment in some ways, as I often lament how Hollywood choses only the stories they know will make money, with reboots and a favouritism for the same handful of archetypes. I often complain about "bad movies" and my main complaint is the over use of cliche, and the surprises that are really all that surprising (a Hollywood preference for obvious surprise instead of inevitable surprise, if you will).

However! "If I've seen one zombie film, I've seen them all", has been itching at my brain since he said it, and all I can think about is Sang-ho Yeon's "Train to Busan". "Train to Busan" is a zombie film, but it is also touching and brilliantly made (a good movie in it's own right), and has a core message about what it means to be human that is illustrated through it's narrative (which is, ironically, the main thing we discuss when we talk about "literary" writing).

While it's true that on a small level (characters, events, motivations) uniqueness is key to a good story, that might not be true always on the larger level of "genre". It's no longer sufficient to sit back on a high-horse of literary authorship and claim that every piece of a certain genre is cliche, just because cliches exist about that genre.

There is way more overlap between what is considered literary and what is considered popular (both in writing and film), than that student in my class was assuming. And there is a validity both in creating "high art" works that expand the mind, and popular works that are meant to immerse and entertain, because there are elements of pre-established genre that sneak into "high art" (just look at H. G. Wells' speculative fiction, aka sci-fi), and there are elements of literary enlightenment to be found in genre works.

Zombie movies can be good, Young Adult literature can be good, and there is no kudos to be had for trying to put yourself as a writer above others.

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I should point out that while I love The Witcher in all it's adaptations, I think both the books and surprisingly the video games BOTH did a better job of addressing the politics the lead characters often find themselves entangled in. I love what Netflix did with Jaskier (turning him into an ambiguous character who simply loves to talk and make new friends, as opposed to the book canon original character who was a queer-coded comedy relief character who wouldn't take no as an answer from women about flirting since the books were written in the 50s), however Netflix also made him startlingly stupid, instead of just a jokester, and totally unaware of the political climate he resides in, which doesn't make a ton of sense given his profession (bard).

lyrics:

When a humble bard

Graced a ride along

With Geralt of Rivia

Along came this song

I mean, first of all, all I can think about is this meme template:

Not really sure you can call yourself humble when your about to sing a set of songs about how cool you are.

When the White Wolf fought

A silver-tongued devilHis army of elves

At his hooves did they revel

This

is what concerns me. Geralt and Jaskier

do

fight both a devil and several elves, but the devil and elves have become reluctant allies in an effort not to be run out of the area by the human civilization. The elves are not reveling at his hooves, because, contrary to popular human belief, devils aren't all powerful. Also implying that it was an army of elves is just stirring anti-elf fear in the human population. There's a stereotype that the elves are always waiting in huge numbers in the woods, just lying in wait to break through and kill humans and that's why the humans need to keep vigilant against them, when in reality the elves are scattered and struggling to survive. Stirring anti-elf fear in this political climate is super problematic.  

They came after meWith masterful deceitBroke down my lute andThey kicked in my teeth

They only came after you because you were stomping around the bit of land they have for living on the edge of the world.

While the devil's hornsMinced our tender meatAnd so cried the Witcher"He can't be bleat!"

Goat pun is very fitting to the original character, so I appreciate that.

Toss a coin to your Witcher

O Valley of Plenty!

O Valley of Plenty!

Toss a coin to your Witcher

O Valley of Plenty!

This is the part everybody remembers, which is good, because it's the politically helpful part of the song. He's reminding people that Witchers are an important part of their society, and that they can't expect such an important profession to work for free. Kind of in line with a general context in the story about "dirty" jobs-- the ruling class wants them done, but they also want to discriminate against those that do them, which is not cool.

At the edge of the world

Fight the mighty hoard

That bashes and breaks you

And brings you to mourn

Alright yeah that's just implying that there are a ton of elves at the edge of the world that are waiting to kill humans which is not true.

He thrust every elf

Far back on the shelf

High up on the mountain

From whence it came

Geralt does not, in fact, push back elves into territory on the edge of the world. He continually negotiates land claims so everybody has enough to live, but humans want to hear that he's on the side of humans and will fight against the elves. So TV Jaskier tells them that he's anti-elf and on the "side" of humans, because it's what they want to hear. But book Jaskier would be far more aware of the political climate and not stir up hate like that, even at the price of trying to make Geralt look good.

He wiped out your pest

Got kicked in his chest

He's a friend of humanity

So give him the rest

Yikes don't even get me started on "your pest". It could be talking about the monsters Geralt kills for a living, but in this context it sounds like it's talking about elves. The book version of Jaskier would know better than to refer to an entire marginalized group of people as "a pest", he would know that is horrible. Especially considering that he's singing these songs in predominantly human towns where anti-elf sentiment runs rampant.

That's my epic tale

Our champion prevailed

Defeated the villain

Now pour him some ale

"Defeated the villain" is again problematic. If only Jaskier had written this song within the context of Geralt fighting literally anything else. Geralt routinely kills actual monsters, whose rights are not up for debate because they have the consciousness capacity of animals, not humans.

Toss a coin to your Witcher

O Valley of Plenty!

O Valley of Plenty!

Toss a coin to your Witcher

A friend of humanity(x 10) My hope is that because language differs canonically in the Witcher universe between places, the people can only understand this main chorus which Jaskier then repeats like ten times. The real Jaskier would've been politically aware enough to write this song about something like a manticore. Or drowners. 

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Adaptations of Old Stories

I watched "Atanarjuat (the Fast Runner)" (2000) by Zacharias Kunuk yesterday for my Canadian Cinema class (film 3401), and it's got me thinking about modern adaptations of old stories.

Folkloric legends have inspired many a film adaptation, but some (ie. arthurian tales), have been done over and over well while others have been done over and over terribly, and still others have been passed over by adaptation writers. "Atanarjuat" is a story that comes out of Inuit legend, and works amazingly well a film because of its strong, visual narrative. It was filmed in Inuktitut and directed by Inuit filmmakers and is viewable in Inuktitut, with English subtitles, making it a groundbreaking film. Besides the strength of the narrative and the visual appeal of its sweeping, epic nature, I think part of the reason "Atanarjuat" resonates strongly with a multicultural audience is that, just like old stories from anywhere else in the world, the main themes of "Atanarjuat" include universal values, like resilience, loyalty, and trust.

"Atanarjuat" also obviously comes out of a tradition I am not a part of. Although I am now very interested in seeing more films by Zacharias Kunuk and the studio that "Atanarjuat" came out of, the stories there are  Inuit ones and should continue to be told by Inuit filmmakers.

A story that is from a background I belong to is the aforementioned King Arthur. Although there have been a billion retellings of the knights of the round table, I still find myself drawn to the story, and wanting to retell it. I think, interestingly enough, that it would apply itself well to an "Avenger's" style series, with solo films for each of the six main knights, and then a crossover film they meet at Camelot and come to be under the employ of Arthur. Many of the "original" arthurian tales fit a set up like the Marvel Canon Universe-- there were origin stories for many of the knights, and then there'd be stories with all the knights together, and then there'd be solo stories where certain knights had to go off on different quests to prove themselves or get something for Arthur ect. ect. "Original" is the operative word here, since many different authors are considered "original" sources for the arthurian canon, with the first mention of King Arthur and Mordred being a "historical document", and the first mention of Uther Pendragon at Arthur's father being in a collection of English tales. Lancelot was added many years later by a frenchman who wrote essentially his own adaptation of the stories, and at the time, wasn't considered "an official character of the canon" (of course today he is considered official to the original story). With such blurry source material and modernly applicable morals, it's easy to see why we keep adapting these stories, but I think a series of films (as wildly unrealistic as that proposal actually is), would probably be truest to form of the originals, and tell the story well. As a bonus to this "Arthurian Canon Universe" proposal, it's worth noting that Avalon is somewhat the same as England, but not really, and so the physical descriptions of the knights really can vary to allow for more diversity onscreen, since there's no reason they need to look English if Avalon is only kind of England.

The other story I want to talk about is Beowulf. It's an epic poem, and the first piece of fictional literature to be written down in the Anglo-Saxon language. It originated as an oral poem, and its narrative is one of grand proportions. It's told in groups of threes, and would apply itself wonderfully to film. (I've read it twice, so I will summarize it quickly). A king and his people in Denmark are being terrorized by a monster that attacks at night and rips its victims to shreds. Because of an old agreement, the Geats send over a young hero, named Beowulf, and a group of his men. He kills the monster in the Danish great feast hall and hangs its arm over the door. The next night, the monster's mother hears of this and (because it is her blood right), challenges her sons killer to a fight to the death or she'll kill all the people. Beowulf travels to her underwater lair and fights her and wins. He goes home to the Geats and becomes king for many years, but then hears of a dragon that is burning the countryside and goes to fight it. He wins, but dies in battle. Because it originated as an oral story, there seems to be add-ons to the original tale of Beowulf versus the monster terrorizing the Danes. Despite this winding aspect to the narrative, it think it could easily be written either into one epic-feeling script, two scripts (with the first two monsters in film one, and the dragon in film two), or into three films with a monster battle per film (if plot and context and travel was written in). I think the themes of Beowulf -- be brave, be honest, be loyal -- translate well into current values, even if the customs of the characters are old fashioned.

I was startled to realize there have been two notable film adaptations of Beowulf that I have never seen, one in 1999 and one in 2007. (And as I went to double check those dates, I realized the 2007 version was co-written by Neil Gaiman one of my favourite writers, so clearly I will have to watch it at some point). From what I can ascertain, neither of them had sticking cultural memory because neither of them were very well liked. The 1999 version was set in a post apocalyptic world and had a weird forced romance between the original king and a monster, and also between Beowulf and a character who didn't exist in the original. The 2007 version was made in some sort of terrifying uncanny valley cgi motion capture and had the monster's mother be naked cgi Angelina Jolie. In both versions, they leave out the final battle with the dragon, and in both versions it's implied that Beowulf has sex with the monster's mother (the 2007 one more graphically). Neither of these films at all captured the basics of the story: epic journey, hero of outstanding honour and valour, hero fighting evil monsters. And I don't think it's because those things are no longer what audiences like in a story-- both of the writers for the adaptations just made weird choices about how they were going to change the narrative and characters.

Epic fantasy with a hero of valour fighting monsters (not for the reward of a king's daughter, and not because he wants to have sex with the monsters, but just because the monsters are evil and he wants to bring peace to the land) is still a narrative in high demand, and although I am planning to watch both film adaptations of Beowulf, I think a proper adaptation is still in order sometime in the near future.

source:

https://www.nfb.ca/film/atanarjuat_the_fast_runner_en/

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I spent so much time making Darcy Adara not a manic pixie dream girl that I think she became something worse

I started writing "After" in late 2015. Five years later it's an abandoned draft, but it is the first novel I've ever successfully written the full draft of. I've made several attempts at editing it, but it's not gone anywhere.

However, that's not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the main character of After: Darcy Adara. A girl from small town Canada with her wits and a pocket knife against the forces of heaven on a mission to save humanity. While she's more cliché than any character I hope to write these days, I maintained up until about 10 minutes ago that she was a good character, at least for 15 year old me, who's bookshelf was still mostly full of John Green and various YA fantasy.

But after thinking the other week about John Green and my fascination and then strong aversion to the "manic pixie dream girl"s that filled his books, I think I went so far to the polar opposite with Darcy that I ended up with basically the same thing. Allow me to explain.

John Green's girls are alienating to actual young female readers because of this obsession with their "quirkiness" and "differentness". They have an obsession with art or collecting bones or hell.... Italian architecture. Something that makes them intelligent but unapproachable and unrelatable. They're more interesting than you because of all their quirks, and they know it. So instead of Italian architecture or bones or any form of art, I made Darcy a boxer, a survivalist. She knew a ridiculous amount about outdoorsmanship and surviving in the wild (a good thing to know if you're a character in an apocalyptic novel, but not necessary). I thought I was subverting the trope of young adult heroines by giving her an interest that John Green's girls would never choose.

But her knowledge of natural disasters ended up being just as much of a "quirky quirk" as anything else, because it wasn't just an aspect of her character, it was the reason her character was fundamentally "more interesting" than the other characters. I unconsciously used it to put other female characters down, ultimately falling into the trap of having her male love interest tell her she was "not like other girls" because she was so smart about what really mattered-- staying level headed in a natural disaster crisis. (And as John Green and his era of Young Adult fiction writers have taught us, anytime a girl character is desirable because she's "not like other girls", something is wrong. Your female characters should not only be interesting and intelligent because all other females are uninteresting and unintelligent-- "you're not like other girls" is inherently problematic).

I didn't want Darcy to be a flighty, thin, feminine girl like the manic pixie dream girl, so instead she was level headed, muscly, and masculine (although arguably her androgyny could also have something to do with my own non binary identity but.... back on topic). Instead of being the girl elevated above others in John Green books, she was a confident tomboy. But I then elevated her above other girls in her own way.  I described her as the only one capable of doing what she was doing. She never accepted help from other girl characters, she could do it herself. The girl character placed opposite her was hyper feminine and ditzy as hell, and those two things blended into each other.

What was intended to be a strongly feminist character ended up being put on the same kind of unapproachable and unrelatable pedestal as John Green's girls.

If I were to rewrite her story, I'd keep her tomboyish tendencies, but I'd make them an aspect of her character, not a defining characteristic. I'd include her knowledge of outdoorsmanship and natural disasters, but again: I'd make them an aspect of her character, not a defining characteristic. Her character needs to come not from an interest of hers, or her style, but from core characteristics, like courage, and determination. Her mannerisms need to come from her background, her upbringing and the values instilled by that upbringing.

And the story would need to be restructured. The ditzy character is a misogynistic characture, she needs to go. The love interest needs to love her not because she's so unlike the majority of women, but because he thinks women are awesome regardless of their interests and happens to like this one for who she is as a person. The other female characters, even if they're not as important to the plot as her, need to be just as important to their own goals and lives as she is to hers. Darcy would need to be re-presented as the headstrong, stubborn as hell hero I intended her to be. A tough girl from small town Canada, with an introverted dad and a mom she's never met. A problem solver with a fascination for the earth. A girl with a short fuse who has a hard time starting conversations with people she doesn't know, but does it anyways. A loudmouth. She can still be a scrappy heroine with only her wits and a pocket knife against the forces of heaven on a mission to save humanity, but she needs proper substance behind that of who is: to herself and the other people in her life and history.

[houseplant-central]

Tuesday, Oct. 20th

I'm behind on posting blog posts. I keep sitting down to write, and abandoning it halfway because I want it to be good writing, and I'm always too burnt out to do that after a day of classwork. I started doing just that tonight, and gave up in favour of listening to music on autoplay on youtube. Instead of good writing, here's the kind of writing that the music that youtube is autoplaying makes me want to do.

Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy - Queen: Honestly, no new ideas here, this song just makes me think of Good Omens by Neil Gaiman which in itself is excellent writing.

Ophelia - The Lumineers: This song feels like it should give cute coming of age road trip story inspiration, but it's making me think of a modern day Hamlet adaptation (with much lower stakes obviously) and some sort of conversation between Horatio and Ophelia about their shared care for Hamlet.

Hayloft - Mother Mother: This song makes me want to write sticky summer romance-- cotton candy at the summer fair, cotton candy, tall socks, teenage romance. It reminds me of living in the country with no air-conditioning, lying flat on my back on the hardwood floor as the sun set, listening to music from the radio, trying to stay cool.

Her Sweet Kiss- The Witcher Soundtrack: Anything from this soundtrack makes me want to write fantasy. Sweeping landscapes, epic battle fantasy. The instrumental flourishes also specifically makes me want to write dancing in a fantasy pub, with skirts twirling and riding boots thumping against the floor in time to the jig.

Do I Wanna Know - Arctic Monkeys: This song is difficult to separate from my own memories associated with it. I suppose though it makes me want to write something dark. Something that takes place in the backrooms of the big city, with buildings towering over small characters as they find themselves pulled further and further into a plot outside their control. It makes me want to write something with an intelligent antagonist, leaning back in their chair as they smoke a cigarette and smile.

Snap Out Of It - Arctic Monkeys: This song just makes me want to write Suits (2011- 2019) but unfortunately that show already exists, so.... I'm joking. It does remind me of the aesthetic though. This song makes me want to write about long glances where there shouldn't be any, where both parties look away quickly upon coming to their senses. It makes me want to write crying in the bathroom, pressed collars and disposable coffee cups.

The Less I Know The Better - Tame Impala: This song makes me want to write a proper coming of age novel. One that includes running around drunk after dark, throwing things into the ocean and perhaps a house party or two that includes colour changing lights. It makes me want to film high school emotions that are all in the characters hands, eyes and smiles. All in their messy hair and soft clothes and book bag swung over one shoulder-- coming of age that focuses on what high school physically feels like.

The Wolf - Siamés: This song makes me want to write monsters. Monsters that hide among humans, monsters that lurk in the forrest. It makes me want to write the pounding heartbeat of a character who has abruptly found themselves in the territory of something fiendish and can see it flitting around in the dark in the corners of their vision.

I hope to put some better good writing on here soon

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It's important to note for this story, that I like to have pictures up on my wall of moments that have made me happy. This includes pictures from bad times in which I have found a moment of happiness. That being said, my mother only hangs pictures from happy times. Whether she was feeling happy in that moment seems to be irrelevant. Out of respect of that, there are many photos I don't put up when I'm home in BC. But when I'm home in my dorm room, I hang both of these pictures of my cat, Tansy.

I hadn't really noticed the amount of similarities between the two, until I began to notice this morning, and then I noticed. The first thing I noticed was the eggshell blue colour. It's my mother's favourite colour, of course the tent we've owned since my childhood is that colour and of course we own sheets of that colour too. That at least, seems reasonable. But the more I looked the more I couldn't stop looking at the two of them.

The orange curtains in the van were the same colour as the poster in my room. The dark green of the trees could be found in my room, in the fern. The white sheets in the first picture were reflective of the white roof in the second picture.

The first picture, the picture on the left, was taken in 2015. Me and the cat are in the VW my mom owns, and the sun has just risen on a rainy day. We were between rentals for three and a half months, waiting on enough money in the bank for a deposit AND first months rent. My mom and the dog slept in the blue tent visible through the window and me and my sister slept with the cat in a mountain of blankets in the back of the van. It smelled like pine needles and ocean. Despite our situation, and Tansy's hatred of the van, she looks at ease. Stretching and looking out through the window. She looks like a cat who's about to be tucked back into her mountain of blankets and have all day to sleep. (Granted, she also looks like a cat who's unaware of the ice cold shower I'm going to have to take in the RV park bathroom, but I can't blame her too much, she's a cat, after all.) She's hardly a young cat in this photo, but her outline looks much younger, much softer than the one on the right.

The second picture, the one on the right, was taken two months ago, in the space I was living in in my mother's house over the summer. It's startlingly chaotic next to the sereneness of the rainy morning in the van. There's too many colours, and distractions-- on the wall and on the bookcase. Tansy looks far less happy here. Perhaps because of the considerable difference in her age (cranky old lady that she is now, though I love her dearly still), or perhaps she was having a difficult morning (whatever that might look like for a cat). But to me she almost seems to be turning her scorn on me, and my camera. Asking me what I'm still doing here, in this house. Why I have such a loud living space now, so many colours. Why I'm taking her picture.

Although my time spent in the space of the second picture was much more comfortable than my time spent in the space of the picture on the left, the feeling I get when I look at the first picture is so much more at ease. Maybe it's the framing, or the soft colours of the background. Maybe it's the posture of the cat.

I wonder which few months of her life she would describe as better to me; the rainy spring of 2015 in that cold van, or the endless summer of 2020 in that hot house.

[houseplant-central]

uhhh

hey, I uhhh, haven't posted any of the blogposts here all year like I was supposed to, I've only been posting them on blogspot. Oops. I’m gonna try to figure out how post them so they come out one a day over the next couple weeks, but my apologies in advance if that doesn’t work and your dash just gets flooded with long ass posts 

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if John Green wrote me as a character in one of his novels

Quick trigger warning: this post includes spoilers for John Green's "Looking for Alaska", as well as discussion of writing that glorifies mental illness and suicide.  

My younger sister told me this morning that she had started reading a novel by John Green. No disrespect intended to the man, but I was concerned.

Among a variety of other media I consumed in my pre-teen years, it was likely the anthology of John Green's works I owned that contributed to my obsession with the collective "manic pixie dream girl" fetish of 2013. (An anthology of works that is still sitting on a bookshelf at my mother's house, hence where my sister must have found "An Abundance of Katherines"). Again, no disrespect to the man, but when all of your books (with the exception of "The Fault In Our Stars") have a "quirky" but "tragically mentally ill" teenage girl who is somehow also super fit and always looking attractive (despite afore mentioned mental illness she's supposedly dealing with), who will either pretend to die or actually die by the halfway point of the book to inspire your male lead to go on a soul searching journey-- something's going on.

Case in point, "Looking For Alaska", which (spoiler alert), I am going to spoil the plot of in the next few paragraphs. Alaska has the potential to be one of the most interesting female leads I've ever come across in teen literature. She's enigmatic, ridiculously quick-witted and undeniably beautiful. She's recovering from a complicated family trauma, and has moved out on her own to attend university, determined to carve out a meaningful life for herself, despite struggling with complex PTSD and manic depression.

Except the story is told from the point of view of a young boy named Miles, whose only real character trait is that he's hopelessly fascinated by Alaska. This could still work as a novel mostly about Alaska, but told through the eyes of her first love, Miles. Or as a chronicle of their friendship and love story. But for either of those to work, it would require Green to use Miles' point of view to flesh out both Miles' and Alaska's character. Instead, Miles remains a stand in for literally any teenage boy, with very little character qualities, and Alaska's "quirkiness" and attractive qualities elevate her to the most amazing person Miles has ever come across. Despite Miles and Alaska only being very briefly romantically involved, Miles spends the entirety of the book chronicling his attraction to Alaska and everyone else's love for her.

But it doesn't stop there.

All of Alaska's quirks are considered attractive, including her toxicity to her friends, her long disappearances, and jokes about her suicidal ideation and depression. Her mental illness is glorified as another thing that separates her from the "other girls" which hold no interest for Miles. Ultimately it's this glorification of her mental illness, especially her manic depression, that makes me comfortable labelling this work as one that falls into the "manic pixie dream girl" trope.

But it doesn't stop there.

Because Alaska kills herself. And this only creates more intrigue for Miles, who dedicates the rest of the novel to better understanding her, even when she is gone. Which again, could be quite a compelling, if depressing, narrative. But ultimately Green makes it so Alaska's death only makes Miles more in love with her. The friends who were once side characters express to Miles how much they miss her now that she's gone. The bully characters admit to Miles that they've realized they should have befriended her when she was alive, but could only realize that now that she's dead. Far from a warning that your loved ones will miss you when you're gone, "Looking for Alaska" was "13 Reasons Why" before "13 Reasons Why". It promised young readers that people who kill themselves teach their friends and their bullies their worth: the absolute last messaging any author should be sending to young readers.

This was indeed sub-par messaging for tiny, clinically depressed pre-teen me.

Back to the crux of the point, however. For a long time I was in love with this book, and the character of Alaska. I supposed I looked at her and her family trauma, similar to mine, and thought: "damn, my trauma just makes me cry whenever adults raise their voice, but this girl uses it to be smart, skinny, well-dressed, well-read, a little provocative, AND relatable. I must be doing something wrong." Thus, with Alaska and a collection of Tumblr posts and Arctic Monkey's lyrics in mind, I set about my several year long quest to become just that variety of manic pixie dream girl.

Enter: several problems. I did not struggle with mania, rather sluggishness and a loss of enthusiasm for life outside of novels and the internet; this meant I did not feel like running around in short skirts and knee socks being the life of the party in every situation like Alaska. I wasn't pixie sized; I struggled with my relationship to my body my entire teenage years, and I could never hop up on a table to give a drunken toast like Alaska, it might break. "Dream" is a little less quantifiable, but I never talked to anyone outside my handful of friends, so I had slim chances of becoming anyone's impossible dream. "Girl" I thought I at least fit, for the entirety of high school, but I came out as non-binary in my first year of university; so all together taking a look at "manic pixie dream girl" I was 0 for 4.

Nonetheless aspects of that romanticism of a broken childhood and that touch-and-go relationship with self-identity stuck with me through high school into college, and my greatest fear is either promoting that romanticization of real issues in real life, or in my writing. Because often I look at myself, or an aspect of my life and go "heh, that doesn't sound like a real personality trait, that sounds like something a female John Green novel character would do or say. Get over yourself."

So here, without further ado, is a look into that guilty pleasure of romanticization. John Green would start with something like: "they* liked used books that already had annotation in them." It's always a little detail with him, one that's considered a character "quirk". That's the one thing of his I picked up and is still in far too much in my writing today. A list of quirks instead of an actual character. (But that's a blogpost on writing for another time).

So: "They liked used books that already had annotation in them. They kept a collection of books on astrology, numerology, and tarot. They grew outdoor plants indoors under a lamp they bought from a weed dealer, though they didn't smoke. The plants were mostly herbs, and they used them in cooking. They had houseplants too. Their eyes were deep set. When they wore mascara it smudged near instantly underneath, but it still looked good. They had some sort of tragic backstory, that explained their oversized sweaters, and their late nights and their dark art, but the backstory was desperate and sweaty and felt like fingernails making bloody crescents in hands, and wasn't aesthetic, so it wasn't important. They owned a polaroid camera. They'd read the entirety of Beowulf for fun. They would somedays stare into nothingness for hours on end if uninterrupted, not thinking of anything at all, and be startled by the way time still continued to pass. But that wasn't terrifying, it was only quirky, somehow. They smelled like coffee. They couldn't seem to make themselves yell, even when they were angry or in danger, but that was also quirky, somehow, and cute, and not a huge safety issue. They liked the smell of pine trees."

I think it's important to romanticize some aspects of your own life. If it's important to you, then it's important to you. Liking your own quirks is much better than hating them. And romanticizing quirks like smelling of coffee is valid. But romanticizing your bad or difficult qualities as "quirky" is not good. (A note to fourteen year old me: "romanticize your love of already annotated books! But not your mental illness! Take that shit seriously instead, yo.") And thinking you're going to make your life better or more meaningful by copying Alaska is never a good idea; she didn't have a very good ending.

*they/them are my preferred pronouns!

Edit: I looked up "Looking for Alaska" and realized it's banned in some highschools in Canada and the states. I was about to redact some of my harsh standpoint that it's not a good read for younger teens, who might become too blindly attached to the negative messaging like I did, because I don't think banning books outright for heavy content is ever a good idea (banning books for hate speech is another debate for another time). But then I saw the suggested ban has nothing to do with the glorification of suicide and everything to do with the "offensive language, sexually explicit scenes, homosexuality and unsuitable religious viewpoints", which is ridiculous. I don't think it should be banned in any capacity-- I think reading it now (if I'd never read it before) would give me context for the manic pixie dream girl craze, and be somewhat of an enjoyable read. My hesitance about my sister reading it now is because she reminds me too much of myself at that age.

[houseplant-central]

[houseplant-central]

a creative life

My morning, so far, has not embodied the morning of one who is living a successful creative life. I would have liked to have let the sunlight filter in through the window, and wake me slowly. I would've liked to have watered the plants in my room while mulling over last nights dreams, and then padded slowly into the kitchen in search of coffee. I would've liked to have set up my desk space carefully: warm mug of coffee, lavender candle, and laptop open to todays writing assignments.

And indeed some mornings do look like that.

But this morning I was awoken by a text I didn't want to respond to. I rolled over in bed and hoped to sleep again, but, when sleep alluded me, I opened my phone and scrolled aimlessly through social media until the sunlight began to filter through the window like I'd been hoping for. The tiled floor of the kitchen seemed too cold of a prospect, even in socks, so I cracked open one of the energy drink cans sitting on top of my closet and burrowed back into bed, tugging my laptop along with my to write this blogpost.

The energy drink is lukewarm, and it does nothing to warm the cold room.

All this to say that the aesthetic of the creative life is not the important part, but setting aside and cleaning space, both physically and mentally, is important when sitting down to write. And in the absence of a clean and settled space to do my writing this morning, I feel the difference acutely.

(Also to say that York Housing really needs to turn on our heating sometime soon, is COLD in here, but that's besides the point.)

For me, creating that space in which I am leading a creative life, (even on the smallest of levels, the day to day), includes a few things. The posters which decorate my walls, specifically above my desk, of stories I've loved, and pictures which inspire me. A collection of my favourite books above my desk (although many I've had to leave behind at my mother's house in B.C.), which help me connect the writing I'm doing to the stories that have shaped my voice thus far. And, of course, the room itself: the houseplants and the bedspread and the jewellery stand and the stuffed animals and the art supplies-- all of which feel like ME, and create a feeling of a space that echos back to me what my own brain looks like, no matter where I look.

This space, which I've created and continue to update and clean and change each day, helps me to successfully create, arguably the most important aspect of a successful creative life.

However more broadly, I know that a successful creative life must also refer to our careers. The choices we will make about where to live and what jobs to take. Truthfully I think that a writer could be successful in writing anywhere-- in a tiny flat, in the woods, on the moon. But agreeable living circumstances and employment opportunities will certainly make it easier. So, a successful creative life for ME, would be one in which I have my own space to write, and also a job where I collaboratively write with other writers, and tell stories together. A successful creative life for me would be one in which I get to spend many mornings with the light filtering in through the windows, watering my plants, and making my coffee, and then working with people who also create such space for themselves to to be able to work creatively. The success or lack thereof would likely be measured by my mother based on wether or not me and this team are able to have these stories we're writing do well, and make money. But because I can't control the potential money or lack thereof, I can only do my part of setting up that creative space and telling stories with that team, so that is what I'll focus on.

I don't have a particular writer in mind when I say that many people are leading successful creative lives, but I know that many people are a part of writing teams who write stories for television, and the stories they write are compelling and beautiful. Because of this I can only suppose that these writers must be not only writing, but creating their own creative spaces, and sharing creative spaces with their teams.

I'm sorry I don't have a more concrete answer for you today on a person who's life I feel best embodies the successful creative life. I could list any one of the painters or authors I admire, but in all honesty, upon further research, most of them lived or are living as recluses. This means I have no idea what their creative space looks like, and I know they don't share that creative space (physically or mentally) with other writers, which I feel is integral to a successful writing life for me. So I'm going to turn my attention to the writers of television, and see if I can find any who I think are doing it better. Hopefully I'll have an improved answer for you soon.

I'm off to clean my desk up, make a coffee, water my plants, and do some more writing. I hope you're having a good morning, afternoon, or evening whenever you are reading this.

#writing